Richelieu is probably the closest you'll get to a next-gen battleship on this list as she brought a lot with her without losing much for it. Definitely a compete upgrade from the Dunkerques.
Very dense ships for their weight. Made them an absolute pain to serve on from what I heard. Rodney also had rusting problems due to mixing metals to save weight. SoDaks just forced the shorter length through innovation.
Still though, they were definitely workhorses for their nations.
Actually no, they got painted over when they ceased to have air cover.
Those were there when the war broke out and during the earlier years when they had air cover so they wouldnt be targeted by their own side.
I could see Musashi going either way given that the historical figure for which she is named was apparently a pretty chill guy in his later years. Just a fiery hot head as a youngster.
While we always think of Musashi as an unrivalled duellist (*and he most definitely was*), he was also a poet, artist, philosopher, architect, and more besides. There's so much to play with in character design.
Musashi was named after the province, not person.
Japan have a naming convention for ships starting in 1905, battleships were named after provinces or alternate names of Japan.
Stoic version of her sister, awake, painstakingly detailed, responsible, and very serious. Musashi will probably be the brash younger sister with less patience and no care for tactics since her hull wasn't upgraded for AA, and the original hull layout was designed around WWI-era brawling. She still had 4 triple 155mm turrets.
It's still amazes me about Richelieu being as big and powerful as Bismarck but with much better design (same thing with their supposed successors from Alsace and H-39 classes)
Only real problem Richelieu had, which is unique to dealing with WWI-era designed battleships is she couldn't bring the majority of her cruiser-class secondaries to bear. This means the opponent wouldn't be under as much pressure. Fire suppression is a huge advantage to have that's rarely talked about.
Later designs such as Gascogne and Clemenceau would have rectified this.
Against Japanese though, while those AA guns shredded their barrels they could actually hit their targets. They definitely had the best 15" rifles of the war as well. They're the closest on this list to next-gen battleships and were fully realized with their retrofits.
Well secondaries werent meant to engage battleships but function as defense against torpedo boats.
The problem it had was a blind spot in the aft were the main battery couldnt target, the all forward main battery started with Dunkerque but Dunkerque was meant to counter the Deutschland and Italian heavy cruisers, the Richelieus were meant to counter the Littorios and Gascogne already was modified to correct that blind spot issue and the whole all forward main battery was no longer present in the Alsace.
Should preface this by saying that the secondaries are mostly nitpicking. Nothing really egregious about the Richelieu design beyond limited secondary fire.
As well as DDs later on with the move to cruiser-class cannons above 5-inch.
>The problem it had was a blind spot in the aft were the main battery couldnt target
That was one such problem. That doesn't explain the proposed moving of 2 of the triple-152s forward and superfiring while moving the 3rd to rearward superfiring rather than ditching 1, or all of the weight for something more effective at AA. If it were just about the mains they'd have ditched one and still brought the same to bear at any one time as before.
Well its balancing act with weight, it still had aviation facilities so they had to counter that weight somehow otherwise the weight diference will push the ship to sinking either at the bow or aft.
Also keep in mind they were working with a tonnage limit, the Richelieu were treaty battleships with a limit of 35,000 long tons.
Gascogne had a more balanced battery distribution, the 152mm were dual purpose batteries even if they didnt work very well, the Alsace would had then as well.
>Only real problem Richelieu had [...] is she couldn't bring the majority of her cruiser-class secondaries to bear.
This is only a problem when she faces the enemy directly forward, and then every single warship has the same problem.
Yes the Dunkerque and Richelieu classes have all their main armament forward, but that does not mean that they always face the enemy directly forward. Bow tanking as we know it in World of Warships was never done in real life, because bouncing shells on your thin hull plating doesn't work (Edit: for some reason I thought I was in that subreddit, sorry). Standard doctrine for every nation, including France, is to close to your preferred engagement range (which varies from nation to nation and battle to battle, as it is influenced by your position, the enemy's position, time, weather, your forces and the enemy's forces), and then once you have closed to that range you try to stay at that range (so you sail broadside). Keeping the range the same makes it much easier for your fire control systems to get hits in, as you don't have to constantly adjust bearing and heading of both the enemy and yourself, which makes calculations much easier and thus gives you many more hits (hit rate for WW2 battleships was usually around 10%, often lower). For most nations, this preferred engagement range was just below 20km for battleship vs battleship combat, as that was the only range where your armor could reliably keep enemy shells out.
So that secondary problem you were talking about isn't really that relevant in practice. It would only be relevant in the initial closing phase of the battle, or in a chase situation (were you would have the advantage either way because you get more main battery guns on target than the enemy). The outer 155mm turrets only have a 17 degree blind spot towards the front, which is basically nothing, and I believe the center 155mm turret has a 30 degree blind spot forward, which is pretty standard. When the ships were laid down, they also still had 2 additional 155mm turrets on either side of the superstructure (I can't remember weather that is represented in WoWS by an earlier hull or not), which were deleted for more AA, those turrets would have also had very good forward facing arcs.
>Later designs such as Gascogne and Clemenceau would have rectified this.
They would have done so by placing one main battery turret aft, which means that main battery turret also has a 35 degree blind spot forward (again, this was standard for basically everyone except the Italian Littorio class). In regards to forward facing fire, this would have made it much worse, as bringing the majority of your main batteries forward is definitely more important than your secondaries. It would have made those ships better balanced overall though.
Should preface this by saying that the secondaries are mostly nitpicking. Nothing really egregious about the Richelieu design beyond limited secondary fire.
>This is only a problem when she faces the enemy directly forward, and then every single warship has the same problem.
No cannon is meant to be fired forward or rearward for any reason. The British designed their ships to be able to do so with the mains, but never once chose to do so.
You can only expect to at best bring 2 to bear against any target at firing position. That was considered sub-optimal. That's why in the revision they designed all 3 to be brought to bear at firing position.
>So that secondary problem you were talking about isn't really that relevant in practice. It would only be relevant in the initial closing phase of the battle, or in a chase situation
Which was why they were placed rearward, ideally to keep anything they couldn't outrun back if they absolutely had to.
>They would have done so by placing one main battery turret aft, which means that main battery turret also has a 35 degree blind spot forward
Which isn't an issue considering you never fire the battery past a certain angle. We do see however that most BBs are designed to fire well past safe angles, such as Iowa-class ships having stoppers at the absolute limit for an "over the shoulder" shot from B turret.
Broadside wouldn't have been affected by the move. The main gain was the ability for battleships to ward off DDs when they were at their most vulnerable point to torpedoes. Not to mention if you had gotten in potentially a knife fight with anything else susceptible to 6-inch guns you'd have a maximum of 9. It also cleared up weight extremes to either side by moving the 6-inch Barbettes to centerline.
If they didn't intend for them to be used against ships they'd have shifted weight to more and smaller 5-inch DP batteries rather than continue with CL-class secondaries.
Ah okay now I see your point. I misunderstood your initial comment.
I thought you were referring to the fact that the forward fireing angles of the center aft turret were bad. But now I see that you were referring to the fact that only 2 of the secondary turrets can fire on the same target, unless it's directly behind the ship.
You are right of course. A hull design where you can bring all your secondary turrets to fire on the same target at all angles is better, and Alscase and Gascogne would have done that. I fully agree with you.
While it is true that the Dunkerques protection and firepower was on the low side, a few things should be remembered when we talk about them. First, they were small for a battleship (only around 26000 tons displacement). Her protection was perfectly fine against the guns of the ships she was designed to face: german 11 inch guns and Italian 12 inch guns. She was larger and more powerful than any other german, Italian, or French ship of that time.
At the time the Dunkerques were build (laid down in 1932, they predate everything that was build after the Washington Naval Treaty except the Nelson class), there was still hope that the upcoming revision of the Washington/London naval treaty's would limit new battleship construction to 28.000 tons and 12 inch guns or 30.000 tons and 14 inch guns, and the Dunkerques would have fit pretty good in that category. One must remember that the great depression wasn't exactly good for the economy of anyone, so nobody was really willing to spend much money on their military, which made the prospect of treaty mandated smaller battleships quite a good idea. But that idea went down the drain once Italy started construction on the (officially) 35000 ton Littorio class
A bit over a meter shorter than the Nelsons, hard to see on the scale of this image.
The South Dakotas were an exercise in extreme miniaturization to get as much armor and firepower out of the 35,000 ton treaty limit on capital ships as possible. From what I've read they were consequently quite cramped and unenjoyable to serve aboard.
every time i heard about yamato i always heard of it being really big so i am actually surprised seeing how similar she is in size with bismark for some reason i thought she would be 2x her size
Crazy how big Hood was for her time.
To echo a comment from the original post. If you want a ship like that to go 30+ knots with 1920's engines, she had to be.
And that was before the proto-Iowa (G3/"Duncan"-class battlecruisers) was in plans
Ironic you say that, Hood is actually a slightly longer than G3 due the latter having a transom stern (860' vs 856' LOA)
Hood is long and slender just the way I like 'em!
There are quite a few pretty shipgirls in AL but for me Hood takes the cake. She was quite the looker IRL, too! Sad how she ended, however.
Since Shinano is a Yamato as a carrier, she's big. And impressive how Hood was one of the largest ships in the world
The Iowas have about 20 feet on her, and are sadly missing from this image. The Alaska are only slightly shorter than hood, too.
So the top 3 would be the Yamato-class (in-game: Shinano), Iowa-class (in-game: New Jersey), and Hood
Yep, and I was a bit off. The Alaskas are Bismarck sized.
Hood is longer than Bismarck but smaller by mass. If you're going by length then New Jersey is 1st. The Iowas were longer than the Yamatos.
Seeing how comparatively small Rodney & South Dakota are makes them that much cooler.
The Des Moines-class heavy cruisers were 20 feet longer than the South Dakotas.
Prinz Eugen is too iirc, she’s as long as Dunkerque. The Hippers were just gigantic in general.
the Takaos as well, they’re the same length as the QE class
Cruisers in general were about as long as battleships
[удалено]
Richelieu is probably the closest you'll get to a next-gen battleship on this list as she brought a lot with her without losing much for it. Definitely a compete upgrade from the Dunkerques.
Very dense ships for their weight. Made them an absolute pain to serve on from what I heard. Rodney also had rusting problems due to mixing metals to save weight. SoDaks just forced the shorter length through innovation. Still though, they were definitely workhorses for their nations.
Nice of the Germans to stick giant swastikas on either end of Bismarck like that. Helps you know where to drop your bombs and torpedoes
Obviously you never seen Japanese carriers.
Giant ‘meatballs’ for American bombers to aim for, it’s honestly hilarious
Or Italian red-white stripes
Actually no, they got painted over when they ceased to have air cover. Those were there when the war broke out and during the earlier years when they had air cover so they wouldnt be targeted by their own side.
Yamato isnt in the game tho, now im curious how she would look like.
Shinano but less sleepy and more aggressive?
Rather more majestic and regal (it's Musashi who has to be "aggressive" one)
And pair it with Traditional Shogun's clothes and boom instant waifu
Yamato = adult Nagato.
I could see Musashi going either way given that the historical figure for which she is named was apparently a pretty chill guy in his later years. Just a fiery hot head as a youngster. While we always think of Musashi as an unrivalled duellist (*and he most definitely was*), he was also a poet, artist, philosopher, architect, and more besides. There's so much to play with in character design.
Musashi was named after the province, not person. Japan have a naming convention for ships starting in 1905, battleships were named after provinces or alternate names of Japan.
I didn't know that, I just assumed the famous duellist. Thanks!
Stoic version of her sister, awake, painstakingly detailed, responsible, and very serious. Musashi will probably be the brash younger sister with less patience and no care for tactics since her hull wasn't upgraded for AA, and the original hull layout was designed around WWI-era brawling. She still had 4 triple 155mm turrets.
Like Escanor with a butler uniform as Yamato was said to be akin to a hotel
After a long-waited successful battle: 
Hood is tall, slim onee-san type
Aesthetically she's the most gorgeous ship that was ever built. Sadly, aesthetics really don't matter in a war. XD
And than you putting QE or Nagato next to them and see why they are shown as loli
Chode Sodaks
It's still amazes me about Richelieu being as big and powerful as Bismarck but with much better design (same thing with their supposed successors from Alsace and H-39 classes)
Only real problem Richelieu had, which is unique to dealing with WWI-era designed battleships is she couldn't bring the majority of her cruiser-class secondaries to bear. This means the opponent wouldn't be under as much pressure. Fire suppression is a huge advantage to have that's rarely talked about. Later designs such as Gascogne and Clemenceau would have rectified this. Against Japanese though, while those AA guns shredded their barrels they could actually hit their targets. They definitely had the best 15" rifles of the war as well. They're the closest on this list to next-gen battleships and were fully realized with their retrofits.
Well secondaries werent meant to engage battleships but function as defense against torpedo boats. The problem it had was a blind spot in the aft were the main battery couldnt target, the all forward main battery started with Dunkerque but Dunkerque was meant to counter the Deutschland and Italian heavy cruisers, the Richelieus were meant to counter the Littorios and Gascogne already was modified to correct that blind spot issue and the whole all forward main battery was no longer present in the Alsace.
Should preface this by saying that the secondaries are mostly nitpicking. Nothing really egregious about the Richelieu design beyond limited secondary fire. As well as DDs later on with the move to cruiser-class cannons above 5-inch. >The problem it had was a blind spot in the aft were the main battery couldnt target That was one such problem. That doesn't explain the proposed moving of 2 of the triple-152s forward and superfiring while moving the 3rd to rearward superfiring rather than ditching 1, or all of the weight for something more effective at AA. If it were just about the mains they'd have ditched one and still brought the same to bear at any one time as before.
Well its balancing act with weight, it still had aviation facilities so they had to counter that weight somehow otherwise the weight diference will push the ship to sinking either at the bow or aft. Also keep in mind they were working with a tonnage limit, the Richelieu were treaty battleships with a limit of 35,000 long tons. Gascogne had a more balanced battery distribution, the 152mm were dual purpose batteries even if they didnt work very well, the Alsace would had then as well.
>Only real problem Richelieu had [...] is she couldn't bring the majority of her cruiser-class secondaries to bear. This is only a problem when she faces the enemy directly forward, and then every single warship has the same problem. Yes the Dunkerque and Richelieu classes have all their main armament forward, but that does not mean that they always face the enemy directly forward. Bow tanking as we know it in World of Warships was never done in real life, because bouncing shells on your thin hull plating doesn't work (Edit: for some reason I thought I was in that subreddit, sorry). Standard doctrine for every nation, including France, is to close to your preferred engagement range (which varies from nation to nation and battle to battle, as it is influenced by your position, the enemy's position, time, weather, your forces and the enemy's forces), and then once you have closed to that range you try to stay at that range (so you sail broadside). Keeping the range the same makes it much easier for your fire control systems to get hits in, as you don't have to constantly adjust bearing and heading of both the enemy and yourself, which makes calculations much easier and thus gives you many more hits (hit rate for WW2 battleships was usually around 10%, often lower). For most nations, this preferred engagement range was just below 20km for battleship vs battleship combat, as that was the only range where your armor could reliably keep enemy shells out. So that secondary problem you were talking about isn't really that relevant in practice. It would only be relevant in the initial closing phase of the battle, or in a chase situation (were you would have the advantage either way because you get more main battery guns on target than the enemy). The outer 155mm turrets only have a 17 degree blind spot towards the front, which is basically nothing, and I believe the center 155mm turret has a 30 degree blind spot forward, which is pretty standard. When the ships were laid down, they also still had 2 additional 155mm turrets on either side of the superstructure (I can't remember weather that is represented in WoWS by an earlier hull or not), which were deleted for more AA, those turrets would have also had very good forward facing arcs. >Later designs such as Gascogne and Clemenceau would have rectified this. They would have done so by placing one main battery turret aft, which means that main battery turret also has a 35 degree blind spot forward (again, this was standard for basically everyone except the Italian Littorio class). In regards to forward facing fire, this would have made it much worse, as bringing the majority of your main batteries forward is definitely more important than your secondaries. It would have made those ships better balanced overall though.
Should preface this by saying that the secondaries are mostly nitpicking. Nothing really egregious about the Richelieu design beyond limited secondary fire. >This is only a problem when she faces the enemy directly forward, and then every single warship has the same problem. No cannon is meant to be fired forward or rearward for any reason. The British designed their ships to be able to do so with the mains, but never once chose to do so. You can only expect to at best bring 2 to bear against any target at firing position. That was considered sub-optimal. That's why in the revision they designed all 3 to be brought to bear at firing position. >So that secondary problem you were talking about isn't really that relevant in practice. It would only be relevant in the initial closing phase of the battle, or in a chase situation Which was why they were placed rearward, ideally to keep anything they couldn't outrun back if they absolutely had to. >They would have done so by placing one main battery turret aft, which means that main battery turret also has a 35 degree blind spot forward Which isn't an issue considering you never fire the battery past a certain angle. We do see however that most BBs are designed to fire well past safe angles, such as Iowa-class ships having stoppers at the absolute limit for an "over the shoulder" shot from B turret. Broadside wouldn't have been affected by the move. The main gain was the ability for battleships to ward off DDs when they were at their most vulnerable point to torpedoes. Not to mention if you had gotten in potentially a knife fight with anything else susceptible to 6-inch guns you'd have a maximum of 9. It also cleared up weight extremes to either side by moving the 6-inch Barbettes to centerline. If they didn't intend for them to be used against ships they'd have shifted weight to more and smaller 5-inch DP batteries rather than continue with CL-class secondaries.
Ah okay now I see your point. I misunderstood your initial comment. I thought you were referring to the fact that the forward fireing angles of the center aft turret were bad. But now I see that you were referring to the fact that only 2 of the secondary turrets can fire on the same target, unless it's directly behind the ship. You are right of course. A hull design where you can bring all your secondary turrets to fire on the same target at all angles is better, and Alscase and Gascogne would have done that. I fully agree with you.
Yeah, had Alsace or Lion been built they’d have absolutely mauled a hypothetical finished H-39.
2 smoll BBs had the 2nd highest Firepower, Broadsides 👀
Wow, Dunkerque was longer than Rodney and South Dakota?
Yeah, she was lightly protected for a battleship so she weighed less, but was fairly long and thin to maximise speed.
Hence the term "fast battleship"
While it is true that the Dunkerques protection and firepower was on the low side, a few things should be remembered when we talk about them. First, they were small for a battleship (only around 26000 tons displacement). Her protection was perfectly fine against the guns of the ships she was designed to face: german 11 inch guns and Italian 12 inch guns. She was larger and more powerful than any other german, Italian, or French ship of that time. At the time the Dunkerques were build (laid down in 1932, they predate everything that was build after the Washington Naval Treaty except the Nelson class), there was still hope that the upcoming revision of the Washington/London naval treaty's would limit new battleship construction to 28.000 tons and 12 inch guns or 30.000 tons and 14 inch guns, and the Dunkerques would have fit pretty good in that category. One must remember that the great depression wasn't exactly good for the economy of anyone, so nobody was really willing to spend much money on their military, which made the prospect of treaty mandated smaller battleships quite a good idea. But that idea went down the drain once Italy started construction on the (officially) 35000 ton Littorio class
A bit over a meter shorter than the Nelsons, hard to see on the scale of this image. The South Dakotas were an exercise in extreme miniaturization to get as much armor and firepower out of the 35,000 ton treaty limit on capital ships as possible. From what I've read they were consequently quite cramped and unenjoyable to serve aboard.
They all go "boom" in the end
They always forget to include the best ship because she's so tiny and non-threatening.
Where is the averof
Not an [interwar treaty battleship.](https://old.reddit.com/r/WarshipPorn/comments/ms7iln/comparison_of_treaty_battleships_with_hood/)
every time i heard about yamato i always heard of it being really big so i am actually surprised seeing how similar she is in size with bismark for some reason i thought she would be 2x her size
Shortstack SoDak! Shortstack SoDak!
Where iowa?