So it’s been a while, and I thought I’d catch up while I’m at home today. Had a dental appointment yesterday afternoon, and even though it was just cleaning and a filling, I don’t do well in the chair. It’s a very, very tense thing for me. I don’t have problems with the drill (mostly), it’s the needles, the poking at soft spots (my teeth are in poor condition), etc. When I was younger, it would take an extraction to slow me down. Nowadays, any visit stresses me to the point that I’m down for a day or so. I think I’m getting old… Typing this paragraph wore me out. I was going to summarize the anime I’ve been watching, but I’m feeling much less ambitious, already.
So, something less difficult.
Here she is:
No-fly zone
The Texas has an absolutely insane anti-air rating for its Tier. Even later carriers have to respect it. Contemporaries (tier-wise), do best to avoid it — and after a couple of days to learn the hard way, they mostly do. In the last dozen games with it, I’ve been attacked once. Two squadrons of torpedo bombers, and they dropped well out; despite cross-hatching (dropping two spreads that cross each other), they got only one hit and lost a plane. In a real war, that would be a “resource win” but in a timed battle, it’s a busted mission. For comparison, the Tier 8 cruiser, New Orleans, has a rating of 48; the Texas, at Tier 5, has a 61. A stock New York has 30. (However the New Orleans can boost hers in two ways, temporarily.)
The biggest reason I like it is that it fits my play style. The New York was already my best performer, and since the Texas is basically a slightly slower version, it perfectly suits my more laid-back deliberate play style. I suck at DD’s, because you have to get it stuck in and make fast decisions vs. multiple targets. “Who put that island here?” is a refrain often heard in my house. The other one, especially when I’m playing a cruiser, is “Oops, sorry!” There was that one game where I collided with the same battleship three times… I was serpentining, and he was driving straight.
The Mighty Jingles, a super-tester who has his own YouTube channel about the game, thinks its other best feature is the improved arc for the #3 turret, but since it’s balanced by a worse #4, I disagree. I think the other best feature is the Artillery Plotting Room module
, which increases the range by about two kilometers. This means a near-Tier 6 range for her ten 14″ guns, and having them arranged in five turrets means I can fire one as a ranging shot and then unload with the rest after correction. I give up a bit of AA for that privilege, but well worth it.
If I had to look for a fly in the ointment, there are two. First, as I’ve mentioned, she’s slow. A half-knot slower than the New York; if the battle has moved away from you, good luck catching it. Second, she shares the New York’s weakness to destroyers. See this?
127 mm 51 caliber Mk 7. She only has six of them
Six of these is not enough to defend the ship against destroyers, and the slow speed means they’re going to catch you. Additionally, her armor has a weak point against fire from directly forward, and isn’t steller vs. broadside; traits also shared by the New York.
Ok, enough, I’m going to find some lunch. And take it easy…
Edit: World of Warships posted an article on her today, in which it says: “In addition to her main armament, Texas also had 21 5-inch secondary guns, along with four three-pounder guns and four 21-inch torpedo tubes. Her armanent was impressive, to say the least — especially compared to her contemporaries.” This is an example of how the WoWS team pursue game balance at the price of ahistorical ship designs. Although some of these guns were removed during the ’44 refit, neither she nor the New York have them in game.
