Battleships- do they really counter CA?

[OdinAU]

so i just finished playing a round of ranked in my mutsu, and i noticed something weird. every single shot on CA overpened, which made me think why even bother shooting at them if i cant get decent damage. i had one instance which really pissed me off. cleveland full broadside at 12km nearly whole salvo lands and i get 3k damage. he should be deleted doing that and he even said he was willing to do it because he knew it would all overpen. so if battleships will just overpen CA like this how can you consider them an actual counter? am i just supposed to shoot at other battleships? that means literally everything is supposed to kill battleships while the battleships themselves are subject to long reload times, bad speed, turning, AA while apparently gaining the ability to kill off cruisers that show too much broadside at closer ranges. so why is there an overpen mechanic? if a CA is willing to show broadside to a battleship because he knows its safe, that has to be broken right? im not sure if im missing something or what but this really makes me think about quitting the game. it feels like everything is supposed to counter battleships while when playing as one youre subject to RNG while having no real benefits. as a CA you spam that many shells it doesnt matter, you use HE most of the time so if it shatters who cares because fires. DD gets long range torps and good concealment while BB gets shafted.

[LordTyphoon]

Sounds like you are aiming too high. 

[PunishedKAsual]

Yes. No broadsiding CA is safe from a BB shooting at them

[Adm_Kunkka]

BB counters pretty much everything except CVs. Yes sometimes RNG trolls you and gives you overpens when you expect citadel's but such is the nature of the game. CA get trolled too by undependable fire chance and getting citadeles from weird angles. DDS get trolled by random detonation and bb ap pens. But if you're consistently overpenning cruisers, you're probably not aiming correctly (unless it's French cruiser as they have troll armor scheme)

[HMS_Swiftsure_08]

At T6 they certainly do. Battleships are quite dominant T4-T7. If you can't punish T6 boats in Mutsu, probably try improve your gunnery skills or try Fuso/NM/Arizona

[HMS_Swiftsure_08]

31 minutes ago, Adm_Kunkka said:

BB counters pretty much everything except CVs. Yes sometimes RNG trolls you and gives you overpens when you expect citadel's but such is the nature of the game. CA get trolled too by undependable fire chance and getting citadeles from weird angles. DDS get trolled by random detonation and bb ap pens. But if you're consistently overpenning cruisers, you're probably not aiming correctly (unless it's French cruiser as they have troll armor scheme)

I'd say T10 BB has very little impact on the battle if you go solo, T10 battles can almost never be won by achieving line-of-battle advantage, one needs spotting and cap advantage to win a T10 battle and supporting that is hard for BBs. (Yesterday I played a T6-8 game in which all three DD died in 3 minutes into the game, and my div-mate's Alabama, a Bismarck and my Kutuzov carried the game by each doing around/over 100k damage. Imagine winning a T10 game with all DD dying so quickly) Cruisers can use very reliable HE penetrating hits to easily melt BB at high tiers as they get larger superstructure and the hull is less protected against HE. DD while not good at line-of-battle stuff but play very crucial role in capping, spotting and tanking by smoke, but they are not adequately rewarded for their efforts.

↑personal opinion based on my own experience. I once had a bad day with 24 of my 26 Kurfurst games lost. IMO I'm not all that bad in that ship, and almost all games were lost due to cap. Also in one Minotaur game I harvested 230k damage off BB and CA/CL without supporting cap, and that unsurprisingly resulted in a lost game.

 

French cruiser stuff. The "troll armor" or shall I say unprotected cruiser only exist T3-T5, these ships have a really large TDS bulge that is immune to HE, their citadel not exposed so HE citadel is impossible, 13mm bow to autobounce 152/180mm AP, no armor so anything larger can overpen the broadside.(actually their armor is thicker than high tier DD so broadside overpen is also a trick for high tier DD)

But at T6 they get armor that unfortunately isn't an advantage. La Galissonnere is actually glass, the horrible X turret firing angle also make matters worse. IMO this ship is extremely easy to delete.

[Adm_Kunkka]

Yeah bbs don't really win games even if they counter other classes, partly due to inability to reposition as needed quick enough and lack of support consumables. About French CA, I thought it was the same case with high tier CA as I keep getting overpens with yamato against HIV and St Louis. Only ever get citadels when they are angled...so is there a different way to shoot at them compared to other CA?

[Dire_Venom]

The dispersion and crazy shell flights at t6 often frustrate me, you shoot at a broadside target 10km and you get misses + bounces -_-

Thats probably the biggest turn off for me in BB's, you can do everything right, get the perfect postioning and then get ambsmisal results because of rng. I shoot the same place twice, 1st I get 17k in citidals, 2nd time I get 1 overpen for 970 lol???

 

Cruisers dont seem to be that common in ranked, Ive been the only cruiser queing at rank 10 for the past 10 minutes -_-

[icy_phoenix]

2 hours ago, Dire_Venom said:

The dispersion and crazy shell flights at t6 often frustrate me, you shoot at a broadside target 10km and you get misses + bounces -_-

Thats probably the biggest turn off for me in BB's, you can do everything right, get the perfect postioning and then get ambsmisal results because of rng. I shoot the same place twice, 1st I get 17k in citidals, 2nd time I get 1 overpen for 970 lol???

 

Cruisers dont seem to be that common in ranked, Ive been the only cruiser queing at rank 10 for the past 10 minutes -_-

 

Hey, it is OK. You just need 1 citadel to almost evaporate a cruiser at T6. There is no reason why 12 of your shells must hit. If your battleship accuracy is below 25% then you need to improve in that area. 

[Fairuh]

Have you tried to aim harder

[icy_phoenix]

Battleships counter a lot from Tier 4 to Tier 8, other tiers, they are not really that effective as other classes. Specially at T9 and T10, cruisers get a massive face lift.

[humusz]

After Cruisers get more than 16km range, yeah gl with that

before that, CA is food

[S4pp3R]

Yes - due to pen, no against a skilled Cruiser.

 

Those BBs with more guns ala Fuso/Bayern are much better simply due to RNG, more guns = better chance of a good hit.

 

Range is the biggest thing, a good BB player will optimise their range, staying at a quasi-safe distance whilst still getting shots off.

[Drakon233]

3 hours ago, S4pp3R said:

Yes - due to pen, no against a skilled Cruiser.

 

Those BBs with more guns ala Fuso/Bayern are much better simply due to RNG, more guns = better chance of a good hit.

 

Range is the biggest thing, a good BB player will optimise their range, staying at a quasi-safe distance whilst still getting shots off.

wait, what

battleships SHOULDN'T rely on range to get shells off, the only time that that happens is when you and a few other ships are running away from a cap that the enemy team has pushed through, the IDEAL range of engagement for a BB VS CA is around/sub 13KM for me, you can choose whether you need to kite away from him(he has torpedos and is YOLOing you) or chase (looks at USN CAs, laughs and loads AP). and in the meantime you already do MASSIVE damage to him in every salvo

[Rinzler_o7o7o7]

Best way to answer this question is to pick up a cruiser for yourself and take note of your engagements with enemy BB's.

[S4pp3R]

6 hours ago, drakon233 said:

wait, what

battleships SHOULDN'T rely on range to get shells off, the only time that that happens is when you and a few other ships are running away from a cap that the enemy team has pushed through, the IDEAL range of engagement for a BB VS CA is around/sub 13KM for me, you can choose whether you need to kite away from him(he has torpedos and is YOLOing you) or chase (looks at USN CAs, laughs and loads AP). and in the meantime you already do MASSIVE damage to him in every salvo

 

IMO shouldn't be Yoloing in, by all means push up and angle, which I do but the last thing you want is multiple Cruisers burning you down.

 

By all means engage a Cruiser at 13km, but he should be the only one.

 

I'm not saying sit back and snipe, I'm saying there's a fine line between being close enough to do damage whilst not getting killed.

 

For me that's about 16km to main fleet, meaning there's usually a Cruiser at around 13km.

 

Only time I reckon you should be pushing in is if all your BBs do the same, which doesn't happen often ATM with the camping meta.

[Drakon233]

6 hours ago, S4pp3R said:

 

IMO shouldn't be Yoloing in, by all means push up and angle, which I do but the last thing you want is multiple Cruisers burning you down.

 

By all means engage a Cruiser at 13km, but he should be the only one.

 

I'm not saying sit back and snipe, I'm saying there's a fine line between being close enough to do damage whilst not getting killed.

 

For me that's about 16km to main fleet, meaning there's usually a Cruiser at around 13km.

 

Only time I reckon you should be pushing in is if all your BBs do the same, which doesn't happen often ATM with the camping meta.

actually, i do push in my BB all the time, the trick to it is simply knowing your position in relavence to everyone else and using smoke/islands as cover and giving yourself a escape route, thats's all there is to it

[icy_phoenix]

Meanwhile there are some cruisers which can burn down multiple battleships alone in a short time. See: Kutubalans.

[Drakon233]

Just now, icy_phoenix said:

Meanwhile there are some cruisers which can burn down multiple battleships alone in a short time. See: Kutubalans.

looks at hindy

[Phat_Cat]

2 hours ago, drakon233 said:

looks at hindy

Looks at des memes

[ari_aji]

On 7/3/2017 at 7:52 AM, Adm_Kunkka said:

BB counters pretty much everything except CVs. Yes sometimes RNG trolls you and gives you overpens when you expect citadel's but such is the nature of the game. CA get trolled too by undependable fire chance and getting citadeles from weird angles. DDS get trolled by random detonation and bb ap pens. But if you're consistently overpenning cruisers, you're probably not aiming correctly (unless it's French cruiser as they have troll armor scheme)

but in mid tier, BB is good for deleting CV in 2-3 salvos, as long enemy CV keep spotted

[S4pp3R]

11 hours ago, ari_aji said:

but in mid tier, BB is good for deleting CV in 2-3 salvos, as long enemy CV keep spotted

1 shot a CV the other day in a Fuso, triple citadel 

[Adm_Kunkka]

4 hours ago, S4pp3R said:

1 shot a CV the other day in a Fuso, triple citadel 

Lol low tier CVS have paper armor. Even cruiser he can citadel them

[legionary2099]

8 minutes ago, Adm_Kunkka said:

Lol low tier CVS have paper armor. Even cruiser he can citadel them

Any CV that is not a Taiho, Midway or Hakuryu is very easy to damage with AP , and has vulnerable citadel location albeit it is a short lengthed one. Those 3 has armored deck that will protect them from long range AP , as long as they dont show broadside , AP wont do much to them.

Low tier cv has no armor ? Mid tier ones are the same , dont let the ship 3D model fools you.

Now if RN CV did make it into the game , it will be fun to see them tanking AP and HE like a boss as GB invest into armored deck much sooner than the other

[Phat_Cat]

It's a bit silly that high tier cvs are the tankiest ships in the game...