A follow up!
Just 2 hours after I posted this, my machine stopped booting due to blue screen of death, due to the GPU (RTX3060 went out to lunch). So now, I wonder if the GPU going dead was causing a weird hiccup with the game and it had nothing to do with the last WoWS update or the mods. The laptop was opened earlier to replace a dying fan, so I would guess some mechanical damage.
Since the machine is dead/wiped, I won't be able to gather any logs or anything. 🙂 Hopefully false alarm? It was really bad though when I couldn't finish a game (driving the Hatsuharu DD).