Secondary guns

[WuzzleFuzz The Wise]

I've been wondering for years. With the exception of german battleships and battlecruisers that have specific modifications and a specialized captain(even then, questionable effectiveness), are secondary guns meant to be worthless?

[Hiei]

There are a few non German ships that have good secondaries, but for the most part it's a german flavor

[Jackson]

They are not meant to be worthless. They're also not meant to be overpowered. Wargaming also wants each ship type to be unique. If all ships had the same secondaries, they'd not be unique to the German ships - which is the stated intention. Other ships have good secondaries, but none on par with the Germans.

[WuzzleFuzz The Wise]

Originally posted by Jackson:

They are not meant to be worthless. They're also not meant to be overpowered. Wargaming also wants each ship type to be unique. If all ships had the same secondaries, they'd not be unique to the German ships - which is the stated intention. Other ships have good secondaries, but none on par with the Germans.

Every battleship line has at least usable main guns, but, aside from german and french ships, you need to specifically build your ship and captain to make secondary guns not have suicidally short range and laughable DPS.
Torpedos are always dangerous on any ship that carries them, no matter how uptiered you are.
By the time your tier 6 battleship's secondaries have done an appreciable amount of damage to any cruiser or destroyer, you'll have taken a billion torpedo hits, cruisers that don't have torpedos will easily stay out of secondary range. They also rely on showing your broadside for extended periods to get good DPS, something you can't really afford to do against other battleships, it's not really even advisable against something with a lot of torpedos either.
Secondary guns are by no means "good" on anything but specifically built german battleships, you need to play psychotically aggressively in anything that isn't german to get them to fire at anything in the first place.
I consider a "good" weapon to be regularly useful. Weapons you'll often never use, are heavily discouraged from using, and aren't even powerful when you go out of your way to use them, are not "good"

[Jackson]

Secondaries aren't made to be a viable weapon most of the time. They're most often the primary AA guns.

[WuzzleFuzz The Wise]

Originally posted by Jackson:

Secondaries aren't made to be a viable weapon most of the time. They're most often the primary AA guns.

Alright, so that's what I'd consider "meant to be worthless".

[Jackson]

Originally posted by WuzzleFuzz The Wise:

Originally posted by Jackson:

Secondaries aren't made to be a viable weapon most of the time. They're most often the primary AA guns.

Alright, so that's what I'd consider "meant to be worthless".

Take them off and see how much AA you have ;)
This was their primary role IRL as well. Secondaries were rarely used to any effect at all. There's a couple notable exceptions, but that's it. The secondaries too large to be AA guns were universally worthless except the one time Scharnhorst sank a destroyer with them. Perhaps that's why Germans have good secondaries in game *shrug*

[WuzzleFuzz The Wise]

Originally posted by Jackson:

Originally posted by WuzzleFuzz The Wise:

Alright, so that's what I'd consider "meant to be worthless".

Take them off and see how much AA you have ;)
This was their primary role IRL as well. Secondaries were rarely used to any effect at all. There's a couple notable exceptions, but that's it. The secondaries too large to be AA guns were universally worthless except the one time Scharnhorst sank a destroyer with them. Perhaps that's why Germans have good secondaries in game *shrug*

And aircraft carriers and aircraft became the most powerful ships and weapons at sea by the early 40's, does that mean aircraft carriers should be the only good ship class in WoWS?
Let's not forget, during most of the time frame WoWS covers, torpedoes were historically far more effective at sinking or destroying ships than gunfire, should guns in WoWS just not be good in general either?
Unless your answer to both of these questions is yes, I do not think a realism argument is particularly convincing for this game.
Also, if I took the secondary guns off of something like my nagato or izmail, I'd still retain most of my AA rating.

[Jackson]

Originally posted by WuzzleFuzz The Wise:

Also, if I took the secondary guns off of something like my nagato or izmail, I'd still retain most of my AA rating.

That's true. Those were totally worthless guns and were mostly removed from "modern" ships before WWII.

Originally posted by WuzzleFuzz The Wise:

And aircraft carriers and aircraft became the most powerful ships and weapons at sea by the early 40's, does that mean aircraft carriers should be the only good ship class in WoWS?

No, the game does need to be balanced. Hence the secondary guns have to be in balance too.

Originally posted by WuzzleFuzz The Wise:

Let's not forget, during most of the time frame WoWS covers, torpedoes were historically far more effective at sinking or destroying ships than gunfire, should guns in WoWS just not be good in general either?

Torpedoes are the powerful and most effective weapons in game as well.

Let's not forget it IS an arcade game, but they do try to bring in realism as much as they can within balance.

[WuzzleFuzz The Wise]

Originally posted by Jackson:

Originally posted by WuzzleFuzz The Wise:

Also, if I took the secondary guns off of something like my nagato or izmail, I'd still retain most of my AA rating.

That's true. Those were totally worthless guns and were mostly removed from "modern" ships before WWII.

Originally posted by WuzzleFuzz The Wise:

And aircraft carriers and aircraft became the most powerful ships and weapons at sea by the early 40's, does that mean aircraft carriers should be the only good ship class in WoWS?

No, the game does need to be balanced. Hence the secondary guns have to be in balance too.

Originally posted by WuzzleFuzz The Wise:

Let's not forget, during most of the time frame WoWS covers, torpedoes were historically far more effective at sinking or destroying ships than gunfire, should guns in WoWS just not be good in general either?

Torpedoes are the powerful and most effective weapons in game as well.

Let's not forget it IS an arcade game, but they do try to bring in realism as much as they can within balance.

That's the thing, secondary guns might as well be purely cosmetic for the overwhelming majority of ships of any nationality or class most of the time. Weapons that "aren't made to be viable weapons most of the time" are just as unbalanced in a game as weapons that are clearly overpowered.
Torpedoes were so effective in real life that they sunk three times more US ships than gunfire did. Are torpedoes in WoWS sinking 75% of ships per match? I don't think so.
If it's right that balance dictates aircraft and torpedoes don't totally dominate every battle in world of warships, balance should also make it so secondaries are more useful for more ships more of the time.

[christof]

Wanna spin that a bit further?

Originally posted by WuzzleFuzz The Wise:

And aircraft carriers and aircraft became the most powerful ships and weapons at sea by the early 40's, does that mean aircraft carriers should be the only good ship class in WoWS?

Most powerful is wrong, actually. Those were, ship by ship, still the large battleships. Most influential however is absolutely true. Which they actually are in the game as well. Even though any CV in a situation as they are in the game would be getting any planes they could in the air quickly, then didging any planes and ammunition left up top overboard while running to the hills.
So if anything, the CVs in the game are actually too strong since they're allowed to constantly launch planes throughout the whole battle even with enemy surface ships being close and hunting them.

Originally posted by WuzzleFuzz The Wise:

Let's not forget, during most of the time frame WoWS covers, torpedoes were historically far more effective at sinking or destroying ships than gunfire, should guns in WoWS just not be good in general either?

Not quite true either, actually. Because gunfire was more accurate in comparison and ammunition for main guns could be carried in far bigger quantities than any ships or boats would have torpedoes.
Were they the most powerful if they hit? Yes. But as Jackson mentioned, they tend to be the same in the game.

Does that answer your questions?

[Jackson]

Originally posted by WuzzleFuzz The Wise:

If it's right that balance dictates aircraft and torpedoes don't totally dominate every battle in world of warships, balance should also make it so secondaries are more useful for more ships more of the time.

I already explained it. Wargaming wants each nation to be unique. They picked Germans for secondaries which isn't a bad choice. They did have the best secondary guns IRL as well if we don't account for AA.

[Jackson]

Originally posted by christof:

Wanna spin that a bit further?

Originally posted by WuzzleFuzz The Wise:

And aircraft carriers and aircraft became the most powerful ships and weapons at sea by the early 40's, does that mean aircraft carriers should be the only good ship class in WoWS?

Most powerful is wrong, actually. Those were, ship by ship, still the large battleships.

Would strongly disagree. Most battleships that were sunk, were sunk with carriers. No ship stood a chance against a carrier except another carrier.

[WuzzleFuzz The Wise]

Originally posted by christof:

Wanna spin that a bit further?

Originally posted by WuzzleFuzz The Wise:

And aircraft carriers and aircraft became the most powerful ships and weapons at sea by the early 40's, does that mean aircraft carriers should be the only good ship class in WoWS?

Most powerful is wrong, actually. Those were, ship by ship, still the large battleships. Most influential however is absolutely true. Which they actually are in the game as well. Even though any CV in a situation as they are in the game would be getting any planes they could in the air quickly, then didging any planes and ammunition left up top overboard while running to the hills.
So if anything, the CVs in the game are actually too strong since they're allowed to constantly launch planes throughout the whole battle even with enemy surface ships being close and hunting them.

Originally posted by WuzzleFuzz The Wise:

Let's not forget, during most of the time frame WoWS covers, torpedoes were historically far more effective at sinking or destroying ships than gunfire, should guns in WoWS just not be good in general either?

Not quite true either, actually. Because gunfire was more accurate in comparison and ammunition for main guns could be carried in far bigger quantities than any ships or boats would have torpedoes.
Were they the most powerful if they hit? Yes. But as Jackson mentioned, they tend to be the same in the game.

Does that answer your questions?

If a 40's battleship and a 40's carrier found themselves in the middle of an ocean and were tasked with killing each other, the carrier would find the battleship first and sink the battleship the overwhelming majority of the time.
Torpedoes sank more US ships in world war 2 of every type than gunfire, they were very clearly more effective at destroying ships than gunfire. This is a matter of statistical record, and that record displays a drastic disparity.

[Kamiyama]

The Carnot and Riga have good secondaries. I've destroyed DD's with them before. They don't hit that hard, but they do hit fast. So if you can avoid the torps and keep the DD inside your secondary range they will eventually die.

They're also good for starting fires and can help burn down BB's. But not against a BB secondary build their secondaries will outgun yours.

[christof]

Originally posted by Jackson:

Originally posted by christof:

Wanna spin that a bit further?

Most powerful is wrong, actually. Those were, ship by ship, still the large battleships.

Would strongly disagree. Most battleships that were sunk, were sunk with carriers. No ship stood a chance against a carrier except another carrier.

That was because the carrier could attack it without impunity from far, far away though. In an actual duel, where the battleship can fight back, the CV is dead meat.

(Yes, I am well aware that such a situation is very unlikely and to my knowledge only happened once at least partially with Taffy 3 before the coast of Samar.)

Hence the difference between powerful and influential. For pure power alone, you can't beat the BBs and their main artillery. But all that power does not help you one bit if you can't use it against your enemy.