This is just merely a concept written up by myself, WG has made no statements to suggest this will in fact be implemented. My forum thread on the subject can be found here: http://forum.worldofwarships.com/index.php?/topic/119711-enhancing-or-fixing-the-grozovoi-game-play-experience/
As it stands, as most people can agree, the Grozovoi, after the loss of its super AA, has become somewhat… redundant. Anything she can do other ships can do better, and as such, could use some mixing up to her statistics, and I personally have one that could give a superbly unique feature to her. Granted, her RoF buff in 0.6.3.0 is reducing her reload from 5 seconds to 4.3 seconds, which does give her a slight edge, but that will only give her a better RoF then the Khabarovsk (5s) and Shimakaze. (6s)
I would like to see optional main armament, with a particular turret design in mind. As it stands, the Grozovoi has been equipped by WG the 130 mm/58 SM-2-1 turret, an appropriate turret choice to fit the schematic design Project 40n, which calls for a twin, dual purpose 130mm gun.
Now, I am sure we can agree, World of Warships is a bit of an alternate universe, one where all these designed/proposed ship designs were actually built. The turret I have in mind, if it had been built, and considered a successful design, I could image the russian navy replacing the 130 mm/58 SM-2-1 of the Grozovoi, and other similarly weighted dual purpose weapons on other ships.
The Turret which I have in mind is the BL-127, a quad barreled 100mm/70 gun turret;
The BL-127 was a turret designed to replace/upgrade installations of the SM-5 turret, which was present as the secondary armament on five Chapaev class and twenty Sverdlov class (Pr.68bis) cruisers. (In-game, we see the turret present on the Mikhail Kutuzov, the upgraded Chapeyev, and the upgraded Dmitri Donskoi) The BL-127 used the same identical gun barrels, fired the same ammunition, without adding a significant amount of weight to the ship.
Why use this turret as an optional armament?
Well, it would give a significant difference in just how she plays, something unique, to distinguish her from her counterparts. No other ship would be like it, and I doubt there would ever be another, which is the point. When you have many different options on which tech trees to go down, why would someone pick the Grozovoi? unless she receives her OP AA again, there is nothing remarkable about the ship at all. Now, as for why I have chosen this turret in particular, I believe it could remain balanced for a number of reasons.
Firstly, you downgrade your gun caliber to upgrade the quantity of fire power per volley. The BL-127 turret, on paper atleast, supposedly retained the same 4 seconds reload that the SM-5 turrets had, now, WG can make changes on this front for balance reasons, perhaps 4.3 to keep it inline with the SM-2-1 turrets the Grozovoi allready has. Which brings me to the point in that because this turret was never built or tested, WG can modify its stats to their hearts content to make it balanced.
The gameplay would more resemble that of the Akizuki, the only DD in the game currently armed with 100mm guns. From playing her notable qualities/quirks of a 100mm guns is, for example, HE is not too effective against other DDs, making the sole case where switching to AP for shooting DDs the right thing. Just like any other DD, these 100mm guns would be quite the fire starter, I personally suggest a 4% chance for fire, as that would give the 12 gun broadside fire chance to set fire of 48%, which is average amongst the other T10 DD broadsides.
Would such a turret swap physically work?
In my personal opinion, yes, for the short answer at least. The long answer? Well, The SM-5-1, the turret the BL-127 was designed to replace, weighs 45.8 metric tons, the BL-127 turret however weighs 66 metric tons. This was, according to the engineers, not a problem and would not require any severe changes to the cruisers to implement this change. Now that is out of the way, the SM-2-1, which the Grozovoi is currently equipped with, weighs 57.3 metric tons. This means to have all 3 of these turrets replaced with the BL-127 would increase the weight of the Grozovoi by 26.1 metric tons. In-game, the Grozovoi currently weighs in grand total 3,849 tons. (I do not know if that is metric or standard tons) thus the increase on weight would be less then 0.7% weight increase to the ship. So for the tonnage concern, the weight increase is negligible. As for the width of the barbette, the BL-127 was designed to have one that is 3.95 meters wide, as the SM-2-1, I cannot find the data on that front. But I would assume it is similar, and if such a circumstance had occurred in the alternate reality that WoWS exists in, a minor difference on turret ring size would be an easily retrofitted change. Both the SM-2-1 and BL-127 are tri-axled turrets, so the mounting should be compatible with minor modifications. The ammunition elevators I would not imagine taking up more room, probably even less room, assuming the Left pair and Right pair of 100mm guns each shared their elevator, assuming all 4 guns don’t share the same munitions elevator in the first place.
In-game statistics of BL-127 as a Primary Armament
(These stats are just my own interpretation/estimations, based off of the Akizuki’s 100mm/65 Type 98 and the SM-5-1s turrets found on Kutuzov/Chapeyev/Dm.Donskoi, plus corrections for balance)
[Square bracket indicates the stats of the SM-2-1 turret of the Grozovoi as of 0.6.3.0]
Range: 10.97km [10.97km]
Reload: 5.5s [4.2s]
Fire %: 4% [8%]
180 Traverse: 16s [10s]
Dispersion: 95m [92m]
HE Dmg: 1400 [1800]
AP Dmg: 1900 [2600]
HE Vel. 1000/s [950m/s]
AP Vel. 1000m/s [950m/s]
In-Game Statistics of the BL-127 as an AA Armament
(These stats are just my own interpretation/estimations, based off of the Akizuki’s 100mm/65 Type 98 and the SM-5-1s turrets found on Kutuzov/Chapeyev/Dm.Donskoi, plus corrections for balance)
[Square bracket indicates the stats of the SM-2-1 turret of the Grozovoi as of 0.6.3.0]
Firing Range: 4.5km [5.2km]
Dmg/second: 100 [51]
Final Comments:
The biggest thing is that this ship lacks any form of character to it. It used to have OP AA, which was what it was all about, with this new setup it could have the best DD AA without giving it OP range on that AA, and rather have the damage potential be concentrated to a stronger yet shorter range. So a bit of best of both worlds. Making it an optional armament allows the ship to retain the label of historically accurate, just simply with the addition of theoretical/likely refits in a world where all these blueprint ships/weapons are actually built. Would be no different then the amount of design freedom WG has used on ships such as the Grosser Kurfurst (Which, as I understand, exists based on the fact Russia was sent by Germany rangefinder documents, one of which specified to be used a triple barreled 16 inch gun turret, thus WG designed such a turret, and a ship based on using that turret, among other loose documents) To be all in all, (ignoring that sidetrack) this would be an improvement to the Grozovoi’s gameplay experience of the player piloting the ship and those against it.
~Written by myself, IGN: Shipmaster_Crook [NA]
Filed under: All Articles, World Of Warships
