The future of naval is eventually going to see more top tier battleships, and battleships in particular are an area that Germany is severely lacking in. If Germany is only going to get ships that were actually constructed, then that only leaves Bismarck and Tirpitz left, and they are going to be outclassed by Sovietsky Soyuz, Iowa, and Yamato. However, if ships that were begun but never completed, like Sovietsky Soyuz which is already present in WT Mobile, are to become additions, then that would give Germany a top tier option to stay competitive in the form of H-39. I don’t want to see ridiculous fantasy ships like that other naval game. That 20" monstrosity that funny mustache man dreamed up, for example, should stay over there, but H-39 had approved blue prints and construction had been underway for two of them for quite a long time before the German war industry could no longer support them. H-39 would have been essentially an enlarged Bismarck class armed with 16" guns which would be a good option to top off the German battleship line and give Germany something that is better able to compete with the Iowas, Sovietsky Soyuz, and Yamato. Another option to augment the German naval line up would be to add the planned upgrade to the Scharnhorsts that replaced their 12" guns with 15" guns. This is just my opinion on it, but I would like to know what everyone else thinks. Do you think that the German line up would benefit from H-39 or a 15" gunned Scharnhorst, or should the German line end with Bismarck and Tirpitz?
Something being laid down is the rule for inclusion, so we’ll certainly see two H-39s eventually. :)
H-39 would definitely come, as it is another non-comissioned ship like Project 23(aka Sovietsky Soyuz)
So no need of worrying in my personal opinion.
But for ‘benefit’, well, I don’t know. Bismarck and Tirpitz would have penetration similar to Mutsu and Mississippi in game at 10 km, and those guns were now performing quite well in penetration even against standard battleship’s main belt, which is actually one of thickest main belt for current-ingame and future-could_be_ingame capital ships. H-39’s 16’’ gun will be better in penetration, but loss of fast reload which previous Kriegsmarine capital ship gets seems more imoprtant than penetration to me.
If that’s the case, then maybe we’ll also see the French Clemenceau and the British Lion. It’s a shame the US never laid down a Montana.
As well as all 5 normandie class BBs.
I’m pretty sure H-39 will come to the game at some point, and I’m glad, as that thing also looks cool!
I wonder what it’s name will be. Skinny Mustache Man came up with Hutten and Berlichingen if I remember correctly, and I also seem to remember reading Hindenburg somewhere, but I’m not too sure about that.
They were mentioned in official documents only as schlachtschiffe H and J so I doubt they will named something else in the game.
Hitler is supposed to have said he would suggest the names Ulrich von Hutten and Götz von Berlichingen
Yes, I seem to remember that too
Biggest downside i see to the H-39 will be its atrocious AA compliment.
Last i’d checked, the H-39’s AA compliment was similar to that of early Bismark class AA compliments, and notably still included the mediocre 10.5cm DP guns and the quite frankly laughably atrocious 3.7cm single shot guns, giving it effectively subpar long range AA, no mid-range AA, and mediocre short range AA.
The bismark class pretty quickly got a few more 20mm’s and the Tirpitz was refit with a whole lot of them eventually, but german naval AA was pretty terrible for the most part due to the lack of streamlining in procurement and production of weapons in WW2 germany.
Excellent DP weapons like the 12.8cm Flak42 never made it onto ships
Respectable mid-range AA like the 37mm Flak18/36/37 or the developped but never adopted 5.5cm Gerat 55 never ended up on BB’s (afaik)
With german BB’s being armed with this piece of garbage instead:
Being massive, with an old armor scheme, and poor AA is going to be a struggle…
I would say that it won’t be so bad as you think. Until Gaijin decides to greatly expand the battle ranges the armor scheme of Bismarck and H-39 will be one of the best.
As for the AA, I think that it won’t really make much difference until the possible addition of CVs, I would say that as long as we face 1 plane attack the AA will be sufficient.
Lastly both Z-46 and Z-47 show that Gaijin isn’t above making up AA refits, but then again the H-39 would be more prominent so Gaijin might choose not to do that. (even if I would say that as long as it isn’t Russian most people wont care)
I doubt the efficiency of single shot AA. It is usually not enough when it comes to props and here you will be fighting jets like f84s, canberras and il28s.
Also what is not accurate about Z46 AA? Afaik it was mid war design so 20mm guns seem accurate
Fair but is there enough evidence of that in military grade documents?
The number of the AA mounts is innaccurate as far as I can see, based on the navypedia which proved to be accurate in many other scenarios the AA armament should be:
3 x 2 - 37/69 Flak M/42 and 3 x 2 - 20/65 C/38 (Flakzwilling)
While in game the Z-46 has:
2 x 2 - 37/69 Flak M/42 and 3 x 4 20/65 (Flakvierling) and 2 x 1 20/65 C/38
I would say that while this seems to be innaccurate the discrepency can explained by different interperetation of the sources but the Z-47 is inexplainable since it should have same armament as Z-46 but in game it has:
7 x 2 - 37/69 Flak M/42 and 2 x 2 - 20/65 C/38 (Flakzwilling) and 2 x 4 20/65 (Flakvierling)
At very least in case of Z-47 it has completly made up AA refit which it couldn´t get since they were never completed.
Also at least according to navypedia again the H-39 would have improved AA armament over original Bismarck they should get:
8 x 2 - 37/80 SK C/30, 8 x 4 - 20/65 C/38
And the suggestion on the forums also quotes the Flakvierling even though in different amount of mounts.
I think the AA would be better than what top tier German BBs currently have available, which is nothing aside from a handfull of slow firing 88mm guns.
I wouldn’t be at all surprised if Gaijin changes the rules for naval to allow Montana.
I wouldn’t expect that to ever occur. The issue with the Montana is that is falls under a true paper vehicle, as the minimum requirement is for a vehicle to have parts built for that very specific vehicle even if used by other vehicles must have been built with the intention to be used on that specific vehicle. The Montana class never had any materials gathered for building the ships, so it doesn’t pass the most lenient of rules gaijin currently has in place, and the only way to make it possible to add is to allow true paper vehicles to be added to the game or at the very least somehow, they take exception to it but then they are guaranteed to get a bunch of discussion around paper vehicles being in-game since it goes against the rules they have for vehicles. The reason gaijin was able to change the rules before is because these changes didn’t completely violate the existing rules of no paper vehicles as they were vehicles that were only partially built which therefore means they existed but were never completed, this rule allows for incomplete vehicles that never had the chance to be completed to actually be added to the game since they actually existed which heavily benefits naval, which take the Russian Bluewater as it currently is, if they didn’t change the rules they wouldn’t have any more battleships to add outside the single Revenge class battleship the British loaned, but we wouldn’t see any further Russian battleships outside whatever was left from the Russian empire.
The Iowa class should still be easily sufficient with what could be added, with the only real ships that could warrant a Montana somehow making its way into the game being either potentially the Lion class depending on which version(s) they choose to add, and the A-150 for Japan which did actually have enough material assembled for it that it made the suggestion rule requirements though gaijin could perhaps balance it due to the nature of how far it got and what information their might be.
The Lion class (or at least the first 2 ships) were laid down, so they’re fair game under current rules. The question regarding them is whether Gaijin will allow for any of the major revisions to the design that happened after Lion and Temeraire were already laid down. Same for the German H class, actually. Would they be wiling to include one of them to the H-41 design?
And as for Montana, that would be entirely up to Gaijin. They were able to revise the rules to allow ships that were laid down but never completed because Gaijin sets all the rules in the first place. It’s not as if this is some externally imposed rule that Gaijin is only allowed to interpret rather than outright changing. If they decide in the future that actually they will allow paper ships on a case-by-case basis, they’d be allowed to do that. It’s their game. You’re probably right that it’s unlikely, but I could still see it happening.
In terms of the H-41 the answer is quite simply no. The reason being the H-41 is a separate design that made improvements over the H-39 however at no point was it decided they would complete the H-39’s they laid down to this modified design of the H-41 not to mention the halt of all work on the ships. As for the Lion class, adding them in their planned configuration at time of keel laying is fully plausible and perhaps some of the early revisions of the design might also be acceptable, however most of the revised designs could only be applied to Lion as Temerarie had her keel scrapped during the war due to the state of the ship’s completion, however Lion stuck around for the entire war and all these designs were considered as to complete the ship to an improved specification since more work had been done on Lion but not so much that modifying the design was out of the question, otherwise they probably would have scrapped Lion as well and then I would imagine they would have tried to mess with the design of Vanguard so rather than use the 15-inch guns and turrets they had lying around instead salvage what might have been left of the work of the Lion class and implement it on Vanguard if possible. The only version of Lion which is off the books is the singular version with 15-inch guns since the rest were to have included the 16-inch guns originally designed which were in fact built.
In short, the design of the H-41 was never intended to see the existing H-39 ships be built instead to the new specification, and the Lion class underwent major design revisions which were considered during the war that would have used the existing keel(s) and for the most part guns as well. Adding the H-41 would fall under the same vain as adding Montana.