French Navy CBT Discussion

Game Discussion Realistic Battle
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Much the same here. Spaded Le Malin and now working on Jeanne d’Arc as I research Emile Bertin. My first spawn has always been whatever is best for researching the next ship, so not a huge number of games in the earlier ships, but I have at least played them all.

Bourrasque. BR3.7. Decent reserve. Big guns (4 x 130 mm), good shells (HE & SAP), poor RoF, low muzzle velocity (725 m/s), poor turret traverse (common to all following DDs). Six torpedo tubes, 2 centre-line triple mounts, effective torpedoes with good range, although range not vital for close in DD ‘dogfights’ at 3.7. Two single-shot 37 mm secondaries… might scare the odd MTB, but no real anti-air effectiveness. Makes 33 kts: good enough.

Leopard. BR3.7. As Bourrasque, but you lose one triple TT mount and a couple kts of speed in exchange for 3 x 40 mm automatic cannon and 3 x 20 mm Oerlikons. More flexible, more ‘all round’ than Bourrasque, without sacrificing broadside firepower. Makes for an acceptable 3.7 line up.

Chacal. BR4.0. An improved Bourrasque: you gain a fifth 130/40 main gun and you can even bring it to bear sometimes; you push the speed up to almost 36 kts; and the 37 mm guns are replaced by a couple 75 mm. Perhaps it’s a useful 3rd spawn while you play the 2 Rank II DDs (BR4.3), but once Marceau (also 4.3) is researched you have a 3-ship 4.3 line up; using it as a 4.0 with the two 3.7s as back ups just means a bit less fun for the 3.7s, IMO. Save the crew training SL for now if you’re short of SL.

Vautour. BR4.3. Rather like Chacal, but with five 138.6/40 guns and 39 kts. Only 700 m/s muzzle velocity, but much improved RoF and the shells devastate in a way the 130 mm kind of promised but never quite delivered. The mediocre single 75 and four 37 mm are backed up by a couple twin 13.2 mgs and another two single mounts, so at least some short of close in defence from aircraft/MTBs. Fast and powerful v DDs; weak for its BR against air.

Milan. BR4.3. As Vautour but even faster at 42 kts. The single 75 mm gets replaced by a twin 37 mm, while other 37/13.2 guns are unchanged. One triple TT mount is replaced by two twin mounts, one on each beam, with excellent angles. The remaining centreline triple mount gives an extra 3 torps you can launch to either side. Even more speed, good torpedo layout IMO, this is my lead ship at 4.3.

Marceau. BR4.3. A war prize German DD in post-war layout, so 4 even bigger guns - 150 mm - eight German torpedoes and a ton of 40 mm Bofors plus some 20 mm. This ship solves any anti-air issues you might have in the other two 4.3s and the main guns remain effective, but perhaps not so much fun; you’ll notice the reduced RoF. A ‘mere’ 37 kts is still decent. Makes for a good 3-ship line up at 4.3.

Le Malin. BR4.7. The final DD and the logical conclusion to the Milan/Vautour line of development. Five 138.6/50 guns boost muzzle velocity to a decent 800 m/s; poor turret traverse is the only weakness remaining from those Rank I DDs. Quad Bofors plus a couple twin mounts and ten Oerlikon cannons finally provide the powerful AA previous French DDs lacked. The designers now ‘all in’ on the beam TT mounts, with a triple mounting each side giving great angles. Carries over the 42 kts from Milan. Nothing to dislike really… save the only other 4.7, for now, is the very different Jeanne d’Arc - but that’s not a DD… (not really a cruiser either.)

I don’t think any of these DDs are at the wrong BR one way or the other. Naturally they get stronger as the BR increases, but I also found they get more fun despite stronger opposition. Use the speed. Don’t sit around hiding behind islands; emerge from cover at speed in an unexpected direction; land some good salvoes, but don’t stop to ‘finish it off’; get behind the next island before the enemy can really respond or get the range. The high speed also allows you to cap and be back in cover before too many enemies target you. Most maps have enough islands on the flanks where these French DDs can really exploit their speed and heavy broadside.

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Well, I’ve now spaded the two 5.3 cruisers, Colbert and Emile Bertin. They’re quite good, with EB perhaps being slightly better due to access to an AP shell. I delayed researching that, as I thought getting the SAP shell would be good enough while I ground out other modules. However, it seems the AP shell works quite well and would have been a better shell to get as a priority, while the SAP could have been left until after Survivability and a few Performance modules.

After hitting the top DD at 4.7 every game has been a 5.7 and once you hit the 5.3 cruisers you also get a few 6.0 or even 6.3 games. However, the overriding impression is one of encountering Eugens and there is no way, IMO, that these 5.3s are just one BR step inferior to Eugen. Other, rarer, 5.7s I encountered, like Nurnberg, Belfast, County Class, even Kirov, yea, they are better, but not unbeatable, not living in another world. Just one, very typical, example:

  • Misty, murky map, I see an Eugen proceeding slowly ahead being engaged by our Eugen plus one other (likely Moffett). My first salvo reveals enemy Eugen on 31% crew. Six salvoes later it’s still on 31%. As it’s a non-manoeuvring bot and I’ve got the range I can pick my spot (front turrets - eventually one gets turned yellow, but never taken out). Remember there’s another 8” cruiser landing salvoes roughly for every one I land - they appear to land centre-mass every time and start the odd fire. Took another 4-5 salvoes before crew dropped to 30%… I won’t bore you with an account of every 1% crew loss, but it was a long, tedious process to kill him, speeded a tiny bit by some chunks of >1% crew loss, although plenty salvoes that didn’t hurt anyone, apparently. This bot-Eugen was top scorer on enemy team, largely due to damage tanked, I guess.

In return, should you be unlucky enough to be targeted by an Eugen (or likely any other 8” cruiser) you will simply blow up within 4-5 salvoes. It will never come down to a crew count race. If by some miracle you didn’t just blow up, you’d still lose, because each hit is like a mighty hand sweeping your decks knocking crew overboard, literally decimating your crew, 10%, 15% even 20% at a time. If either of these 5.3 cruisers came across a burning Eugen on 10% crew, I would put my money on the Eugen putting out the fire and blowing them up or taking out the crew before they could whittle that 10% down. (Caveat: not had enough chance to assess the AP shell on EB yet, as that certainly has the pen to get through Eugen’s armour despite range, angling etc).

Note, Eugen is way better protected than either of these French cruisers, which are not well protected at all, so some of the game performance does reflect reality. Not saying Eugen should be 6.0 either or that 5.3 is too high for these French cruisers, just that after countless 5.7 games I often see the win going to the team with ‘Eugen superiority:’

  • Having an actual human/more humans in control of your Eugens.
  • Having more Eugens.
  • Not having the Eugen who blows up on 30-odd points and leaves the game.
  • Not having the shoti clan 4 x Frank Knox synchronised slow sailing death wish bot squad on your team. They take up 4 slots on virtually every 5.7 game I’ve been in this last week and they usually lose, because that’s 4 non-human players to start with, which generally leaves just a few slots that theoretically might be human.
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The Surcouf class destroyers can offer a good leap in firepower to france similarly to how post ww2 1950+ ships help the russian tree.
There is one that could have an alouette helicopter with pontoons in place of a scout plane (very unique).
Another with Tartar missiles.
not to mention 57mm secondaries that have proxy fuses and ap rounds as well as on the primaries.
“very fast” k2 torpedoes

Video:

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Two Amazing cruisers akin to atlanta aa cruisers; the De Grasse, and Colbert speak for themselves.
Simply look at their deck armament.
One even was re-fitted as a anti ship/air missile cruiser.

colbert-c611
colbert-c6111594×881 157 KB

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Not gonna lie, really liking the French tree, but the slow speed of the Jeanne d’Arc does make me a bit angy.

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Not gonna like, the Primauguet made me want to die. Pure, uncontrollable pain.

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how can they do a test with no coastal
even if those that hate it only use it for the torp a blue water with a boat it is still needed

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Yea, the lack of Coastal options does mean you lose some games you might otherwise win with an early and/or late cap. You’re also condemned to first spawning on the ‘chaos’ spawn on certain maps once you get to the cruisers (unless you take a sacrificial lower BR DD).

I guess they felt it was better to release the ships they had rather than hold them back while they worked on the Coastal vessels, which is fair enough.

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We need T-47 and De Grasse! We need 127 mm/54 Model 1948! ٩(๑òωó๑)۶

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The Emile Bertin seems like such an odd choice for CBT in hindsight. She’s a glass canon without much canon for being a 5.3 ship.

DDs can detonate her from long range, and a lot of them throw more lead per minute.

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Question tho didn’t find a proper thread for it but is it normal almost no boat excpet battlships even the heavy cruisers do not have access to any sort of AP shells ?

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France 138.6 mm/40 (5.46") Model 1927 - NavWeaps.

For the example of destroyers using 138mm, this site speaks of a “Starshell M1925” but I don’t really know what it is exactly. Otherwise he only used SAP and HE.

EDIT: Starshell is actually a flare shell.
Ammunition and Mountings Definitions for France - NavWeaps (this link will take you to a page that lists French designations.)

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Still it doesn’t quite explain why cruisers do not benefit of APC or APCBC, i mean WTH most other nations cruisers can almost kill a BB with cracked AP with 300mm+ pen meanwhile Lorraine and Paris APC and APCPC struggle reaching 500mm of pen making them look ridiculous compared to other AP BB shells but also compared to some cruisers AP that are almost 400mm pen and no french cruiser get any AP

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Naval Guns of France - NavWeaps.

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thanks

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so there was APC on the 203 canons thank god we just got gaijin’d for now maybe they’ll fix it one day

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For that, Gaijin would have to want to repair them. I reminded you that even out of the Beta the French catapults still do not have modeled planes…

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But now the next thing i wanna know is why some cruiser AP can almost put some BB shells to shame because i’ve been looking at some heavy cruiser shells from other naval nations and how to say it. Are the french BB shells made of rubber?

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I reaaly need to be educated on French BB shells because i cannot make any sense of how they decided to create their penetration rate i mean lower caliber lighter and almost same speed shells have like 200mm more penetration wth my brain is not braining

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Perhaps the velocity is the weight of the French shells which means that they do not necessarily have good penetration? Mixed in with Gaijin’s desire to bring underarmed versions into the game.