I decided to bite the bullet and get a naval pack for the War Thunder Naval pre-beta, the PT-109 pack specifically.

My review of the pre-beta so far... Graphics are solid War Thunder, I play on max or movie currently.

Each country has one patrol craft and one destroyer, it is not clear if they are the all the same Battle Rating but I am don't think so as a Fletcher was better than a Yugumo in every way except torpedoes.

Planes were in play as well, I shot down some players and was sunk by a couple player controlled torpedo bombers and Typhoons.

Damage is module based like tanks and planes but there is also flooding and fire which have damage control options for each, if you are fighting both and repairing equipment it can take a while, my longest repair in battle was over 100 seconds.

Big ships can get beached and get be nearly impossible to get if you are going fast enough.

Destroyers one shot PT boats so you need to use islands and cover as well as shallows to your advantage.

Torpedoes in Realistic and I suspect sim are tough to use at range as there does not appear to be a aimer like that found in World of Warships, on the other hand they are hard to spot.

Gunnery is good, some automation at estimating range using fire and it gets refined with additional shots. In realistic you adjust the aim manually based on the crew range estimate, it is hard to spot your own shells though.

Speeds and distances are not scaled like WoWS, so battles move slower, but you seem to start a bit closer together, around 7-8 km in the pre-beta.