So in essence, only finalized designs? That makes sense, when I mentioned the prelim. Myoukou it was because I specifically was trying to find a “Japanese Baltimore” with the triple turrets, since the 1941-type one that I also mentioned was faked.
But yeah that makes sense, thinking about it now, I think if they ever do preliminary designs it should only be the ones that were intended for construction and then got changed. On the other hand, in the really long term, preliminary designs would allow a wealth of ships to be added since there was typically multiple preliminaries per completed ship.
I think a major issue that exists is gaijins rule about ships needing to have been laid down to be added to the game. This rule was VERY obviously put in place to favour the russians, as theyu generally had a pretty horrid navy EXCEPT for magical paper ships they laid down and then subsequently abandonned because they could not finish them. This has lead to the much despised Kronshdadt in-game, which wasnt even added in its real final configuration that was more realistic, instead opting for the original config with the magic soviet 305mm dream guns that have incredible pen, flat arcs, and higher bursting charges than significantly larger guns of other navies. This will also lead to other superships like the Stalingrad class, and eventually lead to the russians getting the single best BB in-game with the Sovetsky Soyuz class, while other nations are largely relegated to using ships that were actually built and sailed.
The one exception i can think of outside of the soviet dreamboats is the H-39 for Germany, but unlike the soviet dreamboats, its a considerably older design, and has some significant downsides, being in effect a upsized Bismark class with 406mm guns and terrible terrible AA for a ship its size.
This “laid down only” rule also means ships that very much COULD have been built, such as the Montana class, will not be added.
2 Likes
Yeah, unfortunately very true. The future in which Britain mayh ave a competitive heavy cruiser is pretty slim unfortunately
1 Like
And once again someone claiming NATO is Russia…
Kronshdadt is not despised, and was never the best Battlecruiser to begin with.
1 Like
Sorry, I don’t want to deconstruct this post but. I feel like I need to
I wouldn’t say to favor the Russians specifically, since that also entails ships like the Amagis, Tosas, Lexingtons, South Dakotas (the 1920 version), the Francesco Caracciolos, the Lions, and I think the Kiis, along with probably some that I’m missing. Russia didn’t even try to build new capital ships between Imperator Nikolai I and the Soyuzes, so that’s a huge gap there.
Both were “realistic,” it’s just that the 305s just… physically didn’t work in time. So they had to buy the 38cms because they couldn’t figure out how to make a new 305 - they hadn’t made new guns since the 1910s.
BUT
This was because those guns were actually really insanely good. Being based on the original Russian Empire 12-inchers means that they inherited the incredible performance of those guns. The only competent Russian naval equipment was their 12-inch guns for some reason.
See here for a table on the original 1911 12-inch performance. It’s actually kind of insane. The same website says that,
The battleships armed with these guns were known for their excellent shooting during World War I. During her engagement with the German/Turkish battlecruiser Goeben/Yavuz on 8 January 1916, Imperatrica Ekaterina II (which the Germans incorrectly identified as sister-ship Imperatritsa Maria ), firing into the sun at a range of about 20,000 meters, landed her first three salvos at 500, 100 and 50 meters short of the Turkish ship. As this distance was outside of her range, Yavuz was forced to run for home, pursued by the Russian dreadnought.
so just imagine what they’d be able to do for a modern 12-inch gun. Modeled after the 1911 version, it would be insane. And yes the Russians did stuff 12kg of HE into their 12-inch AP. Idk how. They just did.
The Stalingrads are just a worse Kronshtadt, with less armor but more radar. The problem with that is that the Russian radars just… aren’t good. They’re nowhere near the FC radars of the Americans and British of the period, and so it would basically be a Kronshtadt but can take less hits.
As for the Sovetsky Soyuzes, they’re really not all that good. The armor is comprised of multiple plates overlaid (less overall effective armor) because the Soviet industry couldn’t make armor thicker than 230mm. So despite the armor being a stated ~430mm thick, the effectiveness of the armor is negated by the spacing of the armor. Which means that in a fight with a contemporary, it would get rocked. It is the size of a Yamato but without the armor or firepower to match, and would probably get swept by a North Carolina-class, not to mention an Iowa or Yamato, as those ships actually have the firepower to match - even if the Iowas have less armor, they have FAR more effective guns. This is also leaving out the Pugliese System the Soyuzes had that was stolen from the Italians through espionage - which didn’t work specifically because of that, or the particularly unpredictable shell dispersion of the 16-inch guns.
The H-39s were not good either.
As envisioned, their designed belts were not inclined like typical period battleships, which means it would be far less effective at the longer ranges that newer battleships would fight at. At significant combat distances their belts will be butter to any remotely powerful shell, such as an American 16-inch super heavy or the Japanese Type 91s (of battleship caliber).
The “laid down only” rule is pretty good because it removes the possibility for some ridiculous designs like the Tillmann battleships. But it also means that some countries just can’t get anything because of other circumstances. Personally, I think there needs to be a distinction for ships that COULD have been built, such as those stopped by the Washington or London Naval Treaties, or the end of war removing their reason for existing, etc. A lot of things were cancelled and just… never started, despite ships and material being ordered, dockyards allocated, designs finalized, and stuff like that.
By all respects, right now Kronshtadt is THE best battlecruiser in the game. Its two “competitors” are not battlecruisers. One of them, the Alaska, is just an enlarged cruiser (hence the designation LARGE Cruiser) without the armor to match its size, and the other one, Scharnhorst, is just a battleship with small guns; only called a battlecruiser because people don’t know that battleships can have small guns. There’s a reason it has as much armor as the Arizona, and that’s because it was a battleship. The only modern battlecruisers, that are actually battlecruisers, other than Kronshtadt right now are Hood and Renown, and both are comparatively way worse.
8 Likes
To clarify, the Sovetsky Soyuz classes are 406mm armed ships, they’re about equal to the American North Carolinas, Japanese Kaga class (laid down), French Richelieus, and British KGVs at best, for sure no match for Iowas, Yamatos, or other proper modern battleships.
The Stalingrads are lighter Kronshtads, by no means overpowered as all hell. While the Krons 305s are basically magic, these days they aren’t as egregious as they used to be. The Krons are the best battlecruiser in game, but thats partly because the Krons are basically the only battlecruisers save the Hood and Renown. Alaska is a large cruiser, with cruiser armor on a large frame, and the Scharnorst is a battleship with small guns.
Honestly, the rule of “only laid down” seems to benefit everyone almost evenly, as it qualifies the British Lion class battleships, the Japanese Amagi class and Kaga class, the American Lexingtons, the French Clemenceau, the Soviet Sovetskys, and various other laid down ships. I see no issue with it
4 Likes
“Paper” ships would be nice for filling holes, and for adding ships that don’t have a real non-peper equivalent. Things like the British Baltimore equivalents you provided as an example are perfect. The German H-39s could be good too, as the Germans don’t have a proper 16-inch battleship equivalent otherwise. In this way using paper ships to fill holes could be good, but they’d have to be careful not to go overboard.
I’m okay with current ‘laid-down’ principle but expect it would be changed to ‘finalized design’ someday as US players, one of biggest fandom, will eventually call for Montana class as Iowa class will suffer.
1 Like
As funny as HMS Incomparable would be, I think WT naval should have ships that were at least laid down, if not launched.
1 Like
Excellent post, good to see all of this covered so thoroughly!
While some documentation was burnt we still have a large amount that still exists however those documents only exist to people who are approved to look into it so certain historians and advisors
I forgot about Incomparable. God please no
2 Likes
I am really on the fence about the “paper” ships which newer got to the laid down stage. Since it is very obvious that lot of nations will suffere since they never got past studies - France and Italy are the main ones which will not have top tier BBs but the are also considerable gaps in cruiser tiers.
So allowing design studies would greatly help but I really don´t like the idea of Gaijin inventing things which would be inevitable since for example in case of Italian 16" we have no data on them, in case of French cruiser (St. Louis) the armor design wasn´t completed and in case of the Admiral class CAs or B-65 there is a lot of unknowns.
I would say that the most reasonable place to cut of would be finalyzed and approved for construction designs and even then it leaves open a lot of space for interpretation of the designs.
I want more paper, everything, actually, opens a lot of windows for every nation, but maybe split the game modes to “Realistic” and “Alternative Reality”
That is simply untrue as others pointed out. But I will put it into more perspective the soviets managed to test the 406 mm B-37 which has very very simmilar performance on even more challenging caliber and after the war they manufactured the 305 mm SM-33 which has even better balistics and muzzle velocity.
So no the 305 mm B-50 isn´t dream gun because it is perfectly in line with soviet doctrine and development goals which simply were different from other navies which prefered the berrel-life.
When it comes to AP the 305 mm B-50 have almoast same weight of the bursting charge as have the US 12" on Wyoming. The Wyomings shells are smaller and have only slightly slower muzzle velocity and that is projectile from 1912 or so and originally it had basically the same muzzle velocity but USN decided to decrese it later on.
Or the German 305 mm APCs have even more filler and again in considerably smaller shell even the previous russian empire shells have simmilar amount of filler. Basically you are lying sice the amount of filler is actually substandard for 12 inch shell basically only the Alaska and Italians have considerably less HE filler.
So the shells on Kron are perfectly feasible since the second one (HE) actually existed.
The terrible AA on H-39 is BS it wont have AA madness of modern US BBs or late war refit of Yamato but it will be perfectly servicable in most encounters and I really wouldn´t say that Soyuz will have amazing AA. Plus the H-39 will have turtle back which will be amazing and I would expect it to perform better then the belt of Soyuz.
Honestly I’m not too sure how they’d go about non-finalized designs. I don’t know if there’s a way to do it without like… making some people upset that “oh it’s not close to the design it should actually be like this!” or something. Maybe they could hold them to votes? Like “we have this and this data, which would you rather see?” Or have a naval historian give their opinion on what they think the most “realistic” finalized design would’ve been? Something like that.
That’s the thing with design studies. By nature they just are unfinished. Yes some of them were close to finishing or even being laid down but still that would be room for odd interpretations of the data. Maybe what might be best is, if there isn’t enough data, something based on other contemporary ships? So like, for example, the Admiral-class CAs could have armor “based on” the Baltimores, as could the St. Louis’s, because they’re all supposed to be contemporaries. Not exactly the same, per say, but similar. A similar idea could be implemented for the B-65s if they’re ever added, since they were designed to counter the Alaska-class (which ironically were designed to counter a Japanese super cruiser that didn’t exist), so they would probably be roughly similar in performance.
As for the Italian 16" ships, not only were they design studies but to my knowledge Italy didn’t even have a 16" gun. Assuming they were actually to be armed with 16" guns, it would have been the guns from the Soyuzes.
That being said, I do still hope somehow something gets added there because otherwise Italy will kind of be left in the background.
Honestly thats precisely what I don’t want to see this kind of fantasy is something I really don’t like. While I am not opposed towards the completely paper designs the idea of Gaijin making up stuff really doesn’t sit well with me.
Maybe just use the last design study with all key parameters such as armament, armor and power train? That could maybe work, but the case of Italian BB is really bad situation, I am not well informed on that do we know if domestic armament was planned for that project/proposal? Or what were the general goals? Lets not kid ourselves France is in basically same situation.
At least the Italian guns have the pen but the issue will be the ROF will verz likely be just 1.3 meaning the Littorios will basically useless.
As I understand it, it was just a Littorio but with 16-inch guns. It was designated UP.41, and was designed for the USSR before they had decided to go with the Project 23s (the Soyuzes). Despite this, the design had supporters in Italy apparently insofar as plans to make a new dockyard specifically to build and maintain the ship, since it would be too big otherwise.
ArmoredPatrol - WoWs TT Blog
Naval-Encyclopedia - Littorio-class, UP.41
Work on the design would continue, slowly, until 1941, when budgetary constraints and a pressing need for more smaller vessels got the project canned. Among the replacements was apparently replacing all the Russian secondary armament with Italian ones, such as switching the 100mm for the 90mm.
SecretProjects - UP.41 Thread
But it also leaves open the idea that if war had not broken out in 1939 and instead something around 1942 or 1943, the Italians would have been faced with looming construction from the French, Germans, and Soviets in terms of new capital ships. The H-class, while stated to be 40,000t, was more around 57,000t, and the Soyuzes were about the same. The French would have also had begun construction on the Alsace-class by this time, and Italy likely would have expanded the UP.41 design or the Littorio design to compete with the new ships.
However, at least according to Navweaps, the Italians did not have prototypes nor plans for a 16-inch gun. All that is known about the gun is broad performance characteristics. And even then, it may not have even been close to what the Italians would have had an actual 16-inch gun design been made. It is worth noting that the “Palla” shells, in design, were close to American and British Super Heavy shells. Had they gone with a “Palla” design for the 16-inch APC, if it existed, it would have had decent performance, probably on par or better than the American 16-inch.
SecretProjects - UP.41 Thread (cont.)
So if they do it, Gaijin would have a few options. One is to estimate the performance of the Italian 16"(406mm)/50 assuming it had been built, the second would be to just put 15"(381mm)/50s on it (but how many, idk), and the third would be to just throw the Soviet 16"(406mm)/50 on them, which we would actually know about but would not be Italian at all (and probably lack the “Palla” shells).
France is somewhat better off on this department. The Alsaces were actually fully designed and ordered, but never laid down, as opposed to the UP.41 which is essentially just a design study. The French didn’t have designs for a 16-inch gun either but with France its a bit easier since they had three proposals for the Alsace-class and two of them involved the 380mm gun that already existed. There isn’t really a 16-inch gun to draw from either, like the Italians had with the Soviet gun, so France is kind of out of luck here. But, France also has the finalized Gascogne, never laid down as she had to wait for Jean Bart to be launched and clear the slipway; the war had started by then. Gascogne would’ve just been a Richelieu with one main turret fore and one aft, as opposed to the all forward arrangement, and while not really better it is at least another potential addition.
Most definitely not. Work was stopped at which point they would have had to decide between 3 proposed armament options.
Yeah, poor wording on my part. They were more designed than the UP.41s though