World of Warships- Wargaming Butchered This Ship (KGV)

[@SapphirosCZ]

Its interesting how often WG switches its excuses between ingame balance and historical accuracy, only to end with none of those.

[@grimmshredsanguinus2915]

indeed

[@mattgearytransplanted]

more like it's lame.

[@wisdomleader85]

They've been digging their own grave.

[@belsteed6050]

😹 well said comrade

[@kaiserwilhelmshatner3156]

To gulag with you! Dissidents will not be tolerated!

[@urseliusurgel4365]

The whole design of the KGVs, as with all competent battleship designs, was a compromise. The 14" guns had a greater effective range than the British 15", the 14" armour piercing shells had a larger bursting charge than that of any American 16" AP shell, so if they penetrated, they did a lot of damage - a 14" shell from KGV penetrated the barbette of 'Bruno' turret of Bismarck and blew the entire rear face of the turret off (bad design, the turrets should have had blast vents to stop this happening). The design put a premium on armour over both guns and speed. Most navies ships' speeds were recorded when the ships were stripped down on speed trials and their published speeds were much higher than could be achieved in combat conditions, the RN did the opposite, while the 'design speed' of the KGVs was 27kn, they were capable of 29kn. A heavily armoured ship with smaller calibre guns has to get closer to the enemy in order to do decisive damage, but its heavy armour allows it to do so. A less well armoured ship with larger calibre guns, is more reliant on 'lucky' long range hits to do damage, before a better armoured opponent comes into shorter range, where accuracy of fire is greater. In WWII modern battleships proved difficult to sink and difficult for their vitals to be penetrated. No modern battleship was destroyed by a magazine explosion, though several old ones were (Hood and Bretagne). However, they proved quite vulnerable to having their gunnery control, armament and communications knocked out and to be rendered ineffective floating hulks - all of Bismarck's main armament and gunnery control was destroyed and the first couple of salvoes from KGV took both forward turrets of Scharnhorst out. From this, it might be construed that a larger number of smaller calibre, quicker firing, main guns might be more effective against a modern battleship than a smaller number of larger calibre, slower firing, guns.

[@gustavocabrerea1341]

Imagine being the sorry sod who knows how tanky KGV was IRL, grinding through the British BB's, and seeing the sorry state of her in game.

[@omenoftheundead7099]

-me

[@evolutionari]

I was just about to buy the ship, then decided to check KZbin. Didn't have any idea about the grind, just knew Conqueror. This is sad.

[@gustavocabrerea1341]

@@evolutionari I personally prefer KGV's premium counterpart Duke Of York. She has better AP which also has improved pen angles, has just as workable HE, and also has a 4km hydro, which is always neat to use for torpedo warning or when charging an unsuspecting DD's smoke and clapping them with 10 14inch guns. DoY was the first coal ship I ever got and I can't say I regret it. So maybe look at getting her instead. :)

[@evolutionari]

@@gustavocabrerea1341 Well I'm aiming for the Conqueror and I trained the cap with Thunderer. I just didn't want to fexp to TIX because it's harder to grind fexp after economy changes.

[@omenoftheundead7099]

@@evolutionari the tier 7 is the best of the tree for tankiness. Monarch is widely accepted the worst BB.

[@keithw4920]

It should have been buffed and moved to Tier 8. It was contemporary of the NC and SoDaks.

[@bella_ciao4608]

What do you think they should’ve done? Make the R class the tier 6 and the QE as the t7?

[@gothia6515]

@@bella_ciao4608 Or upgraded Hood sister (Admiral Class) at T7

[@baronofrhodes1185]

Contemporary in time, but not in function, speed, armor, or guns...

[@Jez3134]

@@gothia6515 As far as paper ships go, I always wanted WG to do Hood post refit

[@h.m.s.belfast4047]

@@baronofrhodes1185 She was more tanky though (more than NorCar, comparable to SoDak), comparable speed, better accuracy arguably. The only thing she is behind the two are raw AA, and gun calibre.

[@mattbowden4996]

Slight correction - the Lions were actually laid down, whereas the Monarchs represent the alternate KGV design that was rejected as it didn't confirm with the 2nd London Treaty. A such, the Lions are actually the closest thing after the KGVs to a real steel ship left in the British BB tech tree. WG made an absolute pigs ear of the KGV - the ships were tier 8 in every characteristic except the guns so surely the solution is to make her tier 8 but give her really good gun handling to make up for the small calibre, but no - WG instead decides to nerf her historical capabilities in nearly every respect in order to shoehorn her into T7.

[@jonsouth1545]

correction the Monarch design did confirm to the second treaty as the clause regarding 14-inch guns was never fully ratified it was rejected due to less room for aviation facilities although with hidesight since they ended up removing the the aviation facilities with the advent of Radar the 15-inch version was a better choice

[@mattbowden4996]

@@jonsouth1545 Nevertheless, the design was rejected because it would not conform with treaty restrictions that were anticipated to be in place.

[@mikereger1186]

@@mattbowden4996 and there’s the rub... the politicos kept pushing for naval restrictions while already expecting Japan to withdraw from them, triggering the escalation clause. It appears that in terms of shipbuilding, with the ageing fleet the Navy had to make a decision before the clause was triggered - they went for the 14” design, which was supposed to have 3x quad turrets to begin with. It was that or delay construction; and they needed new ships asap while the R-class was wearing out.

[@RichardHardslab]

I completed the British BB line, up to T6 I found they were an all around excellent ship line, just slow(like everything else at tier). But at the KGV everything changed, the guns were suddenly underpowered, the armour became lacking, and I don’t remember if it felt fast or not. First ship in the game I GXP’d through because it was so frustrating to play. Glad I did though, once you know to spam HE at range most the time the Monarch is a pretty good ship

[@Andy.Gledhill.Models.]

It should be noted that KGV in game is the pre 1944 version. In early 1944 she had the aircraft equipment removed and the ships boats relocated to the middle of the ship. Under the cranes. The old boat deck was used for more AA mounts.

[@MartyInLa]

Let's see, The King George V fought the Bismarck in real life, the entire Russian Navy never sunk anything in WW2 to the best of my knowledge correct me if I'm wrong, and most of the ships in the game were never even built like the Smolensk, the Stalingrad, all of the Soviet Aircraft Carriers, the Kremlin,.....

[@broadside5994]

Yeah only one actually built but never finished was Sov. Soyuz, and the Chapayev cruisers before the Sverdlovs

[@AUsernameWeShallMarchToKiev]

The role of Soviet submarines in WW2 is actually extremely underrated. Operating in the Baltic and near-Soviet waters, Soviet submarines effectively prevented German merchant traffic from moving through the Baltic, and were, in some cases, an early warning system for German warships moving out of port (until of course, the Engima code was broken). Also, hilariously, Pobeda is probably the most realistic of the Soviet CVs, a planned conversion of the Kronsdaht hull after WW2 ended. (Serov, Komsomolets and Nakimov are all just dreamt up by wargaming) Am I saying that the USSR TT in WoWs should be one of the largest? No, but personally I think that some of wargaming’s decisions with it are really odd, such as not including a Sverdlov-class cruiser in the tech tree, or any of the numerous cold-war era “guard ships” (like Forrest Sherman), but they should not have relied so much on fantasy designs like Kremlin, Smolensk and Nakimov. If it were up to me to design the WoWS Soviet tech tree, I would have basically everything up to tier 5 filled with pre revolution ships of the Russian empire, then not have a linear tiering system for the ships after that. (For example, a Gangut-class BB modified with the 1944 refit leads into a Kronstadt-class battle cruiser with Russians guns, then a Kronstadt with the German Bismarck guns, and then the sovestsky Soyuz to finish off the tree at tier 9, or the Krasny Krym being turned into a TT ship at tier 5 after Svietlana and then followed by a Kirov-class light cruiser, then a Project 26bis cruiser, a Kirov with better armor, then a Chapayev, ending the line at tier 9 with a Sverdlov-class cruiser) Honestly, the Soviet/Russian tech tree that wargaming has made has plenty of areas for actual ships to be added, just wargaming’s stupid “oh it has to fit the line” philosophy leads to BS ships like Petro, Nakimov, and Smolensk.

[@thejamppa]

​@@AUsernameWeShallMarchToKiev That is very true. but here´s my two cents: If we count out notorious soviet submarine S-13 and Battleship Marat, history doesn't know much of famous real steel Soviet Warship. Soviet submarines were most active part but still were largy ineffective Pacific Front, had very little impact in Black Sea and most Shucka-class submarines in Baltic Sea were lost during the war. But surface Red Banner Fleet was inactive and had far little effect than it number in vessels should have had. Mainly acted just end at the war as battle taxis or bombarding German positions but largely contribution of red Banner fleet was so miniscule, they could have not existed at all. Even Soviet Union history books famously telling heroic endevours of Red Army and Red Air force, pretty much left Red Fleet outside mentioning Baltic Fleet ships offering AA protection of St Petersburg. There's many reasons for this, but they are good documentaries and books about subject.

[@regioammiraglio7500]

WG live in another universe were soviet had a good navy

[@SapphirosCZ]

And majority of destroyers only carried as much torpedoes as they had tubes. After shooting those, they had to return to port to reload. This game has more magic than fucking WoW.

[@TheDgamesD]

I mean Roma got fucked over as well in a similar vane, one of the most Detailed and layered armor sets on her sides, as well as guns that could fire to a maximum of 42.2km, our ranging even Yamato and Iowa with only 15 inch guns. Equipped with Radar and one of the most advanced fire control systems of her time. Yet she has one of the shortest ranges at tier 8 on a BB.

[@SteelxWolf]

And some of the most random accuracy

[@gustavocabrerea1341]

*Sad Italian Noises*

[@dodgedaytona7435]

To be fair to Roma it was not the ships fault, just like in game she suffers from bad quality shells.

[@Crappyfocus]

Didn't the Italians have poor accuracy irl though

[@AUsernameWeShallMarchToKiev]

@@Crappyfocus Poor accuracy because of shell quality and the barrels overheating, but that’s not modeled in-game, it’s just not accurate.

[@irishwind1971]

Going back up the UK BBs for Research Bureau points, and on KGV right now. Since most matches are bottom tier, having the actual armor would be good. Small hit point pool but tanky armor vs tier 9s would actually be fun, AKA the doom turtles in WoT. Plus one of the reasons why the RN went with 14" guns (remember the RN kept all their 15" dreadnoughts + Hood after WW1) was the admiral in charge of gun design believed smaller caliber guns gave a higher ROF, and the ROF would allow their ships to prevail in a slug fest. Drach has a great video covering this and the other stupid reasons why the RN went with 14" guns on his channel.

[@mikereger1186]

As a reference those stupid reasons are covered well in Friedman’s books on British Battleships. Mostly down politics and trying keep down costs and maintain parity with the US.

[@ThatGuyOrby]

The sad part is the USN proved that 14" guns could be good when they rebuilt and rearmed their own ships with superior shells at the beginning of WW2, while the UK kinda just adopted a bad design philosophy for it's shells and the materials they used in shells resulting in what would ultimately become the single worst 14" gun of WW2. The USN basically made good penetrating shells with slightly smaller than average bursting charges while the RN went with ludicrously massive bursting charges at the cost of being horrible penetrators and all their battleship guns suffered from this during the war. Their 14", 15", and 16" guns were the worst penetrators of those diameters in the world during the war...ironically due to the massive bursting charges if they did penetrate they would do disproportionately high damage.

[@randomyoutubecommentersecu7639]

Vanguard is a modified ship based on the design of the lyon class which were canceled and they were fitted with older guns taken from the conversion of glorious and courageous to an aircraft carrier. It is also the last battleship ever built .

[@DarthCody700]

If they were smart they could have added Hood at teir 7 and buff up the KGV to fit at tier 8 with great armor, decent speed, and a fast reload with good he. They could still add Anson or Howe as a premium with the real armor

[@bella_ciao4608]

Nahhhh the Queen Elizabeth would’ve been fine at tier 7 with the R class at tier 6. Give it better gun handling and it’s in line with nagato.

[@drakecampbell3391]

I can see using one of her sister ships like HMS Howe as a premium down the line. Maybe they give it the high amount of armor she was supposed to have with the trade off of having the 14 inch guns with only normal ap pen and no super heal? Idk could be interesting.

[@Joshua-fi4ji]

DoY already has normal AP and is superior to KGV at T7. Has the same armour, but pre-nerf citadel hight and a few other differences. Why Howe though? Prince of Wales seems more likely than Anson or Howe, especially as a premium ship. They also have the option of naming them Beatty or Jellicoe if they so choose, so no shortage of names.

[@drakecampbell3391]

@@Joshua-fi4ji I was thinking stay historical and give it that good armor and have it be a good ship but with not alot of gimmicks. Maybe dfaa but not alot more, being at T8 it would face up to tier 10 so being back to historical armor would help and already being a he ship would help. I picked Howe since it was the last completed so would make sense for the T8 increase.

[@bella_ciao4608]

I really hope they do Prince of Wales at t8

[@mikereger1186]

@@drakecampbell3391 wasn’t Howe built without the aircraft hangar, providing more AA mounts?

[@drakecampbell3391]

@@mikereger1186 yes it also got in 1944 a huge aa package upgrade before heading to pacific

[@Gopher31]

Load HE and kite. Treat it like a big cruiser

[@gothamgoon4237]

That's pretty spot on. Totally agree with this statement.

[@user-ms4ef8xz9t]

Very true, the KGV are very underrated in armor and gun range.

[@SuperStormfury]

Another thing they got wrong was the guns. They were supposed to be essentially as powerful as 15 inch guns pen wise and had a bigger bursting charge than the iowas 16 inch guns which meant they would do more damage when it did penetrate armour. Only yamato had a bigger bursting charge and it had 18 inch guns...

[@mikereger1186]

As I said on another post - new gun design, new mountings - should have been stretching 14” gun performance as far as it could go. Wasn’t the velocity higher?

[@ThatGuyOrby]

@@mikereger1186 No, it was not. The MK VII 14"/45s of the KGV class were a conventional lower velocity design due to the fact the 16"/45 MK1s of the NelRods were such disappointments in penetrative performance. In the end the MK VII only had slightly higher velocity than the 15"/42 MK1 guns that most British capital ships used and comparable penetration. However what nobody tends to mention is that both RN 14" and 15" guns had objectively worse penetration than all USN 14" guns in service at the time. Not by much, roughly 2" of difference at all ranges.

[@h.m.s.belfast4047]

'the last real steel in the tech tree' *Cries in Vanguard.*

[@shirghazaycowboys]

80% winrate in my Duke of York. Nothing gets my jollies off more than cocksure idiots who decide to chase and then get burned to death

[@jacobstallcup8648]

I mean technically she was the heaviest dude to the fact that yamatos amour plates where of poor quality and only rivited

[@avengerXable]

more like wargaming butchered this game*

[@maxprivate9678]

true

[@rowinglove4ever]

if you have spare coal go and get the duke of yorck! the premium kink george the 5 with hydro! i love it!

[@Grabbabba]

I love the class tbh. As well as the Lyon. Great HE spammers, uptier very well for me at least. Tons of fun, always a go to for me!

[@cyberwaste]

I enjoy this ship and am happy to reset the British bb line and go through it again for research points.

[@mikehenthorn1778]

WG can't figure out or doesn't bother to due thier sums with armor and guns for WOWS. I think they used the tank code. Ship guns and armor are very high energy events. GB made some of the best armor in the world with the KM. Krupp just does steel right. The US was next and very close. Because of the Panama canal the SoDaks and Iowa's had a hard limit on beam so the belts were not vertical but inclined 19° or so. They also used SST steel for the hull that in effect made a decapping plate so AP shells would lose penetration ability. Making them very hard to damage at anything over point blank ranges. The Yamamoto also had an incline belt but it was softer steel by intent as they wanted more ductile armor because they were expecting underwater hits. The KG5 like Bismarck were looking at shorter ranges ( refighting Jutland maybe, or the north sea is choppier than the Pacific) so fast guns and armor design for that engagement.

[@mikereger1186]

The shorter ranges part is off. The RN was wary that newer ships built by foreign navies were achieving longer gun ranges, which would make it easier for them to force an engagement and leave older RN ships unable to return fire until the range was closer. If you look at the rebuilds of Warspite, Queen Elizabeth, Valiant and Renown you’ll see that the 15” mounts were all modified to increase maximum elevation and increase range - it was for this very reason.

[@MesCaLiN21]

Total weight of the King George V. armour was 12.410 tons, Bismarck 19.082 tons. Yes it was thicker at most parts but not all in all.

[@Pensect]

Bismark was the larger vessel not the best comparison to make.

[@adamtruong1759]

Probably due to the "turtle back" armour scheme, including the internal belt, it would've added armour to almost everywhere like having a upper belt. While the "All-or-Nothing" put lots of protection on the vital parts of the ship, while pretty much nothing anywhere else (however, most if not all ships which used this scheme didn't have a purely AoN as there was some protection to non vital space, mostly splinter protection, maybe small gun caliber protection.)

[@JohnPaul_kun]

it's funny that I actually found this out before watching this video on an anime-type game/ shipgirls and was surprised that KGV has that good of an armor that can be compare to yamato's armor and I often wonder if KGV would have been more know if she also get really big guns

[@f0rth3l0v30fchr15t]

TBF, the Iowa class ships only have splinter protection on the sailing bridge, too. You'd need to armour all the way up (or at least have significant structural reinforcement to take the weight), and the additional weight so far above the deck could potentially negatively impact seakeeping.

[@f0rth3l0v30fchr15t]

@@Musashi_460 The conning tower isn't the sailing bridge, genius. If it helps, the ailing bridge has *windows*.

[@andrewcox4386]

Lion was actually laid down while Monarch was purely a paper design so if any of the upper tier BBs are semi-real it should be Lion.

[@adamtruong1759]

With the whole thing about the conning towers, it could protect the crew from splinters, maybe smaller main naval guns, but with the larger weapons it couldn't, but not for the reasons you might think. I heard that if a sizeable shell hits that tiny little box, through either shrapnel or the shell itself hitting would make everything in minced barbecue (where I got this, it was a in one Drach's drydock videos, not sure which one as there's +200 of them). And going back on it being a tiny box high up in the ship, it's a pretty hard target to hit (or rather SHOULD be as for some reason in nearly every battleship engagement in WW2 all the shells hit everywhere except the protected sections of the ships) which in that case it's just a waste of perfectly good armour. So anyway, if you're to have a conning tower, splinter protection is probably that most bang-for-your-buck, otherwise any serious hit on it you might as well be on the unprotected bridge. That's all.

[@Moon_Cricket_Stinks]

In fairness this is exactly why you can't have both historical accuracy and balance in the same game. It's an incompatible pair. This is why I kinda like an indie ship game where the dev is doing it by era instead of tier. By forcing all ships into a specific time period you can add historical accuracy and balance comes from players figuring out how to best use their ships instead of being given via mechanic. This is also why I stand by my statement that best balance games are designer games (like sprocket, ultimate admiral dreadnought, or navalart). Then the balance is how good or bad you made it vs others. I kinda wish for games like this they did what battlestations did and not go for historical accuracy but make it fun.

[@Smenkhaare]

I have every game on your list except for Dreadnaught. Excellent games and you are very good in your assessments. Games like WoW and WoT that supposedly go for historical accuracy are very bad at it. Too see real steel ships get sich underwhelming reps while the Soviet Navy which was mostly pure garbage getting such high reps ingame is very disappointing. It is so bad that I absolutely refuse to play any Soviet ships and I sold my entire line two years ago. Enjoy it those that like them. For me Soviet ships are not an option.

[@maxjohn6012]

Just unlocked this, had my eye on it literally since I started playing the game, thinking "There's a *proper* battleship!" Without the internal upgrades I have to say I was disappointed, but I decided it was going to be a long old time before I got to the Monarch so I went and spent my free XP researching the hull and propulsion. Only took her out for a couple of games but man, very nice. I feel like I'm slowly starting to get the hang of positioning my BBs and I think I'm going to enjoy sitting at Tier VII with the KGV :)

[@issacfoster1113]

When the one of the only Historical ww2 BBs you made sucks lol

[@kodiak0112]

Isn’t the armor schemes of the Nelson poorly represented in game as well?

[@bairdrew]

The armour scheme of every real British ship, several American and Japanese, and a few of the Italian ships are poorly represented.

[@ThatGuyOrby]

The Arizona, North Carolina, South Dakota, and Iowa are also poorly represented. All of which are given significantly nerfed decks and are completely missing their numerous bulkheads.

[@bairdrew]

@@ThatGuyOrby aye they're some of who I was referring to. But at least they don't have their "citadel" on the outside of the ship. That's just ridiculous

[@ThatGuyOrby]

@@bairdrew Indeed, I would say in that regard Nelson (who you mentioned) and Vanguard are probably screwed the hardest.

[@francischambless5919]

Can't forgive WG for what they did to my Nagato. It's barely a shadow of what it was in the first 2 years.

[@Frankon81]

Nowadays AA rating means nothing. Usually its just a random number ^^

[@BrotherGames75794]

I looked at the penetration capability of the kgv gun and bismarck gun, At 0 m the penetration of bismarcks gun is 742 mm and KGV gun being 729mm At 18,000m bismarcks gun 419 mm and KGV gun 389 mm Since the gun is 14 inch, she has exceptional penetration for that caliber size

[@gordonsmith4884]

WG forgot to put the armour on the KGV's second only to Yamato. Still, not russian so that's fair.

[@BAZZA453]

if that had been a russian ship she would have been overpowered the KGV is a legend and also the LION class two of them were layed down and quite a bit of work was done on the hulls I know this because I had two old uncles who worked on one of them they got the basis of there design off of the HMS ANSON which was a KGV class

[@ThatGuyOrby]

The bit on the KGV's protection is a bit misleading Sea Lord. It did have the second thickest armor belt, not the second best protection. It's armor belt was impressive but where other ships like the Iowa Class, USN Standards, Japanese Yamato Class, and Italian Littorio classes had great subdivision and extra layers of thick armor beyond the belt...the KGV's did not have much internal armor nor great subdivision despite their good arrangement. They had the second thickest armor belt, not the second best armor overall. Every ship I mentioned previously had superior all around armor protection (save the as-built Standards, they however did mostly receive almost complete rebuilds post Pearl harbor), I can provide numbers should you be interested.

[@ThatGuyOrby]

For reference, KGV's armor profile at it's thickest consisted of: Vertical (side) armor: -Main Belt: 356-381mm (356mm over machinery, 381mm over magazines) -Bulkheads: 1x 44mm -Splinter Protection: 38mm -Total protection: 438-463mm Horizontal (deck) armor: -Upper Deck: 25mm -Main Deck: 127-152mm (127mm over machinery, 152mm over magazines) -Splinter Protection: 38mm -Total protection: 190-215mm This is not bad protection, but it's far from world class. Let's take one of the USN's oldest battleships in service in 1942 (post Pearl Harbor) for example, the recently rebuilt USS Pennsylvania of the same class as USS Arizona (commissioned 1916). Vertical (side) armor: -External Torpedo Blister (covered the entirety of the side hull amidships): 26mm -Main Belt: 343mm -Armored "turtleback": 51mm inclined at 30 degrees, 102mm effective thickness -Bulkheads: 1x 6mm, 2x 38mm, 1x 19mm, 1x 76mm (note from 1929-1931 Pennsylvania received 5 additional bulkheads of unknown thickness which will not be included because, again, their thickness is unknown) -Total protection: 661mm Horizontal (deck) armor: -Upper Deck: 44mm -Armor Decks: 2x 38mm laminated on 13mm mounting plates -Splinter Protection: 38mm laminated on a 13mm mounting plate -Total Protection: 197mm Quality difference (QPT = Quality Per Thickness): The quality difference only really plays enough of a factor to give the KGV an advantage Horizontal Protection as that is where the two ships are closely matched. Regardless of the fact that the majority of Pennsylvania's side armor was WW1 Era USN steel the thickness is too much for quality to offset. The problem KGV faces in this regard is that Pennsylvania's Horizontal armor was replaced by WW2 era USN STS and Class B during his rebuild. Meaning the difference in quality isn't staggering. KGV's Vertical Protection was made up of almost entirely "KNC" steel (Average British Krupp Non-Cemented Armor, if you want to go by it's full name) with a quality of 0.95 QPT KGV's Horizontal Protection was made up of almost entirely "NCA" steel (Average British Post 1930 Non-Cemented Armor, if you want to go by it's full name) with a quality of 1.00 QPT Pennsylvania's Vertical Protection was entirely made up of USN WW1 Era Class A armor with a quality of 0.889 QPT. Pennsylvania's Horizontal Protection was made up almost entirely of USN WW2 Era Class B steel with a quality of, again, 1.00 QPT. Final Effective Thickness Totals (counting quality, amounts will be reduced to fit their quality): KGV Vertical: 416-440mm KGV Horizontal: 190-215mm Pennsylvania Vertical: 588mm Pennsylvania Horizontal: 197mm Advantage: Vertical: Pennsylvania By: 148mm Horizontal: KGV By: 18mm Overall I'd say rather bluntly that the Rebuilt USS Pennsylvania was better protected by quite a margin. While it's important to note such ridiculous levels of armor wouldn't be found in the newer battleships of the NC, SD, or Iowa classes they still overall had comparable protection in most regards, and flat out superior deck armor.

[@ThatGuyOrby]

Man, looks like I really went through a hell of a lot of effort to provide a bunch of info nobody wanted. Hoorah.

[@adamtruong1759]

@@ThatGuyOrby Huh, that's interesting.

[@ThatGuyOrby]

@@adamtruong1759 I thought so too, though it seems that sentiment is rare.

[@adamtruong1759]

@@ThatGuyOrby You've successfully put two ships I really like against each other, and I can't tell which ship I should be biased towards.

[@Jkend199]

The armor isn't the problem, the gunz are the problem, and it's not that their small. The gunz have terrible vertical dispersion, absolutely terrible. the horizonal dispersion isn't really to bad, the vertical dispersion is laughable. Do you know how often I've played the Duke, or the KGV and had a completely broadside battleship at 11-12 km, and had every single shell failed to hit waterline, what should have been 25k, or more turns into a laughable 3k, of the 10 shells literally 5 derp into the water, 2 go high and miss entirely and 3 more hit the upper belt... The vertical dispersion on these ships make them completely unplayable.

[@maxprivate9678]

keep on refreshing and watch the veiws go up

[@Kenny212_2]

correction SLM, the guns on the prince of wales were installed and ready, but the crew were still training with them, and they malfunctioned.

[@zander8752]

Also happens to catch fire so easily that you'd think that they had laid gasoline on the deck

[@bullreeves1109]

Hopefully we can get the Prince of Wales as a tier 8 Premium. KGVs deserve to be at a tier that shows their true potential.

[@mikereger1186]

A bit hard on Duke of York, which was completed later...

[@issacfoster1113]

This ship is good if it's in the enemy team tho. You can just chunk it easily.

[@pegasusted2504]

I must say, that Ognevoi certainly lived up to it's captains name :~)

[@skipper4126]

KGV was second too the Yamato as BB's go with armour protection, had modern bulk heads for flooding protection and gun turrets that were designed for 15 inch guns, guns changed to 14 inch but the breaches carried the same charge.. Wargaming: Okay, we'll take away armour and make the AP garbage. If that wasn't bad enough they even raised the citadel to make the KGV and all royal navy bb's easier to crack on broadside, which is hilarious because they get citadeled through the bow and stern too

[@WizavPRO]

Few days ago I've encountered one KGV with my Musashi ... 30k, 30k :D :D poor soul

[@dutchthespitfire3204]

The Yamato and Bismarck class were the 2 best overall armoured ships but KGV could be one of those aswell

[@logannicholson1850]

@@dutchthespitfire3204 Bismarck had a terrible armour scheme due to her outdated turtleback, she also had various important systems outside her main armoured citadel there was a reason nobody else had a turtleback.

[@dutchthespitfire3204]

@@logannicholson1850 Which does not do anything against my point Still the Bismarck class was the second most armoured ship class in ww2, even tho its scheme was pretty bad

[@bairdrew]

@@dutchthespitfire3204 Him pointing out the flaws of Bismarck's armour scheme absolutely does do something against your point. To wit, it ruins it. Avaunt thee, wehraboo. Go and learn something about boats.

[@Nidhoggrr]

Good ol WG. Continuously brags about its historical accuracy despite mostly just doing whatever the fuck they want to do. Remember everyone WG can do no wrong as long as they ignore that anything is wrong.

[@vadimanochin]

You will be sent to the Gulag if you say that Lesta does not like English ships. ) And battleships in particular. )

[@momchilgradinarov6428]

Please don't call them signatures, its called signatories when part of some agreement.

[@mossda123]

My grandfather served on HMS Anson and was present In tokyo harbour when the Japanese surrendered

[@hornm67]

And then wargaming claims everything should be historically correct, this is not the only ship they butchered for gaming balance. the tier 2 german cruiser is armed in real life with torpedo's and not ingame.

[@admiraloscar3320]

In generel, wargaming has done a big disservice to the royal navy

[@andrewrodrigo7938]

6:57 nice 😂😂👌🏻🇬🇧

[@dagucka]

The KGV is still the best ship in the whole line except for conquerer.

[@Joshua-fi4ji]

Iron Duke and Queen Elizabeth are pretty good. Lions got a nice hull, just the dispersion let's it down. Always thought it'd be nice to have a premium lion with good AP and dispersion.

[@Crappyfocus]

The monarch is such pain I never made it to conq or lion

[@marlenestockton2269]

lost 7 of 10 Random's with the 'George' to start with...we haven't played it for nearly 2 years now. Don't miss it all.

[@SkyRaider-31]

Think you could do a video on the French battleship lyon? I know wargaming had a choice between what design to use but everytime I look at the ship it just dosnt seem right.

[@imperialkain4838]

I just bought the damn thing! Well, now I know what to expect i guess

[@MrEyescream]

Right now im at the KGV and really loving this ship, but im afraid to go to the Monarch since i heared she palys very different. (in a worse way)

[@jackwardley3626]

they were the second best protected battleship ever if it wasnt for treaty's they would have the mark 2 16inch gun possibly even a 18inch

[@squirepraggerstope3591]

It's a bit more complicated than that, but even our habitually incompetent (C20th-and-on) establishment class parasites had/have very occasional bursts of sane realism. In this case, the outcome would then have been the far more timely development of the 16"/45 cal. gun eventually developed instead for the projected Lion Class ships. The 1st (Mkii) variant of that weapon would've then been fitted on modified KG5s via use of the same escalator clause in the London Treaty as the US invoked to up-gun the two North Carolinas. Though given the British still prioritising very high levels of protection, the KG5s would likely still have seen a reduction in the number of barrels in the superfiring 'B' Turret to two and so emerged with much the same armour plan, but a 8 x 16"/45 cal main battery vs the NCs (then 'SoDaks') 9 x 16"/45 cal.

[@renown16]

this ship had the heavier broadside than all tier 8 ships appart from the american and italian ships.

[@samuelju2]

The whole RN bb line is pretty miserable. Paper thin armor + trash dispersion + basically useless AP.

[@mattbowden4996]

Obviously. These are real ships with storied careers and significant achievements to their names - of course WG would make them all trash, otherwise we might want to play them instead of the Sci-fi/Fantasy section that is the Soviet line...

[@Smenkhaare]

@@mattbowden4996 This....Soviet ships are very much like a Sci-Fi game.

[@mossa216]

I did not enjoy my time with this ship at all, love how she looks but urgh, feels like your farting at the enemies general direction firing her guns.

[@beardumaw24]

Leave it to WG to fu*k things up. British bbs were some of the tougher bbs out there, Russian bbs never even fought anything. I have and enjoy the KGV should have better armor though. It a Russian game though so I guess that makes it historically accurate, 😆 LOL

[@gstormcz]

The ship I found to make my story ingame, at least one funny match with my div mate. King George V. Old Eagle is racing in DD Skane, with battle I must call him, sir, my guns on command the two ships are steered by the Eagle, he spots me boldly, big caliber I have to shoot carefully, I'll shoot a battleship, hit by fire, bring me cup of coffee, The eagle got into a firefight, I catch nightingales on the sea, protect me with the fire of your three hundred fifty sixes. The eagle flees now like a frail doe, I currently have empty main chambers, dodge the fire a few more times, 25 seconds fast charging, I am aiming DD in the distance, burn burn burn and burn some more, in 8 seconds the enemy was laughing, at twelve kilometres, King George spread too big for worry, 5 shells missed, one hit and no glory, Captain Eagle has the damage report, He wants a victory and big points from the battle, we ran out of torpedoes, sir, fire from both two turrets, the front one is destroyed and the back one is on fire, what the hell is still working here, Captain Eagle laments aloud, engine room, I want thirty-seven knots there within a minute, let's get out of range of that Japanese bastard, engine room reports critical flooding, just so they know on the bridge The Eagle shouts angrily: "So we fucked it up." Skane is swaying motionless in waves a torpedo made in Japan towards them flying, asks for fire support from King George, my cannons are now aiming up, Akizuki is sadly out of sight, float the torpedo in the lifeboat, The Eagle wets its wings, I lament. "Thank you very much, my friend. In thirty seconds you have to destroy the destroyer, next time try to aim accurately on command.'' (I am sorry for not perfect eng grammar and terms, it is quick translation)

[@gothamgoon4237]

Monarch is the worst tier 8 bb in game bar none. The KGV is ok at tier 7. Not great but not bad. Just so so. Mainly holds it's own because of that British HE.

[@roho10011]

Thickness of belt does not equal overall level of protection.

[@moksq42]

My favourite bb. Kinda hard, sad and frustrating playing her...

[@_pooopet_18_3]

Am i the only one concerned about him running magazine protection mod or however it is called and juliet charlie flag?

[@monkeyrater]

nice, no intro, dont have to scrub the slider

[@mr.skully8787]

is it worth it ?

[@RasmusDyhrFrederiksen]

Great video.

[@Seahorn_]

35 seconds into the video and youhave a Jingles moment. Vanguard is the last real existing battleship in the tech tree. (back to school Dave 😁) ps: before I get detention, am aware it is a premium and not officially in the tech tree line, but I like to nitpick on the word "line" 😇

[@chaosacsend9653]

He did mention vanguard being launched after the war

[@maxprivate9678]

still toxic with HE though

[@gothamgoon4237]

Totally. HE is toxic in the whole game regardless of what ship is throwing it. Said it countless times, HE is so overpowered it waters my eyes.

[@cutterbacon]

Bloody hell looked forward to this ship after hood and its crap. Cost me 100 odd k xp and its kinda meh. It feels squishy and the ap is kinda bad. Hood is a thousand times better.

[@malguskerensky]

Constructive criticism, you may want to re-listen to your video around the 9:00 - 10:15 mark. You use various forms of: again, however, however again a couple of times and it is something I've heard throughout many of your videos. May be a scripting thing or just a verbal tick to give yourself a second to think about the next line (similar to people using um in conversations). :)

[@britishgaminglivingthedrea5148]

I would say all British ships in the game are pretty weak. When you look at the other ships they made the British the worst fleet in strength in guns and armour. When I look at the other ships they have all sorts put on them but the British ships like the Belfast with no extra health.

[@cerneysmallengines]

I'm second

[@Fish1701A]

and so proud of you we are

[@maxprivate9678]

@@Fish1701A haha

[@kebobs3727]

The fact that they're letting this ship continue to be so disgustingly strong baffles me to this day

[@evanleo7633]

KGV actually has mediocre armor, the armor belt is not sloped , sloped armor makes a huge difference

[@BrbWifeYelling]

It does but it also makes construction of the ship and any repairs required much more complex. How effective an inclined belt is would also depend on the range and angle of fall of the incoming shells. The RN and USN came to the conclusion that an inclined belt wasn’t really worth the effort hence why it wasn’t used on Vanguard and on the designs for the Montana class.

[@evanleo7633]

@@BrbWifeYelling no, Montana has 19 degree sloped armor just like other USN BB, the reason RN used vertical mounted armor is they have found out at extremely close range the incoming shell will bounce off of the water and flying upward hitting the slope armor right on, so they went with vertical armor but it turns out shell bounce off water practically never happened

[@BrbWifeYelling]

@@evanleo7633 indeed you’re correct - touché. I was confusing an internal belt and inclined belt. I do think it would be wrong to describe the KGV as poorly armoured though.

[@evanleo7633]

@@BrbWifeYelling got it, I don’t think KGV is badly armored but to be fair it’s not very good too, it’s about average, on the same level of Bismarck the French BB and slightly worse than Iowa and Veneto , and definitely no match to Yamato, hence the term mediocre,armor thickness alone can’t be the only determine factor of armor protection

[@arczer2519]

@@BrbWifeYelling by WW2 flat armor when boardside doesn't scale at all until you reach 25-30km, every 10 degree you have shaves 10km from that meaning that 19-20° degree gives you scaling effect as close even as 10km. problem with sloped belt is extra complexity (harder and costlier to build) along with messing with torpedo protection since belt bites into it.

[@maxprivate9678]

first 140 veiws!!

[@CMDRFandragon]

KGV is absolute ass. Its the reason I quit WoWS back in 2017. I just couldnt with that ship. Guns cant pen, armor is non existant......I wanted to like it but christ is it ass. An AI Atago in pve coop utterly demolished my ass with guns alone, cuz I couldnt cause any damage. Every shot was dmg or a fire.....KGV is a total joke.

[@drdrumbeat3010]

They butchered the game, you think they give a damn about a singular ship ?

[@WizavPRO]

Duke of York and KGV are POS trash, very bad ships IMHO

[@paulrasmussen8953]

Better then Monarch

[@WizavPRO]

@@paulrasmussen8953 I've stopped playing at KGV and York :D

[@gothamgoon4237]

@@WizavPRO Just as well because after the KGV you have the Monarch to look forward to. If you thought the KGV was mediocre at best you ain't seen nothing until you try that miserable pile of sheep shit Monarch. Now that really is a BAD ship. You'd do better in a row boat with a bb gun.

[@danh7411]

Trash in what sense?

[@stazbloodlad339]

sry but Bismarck was better protected than King George

[@mattbowden4996]

Nope, not even nearly. Try reading some books rather than learning your history from fan pages and memes.

[@gothamgoon4237]

@@mattbowden4996 It's not that cut and dry. They had such incredibly different layouts of armour for very different circumstances. One isn't really better then the other. Bismark would have the advantage in a direct close in fight thanks to it's vertical armour but KGV would have an advantage at long range which is slightly negated by the Bismarks slightly better guns and vastly superior rangefinders. Down side of the German 10 metre rangefinders is they tended to be somewhat fragile and could be easily knocked out while the 6 metre rangefinders on the KGV were fare more stoutly built and could take some punishment, but weren't as accurate as the German rangefinder. You also have a somewhat sloppy British gunnery at the first stages of the war thanks to cutbacks from WW1 which continued to have an effect well into 1942 until corrected. The Germans spent all their time training on gunnery practice, coupled with their superior rangefinders meant at the beginning stages of combat the German's did have a distinct advantage. What the German's lacked slightly compared the the British was that horizontal armour which is funny in way because it's the exact opposite when you start talking British Battlecruisers like the Hood which vastly lacked the horizontal armour. That's why the British lost so many at Jutland in WW1 and that design flaw was carried in the Hood.

[@BrbWifeYelling]

@@gothamgoon4237 Hood was not deficient in horizontal armour, it just used an old layered style of armoured deck - ironically the exact same as Bismarck. She was not destroyed by a deck penetration, it is physically impossible.

[@Joshua-fi4ji]

@@gothamgoon4237 Bismarck was a very poor and inefficient design. Was she powerful? Yes, but only because she was big and everyone else was somewhat sticking to treaty limits. It's easily explained when you realise how much experience and technology the Germans lost in designing ships after ww1. Bismarcks distributed armour scheme was pretty much worse in any realistic engagement than the all or nothing scheme everyone else was using by this point. KGV was well designed and the most well protected battleship per tonne built, and the 2nd best protected total. Distributed armour schemes were an outdated concept by the 2nd WW. Distributed was much more useful in the days of pre-dreadnaughts, when you had to worry about lots of smaller calibre rounds hitting your ship. The guns initial temperamentality on KGVs was due to the complexity of the quad gun design and the 14" gun calibre was due to doctrine and the London Naval Treaty combined, although a larger gun would have been appreciated. Aside from Indefatigable which was very lightly armoured, the battlecruisers at Jutland were lost as a result of cordite handling and storage issues and not just a lack of armour. It's also worth noting that HMS New Zealand was able to take a hell of a beating, despite being an Indefatigable class which were the most lightly armoured battlecruisers ever built. The British accuracy issues in WW1 were due to poor peacetime habits developed by officers and a lack of opportunity to train during the war. This was mostly just and issue with the battlecruisers and didn't carry on into WW2 for the most part. Also the AP shell used throughout WW1 was faulty and basically functioned like a HE shell as a result. Hood had plenty of armour, being equivalent in thickness to QE. It was less effective due to it being layered, but it still should have been enough. It is likely (but not certain) that the shot which suck Hood hit under the armour belt due to unique characteristics of the ship under speed and set off a chain reaction. It would have been a freak shot no matter how accurate the German gunnery was. And that area if the ship was not always exposed. Hood still had it's original fire control and was way out of date. Combined with misidentifying Bismarck and Prinz Eugen, it took much longer to dial in the range. Prince of Wales came almost straight from the slipway, skipping trials. She had expected issues and quad turrets are complex and temperamental. This isn't exactly a representation of a fully worked up and in service KGV. The accuracy was pretty decent on these ships once the issues were resolved. Horizontal armour had no impact in either engagement as the range was never long enough for the deck to possible be penetrated. Horizontal armour was more important for worrying about bombs, and even then Tall Boys and such will go through any realistic amounts of armour. US superheavy shells were designed to pen deck armour, but just like mortars they are too slow and easy for a moving target to avoid at the required range. Sorry if I've rambled a bit.

[@MesCaLiN21]

@@Joshua-fi4ji Armour weight: King George V. 12.410 tons, Bismarck 19.082 Armour/t KGV 12410/40000 = 0.31 Bismarck 19082/41000 = 0.46 aka KGV 31% of weight is armour, Bismarck astonishing 46%. Btw the King George V. violated the 2nd London Naval Treaty with over 35.000 tons.

[@johnporteous2828]

WoW is not at fault here- the KGVs just weren't very good ships.

[@mikereger1186]

Unfair. They were 1930s Treaty era ships built to comply with restrictions that turned out to be complete bollocks. At every step of design, the weight restriction and design specs forced the designers to make compromises that should never have been made. What they *did* manage to build were compact ships capable of surviving a mauling, with fair endurance and with relatively serviceable guns, albeit at a smaller shell size. More importantly, these ships had the latest radar sets fitted - something that frequently gets overlooked but which makes a phenomenal difference in target acquisition and fire control. I’d argue that Duke of York’s performance vs Scharnhorst at the Battle of the North Cape demonstrates that she could shoot straight, *even at night in heavy weather*.