Hi everyone!
In previous editions we told aspiring captains
everything we could about the main warship types in the game.
Now it's time to present the countries that will clash in naval battles.
And we begin today with the United States of America.
The history of navies is primarily a history of large sea battles.
Major engagements of the 20th century took place in the Pacific and Atlantic oceans.
English and German ships tested each other's strength in random encounters in the Atlantic.
Meanwhile, the Pacific hosted the largest naval battles of World War II,
where the mightiest warships of the Japanese fleet confronted the equally strong U.S. Navy.
When we choose which ships to introduce to the game, we rely on history first of all.
In this respect, ensuring U.S. warships were included in the first batch seemed only logical,
as the Americans had one of the most powerful fleets during World War II.
As a matter of fact, we chose the American research tree
because most of its ships had existed in real life.
The U.S. constructed the largest number of ships during our target time period.
France, Britain, the USSR and the Russian Empire, Germany,
and even Japan-none of these countries managed to bring so many projects to life.
Regardless of their class, American warships were always durable and strong.
They carried powerful primary and dual-purpose artillery,
as well as effective anti-aircraft armaments.
Destroyers had four or five dual-purpose 127 mm (5 in) guns aboard.
They were the best artillery systems of World War II with a rate of fire of 15 rounds per minute.
U.S. cruisers were fast and well-armed, meaning they could firmly stand against the enemy.
But they had to rely on their guns only, because at some point the U.S. Navy
decided to stop installing torpedo tubes on cruisers.
In the beginning new ships were descendants of the armored cruisers
that were built before and shortly after the Battle of Tsushima.
Later, American engineers designed scout cruisers
that evolved into the Omaha-class, an inter-war period cruiser.
…Then the U.S. Navy suddenly gave up on torpedoes.
One day they were making torpedo cruisers,
and the next day they abandoned the design and decided to arm cruisers only with artillery guns…
Anyway, players will see further development of the U.S. heavy cruiser's tree.
They will get a chance to play with such ships as New Orleans, Baltimore, and the mighty Des Moines.
The next class in the U.S. tech tree is battleships.
They are multi-purpose ships with a long life span, good fire protection, and excellent battle readiness
For a long time, U.S. battleships were limited by the width of the Panama Canal,
meaning they had a smaller total displacement and a narrower armor belt.
However, players will have the opportunity to evaluate the development
of this class while progressing from level to level in the game.
When composing tech trees we look at the scope of the ships' parameters.
We try to determine how good they were in real life and on which Tier they should be placed.
The thing is, we know how naval construction was evolving over the years,
we know about the most powerful ships ever created,
and we know more or less when and how it all started.
This information allows us to set limits to our work,
and we try to arrange all the ships within these limits depending on their power.
This way we can assure a systematic progression throughout the tech tree.
As a matter of fact, the first U.S. battleships were just big overgrown armored cruisers,
USS Michigan is a great example of this.
As players level up, they will unlock more advanced ships with higher speeds and thicker armor
Near the top of the U.S. battleship tech tree we placed the famous USS Iowa, of course.
However, another ship managed to climb to the top of the list-USS Montana,
a triumph of American battleship engineering.
She was never constructed in real life,
but our players have a unique chance to play with it at Tier X.
Yes, we plan to add ships that were never built,
so called “paper ships”,
including those from the U.S.
We consult naval archives all over the world to find interesting ship
designs that were abandoned for one reason or another, never making it to the shipyard.
We thoroughly study the blueprints and bring these ships to life in the game.
The Montana class is a completely different story!
She was meant to become the pinnacle of the U.S. fleet.
The Navy ordered five ships of this type.
We are talking about an enormous number of guns
and anti-aircraft armaments, very thick armor, and a huge crew.
However, three years later U.S.Navy
command realized that aircraft carriers
held the key to naval supremacy and canceled the order.
Enthusiasts still argue about which class of battleship was stronger:
Montana or Yamato.
Who would prevail in a face-to-face engagement?
I've always wondered how it would turn out in real life.
In fact, our players will have the opportunity to discover it for themselves.
It's really difficult to distinguish any ship class of the U.S. tech tree.
They have good destroyers, good cruisers, good battleships, and good aircraft carriers.
I might even say that their aircraft carriers are the most powerful among the same class of ships.
I think they would be the most dangerous adversary of all the ships that existed in real life.
U.S. aircraft carriers carried considerably large air groups
and could deliver a powerful, massive strike.
The thing is that by the end of World War II
the Americans managed to build the best aircraft carrier in the world -
USS Midway.
No other ship could match her.
She carried more than 100 planes and had huge dimensions allowing her to deploy all that power.
It is arguably the most powerful class of all the U.S. ships.
They were so good that they even carried jet fighter planes after only a partial modernization.
Will we see them in the game-that's another question.
Every class of the U.S. tech tree has its specifics and purpose.
That's why in certain combat situations any of the classes may have the advantage on the battlefield.
It is this specific trait that will define your tactics.
If you choose a warship from the U.S. Navy,
you will have to consider its distinctive features and use these against the enemy.
The Americans put their hope in artillery guns.
It's only natural that the combat strategy must be built around this concept.
The Japanese Navy concentrated on increasing the torpedo armament of their cruisers,
while U.S. engineers gradually turned cruisers into scaled-down battleships.
They are well-protected and well-armed vehicles that are easy to master.
Players don't need to think how to force their way through a barrage fire,
getting close enough to the enemy to launch torpedoes.
Nor do they need to calculate the target lead
to ensure their torpedo spread hits an enemy battleship some 15 km away.
And if the enemy makes evasive maneuvers, the torpedoes are wasted
U.S. cruisers are much simpler than that,
you just have to point your guns and fire.
As a ship's Tier increases, players will get the opportunity to impose their own combat tactics
thanks to better characteristics such as higher speed, thicker armor, and improved range of fire.
During the early stages of the game, you can simply choose a ship to your liking.
It's not that important whether a player chooses an American ship
or a Japanese ship, or a ship of some other nation.
What's more important in the beginning of the game
is that players try ships of different nations and classes,
and decide on their favorite.
They get to choose their own game style.
As they progress through the game,
they will discover a multitude of details that affect their choice even more.
Americans are good and Japanese are good.
And every subsequent nation added to the game will be good as well.
As you try playing with ships from different tech trees,
you will discover that no naval nation has a decisive advantage.
They all have their strengths and weaknesses.