Titans of seas

Machinery of War Discussion Navy
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Hi to everyone guys! As we all know developers have said, that in 2025 we will get all big boys (Top BB) and I think we can discuss something about it. I even think we can make some “predictions”, knowing that WT usually tries to use historical accurate models, characteristics and etc, so…

I made a little research about reload and some other characteristics of top guns of each country and here what I could find

  1. 460mm Type 94. Yamato’s guns
    Actually historically reload here depended on angle (for example at 6km reload should be 30s, and with distance it will rise up to 40s). BUT in our game angle of gun doesn’t matter, so we can gladly and surely say it will get reload near 30 - 40s (depending on crew probably). I think it’s really REALLY good for this caliber, probably the biggest caliber in the game (except some paper projects)

BUT. There is a big problem with shells. Actually main AP shell Type 91 has 0.4-0.5s fuze delay. For comparison, current Japanese 410mm in the game has 0.05s fuze delay, and it’s considered as really good, it let shell fly till ammo, only then to blow up… Many guns have 0.03 or 0.025s fuze delay. And it seems 460mm shells will just penetrate through even battleships without explosion… Though maybe it doesn’t really matter, is shell’s weigh is 1.4tons

  1. 406mm Mark 7, Iowa’s guns
    Actually everything is excellent with it, 2d heaviest after Yamato’s shells, and it’s written everywhere that reload is 30s… Well, really nice!

  2. 380mm SC C/34, Bismarck’s guns
    And here were go guys… Theoretically these guns could make 26s - 20s(!!) reload!! Now just imagine Scharnhorst with it’s armour with these 380mm, which actually make a bite…

  3. 380mm Model 1936, Richelieu’s guns
    I really prayed when I was opening it’s characteristics, cause actually this is the LAST hope for nice BB for France…
    But… deep sigh
    Historical reload was 45 seconds and more…
    And good news - after WW2 modernization they could make it 32 seconds, yaayyy. Not that bad, but still I think it will be really difficult for Richelieu to compete with Bismarck with it’s reload, with Yamato, with Iowa…

  4. 381mm Modele 1939, Littorio’s guns
    This gun will penetrate a LOOT, it should be the most penetrating gun in the same caliber. Just for comparison - starting shell’s speed is 850m/s. Same British caliber with the same weight has just near 750m/s… Bismarck has 820m/s and Richelieu 830m/s
    BUT. Guys, I tried to find another information, but I could find only that reload is nearly 45 seconds… If it will be true - it will be really painful to play it, even with good penetration.

  5. 406mm B-27, Sovetskii Soyuz’s guns
    Despite Russian top BB wasn’t built in reality, but the building was started, was even made for nearly 20% (it means it definitely WILL be in the game, as a Kronstadt, Francesco Caraciollo, Amagi and etc), but actually these guns were built and even used during WW2!
    Main thing - guns had nearly 34 - 23s (!) reload! About shells - I couldn’t find a lot of information, just that starting speed was 830m/s up to 870m/s… And well, remembering Kronstadt I am afraid this will get 870m/s with 23s reload, which of course will be OP xD

And what about Britain - it seems it has already got it’s best and main guns… Except King George Class will have new 356mm guns, but actually speed of shell is nearly 750m/s, weight is near 720kg, so I don’t really think it can somehow compete with other top guns… And their 381mm we can already see in the game

So, as a conclusion.

  • Yamato has the heaviest shell (1.4t), probably biggest penetration, medium reload, but big problems with fuze delay of AP shell (idk how developers will work with it)
  • Iowa has 2d heaviest shell (1.2t), medium reload, nice AP shells (except I couldn’t find information about SAP, and AP has 19kg of TNT - not the top here)
  • Sovetskii Soyuz has 3d heaviest shell (1.1t), possibly REALLY OP reload in 23 second, really nice shells with high speed and extremely crazy TNT for SAP… Almost 90kg of TNT…
  • Bismarck has the lightest 380mm shell (0.8t). I think it will get worst penetration from all 380mm guns due to shell’s lightest weight (maybe except British one, cause they are waay more slow), but THE BEST reload on top in 26-20s. And just don’t forget about it’s armour)
  • Richelieu has good 380mm shell (0.88t). Should be more penetration, than Bismarck has, just cause shell is heavier and faster, but reload is way worse - 45 - 32s (last at it best after WW2 modernization)
  • Littorio has probably the most penetrating 380mm shell (0.88t), thanks to best shell speed, BUT… 43s reload. Let’s hope it will be changed due to balance…
  • British… Vanguard has 381mm represented in the game and King George has probably even worse guns, so… I am not sure we can wait something super special here…

So, that’s all! That was my little analysis, made just for fun. So according to my predictions - Yamato, Iowa and Sovetskii Soyuz will be the hardest hitting ones. But last one will just do it faster, also it has crazy SAP. And Yamato has problems with AP fuze delay, maybe it won’t be that great as another two.
Bismarck will be just like Scharnhorst now - not great penetration, not the best TNT, but who cares, if you shoot 3 times per minute and your armour lets you live under attack of all enemy team?

And Richelieu, Littorio, British ones… I think nothing really outstanding here in terms of top guns, but Littorio has the best penetration from 380mm, but the worst reload from everyone also…

And well, I am an amateur, so don’t scold me a lot, and if you have something to tell or to discuss about future Titans of seas - let’s discuss!

6 Likes
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well, for the iowas, there is one shells that could fix the TNT equivalent issue lol

and before ppl come after me, i know airburst was less effective, but couldnt they adjust the fuze to the point where its basically contact HE?

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When you watch the Bismarck vs Hood footage, which was filmed from Prinz Eugen, it seems it firing faster than that.

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Hmm, I think I saw this video, but Bismarck was also shooting with it’s secondaries there. Main guns fired at 1:20 and next their shot probably was after 1:43, we can divide main and secondaries by the amount of smoke from the shots, but still this is the best and really nice reload from all top guns

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Well, I have read about Iowa’s shells more and now I don’t think it will have some problems with them haha)
I just have realised Japanese 410mm guns, which has 1 ton weight and only 12.7kg hit REALLY hard in the game, and Iowa’s 1.2 ton AP shells with almost 19kg of TNT should be way better actually… Though they are 30m/s slower, but still

Also according to Navweaps, Iowa will have big choice of different HE shells
For example HC Mark 13 “had somewhat less explosive weight in terms of percent than most foreign projectiles of World War II or even earlier USN HE projectiles, since it had as one of its requirements the ability to penetrate light armor and heavy concrete for shore bombardment purposes. The Mark 13 uses both a base delay and nose contact fuzes for greater reliability under differing conditions, but can be used with only one fuze if desired”
And this is shell you need to kill top cruisers really quickly, HE with base fuse are beasts here

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All Japanese AP shells used 0.4-0.5s fuze delay irl, and for gameplay purpose they were all reduced to 0.05s. Yamato will be of no exception.

Bismarck was firing in half salvos to reduce dispersion and her actual shoot per gun per minute was less than one round per minute at Denmark Straight. In the last battle Bismarck’s firing rate never exceeded 1.5 salvo per minute, which is even slower than Rodney’s average 1.6 salvo per minute.

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Yeah, I know it has a good AP round. HC does have bit less filler than others.

I was referring to the W23/Mk 23 round :P
That definitely isn’t lacking in TNT equivalent

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We also dont have WW2 refit Queen-Elizabeth class like HMS Warspite (Barham with more armour and AA) or HMS Nelson (Rodney with more Armour and AA)

HMS Vanguard has access to Supercharged 15" guns with more pen and greater range. These are not present on any other battleship in the British fleet.

HMS King George V does have 14" guns, but they are still fairly good, KGV also adds a heavily armoured ship that should make a decent brawler.

Also, key point to remember, British guns are on average 3x more accurate than every other nations guns. Where we might lack on calibre and ultra heavy armour, we make up for being ultra accurate. In game, British 15" guns have 3 to 4x the dispersal they should have and reports are being worked on

Calibre isnt everything, Scharnhorst only has 11" guns but can easily fight the 16" guns given her insane survivability

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we dont have the late ammunition yet so there is still more to play for

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You are mistaken here, the UK can get further guns like of course the 14" MK.VIII however this would be balanced to make up for its lower penetration. The UK also only has 4crh projectiles currently on its battleships, 6crh projectiles markedly improve the penetration of these guns by introducing a longer nose cap to shell ratio.

However the UK can also get the supercharged 15" which improved penetration and when put into the ballistic calculator has more penetration than the German 15", it can get the BL 16" MK.II, III and IV on various designs for the Lion class battleships, the MK’s II and III have the same projectile (as a post-edit, for clarity, this is a whole new shell to the one Rodney has, its just the MK.II and MK.III are basically the same weapon, the MK.IV is heavily improved though) which improved penetration compared to the in-game MK.I on Rodney at 10-13km by ~100mm according to USN imperical formula/Navyweps and that’s without considering the improved shell design, then the UK also can get theoretical guns and shells based on laid down ships, for example the BL 16.5" which fired a 2552lb projectile at @750 m/s.

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The devs will never seriously consider adding a nuclear shell to Iowa, particularly in the manner you describe, I don’t mean to be rude or cruel but it is never going to happen what would happen is you spawn in, use ranging shot to shoot one nuclear warhead at each ship on the enemy team and proceed to just win because nobody has an equivalent and will simply just die, this is why we have balancing factors, such as what shell you get.

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Ik, I’m mostly joking

It would be an interesting feature if they did it like the grb nuke though for late battleship naval

Nuke shell a certain ground target, or faraway convoy in place of dropping the nuke on ground map

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It would be a cool easter egg, just very, very tricky to implement fairly also, but if added according to the current nuke mechanics then still very cool.

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Maybe EC only? Requiring whatever the equivalent of 2500sp is in that gamemode

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Btw that’s really nice remark, thank you. I haven’t even expected fuze delay can also be kinda “tool for balance”…
But I made a little research, it seems latest Type 91 AP 41cm shell (which we don’t have in the game now, but it will surely appear on Nagato from WW2) really had 0.4s fuze delay, but… It seems Type 5 AP shell had 0.2s fuze delay! Unfortunately I couldn’t find info about Type 3 AP shell there. Source - US Naval technical mission to Japan, 1946, O-17 (btw it has really a lot of useful information, not only O-17, but any other too)

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And yess, I haven’t mentioned a lot of ships, I just tried to find “TOP BB” of each nation, like Yamato, Bismarck, Littorio and to compare their guns. And usually every country has only 1 best undisputed candidate for being TOP BB, but British is interesting here, I can’t really say which ship can be the best in the game - Vanguard, KG5, Nelson?? Every of them has it’s pros and cons, really interesting situation

Well, I didn’t know that, thanks!
But am I correct, that best (=latest?) shell for British 381mm was APC Mark XXIIb with supercharge? If so, according to Navweaps it has the same TNT, almost same weight (+10kg) to early 381mm, but with super charge shell speed is 809mps, which is not bad (especially if to compare with 750mps standard charge)

But well, still Littorio for example has the same weight of shell, but its speed is 850mps, Richelieu has 830mps… And I just haven’t speak about 406 and higher caliber

And despite Littorio’s guns had really bad dispersion and durability of guns due to it’s over forced guns, but it propably won’t be represented in our game, so… It seems British guns just will be just Ok, maybe medium, but without any outstanding penetration or reload comparing with other nations

But about G3, I voted “yes”, for me it would be interesting to see it in the game, but I think actually it depends on developers policy… I mean, if they won’t be satisfied with proofs that G3 was at least began to be built - maybe they won’t add it… Controversial situation, but let’s hope

And well, unfortunately it seems Gaijins use dispersion as a “balancing tool”. I think they made it really consciously - all 380-410mm guns in game has crazy dispersion and as caliber gets lower, it will be more and more accurate (Kronstadt, Scharnhorst and etc can show it). Actually I can understand why they do that, due to trying to balance it all…
So honestly I don’t really think any reports about shell’s dispersion will work here…

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Oh well… Now it seems German 15" will get the worst penetration of all TOP guns! Actually it has logic, the lightest shell from all 15" caliber with not outstanding speed, compare to other nations. But armour will still be really impressive, and reload is super great. So it will be just like Scharnhorst in current battles

And oh wow, I need to upgrade my knowledge about British forces, thanks! And as I have read Lion was really started to built (I didn’t know it previously lol), so… I think we can wait it in the game, maybe it will be even the best British ship. Especially if you say it has such a nice guns, 600mm penetration on 10km sounds really cool! (Actually it will depend on developers decision as I see, but still). But what about 16" Lion’s reload? Were there any improvements from Nelson’s guns or only new shells? Can we hope for at least under 40s reload?

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Yeah, which is best changes based upon map, playstyle, etc but they should all be reasonably competitive even vs things like Yamato and Bismark

I reckon as much of it was built as Kronstadt was built. so should be fine imo.

Officially, they dont, which is what is so strange about it. Its being worked on at the moment apparently, so hopefully we can apply some community pressure.

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It was so obvious with the Graf Spee. Suddenly the shell trajectories were like crooked. I can’t find my screenshots I’ve made back then. But since then the whole ship was so underwhelming…long reload and non-existing presision (high dispersion) pretty much killed it. Any 15cm tripple turret light cruiser is far better.

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At present Graf Spee has the exact same accuracy parameters as Scharnhorst. It feels less accurate most likely due to having less guns.

It generally follows the trend of accuracy getting worse as calibre increases, but with some exceptions. For example, the most accurate battleship guns in game are not the German 283mm, but the Russian 305mm (both WW1 and Kronshtadt’s B-50). In addition, Italian 320mm also gets the worst accuracy parameters alongside the 15" and 16" guns for unknown reason.

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Thats odd, its known historically that the 320mm had a pretty bad dispersion thanks to being a rebored 305mm gun. But why single it out specifically to have historical inaccuracy issues?

Seriously the decision making in regards to naval is bizarre.

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