Greek Super cruiser Tavola (Ansaldo AC 19070

[kriegerfaust]

First a real ship design for the Greek navy

armoured cruiser design for Greece dating from 1907.

Dimensions
Length 140m Beam 21m Draught 7.6m
Displacement 10,000tons
27000hp = 25knots

Armour
175mm - 150mm Belt
150mm Casemates
150mm Conning Tower

Armament
4 x 254/45 in two duple turrets
12 x 152mm in twelve single casemates
12 x 76mm in single mountings
2 x 18" torpedo tubes submerged

Now a fantasy version of the Greek super cruiser

 

3x2 254mm Guns

6x2 102mm DP-AA guns,

armour would be between 178 and 228mm with a

displacement of 17-18500 tons engine would be

140K shp for 61 km/h

[Ensign Cthulhu]

On 10/17/2023 at 1:43 AM, kriegerfaust said:

First a real ship design for the Greek navy

You could put it at Tier 2 as a battleship and give Mikasa a run for her money.

And before you say anything about the gun calibre, 10 inch guns in battleships were a thing at the time she was built. Effectively, this design was a pre-dreadnought battlecruiser.

Edited October 18, 2023 by Ensign Cthulhu

[Project45_Opytny]

Despite sporadic discussion once in a while, nothing of very high value has been concluded from various proposals to add (archetypical) armored cruisers in this game.

Though it may be argued that various sorts of superheavy cruisers and cruiser-killers may be considered as "spiritual successors" to the general concept of armored cruisers, and particular ones like Napoli, Michelangelo and Admiral Schroeder also managed to fulfill that secondaries fetish.

[Daniel_Allan_Clark]

43 minutes ago, Project45_Opytny said:

Despite sporadic discussion once in a while, nothing of very high value has been concluded from various proposals to add (archetypical) armored cruisers in this game.

Though it may be argued that various sorts of superheavy cruisers and cruiser-killers may be considered as "spiritual successors" to the general concept of armored cruisers, and particular ones like Napoli, Michelangelo and Admiral Schroeder also managed to fulfill that secondaries fetish.

I have hope that one day WG will actually restart interest in the lower tiers...

A fools hope, currently...but hope nonetheless.

[Type_93]

I know some players like lower tiers, but most could care less. If you want Greece represented as a nation in game you have the Velos. 
there are so many other things that WG needs to work on that new low tier ships shouldn’t be any kind of priority. 

[Daniel_Allan_Clark]

30 minutes ago, Type_93 said:

I know some players like lower tiers, but most could care less. If you want Greece represented as a nation in game you have the Velos. 
there are so many other things that WG needs to work on that new low tier ships shouldn’t be any kind of priority. 

You have data on this assertion?

 

Or just your opinion?

[Type_93]

36 minutes ago, Daniel_Allan_Clark said:

You have data on this assertion?

 

Or just your opinion?

Just queue for a low tier battle. Hardly any players and full of bots. 

[Daniel_Allan_Clark]

9 minutes ago, Type_93 said:

Just queue for a low tier battle. Hardly any players and full of bots. 

Ah.

Not very persuasive to me since WG heavily incentivizes players not to play below tier 5.

In my opinion, the low population at lower tiers is based on WGs reward structure...and less indicative of consumer demand.

Sounds like neither of us has a direct measure though...so I'll continue to hope.

😉

[Type_93]

13 minutes ago, Daniel_Allan_Clark said:

Ah.

Not very persuasive to me since WG heavily incentivizes players not to play below tier 5.

In my opinion, the low population at lower tiers is based on WGs reward structure...and less indicative of consumer demand.

Sounds like neither of us has a direct measure though...so I'll continue to hope.

😉

I used to love t5. I have over 2k games split between 2 t5 ships. But that was before you could get bots in randoms. Tiers below 5 are just painful. The higher tiers provide much more of a challenge to play well. 

[Daniel_Allan_Clark]

1 hour ago, Type_93 said:

I used to love t5. I have over 2k games split between 2 t5 ships. But that was before you could get bots in randoms. Tiers below 5 are just painful. The higher tiers provide much more of a challenge to play well. 

I have found high tiers to be frustrating...not because it isn't challenging...but because the skilled gameplay is boring...and the vast majority of players are incapable of not suiciding.

There are a lot more games at tier 10 than tier 5 that are not determined by my play...but on the play of a few others, on my team or the other team.

The over lethality of the ships drives death spirals more often than at lower tiers.

Edited October 18, 2023 by Daniel_Allan_Clark

[invicta2012]

7 hours ago, Ensign Cthulhu said:

You could put it at Tier 2 as a battleship and give Mikasa a run for her money.

And before you say anything about the gun calibre, 10 inch guns in battleships were a thing at the time she was built. Effectively, this design was a pre-dreadnought battlecruiser.

She's not Tier II, for sure. That's a post-Averof design, Tier IV or (possibly V) - think of her as a cross between a Royal Navy BC (secondaries, torps) and a Panzerschiff like Graf Spee. 

 

Tzoli's Large Cruiser design is a bit naughty - you might just squeeze some 9.2 inch guns onto that design, like Cheshire - but something a bit bigger and better armoured would be needed, really.  And even those 10 inch guns are a bit no mans land-ish at higher tiers without Pen boosts. 

Edited October 18, 2023 by invicta2012

[pepe_trueno]

9 hours ago, Project45_Opytny said:

Despite sporadic discussion once in a while, nothing of very high value has been concluded from various proposals to add (archetypical) armored cruisers in this game.

Though it may be argued that various sorts of superheavy cruisers and cruiser-killers may be considered as "spiritual successors" to the general concept of armored cruisers, and particular ones like Napoli, Michelangelo and Admiral Schroeder also managed to fulfill that secondaries fetish.

armored cruisers evolved into battlecruiser but they dont fullfit the same role, battlecruisers have cruiser mobilty with BBs guns while armored cruisers have big secondary guns with battleships guns and armor at the cost of few main barrels and overall slow speed. Armored cruisers would be better suited for tanking damage and short range combat.

the only real problem of armored cruisers is that they got replaced before planes where a thing so most of their design carry little to no AA.  Past t5 armored cruisers would need a huge "what IF" refit converting the  casemate secondary guns into dual purpouse guns.

 

10 hours ago, Ensign Cthulhu said:

You could put it at Tier 2 as a battleship and give Mikasa a run for her money.

And before you say anything about the gun calibre, 10 inch guns in battleships were a thing at the time she was built. Effectively, this design was a pre-dreadnought battlecruiser.

jager would like to have a word with you about historical accuracy and time frames.

 

 

[AdmiralThunder]

9 hours ago, Daniel_Allan_Clark said:

I have hope that one day WG will actually restart interest in the lower tiers...

A fools hope, currently...but hope nonetheless.

All they have to do is drop daily's and mission requirements from T5 down to T3 and many people would play low tiers again. Not everyone but a LOT of people. One of the more popular Campaigns is 5 Epochs of the Navy BECAUSE it has a low tier stage. Lots of players actually like lower tiers but have to play T5+ because they have limited time to play and everything grind wise outside of tech tree lines is T5+.

Not only would that let players who want to play low tiers do so but it would serve 2 other purposes; help fill lower tier MM queue and allow newer players to participate in things. It is a win win for players. 

I wish they would at least TRY IT for a couple updates to see how it would go. If the players show interest and actually play there it would open up a huge array of ships they could make Premiums out of and such.

I have heard one of the big arguments against this being seal clubbing. But really that is not a valid claim. New players play in protected MM until they get to and play a T5 game (or like 200 games or some such). So they aren't going to be seal clubbed unless they rush to T5 and they will then be sea clubbed at T5 anyway. Once players leave protected MM at 200 games they get pounded on by experienced players anyway. So it's really a non issue. 

Edited October 18, 2023 by AdmiralThunder

[Project45_Opytny]

11 hours ago, pepe_trueno said:

armored cruisers evolved into battlecruiser but they dont fullfit the same role, battlecruisers have cruiser mobilty with BBs guns while armored cruisers have big secondary guns with battleships guns and armor at the cost of few main barrels and overall slow speed. Armored cruisers would be better suited for tanking damage and short range combat.

the only real problem of armored cruisers is that they got replaced before planes where a thing so most of their design carry little to no AA.  Past t5 armored cruisers would need a huge "what IF" refit converting the  casemate secondary guns into dual purpouse guns.

jager would like to have a word with you about historical accuracy and time frames.

Slow speed itself is a dead end (see the Battles of Falklands and Dogger Banks), and even the "Vermont treatment" can only solve a part of the problems, with a fundamental one, at least more difficult to either pursuit fleeing enemies or escaping from adverse situations. And cruisers have no access to "Swift in Silence" which more or less can work as a Band-Aid for some battleships. And again take the game for reference, what makes some of the newer brawlers like Napoli, Schlieffen and Admiral Schroeder more effective is their high speed.

Perhaps due to the need to make the gameplay more active/dynamic, attack generally outstrip protection, to the point that 406-mm/50 MK7, among the best historical battleship guns are considered only "mediocre" comparing with numerous hypothetical/project only guns firing heavier shells at higher velocity. And take the ship mentioned above as example, while indeed well protected against ordinary cruiser gunfire, her belt and casemate can be penetrated by battlecruisers (that such a ship would have to fight against had she been built) Tiger and Derfflinger from almost the entirety of their range (~16-km), even Ishizuchi with her defective AP will defeat the belt at ~10-km, and against Koenig and Wyoming with newer shells the belt has no "immunity range" at all (both can still pen more than 200-mm armor at 18-km using spotters). And she can outrun neither Tiger nor Derfflinger, and may only barely outrun Koenig thanks to WG's fictional refit.

In real life weapons are designed and built to outfight enemy counterparts, preferably in an efficient way rather than to satisfy particular fetishes, be it bolted armor plates, piston aircraft engine or pre-dreadnought battleships, or to fulfill arbitrary "roles" artificially classified for an arcade video game. Improvements in gunnery theory, naval guns, propulsion system and fire control apparatus made it possible and efficient to mount more main guns and discard heavy secondaries (or, to transform into dreadnoughts) on battleships. The same happened for cruisers that should be faster than their own contemporary battleships (the same is true for armored cruisers contemporary to pre-dreadnought battleships), that for their screening and ocean-going roles much better performance may be achieved by adopting turbine engines and all-big-gun arrangement (discarding heavy secondaries) than sticking to reciprocating steam engine or mixed battery. And I consider it may be argued that the dead-end nature of large cruisers has already been shown in advance by SMS Blucher: despite being more powerful than most of the other cruisers of her time, was still no match against battlecruisers.

So a part of the problem is that rather than historical ones ("add SMS Blucher at T5 for German panzerschiffe branch and call it a day", my personal opinion on this topic), we are discussing something completely fictional (due to being obviously unworkable in real life), based on the flawed stereotype of armored cruisers ("slow ships armed in pre-dreadnought fashion") originating from unfair comparison with dreadnoughts and battlecruisers one generation younger, that for some reason would be designed with (gameplay motivated) staunch rejection on two very important aspects of naval architecture in real life: speed and uniform main battery. Such stereotypical type of ships died off with the advent of Dreadnoughts.

And hasn't Napoli and Admiral Schroeder already neatly filled the niche of tanking damage and close-range combat? And to be blunt, despite the game has already favoring close range combat with map design, it is still difficult to make such engagements happen in Random gaming on a regular basis to the point that in APAC Server it's considered suicidal (or at least masochistic) to merely bring German/Soviet battleships (bar unique ones like Slava or Mecklenburg) to Randoms.

 

Destroyer stats may be more "soft" comparing with those of battleships. Like how to interpret stated speed, or in the case of Jaeger, how her torpedoes would perform.

[Daniel_Allan_Clark]

18 minutes ago, Project45_Opytny said:

Slow speed itself is a dead end (see the Battles of Falklands and Dogger Banks), and even the "Vermont treatment" can only solve a part of the problems, with a fundamental one, at least more difficult to either pursuit fleeing enemies or escaping from adverse situations. And cruisers have no access to "Swift in Silence" which more or less can work as a Band-Aid for some battleships. And again take the game for reference, what makes some of the newer brawlers like Napoli, Schlieffen and Admiral Schroeder more effective is their high speed.

Perhaps due to the need to make the gameplay more active/dynamic, attack generally outstrip protection, to the point that 406-mm/50 MK7, among the best historical battleship guns are considered only "mediocre" comparing with numerous hypothetical/project only guns firing heavier shells at higher velocity. And take the ship mentioned above as example, while indeed well protected against ordinary cruiser gunfire, her belt and casemate can be penetrated by battlecruisers (that such a ship would have to fight against had she been built) Tiger and Derfflinger from almost the entirety of their range (~16-km), even Ishizuchi with her defective AP will defeat the belt at ~10-km, and against Koenig and Wyoming with newer shells the belt has no "immunity range" at all (both can still pen more than 200-mm armor at 18-km using spotters). And she can outrun neither Tiger nor Derfflinger, and may only barely outrun Koenig thanks to WG's fictional refit.

In real life weapons are designed and built to outfight enemy counterparts, preferably in an efficient way rather than to satisfy particular fetishes, be it bolted armor plates, piston aircraft engine or pre-dreadnought battleships, or to fulfill arbitrary "roles" artificially classified for an arcade video game. Improvements in gunnery theory, naval guns, propulsion system and fire control apparatus made it possible and efficient to mount more main guns and discard heavy secondaries (or, to transform into dreadnoughts) on battleships. The same happened for cruisers that should be faster than their own contemporary battleships (the same is true for armored cruisers contemporary to pre-dreadnought battleships), that for their screening and ocean-going roles much better performance may be achieved by adopting turbine engines and all-big-gun arrangement (discarding heavy secondaries) than sticking to reciprocating steam engine or mixed battery. And I consider it may be argued that the dead-end nature of large cruisers has already been shown in advance by SMS Blucher: despite being more powerful than most of the other cruisers of her time, was still no match against battlecruisers.

So a part of the problem is that rather than historical ones ("add SMS Blucher at T5 for German panzerschiffe branch and call it a day", my personal opinion on this topic), we are discussing something completely fictional (due to being obviously unworkable in real life), based on the flawed stereotype of armored cruisers ("slow ships armed in pre-dreadnought fashion") originating from unfair comparison with dreadnoughts and battlecruisers one generation younger, that for some reason would be designed with (gameplay motivated) staunch rejection on two very important aspects of naval architecture in real life: speed and uniform main battery. Such stereotypical type of ships died off with the advent of Dreadnoughts.

And hasn't Napoli and Admiral Schroeder already neatly filled the niche of tanking damage and close-range combat? And to be blunt, despite the game has already favoring close range combat with map design, it is still difficult to make such engagements happen in Random gaming on a regular basis to the point that in APAC Server it's considered suicidal (or at least masochistic) to merely bring German/Soviet battleships (bar unique ones like Slava or Mecklenburg) to Randoms.

 

Destroyer stats may be more "soft" comparing with those of battleships. Like how to interpret stated speed, or in the case of Jaeger, how her torpedoes would perform.

Speed is less important than many here believe...because the game does not actually model real life.

Heck, Katori is a perfectly useable cruiser at tier 3 despite being slower than some battleships.

[Project45_Opytny]

3 minutes ago, Daniel_Allan_Clark said:

Heck, Katori is a perfectly useable cruiser at tier 3 despite being slower than some battleships.

I think this plays a greater role than her design aspects.

[Daniel_Allan_Clark]

46 minutes ago, Project45_Opytny said:

I think this plays a greater role than her design aspects.

True.

But the features that govern tier 3 are applicable up to tier 6 or 7.

Cruisers slower than battleships is actually common throughout all the tiers.

[Admiral_Karasu]

Well, it could show up as a tier 9 BB in the Pan-European tree? Suitably adjusted, of course... I mean they've done this sort of thing with the British and American tech trees anyway.