I have been playing a lot of World of Warships, since it's public release last week, however unless you're willing to buy the few Russian and single British premium ships you're ONLY going to be playing American or Japanese fleets.
Other nations are coming, and we can flesh out the navies of Britian, France and Italy from the era the game covered quite easily.
Unfortunately the same can't be said of the Russian (or rather Imperial Russian/Soviet Navies of the same time span), this is a distinct problem for WarGaming; they are after all a company owned, based and run from Russia.
Looking at the state of history itself, we can look at gun armed cruisers which have served the Russian states and draw a line down the center of a potential Russian Tech Tree with relative ease, my personal line up for cruisers would be:
* Tier 2: Pallada (1899)
3 smoke stacks, still has sailing rigging, armed with 8 six inch guns and a good secondary armament, this would compete with the US St Louis class, but be a step below them.
* Tier 3: Varyag (1988)
4 smoke stacks, but now armed with 12 six inch guns this is the Tier 3 Cruiser for DPM (This ship could also be copied back to the Japanese line as a Tier 3 premium named "Soya").
* Tier 4: Aurora (1903)
A newer design, this should boast better speed & turn than the preceding ships. And would get a very accurate model, as the actual ship is still in service.
* Tier 5: Krasny (1932)
The first modern cruiser, almost looking like British Town class cruiser, but with the tripod mast and vast number of small calibre weapons.
* Tier 6: Kirov (1936)
A much more modern cruiser, and certainly a ship able to stand up to the Japanese and American ships of this level as it has the three 7.1" guns, plus a 4" gun.
* Tier 7: Chapayev (1946)
This is the first ship to stretch the timeline, as Stalin had little interesting his Naval forces, we have to jump from a class of ship in 1936 to beyond the Stalin Purges of the late 1930's, to beyond the Great Patriotic War to a design laid down only in the closing stages of that war, when Soviet coastlines along the Baltic and Black Sea became the frontier of Stalin's realm, and hence of interest to him.
* Tier 8: None, since the Chapayev would be so powerful, like we have gaps in the other cruiser lines, this is where I would pull a gap, but I would make the Chapayev have interesting upgrades.
* Tier 9: Zhadanov (1948)
Again like the Tier 7 choice, this is really a post-war, Cold War, ship, but we can still see it hosting big gun armament even in 1981.
* Tier 10: Sverdlov (1949/1950)
Pretty much the last ship in the Cold War Soviet Arsenal I can find with Big Guns, and it's the latest in date, though really Tier 9 and 10 are very interwoven here. The difference being the Tier 9 ship was historically converted to a command cruiser in 1950, therefore in the tree here, despite them both being the same class, they have different looks and hulls.
This struggle for pertinant cruisers is tough, but at least the Cruiser class is well represented in some numbers in the Imperial Russian and Soviet Navies, battleships most definately are not as easy to pin down for defining a tech tree.
How WarGaming resolve the start of the Battleship line will however, reflect a choice between; I think; either paper ships or real historical vessels, or even a mix of the two.
Paper ships being those designs which never left the drawing board, and my solution to the Battleship line for a Russian lineage would have to start Historical and end up in the land of paper designs, lets take a look:
* Tier 3: Borodino (1899)
These ships have to I suppose fit a hard Historical niche, that of being near in era to the Kawachi, but ultimately being defeated by the Japanese during the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-05.
* Tier 4: Ioann Zlatoust (1905)
These are contemporaries of the vessels of other nations ships for the pre-WW1 era, notably a peer of the Kawachi. The look of the ship is almost the same as the US St. Louis, but it's large fore and aft turrets really should be emphasised.
* Tier 5: Imperator Aleksander III (1914)
This design leaps over two classes between the Zlatoust to here, and I've chosen this name from the three ships of the class as it's the easiest for a western tongue; such as mine; to wrap around. It is also the first centreline, uniform, armed battleship in the Russian line, this is a part of the Russian tree design, their cruisers are better... Interesting historical notes also points to obvious upgrades which could be made part of the ships progression, such as the 1915 gun upgrades, and wartime modifications to the Anti-Aircraft armament.
* Tier 6: Marat (1911)
Another all centreline uniform armament, but as this ship was renamed and upgraded in 1921 it supersedes the Tier 5 offering.
* Tier 7: Novorossiysk (1937)
With the October Revolution sweeping away the Imperial Navy, we have a hiatus on the start of Soviet battleship production, therefore I think we should either NOT have a Tier 7 ship, or that we have this ship. Or potentially this ship becomes a Premium Battleship for Tier 7.
* Tier 8: Arkhangelsk (1916)
Our next ship has to be a WW2 Loaner, the HMS Royal Sovereign loaned to the Soviet Navy by the Royal Navy. I believe there could be an interesting Premium ship cross over here with the Revenge-Class ships in the Future Royal Navy Tech Tree and this ship.
* Tier 9: Blank - I just don't want a ship here, as per the Japanese line.
* Tier 10: Stalingrad (1951)
A strong post-WW2 era battlecruiser design, the Stalingrad was built at least, however, they are paper ships, as none were commissioned.
Now, that's as strong a historical line up as I could ring out of the mish-mash of vessels caught out by the turmoil of the country in the first quater of the century and the events of the second quarter. However, it leaves the aricraft carrier line for the Russians.... And... I can't really define one...
Aircraft carriers are just missing from the Imperial and Societ histories, the Imperial era because it really ended as flight was first discovered, and before major advances could be made into powering and landing aircraft from ships. The official history even goes so far as to explain there were later Soviet era Naval Aviation units, but they appear to only have been based out of naval bases, rather than from ships themselves.
Indeed, the Kiev vessels of the early 1970's are the first carriers of note, and clearly they far out stretch the timeline of the game.
This leaves Destroyers...
* Tier 2: Sokol (1895)
Able to reach speeds of 30 knots, and armed primarily (it seems) with torpedo's the Sokol-Class were early and equivalent destroyers to other nations.
* Tier 2: (Premium) Hai Long (Burakov) (1901)
A faster shorter design, as a premium it might work well.
* Tier 3: Bravyi (1901)
A member of the Buinyi Class this it a low gunned, but higher torpedo armed vesel.
* Tier 4: Likhoy (1901)
* Tier 5: NONE
* Tier 6: Del'nyi (1907)
* Tier 7: Novik (1911)
This should be a WW1 class ship, upgraded to WW2 ability.
* Tier 8: Kaptain Kroun (1923)
The Ofrey class are our first in the tech tree truly based in World War 2, and the first ships designed and built for the Soviet Navy during the Soviet era.
* Tier 9: Prymyslav (1915)
This is essentially the same as the Tier 8, except it emphasises guns over torps, as per the Kroun.
* Tier 10: Ferdinand (1928)
This is perhaps one of the best ships native to the Russian forces.
Premium Destroyers could, as per the battleships, cross over with the British Royal Navy Town class destroyers, which were part of lend/lease to Russia during world war two.
The final element missing from my speculative Tech Tree would therefore have to be a starting point, a Cruiser or Patrol Boat Class to get people into the Russian line... I wondered about the "Admiral Nakhimov", the 1884/5 Armoured Cruiser
