engine just work in support slot.

do your engineers put in support slot?

Yes, all my engineers and repairers are occupying support slots. T-slots are occupied by my reload gunners.

All my engineers are boosted and have a maximum of 70 veterans. 

Even lvl 100 engineers might not show a huge increase in speed on the montana until higher, especially since you only have 4.

Vets would help, but you'd have to bear in mind just how much ability it takes to get the next knot of speed. You could add 100 to all 4 and not see it increase. I'm not saying thats what would happen, it can just be difficult.

Most effective steps are to get them to just 30-50 vets since thats reasonably easy, then fill up their experts if youre planning to buy. As long as you use the majority of a pack of 200 experts, thats almost always more effective than a boost. But a boost is what you need once theyre full on experts and then you should consider trying for more vets.

I've never seen anyone recommend less than 6 engis for USN really, although not many go with AA. 2 AA, 3 Repair and 5 Engis would be my recommendation for a USN crew if you wanted AA, so you might even want to consider getting your hands on another engi.

When it comes to a 120 crew, 4 skilled enough engis should still provide you with a speed capped nebby with reasonable overheat time. But your speed might seem an issue for a while.

Once youve got most of them around 110-115 though, you should be fine, assuming they have atleast got plenty of experts and a handful of vets.

I have 4 lvl 94 +12 engys and my Iowa runs at 40knots even with AA guns mounted (but with no armor)

the best way you have to increase your ship's speed and OH time is to make your engys BVE.

you have only 70 vets, thats low for lvl 100, by this way you should have something like 120 to 140 vets. Experts are important aswell, if you have 140 or even 180 vets but no experts your engys will fail to make your ship move fast.

So use some expert pack (you can use vet pack up to 109 vets) to add vets to your crew, but allways keep in mind that after you burn your experts you'll need to replace them.

Once your crew its VE a boost its the best buy for your buck. it will boost your true hab by 20%

if you are with low olives i will suggest you to take your engys to a "simple" 109vets+full expert+boost... thats not so impossible to achieve.

As for the "boat" your Monty will run slowly up to lvl 110, but you can go back to the Iowa (or even better, get a Missouri on the next EBB event who will not get penalyzed up to lvl 106-110) that will run at 40 knots with no problem. If the iowa it's still slow, take out the AA guns and put HH or PHH aboard, this will give you a better chance against subs and you'll save a lot of weight... As for armor, like someone already just mentioned: no deck - 0.2 belt - the amount of bulge allowed without loosing a knot - 0 bulkhead (but some people like to put 2 or 3 for the "crew death" issue)

I'm certain you know how engineers stack...but it might be worthwhile to play
with the numbers.

According to old postings, As engineers stack, their combined ability is not linear.

1 engineer on board, has 100% ability
2 engineers on board.....71% ability
3 engineers on board....56% ability
4 engineers on board...49% ability
5 engineers on board...43% ability

If you play with the numbers, you might find that a 5th engineer may give you an extra knot.
Or perhhaps an engineer with lower stats is slowing you down.

Its possible to use some of the Navyfield efficiency programs to determine your engineers true ability.  You can add vets and experts in these programs and model your engineering numbers.  


If you've already done this, then please excuse me for bringing it up.