After starting north spawn, I moved into the eastern islands while being very careful to not overextend and made sure that I could bail out if I lost a spotting match up. The initial torps scored some hits on the
New Mex while the second salvo wiped the
Ashigara while she was coming round an island. Once the the fish reloaded I sent another set to finish the
New Mex and then partook in some smoke n' shootin at their
Omaha for giggles. At that point the enemy had worked around the west and threatened the cap so I went back and gun dueled the
Farragut and
Murmansk. With the cap secured I then moved south, ganked the
König and finally shot up the
Ryūjō.
Most elephant indeed.
Shiri definitely is the more popular choice with the 16 fish spread the TRB offers but I think the
Akatsuki is a bit of a hidden gem. I suspect a lot of folks are overextending at the outset, getting wiped and that is dragging down her stats.
You need to be a bit circumspect in the early game and not get mauled in the initial skirmish but once the map opens up this boat is a 40 knot murder machine. The guns are good enough to to engage USN Cans at their rainbow range, the three Type 90 mod 1 launchers can do the usual IJN stealth torp thing and that speed...
That speed is just brutally effective. You can just flex around the map and exploit lone enemy heavies with near impunity, even with the meh concealment you're just too fast for them to do anything about it. In an optimal head on approach your looking at a combined closure of 60-70 knots. That
König did everything right when I popped into view range, he immediately turned away and engaged with his XY turrets but I still ran him down and shanked him with zero ****s given.
Until the new captain skill system throws everything on its ear, if you have one of these boats in port after the tree split and can work around the concealment I really think
Akatsuki is worth a try, especially while VII is most favored by the MM Gods.
