HMS Vanguard at full speed.
The HMS Vanguard is a purchasable battleship in the game store. It is modeled off of the last Royal Navy battleship and the last battleship commissioned in the world.
History[]
The HMS Vangaurd is the lead and only ship of her class. Ordered in 1940 as part of the UKs Emergency War Programme and a complement to the older Lion class battleships. However, the tide of war turned and ended in 1945, the Vanguard was completed one year later. By this time all other Royal Navy battleships were retired. She would serve for an addition fourteen years before being decommissioned and sold for scrap in 1960.
In Game[]
The stats of HMS Vanguard.
The Vanguard is available for purchase in the ship store for 420,000 resource. It comes equipped with four 40cm double turrets as main armament, nine 30.5cm (old) guns, and eight 20cm guns. This armament is severely lacking in comparison with most battleships, mainly due to the absence of 46cm guns (which is the preferred guns for battleships). The Vanguard also carries four Rangefinder+radars. This is completely unnecessary as only one is needed for greater accuracy. Overall to use the Vanguard in its base arrangement for is a waste of time and resource.
Modifications[]
While the base form is not all that good, there are some modifications one can do to improve its effectiveness. For one,take the second boiler off and make space for better weapons and armor,then the Vanguard will be more like Bismarck.Also replacing the large boilers with gas turbines and some simple speed tweaks will increase the speed from the dismal 59.7 knots. With some hull modifications or floats, it is possible to add three or four 46cm guns. But, given that a custom built Battleship would be able to do the same at less cost, and that the HMS Nelson (arguably a better ship) costs the same amount of resource, purchase of this ship is recommended only if you want to make modifictions on it.