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I recently saw a small preview of an upcoming Spanish Navy Tier X premium cruiser. It looked very interesting, blending elements of the Napoli-class (main battery) and the Agir-class large cruisers (Secondary armament) and having 8km range torpedoes. I would love to learn much more about it including when we might start seeing it. I am hoping very much that it will be a coal ship.

As the title says... When. F.Sherman and Napoli both released....

The following is a review of Maya, the tier VII premium Japanese Heavy Cruiser, was sponsored by my patrons on Patreon who helped me afford this ship. To the best of my knowledge, the statistics discussed in this review are current as of patch 0.12.3 Please be aware that her performance may change in the future. When World of Warships was new back in 2015, one of the more frequent subjects of conversation between players was which ships they hoped to see added to the game. There was a short-list of favourites that came up time and again including: Anything German Yudachi (poi!) Insert your favourite Iowa-class ship here While never a top pick, Maya came up in these lists often enough. I think Maya sticks in my memory most because of dseehafer's "Know the Difference" threads from way back when. I was so very excited for all of the future possibilities for tech tree lines and premium ships and I couldn't wait to see them materialize. Taken from this thread by our dearly departed dseehafer. Takao's funnel is pictured on the left with Atago on the right. That funny thingie (dseehafer didn't know what it was and I certainly don't either!) is further forward on Atago. Additionally, as dseehafer points out, there are three pipes running down Takao's funnel while Atago only has two. You can see this difference if you compare Takao's funnel to Maya's in game. So the ship we have in game is Takao, not Atago. Suffice to say, I've been waiting for Maya for a long time. I had largely given up hope after seeing Wargaming clone Atago yet again to make ARP Maya back in November of 2020. I was delighted to see the ship make an appearance finally in April of 2022. Now, I have an unfortunate track record of getting my hopes up too high as of late, so let's see if I can keep my expectations reasonable and my discourse civil. Quick Summary: A down-tiered Takao-class cruiser with Shimakaze's high-speed, short-ranged torpedoes and eight, slow-firing guns instead of ten. She has access to the Main Battery Reload Booster and Repair Party consumables. PROS: Solid hit point pool for a tier VII cruiser of 39,200hp Has anti-torpedo bulges and damage reduction Good firing arcs on guns and torpedoes Quick, hard-hitting torpedoes Very fast with an unmodified top speed of 35.5 knots Access to a Repair Party consumable Access to the Main Battery Reload Booster consumable CONS: High-sitting citadel with weird geometry. Slow main battery reload Poor gun handling with a slow traverse speed for a cruiser Torpedoes have a short, 8km range Wide turning circle radius and slow rudder shift time Terrible AA firepower Large surface detection range Has depth charges instead of an air strike Overview Skill Floor: Simple / CASUAL / Challenging / Difficult Skill Ceiling: Low / Moderate / HIGH / Extreme For an inexperienced player, Maya is a good choice. She has a lot of hit points. She has a heal. You don't need to worry about which commander skills you take to make her guns work properly. The biggest strike against her is that she's a cruiser and cruisers are harder to use than battleships (generally speaking) but whatever. The only other areas of concern is micromanaging her consumables and the short range of her torpedoes. The former is more a reflection of her skill ceiling than her floor. If you forget to use her Main Battery Reload Booster, she sill works -- not as well, admittedly, but she still works. Attempting to use her torpedoes, though ... that's going to get some new players killed. They're very short ranged for a Japanese heavy cruiser. Outside of using smoke or island cover to setup ambushes, you need to expose Maya to return fire in order to drop a salvo. And there's also the Atago-trap, where the disparate launchers encourage players to show their flat broadside in order to launch both salvos off a single side. Yeesh. For expert players, Maya rewards careful use of her consumables. Otherwise, she's like most other tier VII heavy cruisers. It's all about map control, awareness and using and abusing whatever vision control mechanics you can. Her carry potential is there with her heals, speed and Hydroacoustic Search, but her low damage output and crappy stealth put a hard limit on the shenanigans she can reliably perform. Options You'll want to build Maya for stealth and speed to play to her strengths. This is an ambush-cruiser, you want to hit things hard and then disappear after putting out a couple of salvos (be those torpedoes or gunfire) and then play the waiting game until the next opportunity to strike. Choosing options that will exemplify this play style will serve you best. Consumables Maya has American Light Cruiser numbers of consumables. There's a LOT to go over. Her Damage Control Party is normal for a cruiser, repairing all critical damage, dousing fires and plugging floods for 5 seconds. She is also immune to such during this time. This has a 60 second reset timer and comes with unlimited charges. In slot two, you have the choice between Defensive AA Fire and Hydroacoustic Search. The former increases your sustained AA DPS by 50% and flak damage by 300% for 40 seconds. It comes with three charges to start and it has an 80 second reset timer. The latter (which is the consumable I recommend taking) is active for 100 seconds and will detect all torpedoes at 3.5km and enemy ships at 5km. It has a 120 second reset timer and starts with three charges as well. Slot three has a Catapult Fighter. She launches 3 aircraft which stay on station, orbiting the ship at a range of 3km for 60 seconds. It comes with three charges and has a 90 second reset timer. Her Repair Party is next. This is a slight downgrade over Atago's version of the consumable, starting with only two charges instead of three. Each charge heals back up to 14% of the ship's hit points over 28 seconds, with 50% of all penetration and citadel damage and 100% of fire, flooding and ramming damage. It has an 80 second reset timer. Finally, she has a Main Battery Reload Booster in slot #5. This increases her main battery reload speed by 50% for 15 seconds (dropping from 16.5 seconds to 8.25 seconds). It has three charges and a 60 second reset timer. Upgrades As a tier VII cruiser, Maya lacks the 5th consumable slot which makes Atago so wonderfully stealthy. Otherwise, her upgrade options should look familiar. Start with Main Armaments Modification 1. In slot two, you'll want the Special Upgrade, Hydroacoustic Search Modification 1. You can buy this for 17,000 in the Armory. Otherwise, default to Engine Room Protection. Aiming System Modification 1 remains optimal in slot 3, sadly. There's no variety here. And finally, take Steering Gears Modification 1 in slot 4. Commander Skills The ARP Maya commander from the crossover. Her voice lines are saccharine-sweet sounding. Is it just me or do her eyes not face the same direction? Nothing surprising here. Build for concealment and improve her consumables. High value skills include: Concealment Expert (4pts) - duh Superintendent (3pts) - An extra charge on all consumables is very nice. Grease the Gears (1pt) - Maya's turret traverse is slow. This helps fix it, upping it from 6º/s to 6.9º/s Priority Target (2pts) OR Incoming Fire Alert (1pt) - Pick one, not both. This will help keep you alive if you find your situational awareness could use a little help. Adrenaline Rush (3pts) - Paired with her Repair Party, you can min-max reload times versus survivability needs. After picking up these, you can go for more "nice to have skills", including (but not necessarily limited to): Last Stand (1pt) - Maya's steering gears are vulnerable to near misses from HE shells. Radio Location (4pts) - More valuable on stealthier ships, but this is still handy, both in late-game scenarios for running down lurking smol-botes and in early game to keep an eye on unseen enemy approach vectors. Heavy AP Shells (3pts) - More damage when broadsides are available. Situational and a minor boost for such a high cost, admittedly. Demolition Expert (2pts) - Bribe RNGeebus into slightly higher chance of setting a fire. It has the added bonus of making your depth charges cover a wider area. Enhanced Torpedo Explosive Charge (3pts) - A good skill for PVE-mains who want to secure kills in the oh-so-common jousts with bots. It's too expensive for PVP modes, generally speaking. Pick and choose what works best for you. I've been playing with a 10 point commander (ARP Maya) so I went with Last Stand > Priority Target > Superintendent > Concealment Expert. Camouflage Maya has two permanent camouflage schemes, her normal Default and Japanese Lacquer. As usual, the default camo comes with a palette swap option if you complete the second part of the Yamamot Isoroku collection under your Profile Tab. There's not much difference between Maya's two palette swaps for her default camouflage. The base is a dark, blue-grey. The alternative is a darker, charcoal grey. I'm of the opinion that her Japanese Lacquer camouflage looks fantastic, but it's pricey for just a cosmetic swap. Firepower Main Battery: Eight 203mm/50 guns in 4x2 turrets in an A-B-X-Y superfiring layout. Secondary Battery: Twelve 127mm/40 guns in 6x2 turrets with three turrets per side. Torpedoes: Sixteen tubes in 4x4 launchers in wing mounts by the funnels, with each launcher's firing arc covering one quarter of the ship with very little overlap directly abeam. Secondary Battery Let's start here, mostly because they're not really relevant and I can cover this quickly. Like most cruisers, Maya's secondaries are largely forgettable. Though they do have a nice range, good fire chance per shell and their rate of fire isn't terrible, with only six guns per side, she just doesn't put out the volume of fire to impress anyone. She will land incidental hits, especially when you're making a close-range torpedo run, so they might start the occasional fire or earn you a Close Quarters Expert badge on the rare occasion. You can pretty much ignore and not worry about these weapons. Main Battery Maya has a miserably slow damage output with her guns. Even with her Main Battery Reload Booster active, she struggles to compete. Her 16.5 second reload speed is the culprit. This is half a second slower than the ten-gun Atago, but with eight guns instead of the usual ten of most of the high-tier Japanese heavies; so that's doubly bad. Add on sluggish gun handling and much of Maya's gameplay boils down to "hurry up and wait" before you can pull the trigger again. This is a ship that takes bites out of the enemy's health but it takes her a long time to chew before she goes another helping. Her smaller broadside also makes her individual salvos much less fearsome; so you don't even have that shock-damage ability that might make an opponent go all squirrelly and prompt mistakes. As such, I didn't enjoy much success in hunting my preferred Atago prey: destroyers. Maya just didn't hit hard enough to make them question their life decisions. It's not all doom and gloom though. Maya has Japanese heavy cruiser accuracy which makes sniping targets at range comfy. Individually, her shells have a good fire chance, though with that slower reload, her average fires per minute is poor. Her 15.28km range is good enough and well outside her surface detection range, so it's quite simple to fire, dodge and go dark if enemies look to make a meal of you. Maya's AP penetration is decent without the need for any gimmicks to make the ship viable. I have no complaints about the hitting power or ballistics of these guns, it's really just down to how many shells she can put down range over time. Her consumable doesn't alleviate this to any significant degree, unfortunately. Like the consumable found on San Diego, it's a band-aid applied to a cracked femur. Maya is crippled by her low damage output. The 15 seconds when the consumable is active brings her closer into line with other heavy cruisers at her tier, but many of those ships have nine or ten guns, not eight. Even if Maya's consumable was active for 30 seconds instead of 15 seconds, she would still be well behind Myoko's HE damage output. Now this disparity in DPM affords her some perks. We've already seen she has a heal, so that's definitely worth something. On top of this, she gets some pretty interesting torpedoes. Guns graphic dump time! Have a DPM graphic that makes Maya look absolutely trash-tier! Yay! Inflammatory graphics! There's lots to keep in mind when looking at a DPM chart. For one, note the scale. We're going up to 250,000 DPM on the AP graph and only 200,000 on the HE & SAP graph. Second thing to note, these are the HEAVY CRUISERS only. The Light cruisers make most of these ships look terrible (seriously, Atlanta spits out 315,000 HE DPM alone). Third, these charts are DPM over a single minute, assuming with the ships labelled as "Boosted" using their consumables for 15 of those 60 seconds. Maya's DPM is terrible, no matter how you slice it. You're not burning down anything quickly. Still, DPM isn't the be-all, end-all. You can't appreciate how annoying this graphic was to make. This is what happens when I experiment. Anyway, Maya's not a good fire starter. Unlike the other graphic, here are all of the tier VII cruisers (minus clones). All told, Maya's not that far behind most of the other heavy-cruisers.. Please be aware that this graph assumes some impossibilities, such as 100% accuracy, and always landing hits on unburned sections of ships. It also doesn't account for the innate fire resistance of target vessels which will nearly halve these numbers. So in practice, Maya's going to struggle to light 2 or 3 fires per minute; barely enough to tax a battleship's Damage Control Party by herself. Maya's gun firing arcs are okay and almost good. Generally speaking, I want to see guns being able to fire 30º off the bow and stern and Maya gets pretty darned close. Japanese 203mm AP shells have some of the lowest penetration values among similar sized guns. While on paper they have enough punch to still best most cruiser belts up to 15km, in practice this limits their ability to land citadel hits reliably against other heavy cruisers to around 12km or 13km once you account for angling. Still, there are some pretty thin-skinned cruisers out there, so don't be afraid of huckin' some AP at the sides of an Omaha or Shchors if they flash their sides at any range. Much ado is made about Japanese cruiser dispersion. It's better than "normal" cruiser dispersion, sure, but it's not so much better that it'll drop your jaw. These are two dispersion plots calculated over on the World of Warships ShipBuilder site (URL in the graphic). It's a fun site to poke around -- you should check it out! As with all third party sites, take the info you find there with a pinch of salt; there's always new info being discovered about the game. Torpedoes I got SUPER excited when I saw Maya's torpedo armament at first. The looked like SHIMAKAZE (tier X, Japanese destoyer!) torpedoes! Holy cow! Shimakaze torpedoes! Maya's A M A Z I N G ! Except they're not Shimakaze torpedoes. Well, they are if you combined like the worst aspects of each one of Shimakaze's three torpedo options. So you get the shortest range, the weakest warheads, the largest detectability aura and the worst flooding chance. BUT ER MAH GURD! SHIMAKAZE TORPEDOES AT TIER VII~! WHOOOOOO! MOUSE SAID IT SO IT MUST BE TRUE! Seriously though, these torpedoes are weird momos. I haven't found anything like these fish elsewhere in World of Warships, though admittedly I didn't look too hard (I was too caught up on the Shimakaze comparison, I'm not going to lie). When I first began analyzing this ship, I thought surely this must be Maya's gimmicks: She's a torpedo cruiser! Her guns are crappy so her fish can be amazing! You'll notice past-me was jumping to a whole lot of conclusions without actually sitting down and having a good think about things. Play-testing quickly shook my romantic notions about these fish. They don't suck -- they hit too hard and they're too fast to be a complete write off. She's also got those delicious fire angles from her sister-ship Atago (they're actually even better than Atago's with more overlap directly broadside). But outside of PVE modes, they are very hard to use with any reliability (in co-op, they rock, tho, but torpedo-armed ships rule the roost there, so that's no surprise). The fault here is her poor concealment. If you slapped these same torpedoes on her bigger sister at tier VIII? Not so much of a worry. As a platform, Atago could make these work more readily. There's only 1.33km between Atago's surface detection and the 8km range of these fish. At a speed of 35.5 knots, Atago can cover that in less than 14 seconds. Maya has to contend with more than 3km difference. That's 33 seconds. Your opponent has to be asleep at the wheel for Maya to get away with a suicide rush like that unscathed. Well, unless you pick on something with a horrid reload, like California! (Gotta twist the knife, @SaiIor_Moon! ) Like brawling in a battleship, you need to pick your moment in order to make Maya's fish work. You want an isolated target, preferably one that's distracted and either the cover of smoke or the use of an island to help close the distance so they don't have time to react to what invariably ends up being someone's dramatic end, and it's often Maya being sent to the bottom and not her prey. So yeah, nice fish, shame about the range. Even more of a shame about the surface detection of the ship, tho. Better luck next premium. For a Japanese heavy cruiser, Maya has good torpedo coverage off each side, with each launcher covering a quadrant of the ship. Be careful, though, you still have to give away significant broadside in order to launch torpedoes. I'm not sorry for my colour choices. Summary Maya deals damage slowly, carefully. You don't buy this ship because of her striking power. You buy her for her durability (more on that later). She needs time and opportunity to take out her opponents, which means having a patient hand at the tiller. That's not me. I'm not patient. Maya's firepower drives me nuts. VERDICT: Comfortable guns but they fire too slowly. Powerful torpedoes but they're too short ranged. Durability Hit Points: 39,200 Bow & stern / superstructure / upper-hull / amidships-deck: 16mm / 13mm / 25mm / 29mm Maximum Citadel Protection: 25mm anti-torpedo bulge + 102mm belt Torpedo Damage Reduction: 19% This is a comparison between the tier VII cruisers that have access to a Repair Party consumable plus the Myoko-class cruisers. Myoko has the highest hit point pool of the non-healing cruisers at tier VII with 39,200 hp -- the same value that Maya has incidentally. Maya has some pretty good durability traits for a tier VII cruiser. She starts with a lot of hit points. She has access to a Repair Party consumable. She has anti-torpedo protection, including external anti-torpedo bulges. Her deck plating is reinforced. Let's start with her health and heals. Health and Healing Potential Having access to a Repair Party for any mid-tier cruiser is a big deal, proving extra staying power over the course of a match. There is some reason for caution here. Unlike battleships, cruisers are much more likely to be subject to "rapid unscheduled disassembly", being one-shot by salvos of shells or torpedoes. A Repair Party doesn't do you much good if you can't survive what initially stripped away your health in the first place. That said, cruiser heals, including Maya's, are more capable of recovering citadel damage, queuing up to 50% of all penetration damage instead of just 10% like a battleship's might. So if you do get smacked in places you REALLY don't want to be hit, there is some solace that you can claw back some of the hurt done to you. Just don't make it a habit. Maya pairs this healing benefit with one of the largest hit point pools at her tier, with only Toulon having more and Myoko having just as much. This has the added benefit of making her individual healing charges meatier -- gotta love percentage based mechanics when you have bigger base numbers than the competition. Though this has no impact on fires or flooding, neither of these tend to be a significant threat to cruisers with their faster Damage Control Party. Still, in the age of submarine pings, it's worth keeping an eye on damage-over-time effects. Thus Maya's big hit point pool and heals make her more resistant to damage than many of her tier mates, though she's not the best in that regard. Though Maya has a Repair Party, it's a neutered Repair Party, coming with fewer base charges than her contemporaries. Maya starts with only two charges of her heal instead of the usual three. So instead of being exemplary when it comes to health and healing potential, Maya is merely "very good". Oh noes, how terrible. The are a few remarkable features regardling Maya's armour scheme. First is the presence of her large anti-torpedo bulges. When angled, this provides an extra layer of protection against AP shells of 356mm calibre or smaller. The second is her 29mm deck armour, which provides some protection against light cruiser calibre HE and overmatching from anything smaller than a 419mm AP round. Third, you have to keep that enormous 13mm superstructure in mind. It's an easy, enormous target that gives away a ton of damage. Armour & Citadel Protection Cruisers don't have it very good at tier VII, at least not in terms of being able to shrug off incoming shell fire. Once you hit tier VIII, there's limited opportunities to face tank certain calibres of AP rounds, with most cruisers able to auto-ricochet 356mm AP shells and German and American heavy cruisers can shrug off as high as 381mm AP rounds too which is pretty cool. Down here at tier VII, though, anything 229mm or larger in calibre will overmatch Maya's snoot or butt and slam into her stepped citadel and do unspeakable things to her hit point pool. Unfortunately, every battleship that she might face presently has guns that big. There's even a lot of cruisers throwing shells around at that size. Even Cheshire can do it! Cheshire! I hate saying good things about Cheshire! How dare, Maya!? How dare!? So angling against large calibre rounds in mid-tier cruisers doesn't work so well. You need to dodge those, though it would be preferable if you didn't get shot at by them in the first place. Still, it's not all doom and gloom. Maya has some pretty trollish facets to her armour. First, her amidships deck cannot be overmatched by anything smaller than a 419mm AP shell. Similarly, her deck plating is immune to 152mm HE shells or smaller, provided they come from tier V, VI or VII cruisers not packing the Inertial Fuse for HE Shells commander skill. This includes relative immunity to small-calibre HE rockets and some bomblets off Royal Navy carriers. This really isn't going to result in her shrugging off much in the way of extra damage; her deck is a relatively small target, but every now and then it might save you from incidental hits. Similarly, her anti-torpedo bulges present a void to incoming shell fire. A shell which penetrates the bulges but fails to get through her belt underneath won't do anything. For incoming AP rounds smacking her at an angle, these bulges also present an additional ricochet check which may help keep her alive. For all of this admittedly mixed praise, I wouldn't call Maya's armour and citadel scheme good, though. It's merely 'okay', even for a cruiser. Your best hope here is to not get hit if you can at all help it. Her high-water citadel placement amidships means she gives away citadel damage quite often. In addition, her enormous superstructure is an easy spot to bullseye for bombs, rockets and shellfire. And while she does have some anti-torpedo protection, with a cruiser's hit point pool, even individual torpedo hit can be crippling. Peel the anti-torpedo bulges back and you can see Maya's stepped citadel profile with her 102mm / 127mm belt armour. Maya has weird citadel geometry that's rather common in Japanese ships. This ship doesn't angle well against incoming AP fire, but there are few tier VII cruisers that do. Summary Maya is tougher than the average tier VII cruiser, but this rarely demonstrates itself in any dramatic manner. She's not a battleship. She's not meant to "tank" hits, just sponge up a few and keep coming back. Her heals allow her to stay in the fight a little longer than she otherwise might, so long as you play her cautiously. Don't think you'll come out the other side of a suicidal torpedo run lemon-fresh scented, or be able to trade body blows with another cruiser to make up for her terrible DPM. VERDICT: Good, but not a game changer, I'm sorry to say. It feels like a poor trade for such poor hitting power. Agility Top Speed: 35.5 knots Turning Radius: 780 meters Rudder Shift Time: 10.13 seconds 4/4 Engine Speed Rate of Turn: 5.6/s at 28.3kts Main Battery Traverse Rate: 6º/s Alright, this was an attempt to keep the clutter WAAAY down. In this comparison, I have the most agile tier VII cruisers (Gorizia, Chumphon and Fiji), then all of the Japanese cruisers at tier VII (Omono, Tokachi, Maya and the Myoko-chorus) and then the least agile cruiser at the tier (Lazo). I hope this gives a reasonable indication of comparative agility. Let me know what you think and if I should include more / less. I want to make sure these are readable, but I know that some people look to these graphics for more than just the ship I'm presently covering. Maya's fast. She's not the fastest cruiser out there. The French cruisers, with their Engine Boost consumables are faster. Algérie can push 35.8 knots, Toulon manages over 36. Maya's strength is that speed consistently without worries of cool downs. Speed is life in World of Warships and Maya's long legs give her flexibility to pull off some shenanigans, but only SOME shenanigans. Not all of 'em. This isn't S-tier sprinting, merely a satisfying B-tier speed which facilitates a few tricks, so don't get greedy. Maya can shift from one flank to the other, making sure she's where she needs to be to get her guns to where they will do the most good. She can run down exposed ships, like submarines and destroyers that desperately need killing 1. You can even catch a carrier on occasion, which is good fun when a gap in the enemy lines presents itself 2. She can control engagement distances, ensuring the big bads don't get close and that her guns, torpedoes and concealment work efficiently. Now you'll note that I didn't mention Just Dodging™ here, though I should hasten to specify that I'm talking about avoiding shell fire. Maya's quick, but she's not that quick. An extra three knots over most other cruisers isn't enough to throw off most players' aim unless they're yeeting shells from across the map with close to ten second flight times. So Maya needs to exercise the same cautions most cruisers do when there are bored battleships about. I should add that Maya doesn't turn especially quickly either. Her rudder shift time is definitely on the poor side of the mean (she's the second worst at her tier) but her rate of turn falls beneath the 6º/s rotation threshold that I prefer on my cruisers for that kind of gymnastics. The only plus side with her slower rate of turn is that she doesn't QUITE out turn her turrets, but they're not fast-turning either, so it's a close race. So Maya's fast in a straight line, but she's not an agile ship. Her high speed does lend her some better handling characteristics, but it doesn't make up for a large turning circle radius or sluggish rudder shift time. VERDICT: Fast but not nimble. Anti-Aircraft Defence Flak Bursts: 2 + 1 explosions for 1,330 damage per blast at 3.5km to 5.8km. Long Ranged (up to 5.8 km): 84dps at 90% accuracy (75.6 dps) Short Ranged (up to 2.5 km): 217 dps at 85% accuracy (184.5 dps) I don't have much to say about Maya's triple-A (heh, rhymin'). It's perfectly average for a tier VII cruiser. In terms of sustained AA DPS, she's putting out comparable numbers to München and Zara; neither of which are particularly impressive specimens, but they're nowhere close to the worst at this tier. Against incoming planes, her sustained damage output is evenly split between her large calibre and small calibre weapons, so losing the latter to HE splash effects will only halve her output instead of outright mauling it to uselessness. Like most ships at this tier, she puts out enough damage to bloody the noses of tier VI carriers, likely shooting down a plane or two unless they oblige you into face-planting into what few flak clouds she puts up. While Defensive AA Fire may help, Maya doesn't put up the numbers to flirt with becoming a credible threat to CV predation. Tier VIII carriers can easily have their way with her without worrying about casualties. You're best served by deploying your Catapult Fighter well in advance of approaching aircraft and Just Dodging™ your way through the worst of it as most cruisers must at this tier.... and at most tiers. Maya's AA defence is perfectly acceptable ... if you're fighting tier VI AI bots that don't know how to dodge flak. VERDICT: Average and forgettable .Vision Control Base/Minimum Surface Detection: 12.4 km / 11.16 km Base/Minimum Air Detection Range: 7.16 km / 6.44 km Detection Range When Firing in Smoke: 7.32 km Maximum Firing Range: 15.28 km Living up to Expectations Maya is a tier VII Atago, right? RIGHT??? WELL! One of Atago's defining features is how stealthy she is! It's really quite frightening that a heavy cruiser packing ten 203mm guns and sixteen torpedoes, has a sub-10km surface detection range. I still have fond memories of the early seasons of Ranked Battles where I would use Atago's stealth to follow a few kilometres behind friendly destroyers towards the caps. When they face-spotted the other DD, my Atago could engage, emerging from seemingly out of nowhere and deciding the fight with a couple of well placed salvos. Maya can't do that. When top tier, Maya's surface detection ranks 52nd out of 80 cruisers. Atago ranks 16th out of 101. When mid tier, Maya ranks 69th (nice) out of 101 cruisers. Atago ranks 11th out of 104 cruisers. When bottom tier, Maya ranks 66th out of 104 cruisers cruisers. Atago ranks 12th out of 100 cruisers. This, more than anything else precludes Maya from playing in a similar manner to Atago. Forget Maya's Main Battery Reload Booster. Forget her shorter ranged torpedoes. Atago has excellent surface detection range for a cruiser, competitive no matter what her matchmaking might be. Maya's never better than on the poor side of average. This might seem so different when put into practice. Indeed, outside of very specific Ranked Battle scenarios like I listed above, the Atago-clones and Maya will play quite similarly; keeping in the second line, taking shots of opportunity where possible and pulling back when the heat starts coming their way. The difference between the two demonstrates itself in the mid-to-late game. Atago can come off her chain and become a super-sized destroyer; taking caps, hunting down destroyers, making torpedo runs against enemies pushing forward and do all of this from stealth. Simply put, Maya can't. She risks being spotted far too soon to make any of this viable unless your opponents are just handing you the win. Where Atago is a dynamic, aggressive ship. Maya is forced to remain more passive without risking suicide. And this all comes down to how stealthy they are. Reality Check Forget Atago. Maya's concealment almost mirrors that of her tier VII contemporary, Myoko. Myoko cannot pull of Atago shenanigans, but she doesn't have to. She's a second-line heavy cruiser that provides good fire support and happens to have torpedoes that can punch people's noses in if they get careless. Maya does the same. The difference is that Maya's torpedoes are easier to use on the attack and hit harder. Like Myoko, in order to use them, she needs set up ambushes in order to make them work from concealment. Otherwise, you'll just have to accept that you'll be spotted while you punch fish up their noses. You're only running down destroyers (and submarines) when the lolibotes make a terrible, terrible mistake. You've got a Hydroacoustic Search consumable, so make good use of it in those scenarios. Maya's game play is perfectly viable, it's just lacking the high-skill ceiling of her higher-tiered sister-ship. You're a support heavy cruiser that can brawl in a pinch. Play like one. Just like our avatars, @Lert pilots Maya, a sleek black cat while I'm a pink weeb in ARP Maya. Somehow the pink atrocity is sneakier. VERDICT: A ship-defining weakness for fans of Atago. Otherwise, she's just a heavy cruiser with below-average concealment. Anti-Submarine Warfare ASW Armament Type: Depth charges Number of Bombs per String: Nine Number of Strings Carried: Two Reload Time per String: 40 seconds Drop Pattern: Rolled off the rear deck on either side of her stern and then directly aft (port / starboard / port / starboard / astern x5 ) Maximum Bomb Damage: 4,600 Fire / Flooding Chance: 19% / 36% Maya drops her nine depth charges over 8 seconds (1 second intervals between each drop after the first). Going flat out at 35.6 knots, there's about 765m between the first depth charge and last. Add in the 800m blast radius and Maya covers a line 2,365m long where her bombs can potentially damage a submarine. You can see (if you squint) Maya's depth charge drop pattern. She lacks depth charge throwers to yeet her bombs to each side, instead rolling them off the ship's stern. So... the bad news: Maya has depth charge throwers instead of an air strike. Depth charges are much harder to use against submarines, especially for a cruiser and ESPECIALLY for a cruiser without a lot of concealment. The good news is that if you do get a chance to use them, Maya's going to brutalize whatever she hits. Depth charge efficiency varies a lot between the nations and Japan comes up with the third-best behind the Americans and British. At tier VII, the best depth charges do 5,100 damage, so Maya's not too far behind. For non-direct hits, this difference is even more minor, with Maya's individual bombs doing 1,518 damage versus 1,683 from the Americans. Still, a full string is only capping out at 13,662 damage, which is usually enough to kill a tier VI submarine if you can land everything. Against tier VIII submarines, you're going to need two strings to sink a full health sub. Of course, even getting yourself into a situation where you can drop depth charges in the first place means that SOMEONE has screwed up and it's usually going to be the sub. I love doing depth charge runs on subs -- it's super satisfying. But like brawling or wiping out a squadron with a flak explosion, depth charge runs aren't common. It's hard to get the practice in against opponents who are fighting back as the opportunities just don't come up often enough. Maya's lack of an airstrike is a weakness, not because her depth charges are bad -- it's just that air strikes can be used so much more frequently in practice and usually without risking your ship which makes it so much better overall. Oh well. Two fun and engaging mechanics at once! VERDICT: For depth charges, it's not a bad armament. But an air strike would be better. Final Evaluation Because Atago exists, Maya looks crappy. It's not a fair comparison at all, really. Atago is just so much better overall as a concept. I'm very much reminded of how Wargaming didn't want me comparing California to Arizona (Arizona is just so much better than California). You give up too much with Maya: You lose two guns, reload time, 2km range on her torpedoes, 1.8km worth of concealment and a healing charge and for what? You get a consumable that band-aids her lower shell output and slightly better (but not good) AA power. All of this to be slotted one tier lower. It's not worth it. It's just not worth it. For Maya to get a fair shake, you have to pretend that Atago doesn't exist and compare her instead to her tier-mate, Myoko. So let's abolish Atago (and all of her clones) from history. Let's pretend they don't exist and never existed. Can THAT make Maya palatable? Can that make her look reasonable? Let's look at her with a fresh pair of eyes and compare her instead to Myoko; a much more reasonable and fair assumption, honestly. Compared to Myoko, Maya gets: + Healing (!) + Much better torpedo angles (!) + Harder hitting, faster torpedoes + 0.5 knots more ship speed + Slightly more stealth + Improved (but not good) AA Defence But she gives up: - Two fewer guns (!) - A much longer main battery reload (!) - Dependency on a consumable to make up for her crappy DPM - 2km less torpedo range - Depth charges instead of an air strike That looks kind of better, I think. It's almost a fair trade? Maybe almost? The healing factor sort of makes up for the lower DPM. When she's analyzed this way, it's her torpedoes that are the stylistic X-factor. If you think you can make them work through guts or reckless zeal, then maybe this ship has some merits for you. And were it just based on that, I could probably shrug my shoulders and leave it at that. I'd rather have Myoko, personally, but I couldn't fault someone that found the heals + living-dangerous torpedo ranges and fire arcs appealing. I wish I could leave Maya's analysis with something cheerful and cautiously optimistic like that. Sadly for Maya, Atago DOES exist. For the price asked Maya doesn't look very good in my estimation, not when Atago is such an easy upsell. The cynic in me sees Maya and she looks like a vehicle to sell more Atagos to those that don't already have her. For those that do, the positive feels that Atago inspires may prove bait enough to make players impetuously pull the trigger hoping for more of the same. It would have worked on me (SHIMAKAZE TORPEDOES, AWMEHGERRR!) Maya's a pass in my book. She's not terrible, but she's far from good -- a solid MEHBOTE. She'd need more stealth to make me sit up and take notice. If they packaged her with something closer to a 10km surface detection range? Yeah, then she'd be very interesting. Then I could engage in some aggressive destroyer hunting. Then I could maybe put her depth charges to a bit more use. Both of those features alone would be pretty fun. They're also stupidly powerful and decide games (I have a type, I can't help it). That failing, then it comes down to the usual suspects of looking for more damage output or maybe better heals to at least make her feel solid and competitive in most matches. As it is, she just doesn't do damage quickly enough nor does the have the staying power to tickle my fancy. Thank you for reading! Mouse out! 1. All lolibotes and submarines desperately need killing. 2.) That gap's gotta be pretty freakin' huge for Maya to sneak her fat butt through without getting spotted.

After what seemed like an eternity, the Matchmaker finally granted my wish of fighting against a CV in Okinawa. Such a beautiful map, with rich color tones and a highly detailed environment. Of course these were not essential to the well-fought 20 minute Random Battle, but in retrospect, it was like the sweet icing on the proverbial cake. Link: https://youtu.be/-MJw4yUGRdw I've played the Dm. Donskoi a ton of times already, most of them in Co-op, starting when the Moskva was first announced to become a Coal ship, then to the grind to the Nevsky, and even up to today. I am still learning a thing or two about how to play this light cruiser these days, and I realized this is the 2nd or 3rd time (after all the games I've played with the ship) that I made a 1st place Base XP score. I nearly made it to the top of the scoreboard in my last battle, but this battle was sweeter because it was very much a well-contested one that included a CV. Have a pleasant and safe Sunday, everyone.

So, a funny thing happened on the way to finishing up my last dissertation on Pan-European destroyers when this knowledge bomb dropped: ... Yeaaaaah. In truth I'm just going to wait until they actually unveil the line to comment on them as there is A LOT to unpack there. So until then, lets theorycraft the Spanish Cruiser line! Spain is a very unique nation to bring to WoWs and one that I have been excited for for a very long time. As the last of the so called "Major Minor" nations of Europe left, its entirely fitting and appropriate that they be given their own tech tree rather than be lumped into Pan-Europe since, as it turns out, there is a pretty substantial amount of paper ships to sift through that can help to flesh out their tree. Way more than the Dutch or, honestly the rest of the minor European navies for that matter. When it comes to cruisers specifically, what can we expect? Whelp, IMO these ships will play like a mix between British and Italian cruisers, unsurprisingly to some. Low to mid tier ships will straight up use British hulls and guns (albeit modified) while higher tier ships will have a mix of Italian and indigenously developed hulls. German and Italian AA weapons will be predominant throughout and somewhat extensive to boot. Almost in similar vein to Dutch cruisers. Also like the Dutch and Italians, spotter planes will be available at the mid-tiers to extend the range of the guns, but also like the Italians, these ships won't have much in the way of vision control. I don't foresee Hydro or Radar being offered on them but would (much like Canarias) have a speed boost. Coupled with either an Italian or British (or both!) smoke and a "why the hell not" DFAA, Spanish cruisers will be less about utility and more about simply doing damage. On top of all this, there are two other gameplay factors to consider when crafting this line. First, the line would in true British form stick to improved AP only. Given that Canarias is already offering this style of gameplay somewhat, I think an entire line of this would offer some interesting options. This leads us to factor two: burst fire mode. Many of you may recall that Canarias was initially tested with this concept only to have it removed (though in fairness, her "alt-firing mode" also significantly changed the performance of her shells which was dumb.) but did end up reappearing in the brand new DD-cum-tiny CL Alvaro de Bazan. It's clear that WeeGee wants to make burst fire a "thing" for Spain at least to try and differentiate it a little more than simply being a copypasta line. So keeping all that in mind, lets take a look at what Spain could offer. Tier I: Pizarro-class Essentially a sloop broadly similar to the Black Swan-class in Britain, these ships actually went on to have fairly long and successful careers in the Armada both as escorts and then later refitted as light ASW frigates. In game, expect her to either pack 3x1 4" Vickers guns, or 3x1 4.1" German guns and be otherwise completely forgettable. Moving on... Tier II: Reina Regente protected cruiser This ship was actually laid down prior to the Spanish American war (!) but due to the war, the ensuing financial crisis and design changes didn't get launched until 1906 (!!) and wasn't commissioned until 1910!!! Essentially making her obsolete as soon as she entered service. Capable of not quite 20kts, she is armed with 15cm guns in both broadside casemate mounts and in twin turrets fore and aft. A total of 10 guns with a healthy 7 gun broadside. While impressive for her tier, her middling speed, slow rate of fire and lack of torpedoes would allow her to balance out any raw damage output she may posses. Tier III: Navarra light cruiser This ship is the ex Reina Victoria Eugenia, essentially a modified version of the Birmingham-class CLs (akin to the Weymouth in game for those keeping score at home.) And I know what you're thinking, "why not put this ship at tier II if it's just a Weymouth or at least her original version?" Truth be told, I have waffled with this decision quite a lot but decided on this arrangement for two reasons. One, the RVE didn't really see any major upgrades... like, at all until she was reconstructed into Navarra in 1937. this inherently limits her potential. Reason number two: torpedoes. Creating a cohesive line of ships for Spain by simply putting ships into the same tier as their parent designs (which is easy since said ships are all already in game with the British) ends up creating weird gaps and other problems further up the line. And given how many of Spain's cruisers were heavily modified/rebuilt I want to celebrate that uniqueness so as to rely less on the copypasta. So what does that have to do with torps then? Well, this line up allows TTs to show up later in the line but remain a consistent feature of higher tier ships while down here at tiers II and III we are all gun. I have also seen some theorycrafters try and shoehorn this ship up at tier IV but would have to imply that her AA is way better than it actually is and would have to be very heavily massaged to have capabilities to match at that MM spread. Remember, still a tier II hull after all. As for Navarra herself, she carries 6x1 6" guns, same as on the old RVE but now all on the centerline. Being rebuilt as something of an AA cruiser, she has a secondary battery of 4x1 88mm DP guns (the same ones as on older German BBs) and some Italian HMGs for close in defense, later upgraded to 2cm Flak. Her top speed is still a rather mediocre 25kts and again, she lost the TTs in the conversion. Nonetheless, I think that this ship does an outstanding job of forming the basis of the rest of the CL's "flavour" if you will. Tier IV: Blas de Lezo (or is it Méndez Núñes?) These ships were... well they were just C-class cruisers. With an extra gun, but the guns are not all on the centerline so... yeah. Why is this tier IV? Well two reasons. One, torpedoes! 4x3 launchers baby, so any shortcomings she has in gun firepower she gets to (potentially) make up here! Reason number two is this: This is one of the modernization proposals for the surviving sister ship before it was decided to turn that into an AA cruiser. The ship would now have 3x2 6" guns on the centerline, a floatplane maybe and improved AAA but lose 1/2 of it's torpedoes it appears. I think WeeGee could be enticed to mess around with this one a bit since the Blas can essentially become a blank slate. As for her sister, Méndez Núñes in her final form would likely make for a great tier V premium: (Main armament here is 8x1 4.7" DP guns) Tier V: Príncipe Alfonso- class These ships are essentially just modified E-class ships, but with 8 guns to the Emerald's 7. The guns are arranged weirdly though, with 3 twin turrets in the A-Q-X positions and single mounts superfiring in the B-Y positions. Torpedo armament is still awesome with 4x3 launchers though these were gradually removed as the years and refits went on. (More on that later) Overall, a pretty cromulent tier V ship. As we come up on tier VI, we can start to consider a split between heavy and light cruisers. While it obviously would have made more sense to have Canarias show up at this point to kick such a line off, there are still plenty of paper design options that can fit at tier VI regardless (Canarias' sister ship Belares notwithstanding, as she didn't survive the war). However I plan to cover these ships in a separate thread post further below. As my line is going to end with CAs anyway, having an entirely separate line would naturally be redundant even if you were to do heavy --> heavy-er cruisers, at which point you could have a French or Soviet style cruiser split at tier VIII. For now though, back to the ships. Tier VI: Miguel de Cervantes The ultimate development of the previous Alfonso-class ships. This ship was rebuilt in the 1940s to move her guns around to a more usable A-B-X-Y configuration as seen above, much heavier AAA, again the floatplane and again taking away half of her TTs. This ship would essentially become analogous to a Leander in most respects and should provide a good step up from her tier V sister. This also represents the last real steel ship in the line, everything from here on out is paper. Tier VII: SECN Project 124 This ship was designed just before the Civil War and is for all intents and purposes a Spanish Eintracht. 10 6" guns as shown above along with 3x2 90mm guns for long range AA defense (yes, those 90mm guns) plus associated German and Italian small caliber stuff and 2x3 TTs. All in all a pretty well stacked tier VII CL and one that also begins to transition to more Italian design influences. Speaking of which... Tier VIII: Ansaldo Designs VIII- 203 / XII- 152 So here at tier VIII we get a bit of a choice; a light (ish) cruiser, a heavy cruiser, or both! As you can see these ships were essentially just variations of the same base hull design (a third version IX- 203 is also lumped in with them but more on that one later). Obviously one had 6" guns in 4x3 turrets and the other 8" guns in 4x2s. Everything else, from the TT armament (2x4s) to the general AAA compliment is mostly the same. So lets get crazy... and Mogami-ify them together! With the upgraded gun option being the 8-inchers! "But Trophy!!!" I hear you cry, "that's such a downgrade over 12 6" guns especially if they're only shooting AP!" And yes, I would agree why would you want to combine these ships just to get less, marginally larger guns? Well, this is where the alt-firing mode comes back into play! (You thought I forgot about that didn't you?) Imagine an AP only Mainz and an AP only Hipper that can burst fire combined into one ship, and that is we could potentially have here. Tier IX: Ansaldo design IX- 203 This ship for all intents and purposes is the tier VIII Amalfi in the Italian tech line. And as you can see it's still the same general hull from tier VIII just with 3x3 guns now. So why move it up? Because burst-fire. Oh and just for good measure, give it a heal too. Tier X: SECN Project 138-A (Note the name Numancia was given by the artist.) Arguably the most sensible of Spain's vaunted "Super Washington" heavy cruiser designs, this 17 and a half thousand tonne design features 4x3 8" guns, 2x4 TTs and a fairly substantial AA capability to include 6x2 90mm guns, 75mm guns (for some reason) plus numerous smaller 37mm and 2cm mounts. Oh and it can somehow go 37kts. With the aforementioned burst-fire capability as well, this should make for a pretty capable ship in it's own right, even if 12 8" guns at tier X isn't exactly Earth shattering anymore. Before I wrap this up, there is one other important trait almost all of these ships have that I should mention; every ship from tier III on up gets depth charges. So there you have it, my take on what the Spanish cruiser branch could look like! As I mentioned previously, I will likely follow up with a supplemental Heavy Cruiser sub-branch at some point, so stay tuned!

In the late nineteen-teens, the USN conducted an exercise where one force of dreadnought battleships (BLUE) would try to prevent two forces of pre-dreadnoughts (RED) from linking up. BLUE failed to not only to prevent the forces of RED from linking up, but even from finding RED within the search area. The cause of this was heavy weather and the effects it had on the destroyer force which BLUE used to try and find RED. It was realized that while destroyers could outrun any other ship during calm weather, this was not the during rougher sea states. During the exercise, the destroyers only managed around 9 kts, where even the older pre-dreadnoughts, with their lower freeboards, could easily maintain 15 kts. It was also observed during an earlier exercise that in even rougher seas, the destroyers had to leave the search area for fear of floundering (something that would be seen in action in WWII). The obvious solution to this was to use larger ships for scouting. The ships developed during the design study were initially designed with either ten 6-inch guns or four 12-inch guns, with later designs even being given 14 or 16-inch guns and most were designed for a speed of 35 kts. While no ships were built from these designs, they did lay the foundation for the Omaha-Class. Sticking to the USN naming convention for cruisers, these ships are named for US cities. Aside from the Albuquerque, which is the start of this left turn on the USN cruiser branch, the ships are named after towns that have Court House in their name, as I am sure that they, and the line as a whole, will be judged harshly. As a line, these ships will be fast, all sharing the same speed of 35 kts. The Tier VI-VIII ships also have no belt armor, as they were designed to be completely unarmored. The Battle Scouts, that is the scouts with Battleship main armament, could be classified in two ways during the 1919 study: the first by armament (2x2 12", 2x1 14", 2x2 14", and 2x2 16") and the second being by armor (none, 4" belt, and 8" belt). The 'Court House' Classes are drawn from this portion of the study, where Design 115 was from a bit earlier. As these ships were designed to fulfill the function of destroyers, I have largely given them destroyer consumables, like American Destroyer smoke and a slightly upgraded Engine Boost. The ships were equipped to carry spotting aircraft, which is reflected in their consumables, and the Heavy Repair Party is used because these ships will eat a lot of citadel damage, especially at tiers VI-VIII. Note: The full displacement of these ships is derived from the weight charts, by calculating the various stores that are listed at 2/3rd, multiplying them by 1.5, and then adding up the other weights. They do not reflect the proposed modernization that I have given them and the health in parenthesis is what the health would be using this approximate full displacement, which could assist in balancing. Tier VI Battle Scout 115 Albuquerque-Class Displacement: 12,600t normal (13,956t full, approx.) Health:33,600 (36,250) Armor Torpedo Protection: 4.0% Plating: 16mm Main Belt: 16mm Main Deck: 16mm Barbettes: 152mm Turret Face: 25mm Citadel Bulkhead: 25mm Citadel Athwartship: 25mm Citadel Roof: 25mm Length: 720’ (219.46m) Beam: 59’ (17.98m) Speed: 35.0 kts E.H.P.: 62,500 (approx between 93,750 and 125,000 SHP) Rudder Shift: 8.0s Turning Circle: 710m Detectability By Air/Sea: 6.6km/12.2km Main Armament 2x2 305mm/50 Mk.7 in a turret Reload: 30.0s Range: 14.3 km Turret 180º: 30.0s Dispersion: 116m Horizontal/64m Vertical @ 12.0km Sigma: 2.0σ 1 – 305mm HE Max Damage: 4,200 Fire Chance: 22.0% Shell Pen: 51mm Muzzle Velocity: 884 m/s 2 – 305mm AP Max Damage: 8,300 Muzzle Velocity: 884 m/s Secondary Armament 7x1 152mm/50 Mk.8 on a Mk.10 mount Reload: 10.0s Max Damage: 2,100 Fire Chance: 7.0% Penetration: 25mm Range: 5.0km Muzzle Velocity: 853 m/s Anti-Aircraft Armament 4x1 76mm/50 Mk.22 on a single mount Medium Range AA Continuous Damage: 21 Range: 3.5km Consumables R – Damage Control Party (5s Duration; 60s Cooldown) T – Heavy Repair Party (2.0%/sec; 50% Health; 33% Citadel; 20s Duration; 80s Cooldown) Y – Smoke Generator (0.45km radius; 30s Duration; 118s Dispersion; 160s Cooldown) U – Engine Boost (+12.5% Speed; 120s Duration; 120s Cooldown) I – Spotting Aircraft Tier VII Battle Scout 118 Appomattox Court House-Class Displacement: 14,350 (~15,752) Health: 37,000 Armor Torpedo Protection: 4.0% Plating: 13mm Main Belt: 16mm Upper Belt: 16mm Main Deck: 16mm Barbettes: 25mm Turret Face: 25mm Turret Sides: 25mm Turret Rear: 25mm Turret Roof: 25mm Citadel Bulkhead: 25mm Citadel Athwartship: 25mm Citadel Roof: 25mm Length: 720’ (219.46m) Beam: 69’ (21.03m) Speed: 35.0 kts E.H.P.: 62,500 (approx between 93,750 and 125,000 SHP) Rudder Shift: 8.2s Turning Circle: 720m Detectability By Air/Sea: 7.0km/12.8km Main Armament 2x2 305mm/45 Mk.5 in a turret Reload: 30.0s Range: 15.6km Turret 180º: 30.0s Dispersion: 116m Horizontal/64m Vertical @ 12.0km Sigma: 2.0σ 1 – 305mm HE Max Damage: 4,100 Fire Chance: 20.0% Shell Pen: 51mm Muzzle Velocity: 823 m/s 2 – 305mm AP Max Damage: 8,100 Muzzle Velocity: 823m/s Secondary Armament 7x1 127mm/25 Mk.19 on a Mk.19 mount Reload: 4.5s Max Damage: 1,800 Fire Chance: 9.0% Penetration: 21mm Range: 5.6km Muzzle Velocity: 657 m/s Anti-Aircraft Armament 7x1 127mm/25 Mk.19 on a Mk.19 mount 6x4 40mm/56 Bofors on a Mk.2 mount 20x2 20mm/70 Oerlikon on a Mk.24 mount Long Range AA Flak Burst: 74 Flak Damage: 1,330 Continuous Damage: 74 Range: 4.8 km Medium Range AA Continuous Damage: 175 Range: 3.5 km Short Range AA Continuous Damage: 300 Range: 2.0 km Consumables R – Damage Control Party (5s Duration; 60s Cooldown) T – Heavy Repair Party (2.0%/sec; 50% Health; 33% Citadel; 20s Duration; 80s Cooldown) Y – Smoke Generator (0.45km radius; 30s Duration; 121s Dispersion; 160s Cooldown) U – Engine Boost (+12.5% Speed; 120s Duration; 120s Cooldown) I – Spotting Aircraft Tier VIII Battle Scout 124 Charlotte Court House-Class Displacement: 15,500t normal (19,875t full, approx.) Health: 39,200 (47,500) Armor Torpedo Protection: 4.0% Plating: 16mm Main Belt: 25mm Upper Belt: 25mm Main Deck: 25mm Barbettes: 27mm Turret Face: 25mm Turret Sides: 25mm Turret Rear: 25mm Turret Roof: 25mm Citadel Bulkhead: 27mm Citadel Athwartship: 27mm Citadel Roof: 27mm Length: 760’ (231.65m) Beam: 71’ (21.64m) Speed: 35.0 kts E.H.P.: 64,000 (approx between 96,000 and 128,000 SHP) Rudder Shift: 8.6s Turning Circle: 710m Detectability By Air/Sea: 7.0km/12.8km Main Armament 2x2 356mm/45 Mk 8 in a turret Reload: 30.0s Range: 14.3 km Turret 180º: 30.0s Dispersion: 116m Horizontal/64m Vertical @ 12.0km Sigma: 2.0σ 1 – 356mm HE/HC Mk22 Max Damage: 5,000 Fire Chance: 30.0% Shell Pen: 59mm Muzzle Velocity: 834 m/s 2 – 356mm AP Mk16 Max Damage: 10,300 Muzzle Velocity: 792 m/s Secondary Armament 7x1 127mm/38 Mk.12 on a Mk.30 mod.0 mount Reload: 3.0s Max Damage: 1,800 Fire Chance: 5.0% Penetration: 21mm Range: 6.6km Muzzle Velocity: 792 m/s Anti-Aircraft Armament 7x1 127mm/38 Mk.12 on a Mk.30 mod.0 mount 6x4 40mm/56 Bofors on a Mk.2 mount 20x2 20mm/70 Oerlikon on a Mk.24 mount Long Range AA Flak Burst: 5 Flak Damage: 1,540 Continuous Damage: 100 Range: 5.8km Medium Range AA Continuous Damage: 200 Range: 3.5km Short Range AA Continuous Damage: 200 Range: 2.0km Consumables R – Damage Control Party (5s Duration; 60s Cooldown) T – Repair Party (2.0%/sec; 50% Health; 33% Citadel; 20s Duration; 80s Cooldown) Y – Smoke Generator (0.45km radius; 30s Duration; 124s Dispersion; 160s Cooldown) U – Engine Boost (+12.5% Speed; 120s Duration; 120s Cooldown) I – Spotting Aircraft Tier IX Battle Scout 125 King and Queen Court House-Class Displacement: 19,500t normal (21,671 full, approx.) Health: 46,800 (51,000) Armor Torpedo Protection: 7% Plating: 16mm Main Belt: 102mm Upper Belt: 25mm Main Deck: 25mm Barbettes: 38mm Turret Face: 38mm Turret Sides: 25mm Turret Rear: 25mm Turret Roof: 25mm Citadel Bulkhead: 25mm Citadel Athwartship: 25mm Citadel Roof: 38mm Length: 760’ (219.46m) Beam: 77’ (23.47m) Speed: 35.0 kts E.H.P.: 76,500 (approx. between 114,750 and 153,000 SHP) Rudder Shift: 8.8s Turning Circle: 740m Detectability By Air/Sea: 7.0km/12.8km Main Armament 2x2 356mm/50 Mk.11 in a turret Reload: 25.0s Range: 16.5km Turret 180º: 30.0s Dispersion: 116m Horizontal/64m Vertical @ 12.0km Sigma: 2.05σ 1 – 356mm HC/HE Mk22 mod 1 Max Damage: 4,750 Fire Chance: 22.0% Shell Pen: 59mm Muzzle Velocity: 861m/s 2 – 356mm AP Mk16 mod 1 Max Damage: 9,500 Muzzle Velocity: 823m/s Secondary Armament 6x1 127mm/38 Mk.12 on a Mk.30 mod.0 mount Reload: 3.0s Max Damage: 1,800 Fire Chance: 5.0% Penetration: 21mm Range: 6.6km Muzzle Velocity: 792m/s 3x2 127mm/38 Mk.12 on a Mk.32 mount Reload: 6.0s Max Damage: 1,800 Fire Chance: 5.0% Penetration: 21mm Range: 6.6km Muzzle Velocity: 792m/s Anti-Aircraft Armament 6x1 127mm/38 Mk.12 on a Mk.30 mod.0 mount 3x2 127mm/38 Mk.12 on a Mk.32 mount 12x4 40mm/56 Bofors on a Mk.2 mount 25x2 20mm/70 Oerlikon on a Mk.24 mount Long Range AA Flak Burst: 5 Flak Damage: 1,610 Continuous Damage: 100 Range: 5.8km Medium Range AA Continuous Damage: 350 Range: 3.5km Short Range AA Continuous Damage: 300 Range: 2.0km Consumables R – Damage Control Party (5s Duration; 60s Cooldown) T – Repair Party (2.0%/sec; 50% Health; 50% Citadel; 20s Duration; 80s Cooldown) Y – Smoke Generator (0.45km radius; 30s Duration; 127s Dispersion; 160s Cooldown) U – Engine Boost (+12.5% Speed; 120s Duration; 120s Cooldown) I – Spotting Aircraft Tier X Battle Scout 131 Washington Court House-Class Displacement: 20,500t normal (22,320t full, approx.) Health: 48,750 (52,200) Armor Torpedo Protection: 7% Plating: 16mm Main Belt: 102mm Upper Belt: 25mm Main Deck: 25mm Barbettes: 38mm Turret Face: 38mm Turret Sides: 25mm Turret Rear: 25mm Turret Roof: 25mm Citadel Bulkhead: 25mm Citadel Athwartship: 25mm Citadel Roof: 38mm Length: 760’ (219.46m) Beam: 77’ (23.47m) Speed: 35.0 kts E.H.P.: 76,500 (approx. between 114,750 and 153,000 SHP) Rudder Shift: 9.2s Turning Circle: 720m Detectability By Air/Sea: 7.0km/12.8km Main Armament 2x2 406mm/50 Mk.2 in a turret Reload: 25.0s Range: 16.5km Turret 180º: 30.0s Dispersion: 116m Horizontal/64m Vertical @ 12.0km Sigma: 2.05σ 1 – 406mm HE/HC Max Damage: 5,700 Fire Chance: 36.0% Shell Pen: 68mm Muzzle Velocity: 853m/s 2 – 406mm AP Mark 3 Max Damage: 12,600 Muzzle Velocity: 853m/s Secondary Armament 6x1 127mm/54 Mk.16 on a Mk.39 mount Reload: 4.0s Max Damage: 1,800 Fire Chance: 9.0% Penetration: 21mm Range: 7.3km Muzzle Velocity: 808m/s 3x2 127mm/64 Mk.16 on a Mk.41 mount Reload: 6.0s Max Damage: 1,800 Fire Chance: 9.0% Penetration: 21mm Range: 7.3km Muzzle Velocity: 808m/s Anti-Aircraft Armament 6x1 127mm/54 Mk.16 on a Mk.39 mount 3x2 127mm/64 Mk.16 on a Mk.41 mount 12x2 76.2mm/50 Mk.22 on Mk.33 mount 25x2 20mm/70 Oerlikon on a Mk.24 mount Long Range AA Flak Burst: 7 Flak Damage: 1,680 Continuous Damage: 150 Range: 6.0km Medium Range AA Continuous Damage: 475 Range: 4.0km Short Range AA Continuous Damage: 300 Range: 2.0km Consumables R – Damage Control Party (5s Duration; 60s Cooldown) T – Repair Party (2.0%/sec; 50% Health; 50% Citadel; 20s Duration; 80s Cooldown) Y – Smoke Generator (0.45km radius; 30s Duration; 127s Dispersion; 160s Cooldown) U – Engine Boost (+12.5% Speed; 120s Duration; 120s Cooldown) I – Spotting Aircraft

I want to like her, but she's terrible. Maya is woefully worse than the FREE T7 Myoko, with significantly worse shells, fewer guns, slower reload, nearly twice as bad rudder response, and 2km less torp range (her torps are also spotted from 2.5km). For this she gets a repair party and a reload booster with base 2 charges. It is not NEARLY enough to make the ship comparable to Myoko and especially for a premium ship that you get either by chance (instead of a different ship) or by spending money. This is a shame because with some tweaking of her values to make her more competitive, this historical and powerful cruiser would be a viable alternative to the tech tree line. Guns -- Myoko: 10x 3300 HE damage. Reload is 14.0 sec. Maya: 8x 3000 HE damage (inexplicably, the same shells do 10% less damage on Maya each). Reload is 16.5 sec. This is a whopping 40% firepower reduction for Maya when compared to the tech tree ship (87k vs 142k HE dmg per min). Maneuverability -- again Maya is woefully worse. This WILL result in more citadels. Myoko: 5.7sec, 780m (upgraded) Maya: 8.1sec, 780m (upgraded) AA -- the "calling card" of the Maya and why she lost the extra turret, but still near identical values to Myoko and still paltry AA in today's meta. Myoko: 131 continuous, 2x shell explosions Maya: 155 continuous, 3x shell explosions All for a repair party that can heal around 6k hp on each of its two charges, and a reload booster that gives her an extra salvo in that 16.5sec reload time, with two charges only and 60sec cooldown.

I’m aware there’s little possibility of these ships getting added into the game (or maybe there are on their plans, who knows). However, in the current meta full of so many paper ships, hybrid monstrosities and “we can assume…” (like the upcoming high tier Pan American cruisers), it would be interesting to see real historical ships once in a while (or other paper ships, but with a historical background). Again, it’s hard to see these added on the near future, but at least I can dream about it. So, this is my list of ships that would be interesting to see on WOWS. Disclaimer: this is all 100% my opinion. You can feel free to agree or disagree with some of them. No worries about that. Spoiler alert: there’s gonna be some CV, but please, stay with me. Submarines Just kidding. Of course there are options, but please no. Now, let’s start. Destroyers San Giorgio: a post-war Capitani Romani-class destroyer with 6 5”/38 caliber American guns and without torpedoes. Could be a decent Tier X gunboat with the Italian exhaust smoke and the engine boost. Johnston: we all know this one. I know, another Fletcher, but one that would sell like crazy (specially in the NA server) for her history. IMO, I’d see her at Tier IX with the heal of the Kidd (or even a zombie heal), the typical American smoke, the 10 torpedo launchers and an engine boost. Piourn: the Polish DD that screamed “I am a Pole” to the Bismarck the night before her last battle. Maybe at Tier VIII, similar to the Orkan but with smoke instead of radar. Laffey: an Allen M. Sumner-class destroyer (like Gearing, but a bit slower) that participated on the D-Day and survived a fierce kamikaze attack. Today is a museum ship. A similar concept like Gearing (Tier X), but with DFAA and maybe a heal. Churruca: a Spanish destroyer with 5 120 mm guns, 6 torpedo launchers and a decent top speed (36 knots). A solid Tier VI. ZH1: a Dutch destroyer captured by the Germans scuttled at the Battle of Ushant after being crippled by British forces. It was armed with 5 120 mm guns and 8 torpedo launchers. Could be a Tier VII. Holland: a Dutch destroyer similar to Friesland, but a bit slower. Could be a decent Tier VIII gunboat. Eversten: a Dutch destroyer (very similar to Acasta) that was sunk in 1942. At Tier V. Cavalier: a British destroyer that is currently a museum ship. Armed with 4 4.5” guns and 10 torpedo launchers. Would need IFHE. A good Tier VII torpedo boat. Cruisers Sheffield: a light cruiser with a rich history behind. A solid Tier VII. Similar to Fiji or Edinburgh, but with HE added. SMS Blücher: not to be confused with the Admiral Hipper-class cruiser sunk in 1940. The last armored cruiser built by the German Empire, which was also sunk. Good artillery (210 mm guns), good armor, but not so fast (25-26 knots) and pretty much no AA. A beast at Tier V, but will suffer when up tiered. Bolzano: in a nutshell, a Trento with Zara’s guns and forecastle. Another glass cannon. Because of it, I’d slot her on Tier VI (maybe with a small heal, like Maya’s). Canberra: a County-class cruiser in service with the Australian Navy and sunk off Savo Island in 1942. Very fragile, but with guns that can hit hard. As her sister ships, Tier VI. Duquesne: a French treaty cruiser with basically no armor that will explode only when you see it. Maybe a YOLO cruiser or a sniper one at Tier V. Gotland: a Swedish hybrid cruiser with also not armor, nor good guns, and slow (28 knots). Could be reliant on her aircraft (similar to the Swordfish with HE bombs) and torpedoes. I’d slot her at Tier V. Tre Kronor: a post war Swedish cruiser with the same guns found on mid-tier Dutch cruisers, but with torpedoes. A decent Tier VI or VII. Averof: another armored cruiser with an outstanding history. Similar to Blücher, good guns, good armor, but slow. However, with not-so-mediocre AA. A good Tier IV, or a Tier V that would struggle (like Viribus Unitis). Houston: an American cruiser which was between the Pensacola and the Indianapolis (much closer to the latter) sunk alongside the Perth in 1942. A similar concept to the Indianapolis, but without the radar, a bit less range and worse AA at Tier VI. Ajax: a New Zealand Leander-class that fought against the Graf Spee in 1939. Similar to Leander (Tier VI), but with HE added. Admiral Scheer: the sister ship of Graf Spee that received some updates throughout the war (different superstructure, a clipper bow, more AA). Same speed, with a thinner armored belt. Like her sister, Tier VI. Quebec: a Fiji-class transferred to the Canadian Navy. Quite similar to Mysore (Tier VI), with torpedoes and HE added. Veinticinco de Mayo: an Argentinian heavy cruiser built in Italy armed with 6 190 mm guns, but light armor. Could be slotted at Tier V. Battleships Royal Oak: a Revenge-class sunk early on WW2 while anchored at Scapa Flow. A bit slower than QE, with slightly better armor an this particular one with torpedoes at the bow. Could be good at Tier VI, with the gyroscopic torpedoes of battlecruisers. Maybe sold alongside the U-47 (just kidding). Almirante Latorre: a Chilean battleship built in the UK, served with the Royal Navy and fought at Jutland, before being sold again to Chile. Good guns (10 14”), decent armor and not-so-mediocre AA (in her 1930’s configuration). Either at Tier V or VI. Erin: a battleship ordered by the Ottoman Navy but seized by the Royal Navy at the beginning of WW1. Similar to Iron Duke, but smaller and with pretty much no AA. A decent Tier V. Ersatz Monarch: basically, a bigger and better Viribus Unitis with bigger guns. Still, slow and with pretty much no AA. A better Tier V. No. 13 battleship: a project of a big battleship with 8 18” guns and better armor than previous Japanese designs. Seems like a bigger Nagato. I’d put it at Tier X (with a similar refit like Amagi or Kii), because there’s already a lot of Tier IX Japanese battleships. New Jersey: yes, another Iowa. Maybe taking a similar approach to the Massachusetts or Georgia (a brawler with precise secondaries), but that could still be able to snipe if necessary. Tier IX. Salamis: a cancelled Greek battleship (which by armor seems more like a battlecruiser) with 8 14” guns and lots of secondaries. A good Tier V. Seydlitz: a German battlecruiser based on the Moltke-class with improved armor and machinery. Was a big piñata at Jutland. Either Tier IV or V. Tosa: a Japanese battleship that was never completed with 10 410 mm guns. Similar to Amagi, but a bit slower. Either Tier VII or VIII. N3: a big, slow battleship with 9 18” guns. Also, ugly as hell. Preceded the Nelson-class design. A Tier IX fattleship. Arkhangelsk: oh yeah, Soviet bias. Like Royal Oak, a Revenge-class that was leased to the Soviet Navy. Like her sister ship (Tier VI), without the torpedoes, but with less mediocre AA and Stalin-guided shells. Pennsylvania: the sister ship of Arizona that survived Pearl Harbor. She was given a refit, on which she received better secondaries and AA. Still, very slow. Unlike California, she should sit at Tier VI. Spanish Littorio: yes, there was a plan for build a Littorio-class for Spain. If this come into fruition, please not another copy-paste of the Roma. At least with different secondaries at Tier VIII. Riachuelo: a Brazilian battleship project similar to the Queen Elizabeth and Revenge classes. Also at Tier VI. L20e a: a proposed German battleship that was intended to succeed the Bayern-class. Armed with 8 420 mm guns, but somewhat slow at 26 knots. An interesting Tier IX with a “what if..” update. Rivadavia: an Argentinian battleship built in the US. She carried 12 305 mm guns an had a speed of 22 knots. She served for quite a long time. Either Tier IV or V. Aircraft Carriers (I’m sorry. Please, don’t be mad) Akagi: a famous Japanese carrier with similar characteristics as Kaga, but a bit bigger and faster. An aircraft printer at Tier VIII. Wasp: a deviate of the Yorktown-class carrier with a smaller air group and no torpedo protection. Also, slower at 29 knots. Could be slotted at Tier VI. Sparviero: an ocean liner intended to be converted into a carrier for the Italian Navy. Never completed. It was supposed to carry a small air group, and be slow at 20 knots. Due to the aircraft carried (same as Aquila), I’d put it at Tier VI. Unryu: one of the last fleet carriers built and commissioned by the Japanese. It was similar to the Soryū and Hiryū. Fast, agile, but lightly armored. With a smaller air group, but with late war aircraft, could be a “balanced” Tier VIII. Shinano: the sister ship of Yamato converted into a support carrier that wasn’t completed when she was sunk by a submarine (how the turnarounds). Even though it was supposed to be a support carrier, I’ll see her as a broken Tier X with an absurdly large hangar. Europa: a gigantic ocean liner planned to be converted into a big carrier. I’d see her as a hybrid of Loewenhardt (same planes) with the sheer amount of planes of the Kaga, at Tier VIII. Karel Doorman: a sister ship of Colossus that was sold to the Dutch Navy in 1948. Could be a similar concept to the Saipan (Tier VIII with small air group but up tier aircraft with Dutch air strike). Glorious: a British aircraft carrier sunk by the Scharnhorst and Gneisenau in 1940. A similar CV to Ark Royal at the same tier, with different fighters and carpet bombers (only the Swordfish torpedo bombers). Elbe: a proposed conversion of a German ocean liner. With the same planes as Weser (Tier VI), but quite slower. Intrepid: I know the plans for uneven carriers removed during the CV rework. However, there can be an Essex-class with characteristics between Lexington and Midway at the same tier as the latter. Jun’yō: a small Japanese carrier that looks like a mini Taihō. With a decent amount of aircraft aboard, decent speed at 25.5 knots and no armor. Could be slotted at Tier VI. Joffre: a French carrier project that was cancelled when Germany invaded France in 1940. With similar characteristics as Béarn, but with updated planes and at Tier VIII. So, these are my proposals. I know there’s little possibility of one of these getting added into the game, but again, at least I can dream. Let me know what you think about. If you have other proposals, or anything else, feel free to write it below. Just be respectful, please. Thanks. Good luck and fair seas!

The following is a review of San Diego, the tier VIII premium American Cruiser, brought to you by my patrons on Patreon. To the best of my knowledge, the statistics discussed in this review are current as of patch 0.11.11. Please be aware that her performance may change in the future. PROS Heavy armament of sixteen 127mm guns, capable of delivering a 14-gun broadside. Improved ballistics. She has access to semi armour piercing (SAP) ammunition. Excellent gun handling. Unlike most American cruisers, she has torpedoes! Agile, with a small turning radius and good rate of turn. Decent concealment from the sea and air. Massive glut of consumables, including: a Repair Party that always queues a minimum of 50% of damage received. a Hydroacoustic Search on its own slot (as opposed to sharing it with DFAA). a Special Defensive AA Fire consumable with a shorter reset timer and increased sustained DPS. and access to a limited Main Battery Reload Booster. CONS Tiny hit point pool for a tier VIII cruiser at 27,900hp. Her armour may as well be made of paper, providing almost no protection to even destroyer calibre guns. Slow base reload for a 127mm armed ship of 5.5 seconds. Low damage on her SAP shells for their calibre. No HE shells whatsoever, so unable to start fires. Limited range of 14.82km Painfully short-ranged torpedoes with only a 4.5km reach. When her Defensive AA Fire consumable is on cooldown, her AA is weak. Her Main Battery Reload Booster only provides a 33.3% speed increase and a painfully long 180 second reset timer. So many consumables to micromanage Overview Skill Floor: Simple / Casual / CHALLENGING / Difficult Skill Ceiling: Low / Moderate / HIGH / Extreme New fish: stay away. San Diego is not a good ship for new players. She's too fragile and too reliant on using (and abusing) spotting mechanics to stay alive. Knowing where to setup and when to shoot or not is life and death in this ship and that's only going to frustrate inexperienced players. Even her ammunition choice has a pitfall with her AP being heavily situational. While I would like to think most will stick to SAP, I know there's going to be someone out there who wonders why they can't make the ship's ammo work. And I pity the poor newbie that buys here thinking that her AA will always be strong. The only reason I didn't give this ship a Difficult evaluation is that she has heals and her SAP is pretty brainless once you learn to load it to the exclusion of all else. For a veteran player, there's so much to know. SAP trivializes ammunition choice, but there are times where her AP can net you more overall damage if you know when to use it She has a ton of consumables to micromanage. Her AA can be troll if a CV isn't prepared for it so you can lay an ambush if that's your thing. Using and abusing concealment is huge. So too is knowing what large calibre AP shells can and cannot fuse on your citadel at what range. Her Hydroacoustic Search combined with her good concealment gives her some limited (but powerful) vision control too. Options Consumables San Diego's Damage Control Party is standard for a cruiser. It comes with unlimited charges, a 5 second active period and a 60 second reset timer. Her Repair Party comes with three charges. It heals up to 14% of San Diego's starting HP per charge over 28 seconds. She queues of 50% of all shell, bomb, rocket and torpedo damage received, regardless if they are citadel hits or merely penetrations. San Diego recovers 100% of fire, flood and ramming damage. This has a standard 80 second reset timer. San Diego's Hydroacoustic Search is standard for a tier VIII cruiser. This detects torpedoes at 3.5km, surface ships at 5km and submarines running deep at 2km. It has a 100 second active period and a 120 second reset timer. San Diego starts with three charges. One of the ship's selling features is her Defensive AA Fire consumable. It has a shorter active period of 30 seconds instead of the usual 40, but this also comes with a shorter reset timer of 60 seconds instead of 80 seconds. While she doesn't get unlimited charges like Atlanta and Flint, she does get the American cruiser bonus of an additional charge. This gives her 4 charges total instead of 3 other cruisers have. But most importantly, San Diego's consumable increases her sustained AA DPS by 100% instead of the nominal 50%. Her flak damage is unchanged at +300%. Finally, she has access to a weird Main Battery Reload Booster. It increases her rate of fire by 33.3% for 15 seconds, dropping her reload from 5.5 seconds to 3.67 seconds. She comes with two charges and this has a 180 second reset timer. Upgrades Sadly, there are no AA upgrades worth taking. Start with Main Armaments Modification 1 in the first slot. Then move on to Hydroacoustic Search Modification 1 which will cost you 17,000 in the Armory. if you cannot afford that, then default to Engine Room Protection. Aiming System Modification 1 is the best choice in the third slot with no competitors. You have a gameplay choice in her fourth slot: Propulsion Modification 1 is the best choice. Islands will keep you safe and using the extra acceleration to make the best use of them is the smart-play. If you prefer to live dangerously then you can go for Steering Gears Modification 1. Concealment Modification 1 is your best choice in slot five. Though, you can try and double-down on open-water kiting by taking Steering Gears Modification 2. Just be advised that you lose your ability to ambush aircraft. Commander Skills San Diego isn't starved for commander skill points like similarly armed American light cruisers. Her lack of HE shells frees her up from the obvious Inertial Fuse for HE Shells and Demolition Expert points sinks. Thus, you can build her for a full AA spec if you wanted to without much of a depreciation in efficiency when engaging conventional surface targets. Start with Last Stand. San Diego's rudder and engines break even from near misses from HE shells. Next, you have your choice between Priority Target (my favourite pick here), Consumable Enhancements or you can get the jump on your AA build with Focus Fire Training. Heavy HE and SAP Shells is the best choice at tier 3. Finish off with Concealment Expert. If you didn't take Priority Target at tier 2, you're going to want to pick it up or Incoming Fire Alert at tier 1 ASAP. From here, you can spend your remaining 10/11 points how you wish. I would grab Superintendent as a priority given her reliance on consumables (though admittedly, it's uncommon for you to have a match where you'll exhaust even one of them). If you're looking to maximize her AA build then AA Defense and ASW Expert should perhaps come before that. Afterwards you can double back to some of the tier 2 skills listed before or grab from the following: Consumables Specialist (1pt), Survivability Expert (3pts), Adrenaline Rush (3pts) or Radio Location (4pts). Here's the build I settled on for my test games: Camouflage San Diego is presently sold with only her default camouflage. However, when she was initially released, there was also a promotional 1776 camouflage available in some bundles. The 1776 Camouflage was available in bundles when San Diego was first sold. This was a cosmetic swap and did not provide any additional economic bonuses. Her default "San Diego" camouflage can be palette swapped from white & black to grey and purply-blue upon completion of part of the American Cruisers Collection. Firepower Main Battery: Sixteen 127mm/38 guns in an A-B-C / P-Q / X-Y-Z layout. A-B-C turrets superfire forwards. X-Y-Z superfire to the rear. P and Q are wing turrets, able to cover only one side. Torpedoes: Eight tubes in 2x4 launchers in wing mounts just ahead of P and Q turret on their respective sides. Mad Mouse I hate San Diego's guns. I say this as someone who loves American 127mm/38s. I have over 500 Random Battle games in Atlanta between various accounts and plenty more in various other game modes.. I love Atlanta's guns. I was really hoping that with San Diego at tier VIII, we'd finally get to play an Atlanta-class with their historic, blistering rate of fire instead of the throttled one necessary to keep Atlanta in check at tier VII. But sadly, San Diego doesn't inherit Atlanta's guns. They pay only lip service to the Atlanta-class in general and frankly, her guns do not have the same fun feel of the lead-ship. This was done to make room for the various gimmicks necessary to make San Diego behave more like Austin, the tier X ship whose game-design she borrows. This doesn't mean that San Diego's guns aren't effective. They are. That, by their very definition precludes them from being Atlanta-class guns, as American 127mm/38s, with their wonky ballistics and poor penetration, are temperamental (at best!) at this tier. But they're not Atlanta-class weapons. This is arguably a feature instead of a flaw so long as you dismiss or are disdainful of history exerting even a minor bit of influence over game play. This is 180 AP shells fired at a stationary Fuso bot at a range of 13km. Normally I do 15km but neither ship can reach that far. Shells are coming in from right to left (the Fuso is bow-tanking). Both San Diego (left) and Atlanta (right) were using Aiming Systems Modification 1. San Diego uses cruiser horizontal dispersion (range x 6.9 +33m) and 2.05 sigma instead of destroyer horizontal dispersion (range x 7.5 +15m) and 1.7 sigma like Atlanta and Flint. Destroyer dispersion is much tighter at the engagement distances these cruisers fight, so despite San Diego's improved sigma, she's not as accurate as her sister ships. The flatter trajectory and shorter flight time on San Diego's shells helps with aiming, but her accuracy is ever-so slightly more influenced by RNG. The rounder shape of Atlanta's dispersion pattern comes, in part, from the steeper angle at which the shells are falling. San Diego's ballistics have been conjured from the realm of make-believe. Gone are Atlanta's infamous (and downright hilarious) rainbow arcs. Instead, San Diego's shells have a ballistic quality that sits almost perfectly between Cleveland's 152mm rounds and the 203mm rounds of Baltimore. Seriously, these 127mm guns have better ballistics than a 152mm gun. This was made possible by throwing out any pretense of consistency with previous 127mm/38 weapons. Wargaming artificially boosted the mass of San Diego's shells by around 10% while also their air resistance down by nearly half. These shells are thus heavier than they should be and less affected by drag, allowing them to preserve speed over distance. For those familiar with Royal Navy 152mm ballistics on their light cruisers, they behave almost identically up to 11km with around a 0.3 second flight time difference to San Diego's maximum reach of 14.8km. This poor maximum reach is one of San Diego's drawbacks making her very dependent upon concealment and hard cover to permit her to engage her targets. This is nothing new for American cruisers, however. I wasn't kidding. San Diego's ballistics slot in right between American 152mm and 203mm shells. They fly as if they were some imaginary 180mm round. Their second deviation from the expected Atlanta-class norm comes in the form of their rate of fire. For 127mm/38 guns, especially high-tier 127mm/38s, San Diego's reload is slow. This can be temporarily amended with the use of her Main Battery Reload Booster consumable, though even this results in a slower rate of fire than 127mm/38 armed destroyers and only SLIGHTLY better than Atlanta's own rate of fire. Now, this is to be expected with San Diego's access to SAP ammunition. You need only look at Italian ships to see that both their cruisers and battleships with SAP shells fire more slowly than those who sling HE. But as we'll see, San Diego's SAP is weird. These are approximate shell counts over 60 seconds worth of firing. San Diego has better short-term burst than Atlanta but loses out over long-term sustained fire. However, only Flint is truly capable of holding down the trigger reliably for prolonged periods of time thanks to her Smoke Generator. One Ammunition to Rule Them All San Diego is a SAP delivery system. Her SAP sucks butts, though, at least relative to what you might normally expect from SAP ammunition. In World of Warships, SAP follows the following behaviours, generally speaking: SAP deals higher damage relative to other shell types of comparable calibre SAP has much higher penetration than HE. (HE usually has penetration equivalent to 1/6th or 1/4 of its shell diameter while SAP is slightly higher than 1/4 shell diameter plus a little extra)1 This comes with five trade-offs: Guns that shoot SAP usually have a longer reload than guns that do not fire SAP. This leads to lower DPM even once you account for the bonus damage SAP does. SAP shells have a chance of ricocheting, but this is only at extreme angles. SAP shells have no blast radius and thus cannot damage internal modules at all and can only damage an external module if they strike it directly. SAP shells cannot start fires. This all said, having access to SAP is an advantage. The high penetration of SAP rounds and front-loaded damage outweighs the numerous drawbacks. It allows ships to engage a greater range of targets effectively while simultaneously giving the ship a more potent alpha-strike. So you hit harder and you can hurt more ships directly than you could with HE. Dealing a lot of damage early on in an engagement is usually enough to decide encounters on the short term. Players tend to get a little squirrelly when a huge chunk of their health goes missing in a single volley. So what's the issue with San Diego's version of SAP? San Diego doesn't deal increased damage with her SAP. At a maximum of 1,800 damage per hit, her SAP shells have the same alpha strike as other 127mm/38 HE rounds all while maintaining most the same list of flaws normally afflicting SAP, but not all. If increased penetration over 127mm/38 HE shells were the only compensation, San Diego would be a very hard sell over Flint and Atlanta. However, Wargaming made some concessions. As we already discussed, San Diego was given (much) improved ballistics with her guns. She has a faster rate of fire than we might otherwise expect for a SAP armed weapon. Yes, San Diego is slow firing for an Atlanta-class, but for a SAP firing ship, she shoots more quickly than we would expect. She trades alpha strike from singular broadsides to a sustained burst between her quicker reload and access to her Main Battery Reload Booster. San Diego's SAP ammunition makes her preferred prey different from Atlanta's. Atlanta is a destroyer-hunter. Atlanta works best scattering the roaches at suicidal close-ranges. Atlanta's Surveillance Radar digs out soft ships hiding in smoke and her HE shells and high DPM go to work at shredding them inside of 10km. San Diego isn't anywhere near as effective in this role. She lacks the bug-spray consumable, for one.. Her extra penetration also goes to waste against such targets. Her SAP's inability to break engines or lighting them on fire also makes it much easier for lolibotes to escape. Similarly, the ricochet chance of her shells can make finishing off fleeing targets frustrating. So destroyer-hunting really isn't San Diego's best fit. She can do it, but she's not specialized for it. What San Diego can do is front-load her damage onto bigger ships like there's no tomorrow. Harassing cruisers and battleships is San Diego's bread and butter. If she does catch out a destroyer, she can spank it, but she risks over-exposing herself to do it. She has to clear cover to bring those weapons to bear and that makes her a juicy target for return fire. Once a DD turns tail, the chances of finishing it off gets much more difficult, so why risk engaging them in the first place? Instead, it's best for San Diego to set up shop behind an island and hose down targets of opportunity. Punch cruisers in the nose that tries to peak out from behind an island. If a battleship tries to push, hose them down with SAP until he turns around (he will). Harass. Displace. Harass again. That's what San Diego's guns are good for. Unlike fire-reliant ships, San Diego's SAP is harder for battleships and high-tiered cruisers to heal through, so that's an added plus. SAP is San Diego's mainstay. She paid a dear price to have access to it, so you had better use it. San Diego's torpedoes have good stats everywhere except their range. You're only going to use them if someone (either you or your opponent) screws up. AP Shells & Torpedoes Any time you can use San Diego's AP shells or torpedoes effectively will be memorable. Her torpedoes are largely a weapon of desperation. Their 4.5km range means that they only get used when someone screws up (who that is depends on who dies in the following moments). By and large, you can forget San Diego has them. Those rare opportunities where they become relevant are always funny, though. San Diego's AP rounds are a trap. Yes, they have improved ballistics. Yes, their penetration is much better than comparable AP shells fired from other 127mm/38 guns. Yes, they do more damage than San Diego's SAP shells. However, they do not have "good" penetration overall for an AP shell. They also lack any form of improved auto-ricochet mechanics. It's best to imagine San Diego's AP as being comparable to the AP shells off a Cleveland-class. San Diego has better ballistics but worse penetration. The short fuse timers on San Diego's shells makes them better (but not yet ideal) for hammering softer sections of larger ships, like upper hulls and particularly bulky superstructures. However, this same short fuse timer makes them struggle to land citadel hits against ships whose machine spaces and magazines don't abut against the hull's exterior. Anytime your shells ricochet or overpenetrate, that's lost damage compared to having spammed SAP at those areas instead. If an enemy big ship like a cruiser or battleship is offering a flat broadside and has a lot of squishy places for her AP to bite in? You can try your luck in padding a bit of extra damage with AP.. The same goes for close in brawls; just be aware you don't have the improved auto-ricochet angles that your SAP rounds do. Novice players will find San Diego's AP frustrating. Experienced players can use it to nudge their average numbers up in the correct situation, such as punching into bunkers in operations. And like San Diego's torpedoes, those moments when AP clinches an engagement will always be amusing. The improved ballistics of her shells gives her AP a bit more bite, but not enough to make them particularly competitive. If you wouldn't fire AP from Cleveland at a given target, then it's best to hold off on doing the same with San Diego's AP. Summary San Diego is a cruiser-killer. Her high penetration SAP is relatively reliable at medium ranges and she can stack damage quickly, at least until saturation begins to throttle her damage. She is less than ideal in a destroyer-hunting role and her efficacy against battleships is mixed. She does well against battleships with softer skins like the British, French and some American vessels, but has a harder time against Soviet, Italian and German ones. Her game play focuses around the proper use of island cover, setting up supporting fire and displacing to either follow the flow of battle or to avoid reprisals. Opportunities to use anything other than SAP will come up on occasion. However, you can go a full game (or three) without needing to reach for AP or torpedoes. San Diego's gun handling is excellent, traversing at 25º/s. She doesn't quite clone Atlanta's firing arcs. The two ships differ slightly towards the rear with one of the forward turrets on Atlanta not quite managing to reach as far over the shoulder as the other two. While I would have loved to have seen 300º coverage on everything but her wing turrets, it's not that much of a loss given San Diego's easily overmatched armour. Everything thrown at you hurts, so a couple of degrees off auto-ricochet angles isn't going to ruin your day. Overall, her fire arcs are fairly comfy and it's easy to bring most of her guns to bear with just a light touch of her rudder if needs be. VERDICT: Generally effective. Situationally, San Diego's guns are incredibly strong but only in her area of expertise. Pick on larger ships. Help out on destroyers and subs when you can, but that's not your main job. Durability Hit Points: 27,900 Bow & stern / superstructure / upper-hull / amidships-deck: 16mm / 13mm / 16mm / 16mm Maximum Citadel Protection: 89mm belt Torpedo Damage Reduction: None San Diego shares the soft armour profile of a "very light cruiser", like the British light cruiser tech tree. This gives her 16mm extremities instead of the usual 25mm. This makes her more vulnerable to all kinds of damage, most notably destroyer calibre HE and small calibre rockets. Everything thrown at San Diego hurts. Furthermore, her 'stepped' citadel ends up being an inconvenient shell trap, 'catching' AP shells that blast down the easily-overmatched length of the ship. San Diego has a habit of popping very suddenly when she comes under the attention of battleship calibre guns. The best thing that could be said about San Diego's durability is that she has access to a Repair Party consumable. Other than that, her durability is a total disaster. She has "very light cruiser" structural plate; a mere 16mm on her bow, stern, decks and upper hull, capable of being overmatched by any AP or SAP shell that's 229mm or greater in size. This same, thin armour plate allows even the French 100mm HE Shells off battleship secondaries to damage her directly. Her citadel protection is thin, but not so thin that it cannot arm any size of battleship shell presently in the game. The ship is also fat enough that, unlike Smolensk, there's enough girth amidships to allow most (but not all) battleship shells time to explode after being fused. And worse, the 'stepped' geometry of the citadel creates convenient shell traps if the hits slam down the length of the ship. If all of that wasn't bad enough, San Diego has less than 30,000 hit points -- the second lowest base total at her tier at the time this article was written. Oh, and she has no anti-torpedo protection either, not that this is uncommon for cruisers. So yeah, San Diego's a total glass cannon. As I said earlier, her only redeemable feature is her Repair Party consumable. Even that's not really remarkable. The best thing about it is that it treats all penetration damage equally, queuing up 50% of all penetration damage taken even if it's a citadel hit. But San Diego's heals are not the chunktacular portable-drydock version that the British Royal Navy has access to. More shame that. This isn't a ship where you want to trade body blows. Your Repair Party will barely keep you in a fight through incidental, unavoidable damage. Maybe. This fragility dictates San Diego's play style. Either bring a friend and borrow their smoke screens or camp islands like your life depends upon it. Because it does. With FORTY cruisers at tier VIII, graphical comparisons of EVERYTHING are just a silly, cluttered mess at this point. This is (mostly) the same info, showing the highest and lowest health along with the average and mean for both the base hit point totals and the theoretical maximum (minus unique commanders). San Diego has the second lowest base health at her tier, though thanks to her access to heals, she sits in the upper half for overall health. VERDICT: Yikes. Don't get shot. Agility Top Speed: 32.5 knots Turning Radius: 610 meters Rudder Shift Time: 7.3 seconds 4/4 Engine Speed Rate of Turn: 6.6º/s at 26kts Main Battery Traverse Rate: 25º/s San Diego isn't a fast ship. Her 32.5 knot top speed is downright pedestrian and she struggles to control engagement distance ranges because of it. At tier VIII, she increasingly needs to contend with fast battleships and faster cruisers. Keeping a wary eye on the flow of battle is a must or she can find herself exposed. San Diego has one of the tightest turning circle radius of any of the tier VIII cruisers, best only by Tiger '59 presently. The Atlanta-class are quite agile at tier VII and carrying that over to a tier VIII ship, where turning circle radius begin to balloon up to ridiculous levels just exaggerates this disparity further. She doesn't quite feel destroyer levels of agile, though. Her rudder shift time is solid for a cruiser, but not destroyer quick, so there's a been of clumsiness to her handling still. You can correct this by taking Steering Gears Modification 1, if you wish, but I find myself prefering Propulsion System Modification 1 given how dependant San Diego is at peeking out behind islands. Your own mileage may vary. Still, pair this with her excellent gun handling and it's very easy to get San Diego pointed to where she needs to. Overall? Good marks here but not the best. San Diego would need some type of manoeuvrability gimmick to be truly remarkable in this category. An Engine Boost consumable might have done it, or perhaps some of the zany acceleration or energy retention some of the British light cruisers enjoy when at full engine power. Heck, even having a top speed in excess of 35 knots would do. She lacks any of this, so she simply remains a light cruiser with a tight rate of turn but held back by a modest top speed. Most American cruisers have a similar top speed, with only 1 knot of variance between the slowest and fastest ships at tier VIII. Thus as their turning radius increases, their rate of turn goes down steadily. San Diego handles so well because she has the same top speed as Cleveland and Baltimore but enjoys a tiny turning radius by comparison. If Cleveland's turning radius seems a bit out of place, it's not just you. Both Cleveland and Montpelier bleed too much speed in a turn, behaving like a battleship in this regard instead of a cruiser. Cleveland should be coming about at 6.1º/s, slightly better than Wichita which owes its great handling to its higher top speed relative to most of its peers. VERDICT: Good turning radius and that's about it. It'll do. Anti-Aircraft Defence Flak Bursts: 6 + 1 explosions for 1,540 damage per blast at 3.5km to 5.8km. Long Ranged (up to 5.8 km): 168 dps at 90% accuracy (151.2 dps) Medium Ranged (up to 3.5 km): 91 dps at 90% accuracy (81.9 dps) Short Ranged (up to 2 km): 115.5 dps at 85% accuracy (98.2 dps) AA DPS by Aura Total AA DPS San Diego illustrates a lot of the present problems with the current AA system in World of Warships. San Diego's AA defences are duct-taped together by her Defensive AA Fire consumable. Without it, her AA is pretty terrible. The primary issue comes down to the present AA system being overly reliant upon flak. If flak were indeed a reliable threat to enemy CV predation, then San Diego's AA firepower would be excellent. While it may work well in PVE modes, dealing flak damage in PVP is the exception, remarkable for when it occurs (and about as hilarious as a Devastating Strike against a ship). And because Wargaming over-values flak, the rest of San Diego's damage output suffers. It's not that San Diego's AA is incapable of being good. It's more of an issue on what being "good" actually means in the context of AA firepower within the game's present meta. "Good" means you do a lot of damage to incoming squadrons. It does not mean that it will prevent your ship from taking damage or significantly mitigate the damage done by individual attack runs. While an enemy CV may think twice about entering San Diego's protected airspace for fear of sustained casualties, if necessary, many carriers (especially the higher tiered carriers) are still capable of bloodying this soft-skinned ship. With this said, lower tiered carriers should fear testing San Diego's AA defences for fear that she may have Defensive AA Fire at the ready. San Diego's Strengths There are three redeeming elements to San Diego's AA firepower. San Diego's sustained AA DPS is front-loaded into her dual-purpose main battery guns. Her 127mm/38 guns generate nearly 46% of San Diego's total sustained AA DPS output. Thus, she does more damage sooner to incoming aircraft. Secondly, it also makes her more effective at lending support to nearby allied ships. San Diego's support is worth more than other vessels grace of this long-range damage. Finally, her large calibre AA mounts are more durable than dual-purpose guns mounted as secondaries. San Diego's large calibre AA guns have 2,000hp base instead of the more typical 1,200hp found on secondaries. San Diego is less "skill point hungry" than other ships, facilitating the inclusion of AA boosting skills. As discussed earlier in the commander skill section, the lack of HE makes it easier to afford experimenting with San Diego's commander skill build. This makes it easier to afford these skills without compromising her anti-surface warfare abilities significantly. San Diego has an improved version of the Defensive AA Fire consumable. She receives a 100% buff to sustained AA DPS instead of just 50% like other cruisers. In addition, the reset timer of her consumable is a mere 60 seconds instead of the normal 80. It's point #3 that salvages everything. But let's go over point #2. With Defensive AA Fire active but no other buffs, San Diego puts out comparable damage to Cleveland, Mainz or Baltimore. Unlike these other ships, however, San Diego is more likely to have a host of the AA skill improvements (if not all of them) that buff this value further. This only applies if San Diego has a commander with a skill build dedicated to this ship, however. There are few other cruisers (premium or otherwise) that would work well with that build. Thus it's hard to say how often carriers will encounter dedicated AA specialized San Diegos. I ran one during testing, but I recognize that this may be the exception rather than the rule. Still, the potential is there. Actual video footage of San Diego vs Enterprise in World of Warships. Sandy's doing something. We're just not sure if the tier VIII carrier will actually notice... VERDICT: Unremarkable (and even disappointing) when stock. Fully upgraded and with Defensive AA Fire active, she's a credible threat to incoming squadrons. This will make her a no-fly zone to some carriers but it will not guarantee immunity from air attack. Refrigerator Base/Minimum Surface Detection: 11.43 km / 9.26 km Base/Minimum Air Detection Range: 7.16 km / 5.8 km Detection Range When Firing in Smoke: 5.13km Maximum Firing Range: 14.82km Being a Sneaky Butt San Diego is a stealthy momo. There's just a handful of numbers you need to keep in mind. When it comes to surface detection, she is: The 6th stealthiest cruiser at her tier out of 40 ships. She ranks 12th out of 97 cruisers when she's top tier (facing tiers VI, VII and VIII) She ranks 8th out of 99 cruisers when she's middle tier (facing tiers VII, VIII and IX) She ranks 9th out of 93 cruisers when she's bottom tier (facing tiers VIII, IX and X) Out of all of the cruisers presently in her matchmaking, she ranks 15th out of 140 cruisers, which is pretty damn good. Some of these ships that are more stealthy than San Diego are much more stealthy, exceeding her best surface detection by more than 300m and as much as nearly 1km. This is enough time for a given player to react to spotting her (though not necessarily enough to prevent being mutually detected). This said, it's rare for San Diego to be among the screening surface vessels. She doesn't have the speed, never mind the durability, to be in the van. The only time she's detecting things with her face are (a) when you're being dumb and (b) when the game is almost over. Still, it's a nice trait to have and it facilitates disengaging when things invariably go pear shaped. More importantly, San Diego's aerial detection matches the reach of long range AA batteries. Provided she has not yet given away her position by being tripped over by an enterprising lolibote or submarine, it's entirely possible for San Diego to stage an initial interception of enemy aircraft. If you've specialized for AA, this kind of ambush is all kinds of rewarding, especially if the poor aircraft were coming more-or-less right for you as opposed to at an angle. They might not be able to turn away in time to avoid a mauling. Atlanta & Flint, She is Not As good as ambushing aircraft from concealment and not being visible from space might be, San Diego doesn't live up to her pedigree. Yes, she has access to Hydroacoustic Search on it's own dedicated slot, and that's nice, but that's it. That's all she gets for additional vision control consumables. She doesn't have access to Atlanta's Surveillance Radar. She doesn't get Flint's Smoke Generator (and a sexy American Smoke Generator at that!). The only thing more fun than ambushing aircraft is ambushing aircraft in the guise of an angry smoke cloud. And this, to me, is probably the most disappointing aspect about San Diego: because of the lack of these radar or smoke, her game play is largely relegated to that of the rest of the American tech tree cruisers: Hump islands, bombard ships that get too close. But even here, she ends up losing out because she can't set those sweet, sweet fires. Boo-urns. Lemme be clear, San Diego doesn't need these consumables to be balanced. She just offers less utility because of their lack. So because of this lack, she gets a mediocre rating here. She doesn't bring anything compelling to the table. VERDICT: Good surface and aerial stealth ratings, but lacklustre otherwise. Anti-Submarine Warfare ASW Armament Type: Airstrike from 0.5km to 7km (plus part of the bomb drop column) Number of Salvos: Two Reload Time: 30 seconds Aircraft: One PBY Catalina with 2,000hp Drop Pattern: 2 bombs Maximum Bomb Damage: 4,200 Fire Chance: 24% Bomb Blast Radius: 300m Anti-Submarine Warfare (ASW) has changed a lot over this year. San Diego went from dropping three bombs at 1,600 damage and 12% fire chance each to a pair of 4,200 damage bombs with a 24% fire chance. Not only that, but her reload dropped from 45 seconds to 30 seconds. She covers a smaller overall area with her bomb drops now, but her hits are much (much!) meatier. Since the changes were made, I haven't run into any submarines so I can't comment with anecdotes about how much better or worse things are since. I wasn't especially impressed with my ASW experiences in San Diego back when she was first released. This said, in theory the combination of air-dropped ASW ordnance and access to Hydroacoustic Search makes San Diego a good cruiser to be in when you don't want to be picked on by submarines. This doesn't make her a good sub-chaser, though. She hasn't the range or the speed to do this well. Theoretically, if you catch a sub on the surface, with Main Battery Reload Booster going, you could get a salvo or two into them before they dive deep enough not to worry about further damage. However, AP and SAP are poor anti-submarine munitions, doing less damage than HE. So I wouldn't count San Diego's guns as a particular strength when engaging submarines; just about any other cruiser will be comparable in such an ideal scenario. VERDICT: Big buckets of pretty-terrible barring her hydro and not a cruiser I'd want to hunt subs in. Final Evaluation World of Disappointment USS Atlanta sold me on World of Warships as a game I had to play. Watching PhlyDaily and BaronVonGamez derp about in Atlanta on YouTube during Closed Beta got me SO HYPED to play World of Warships. I bought her immediately, loved her to death and she ended up being the second ship I wrote a review for back in July of 2015. After Warspite, I've played her more than any other ship. I love Atlanta. I love her game play. Fast forward a few years, I'm neck deep in the Community Contributor program and I'm in daily communication with employees from the WGNA office through the wiki staff. Part of our semi-regular chats at the time involved which ships should be added to the game. San Diego comes up often in these talks. A tier VIII version of Atlanta just seems like an obvious move, especially in light of Wargaming's recent crossover with the Azur Lane franchise where San Diego is one of the most popular characters. Lert publishes a proposal based on these discussions and several formal proposals are put forth to Wargaming when asked. So you cannot imagine my excitement when I heard that San Diego was finally coming to the game in early 2022. To say that what has come to World of Warships is a disappointment for me is an understatement. I must preface this by saying that I don't think San Diego is underpowered or a bad ship. My point of contention was how little Wargaming valued the historical performance of the ship when it came to her design in game. While there is a lot of abstraction of when it comes to the systems and mechanics in World of Warships, savvy players could (and did!) figure out how a given ship's historical parameters would usually translate in game. Armour profiles, Hit points, main battery firepower, torpedoes performance, anti-aircraft efficiency and speed could all be predicted with reasonable levels of accuracy. This became even more accurate if a new vessel was a sister-ship or a vessel derived from an existing design already in game, further making new additions predictable. And make no mistake, for those invested in the game, this was exciting! It was easy to fall in love with what could-be. If you look back to threads in 2015, 2016 and 2017, there are tons of wish-list vessels people suggested, many of which are now in the game. The wiggle-room that Wargaming still had to play with factors like range, reload times, turning radii, consumables and concealment still allowed ships to be surprising and entirely their own beast. But still, there was this core set of parameters that were largely predictable. Now, there have always been the odd deviation. These stood out as notable precisely because a given addition strayed so obviously from the norm. Most of these were pretty tame at first. One of the earliest example of this is Murmansk, who (for whatever reason) has artificially boosted AP shell penetration despite using the same guns and the same ammunition as Omaha, the Marblehead-clones and Phoenix. Graf Spee's AP shells were artificially buffed, Cleveland and AL Montpelier don't turn properly, Etc. But we'd begin to see more extreme examples over time. Champagne and Florida have odd guns and odd armour. Wargaming entirely threw out the consistency in their AA system when they reworked CVs with AA defence now being "whatever they feel like" on a per-ship basis without discernible pattern. San Diego is one of these oddities. For those looking for more variation in the game, this is a good thing. There's no arguing that San Diego does not behave at all like Atlanta or Flint or Chumphon or Sejong. She most closely resembles Austin in design, but even these two ships behave completely different in practice. So from a variety for variety's sake standpoint, San Diego's design works and works well. She is her own beast. And they did this by taking an Atlanta-class hull and making it play like a 152mm armed Italian cruiser. What boggles my mind is that there's still room for a tier VIII Atlanta-class cruiser in World of Warships; namely a glass cannon with 3 to 4 second reload, slinging the usual AP and HE without the need to make San Diego so weird. Mouse, Nobody Cares... I know, I know... San Diego may not be the ship I want, but that doesn't mean it's not a decent vessel. She lacks the utility of Flint and Atlanta, however, which largely relegates her to the role of fire support and anti-aircraft interdiction. It's only this latter role that holds any interest for me. I loved playing an AA escort back in the day and San Diego does allow for this. She's not a no-fly zone, let's be clear, but she does make venturing into her AA bubble extremely costly; prohibitively so for tier VI carriers when her Defensive AA Fire consumable is available. Outside of game-deciding plays, most CVs would be wise to stay clear. in terms of her gunnery? I'm not impressed. I don't find San Diego's gunnery particularly interesting. As terrible as Atlanta's rainbow arcs are, at least they're at least memorable. And it's kind of rewarding to lob spitwads onto the decks of a battleship from two islands away. With San Diego's ballistics sitting between Cleveland's and Baltimore's, I'm inclined to compare them directly. I would rather have Cleveland's firepower to San Diego's, even if this does force me down the route of needing to spend more commander skill points to prop up her HE. Cleveland can engage a broader range of targets more successfully than San Diego can. SAP should give San Diego the edge, but San Diego's SAP is pretty crappy. There's no wow factor there with increased alpha or stupendous levels of penetration. Any tier VIII, 152mm armed cruiser with the Inertial Fuse for HE Shells commander skill has 37mm of penetration to San Diego's 36mm. And they can still start fires. And they probably have more range with similar ballistics. So yeah. San Diego's gunnery isn't particular fun. I guess the fourteen guns is pretty novel if you haven't played any of the other Atlanta-class derivatives before. I would recommend players get Atlanta or Flint over San Diego. Atlanta is just a fun ship, just not quite as unique as she was once upon a time. But her low-tier Surveillance Radar shakes up PVP gameplay, especially in limited matchmaking environments like Ranked Battles. Flint is easy to use with her Smoke Generator. It lets you really enjoy pooping out those rainbow arcs. Her workable torpedoes are a nice bonus. These ships are just as competitive in PVE modes like Scenarios, with Flint being particularly good thanks to being able to avoid detection on demand with her smoke. The only place where San Diego beats them there is that her increased AP penetration lets her bully bunkers from further away, which is admittedly quite nice. So yeah, only grab San Diego if you want to see what decent AA could be like in World of Warships with a dedicated AA commander. That's pretty fun. But, with that said, this may be undermined or buffed in the near future with AA changes coming. For now, I'd give her a pass and see which way the wind blows on any future AA changes. And I was so looking forward to going full out on Sandy weebery for this review too. I wanted you to be numba wan, Sandy, I really did, but I couldn't justify it. Maybe they'll make an AL San Diego in the future. I can't see them putting that much energy into rebalancing what could just be an easy reskin job, though. Oh well. Appendix For cruisers, the SAP penetration formula appears to be { [ (Shell Diameter) * 0.24908 ] + 4.3766 }. This yields results slightly higher than the 1/4 shell diameter HE penetration found on German cruisers and way beyond the nominal 1/6th shell diameter penetration of most HE shells. Source:

The following is my review for the Vallejo, a tier IX premium USN light cruiser available for 22,000 steel. Quick Summary: A USN light cruiser with Russian shell ballistics but lacks radar and hydro. Pros: 3rd best HE DPM of tier 9 cruisers 2nd best stealth of tier 9 cruisers Great ballistics 38mm deck Rapid takeoff spotter plane offsets relatively short gun range Great main battery firing angles Cons: Lacks radar which is unusual for USN cruisers Lacks hydro Can only heal 10% of citadel damage Citadel extends from front-most to aft-most turret which is unusual for USN light cruisers above tier 5 Citadel sits pretty high above the waterline Coated in 25mm everywhere else except the deck Relatively small HP pool Slower than average top speed Slot 1 is a no-brainer as it enhances Vallejo's main gimmick. Losing one of your turrets isn't a huge threat considering the ranges which Vallejo will operate. Aiming systems for slot 3 is also an obvious choice. The better your accuracy, the more shells you land and the greater your DPM. Prop mod enhances your speed juking, concealment mod is mandatory on pretty much every ship, and finally reload mod. Range mod is unnecessary as your rapid reloading spotter plane is more than enough to buff your range. For captain skills, you can transpose your USN CL captain to Vallejo. I chose to use IFHE as I value more consistent damage over better fire RNG. Steer clear of Heavy HE/SAP and Top Grade Gunner. Your concealment is too good for either of them to get any use. Firepower Vallejo comes equipped with ten 152mm guns in five double turrets in an A-B-C-X-Y configuration. She has decent firing angles as she can fire 32 degrees both forward and aft. Her guns reach out to a respectable 15.7km considering her concealment. Using her spotter plane buffs it to a leviathan 18.8km for 60 seconds (78 with the coal spotter plane upgrade). With ten guns firing every 6.1 seconds and dealing 2,200 damage max, Vallejo gets 216,393 HE DPM, which is the third best of all tier 9 cruisers. It gets even better. Although Seattle and Sejong appear to have greater HE DPM on paper, Vallejo heavily outclasses them both in terms of shell ballistics, which means it's much easier to land shells with her. Thus, she actually receives the best effective HE DPM of all tier 9 cruisers. Coupled with IFHE, she has no issues withering away enemy BBs and CAs. Hull Vallejo is a peculiar case. She's covered in 25mm plating, which means 380mm guns and larger can overmatch her. However, she gets a 38mm deck found on North Carolina, Iowa, and Montana. This can let her bounce every AP shell in the game if it hits the deck. Additionally, her citadel extends from her front-most to her aft-most turret; something which most USN light cruisers' citadels don't do from tiers 6 and up. Her HP pool isn't anything to write home about either with 44K and a normal cruiser heal. Worse, she can only heal 10% of citadel damage. Vallejo demands a cautious and vigilant playstyle. Eating citadels and torpedoes will cripple your already low effective health pool. Agility Top Speed: 32.5 knots Turning Radius: 740 meters Rudder Shift Time: 10.7 seconds Her handling isn't anything special. In fact, it's on the sluggish side. 32.5 knots puts her at the third slowest tier 9 cruiser. She saving graces are that her rudder shift time and turning circle is decent compared to her counterparts. Vision Control Base/Minimum Surface Detection: 11.54km / 9.35km Base/Minimum Air & Underwater Detection Range: 8.52km / 6.90km Detection Range When Firing in Smoke: 5.65km Maximum Firing Range: 15.68km With an 11.5km base concealment range and 9.3km fully upgraded, Vallejo boasts the second best concealment of all tier 9 cruisers with only Dalian beating her. Within her tier spread of currently 113 ships, she ties for 10th place with seven other ships. Unfortunately, she doesn't come with a radar so enemy DDs can keep you spotted with impunity. To combat this, concealment buffer with a friendly DD to ensure he gets spotted before you. Final Evaluation I was hyped for this ship since day one when it had an eye-watering 264K HE DPM. Wargaming has justifiably toned her reload time down, but that still didn't stop her from becoming one of the five best tier 9 cruisers in the game along with Tulsa, Dalian, Kronshtadt, and Alaska. However, she's a steel ship so I wouldn't recommend getting her before other strong steel ships such as Ragnar, Incomparable, and Bourgogne.

I have been gone from the game for a while since right around the time this ship was first available through random bundles which were too risky for my tastes quite frankly. Was there ever any mention as to when and how we may get her again? I would love to have this one, preferably directly.

Hello, Like the title suggests, which battleship line (and cruiser if you know) have the largest and most unarmored citadels?

In a Tier full of ships bristling with gimmicks that flood the game with power creep, this ship is, in my opinion, still the best-balanced tech tree cruiser in World of Warships—the Tier X Kriegsmarine Heavy Cruiser, the Hindenburg. Link: https://youtu.be/zw9IVp5zbPw

I Have Revamped and now have added onto this list some more ships but it is the same as the previous post for the most part so here are the ships: Tier 6 Cruiser HMS Arethusa a low effort premium as she's basically Leander with a superheal minus a turret (also basically an unnerfed chungking firing only ap) this is so called low effort as it doesn't entail much modeling as most of the base can be used from chungking aka her sister .She does not get HE to not end up being a reskinned Huanghe Tier 5 Cruiser HMS York Due to her Being the only British Heavy cruiser class not being able to be a tech tree ship due to Hawkins (which really should've been tier 4) she will become a premium and end up as the London to Exeter's Devonshire Tier 7 Cruiser HMS Dorsetshire Dorsetshire has a unique Playstyle for a British heavy cruiser as she doesn't have low main battery range and She doesn't Have to choose between Hydro and DFAA Tier 5 Cruiser HMS Enterprise Emeralds sister who will be using a novel twin mount up front with a superheal Tier 8 Cruiser HMS Birmingham To get the only post c/d class British Cruiser without the iconic knuckled bow shape I have added Birmingham. unlike most cruisers on this list She does not have smoke and instead has Main Battery Reload booster and Engine Boost or Radar and also has the same improved acceleration and Deacceleration like Dido. Tier 7 Heavy Cruiser HMS Suffolk Suffolk has the Same hull properties as Devonshire but has the same guns as surrey and is represented in her early 1941 Fit but unlike either cruiser she comes equipped with 16km range on her guns and radar with her hydroacoustic search and defensive aa fire in separate slots and ten kilometer torpedoes and has the same acceleration and AP shell properties as the British light cruisers and suffers from worst in tier plating like Indianapolis but not to the same extent Tier 6 Cruiser HMS Scylla The 'toothless terror' HMS Scylla is similar to her Pan Asian sister Rahmat in gun Caliber but has one less turret however she has normal torpedoes and the Same smoke as Leander with hydroacoustic Search unlike Dido. She has Some more hitpoints from having increased crew spaces for use as a Carrier Flagship Tier 6 Commonwealth Cruiser HMNZS Bellona unlike dido, Bellona has a shorter profile which makes her Stealthier at the cost of one turret which is augmented by better aa performance and the main guns being improved with faster traverse and reload speed and she shares the same consumables as Scylla with the exception being the crawling smoke generator. Tier 7 Cruiser HMS Sheffield The Legendary Cruiser, Sheffield will have smoke and hydro with Specialized Repair Teams to serve as a Captain trainer for the light cruiser line and would be in the appearance above to make it different from Fiji , Belfast and Gloucester who have more turrets but Sheffield fires faster at 6 seconds to compensate for less turrets. Tier 7 Cruiser HMS Gloucester To accompany Fiji in getting sunk off Crete at tier 7 is Gloucester .Gloucester comes with Smoke and a heal and access to HE shells but is in its as completed form so the aa isn't spectacular and there is no hydro to spot torpedoes in smoke and the heal is the same as Fiji's and the turrets fire slower at 9 seconds but Gloucester has better handling than Fiji as a compromise. Tier 8 cruiser HMS Swiftsure/ Commonwealth cruiser HMCS Ontario Swiftsure and Ontario are basically a Mysore with more health, better reload and torpedoes at tier 8 with one more secondary gun Tier 9 cruiser HMS Blake (Ignore the picture saying Hawke) Blake represents a Preliminary Design of the tiger class (Because the helicopter conversion wont be added) but doesn't completely look like the picture above, instead it has 3 4.5 inch turrets with two on the sides where the 3 inch mounts are on tiger 59 and the third is above Y turret and it has 3 Mk 24 turrets and quadruple torpedo tubes and it has a bit more health than tiger 59 and has the same consumables and stats but with Neptune's upgraded torpedoes unlike tiger 59. Tier 9 Cruiser HMS Defence A Draft Design in the series of designs that created the likes of Drake and Gibraltar Defence Joins the fray as something akin to a British Buffalo or Anchorage without Smoke alongside being basically Drake with 8 inch turrets which means it would look eerily similar to Neptune and Albemarle due to WGs Interpretation of the Admiral Class and she features AP rounds like Gibraltar and Canarias with access to Radar ,Hydro and DFAA with the Same Heal as Neptune unlike Drakes Improved Version Tier 10 Battleship HMS Temeraire The only Ship other than Cruisers in this proposal is Temeraire and it is the continued development of the lion Design postwar with the WGfication of it being a merge of two Designs to justify the Bigger Size compared to the Normal Lion. It takes the Size, appearance and armor of The Design A from the 1945 set of designs and most of the Specs of one of the 1944 designs. Here is it's Description: The last British battleship designed and laid down before the breakout of World War II. In many respects, the ship was a development of previous ships, she had greater dimensions, heavier armor, and modern 406 mm main guns. The Design was Modified in light of experience in the war and enlarged with additional AA defenses ,torpedoes and torpedo protection. Here are the features of Temeraire: Quick Speed at 33.5 knots stock and improved acceleration and deacceleration (35 seconds for full ahead and full reverse each) with good ruddershift Fast Reload reloading main guns that have Excellent Dispersion and Sigma and have the same penetration angles as Duke of York 4 Charges base of Specialized Repair teams and Engine Boost 2 sets of quintuple torpedo Launchers that can be Single Fired with excellent arcs of fire with good range and speed Fast firing secondaries Large Hitpoint Pool Short Range Hydroacoustic Search to avoid torps Here are the Drawbacks: Bad Armor plating only 27mm on the sides and 32mm on the deck Citadel is the length between the front and rear turrets and sits above the waterline, encompassing 50% of the armor belt High Detectability for a British Battleship and bad turning circle radius Big Deck area is vulnerable to fires Torpedoes can be knocked out at times if not destroyed. Slow Shells Bad HE fire Chance Tier 6 Battleship HMS Prince of Wales The Only of Her Class to Sink, Prince of Wales Joins the Game as a Stock KGV with Different consumables downtiered to tier 6 to accompany Repulse(lol). She Features Specialized repair teams like higher tier British battleships but also has a catapult fighter and engine boost like repulse and compared to her siblings she is stealthier but fires Slower but more accurately and has better secondaries and has improved acceleration and handling The 6 inch cruisers are rather Repetitive with the Sheffield, Swiftsure and Defence but the Ontario and Gloucester are unique as Gloucester is another take on a gimped Belfast while Ontario is a mid tier Commonwealth premium and despite being repetitive the other three are to fill different niches Sheffield for a t7 captain trainer , Swiftsure as a non town class/Belfast t8 premium alternative to Cheshire and tiger 59 and Defence as a tier nine premium which is something the British tree doesn't have aside from Marlborough and Temeraire Might Be too Strong or too weak lol please leave your feedback below

The following is a review of Cheshire, the tier VIII British heavy cruiser. This ship was kindly provided to me by Wargaming for review purposes. To the best of my knowledge, the performance and statistics discussed in this review are current as of patch 0.9.3.1. Please be aware that the ship may change in the future. Quick Summary: A stealthy, but terribly squishy British heavy cruiser with a small battery of powerful 234mm guns. PROS AP shells can overmatch 16mm worth of armour, including the extremities of many lower-tier cruisers and destroyers. Good AP penetration and improved auto-ricochet angles. Excellent HE penetration, capable of directly damaging most battleship decks. Good gun handling with 10º/s gun rotation rate. Excellent AA firepower. No, really. Yeah, I'm surprised too. Stealthy, with a surface detection as low as 9.5km. British "portable dry dock" Repair Party, healing up to 40% of her health per charge before modifiers. CONS Only six main battery guns, greatly reducing her alpha-strike and DPM. Her "stepped" citadel presents a shell-trap for large caliber battleship AP shells. Only modest gun fire angles, leaves her vulnerable to return fire from AP shells. Mediocre range on main battery guns for so vulnerable a ship. Torpedoes are short ranged at 8km. Overview Skill Floor: Simple / Casual/ CHALLENGING / Difficult Skill Ceiling: Low / MODERATE / High / Extreme This ship doesn't do anyone any favours, new players least of all. Like the tier VII Pensacola of years prior, Cheshire is a lemon that will punish you for simply choosing to shoot your guns at the wrong time. As players become more familiar with the foibles of the British heavies, Cheshire (and her sister Albemarle) will become primary targets for the farming of easy Devastating Strike medals. For veterans, as appealing as the on-paper potential for this ship appears, in practice she's just too fragile to really feel worthwhile. You can do better in almost any other ship where skills like angling, island use, etc will serve you much better. Options Consumables There's nothing much out of the ordinary here short of her god-tier healing potion. Keep in mind that all consumables will be the premium version soon so I'm just listing those values. Cheshire's Damage Control Party is standard for a cruiser with a 60s reset timer. It's active for 5 seconds and has unlimited charges. Her Repair Party heals back up to 40% of her health base per charge over 20 seconds. She starts with two charges with a reset timer of 80s. You have the choice between two consumables in her last slot. Both consumables start with three charges base. Her Defensive AA Fire is active for 40s, increasing sustained DPS by 50% and explosion damage by 300%. It has an 80s reset timer. Her Hydroacoustic Search is active for 100s. It detects torpedoes at 3.5km and ships at 5km. It has a 120s reset timer. Upgrades Start with Main Armaments Modification 1. In your second slot, Hydroacoustic Search Modification 1 is optimal if you can afford it. Obviously this dictates that you'll be eschewing using Defensive AA Fire but that's okay. This will set you back 17,000 Coal . Otherwise, default to Engine Room Protection. Aiming System Modification 1 is really the only upgrade worth taking in slot three. You have a choice in slot 4 depending on how you like to play. If you prefer island humping, then Propulsion System Modification 1 is preferable to improve your acceleration from a standstill. Otherwise, Steering Gears Modification 1 is your best bet. ER MAH GERD choice in slot 5!? Well, it's not really. Concealment System Modification 1 is still optimal. But, for the sake of argument, let's look at Ship Consumables Modification 1 and how it affects her consumables: With this, her Damage Control Party will now last 5.5 seconds. Yawn. Cheshire's Hydroacoustic Search will increase from 100s to 110s (or to 132s if you have Hydroacoustic Search Modification 1 installed). This is nice. It's not game changing, but it's nice. Her Defensive AA Fire increases from 40s to 44s ... which doesn't really help. The duration of Defensive AA Fire was never the issue, but rather the damage it does. And here's the juicy bit: Her Repair Party adds another 2 ticks worth of healing -- or between 4% and 4.8% of her total health depending on if you're using the India Delta signal or not. This amounts to an additional 1,700 to 2,040hp per charge used with an upper maximum of 6,120 additional hp with three charges blown. So, is that worth giving up Concealment System Modification 1? Heck no. But Ship Consumables Modification 1 isn't terrible. It's just that Concealment System Modification 1 is (still) too damn good. Captain Skills Cheshire isn't a very skill-hungry boat. For the first 10 skill points, take the usual suspects. Your choice of a tier 1 skill -- I prefer Priority Target to let me know when my doom is nigh. Adrenaline Rush is optimal at tier 2. Through my play-testing, I used Superintendent as my skill of choice at tier 3, thinking I would get to make use of my Repair Party's extra heal. And to no one's surprise, Concealment Expert rounds things off at tier 4. Pick and choose your favourites for your remaining points. Camouflage Cheshire has two camouflage options: Type 10 and Victorian White camouflage. They both provide identical bonuses: -3% surface detection +4% increased dispersion of enemy shells. -10% to post-battle service costs. +50% experience earned. I do like the camouflage schemes for Cheshire. She's a nice looking ship. Firepower Main Battery: Six 234mm/50 guns in 3x2 turrets in an A-B-X superfiring configuration. Secondaries: Sixteen 113mm/45 guns in 8x2 turrets with four mounted each side in superfiring forward and rear positions. Torpedoes: Eight tubes in 2×4 launchers with one on each side mounted in the hull beneath the first funnel. Celebratory Pew-Pews Let's start with Cheshire's secondaries because they're largely forgettable. They are decent for cruiser secondaries. However, given that Wargaming has yet to implement any cruiser with kick-butt secondaries 'decent' doesn't matter. At least they have 19mm of penetration, so they're capable of directly damaging anything she faces. Their high rate of fire does spit out a lot of shells. But without phenomenal range or improved accuracy, they're just window dressing. I did kill a Dallas with one, so that was fun. The muzzle blasts off of Cheshire's guns are huge. Are 234mm guns worthwhile? This is the big question at the core of not only Cheshire's worth, but her higher-tiered sisters as well. What's the big deal with large-caliber guns on a cruiser? What can they do that faster-firing (or more plentiful) 203mm guns can't? What are their drawbacks? And finally, are they any good? In theory, a larger caliber gun provides inherent benefits over its smaller brethren. These include higher penetration values for both HE and AP shells, including energy retention over distance (which factors both into penetration and ballistics). In addition, the shells will individually cause more damage and have a higher chance of starting fires. The final benefit is that depending on the size of the shells, it's possible for their AP rounds to overmatch key armour values, ignoring ricochet mechanics. These benefits are typically off-set by a smaller number of barrels, a larger dispersion area, a slower rate of fire and worse gun handling. In summary, larger guns make it more likely that individual hits will cause significant damage but with fewer hits overall compared to smaller-caliber guns. Whether or not this exchange is worthwhile depends upon just how much these guns gain versus how much they surrender. For the sake of Cheshire's 234mm caliber weapons, we have a direct same-tier analogue to compare them to in the form of Albemarle's 203mm armament. Alpha versus DPM You would think that larger caliber guns, though fewer in number, would allow you to deliver more devastating volleys. The idea being that while you might not shoot as often, the fewer salvos hit harder. I wish that were the case. Let's take Albemarle vs Cheshire as an example. Citadel Penetrations (AP): 40,500 Albemarle vs 34,500 Cheshire Citadel Penetration (HE): 29,700 Albemarle vs 23,100 Cheshire Penetration (AP): 13,365 Albemarle vs 11,385 Cheshire Penetration (HE): 9,801 Albemarle vs 7,623 Cheshire Yeah, so that's a wash. A small bump up in gun caliber size does not provide an advantage in damage output on anything but a per-shell basis. So the increased shell damage does not make up for a three-gun deficit (though in theory it could make up for a two-gun deficit). Understandably, with a slower reload, the gap only opens up further. And it's not like Cheshire's reload is particularly slow either. Let me be clear, one of her gimmicks is the accelerated reload on her main battery guns. Drake and Goliath, using the same weapons, have a base reload time of 18 seconds. This can be modified down on these ships with the use of Main Battery Modification 3, providing them with a 15.8 second reload. Cheshire, meanwhile, boasts a 12.5s reload timer which is amazing -- this is a half second faster than Albemarle. So if there's any benefit to be found here, it has to be on how easily it is to make those shells deal damage rather than the damage potential itself. Cheshire's raw damage output values suck, so every hit needs to count. A cruiser with only six heavy guns has crappy DPM. Who knew? AP Performance Cheshire's AP shells are pretty good at ensuring they deal damage compared to 203mm AP shells found on Albemarle. I say 'pretty good' and not 'great'. There are three factors where they hold an advantage over her counterpart. She has high penetration. She has improved auto-ricochet angles. She has overmatch potential against a key structural armour value. ] Cheshire has Baltimore's AP penetration values with Japanese 203mm ballistics. Note that while Cheshire does have slightly improved auto-ricochet angles, they are not on par with Baltimore's. Her AP shells feel less effective overall because of this, even though they have about the same punch over distance. British 234mm AP shells have higher penetration than 203mm guns -- enough that it matters, but not so much where it's an advantage except at very close ranges. Like with HE shells, AP penetration values are important when they cross various functional thresholds -- like being enough to citadel cruisers at very long ranges or having enough to penetrate battleship belt armour at specific distances. Cheshire (and British 234mm guns in general) are capable of both of these things. Albemarle struggles but can still manage the former and is generally unable to do the latter. Understandably, this provides Cheshire with a bit more utility out of her AP shells -- at least in theory. That theory is much harder to put into practice. Punching through battleship belt armour is only possible at suicidal ranges -- well within 7km. At such distances, you're better suited to making use of her torpedoes rather than relying on the bite of her AP shells. I suppose every little bit helps, especially given that not all cruisers are capable of doing so. At least against cruisers, her AP shells are much more reliable, with enough extra penetration to contend with the relative increase in armour thickness due to angling. Of course, this only works up to a point. Curiously, Cheshire's 234mm AP shells have slightly improved auto-ricochet angles, though only slightly -- Cheshire's AP shells automatically ricochet at an angle of 65º instead of 60º though the chance for it to happen still starts at 45º. This runs contrary to the 234mm AP shells found on Goliath and Drake -- so it's something special found only on Cheshire. So it's less likely that Cheshire's shells will slide off before getting a chance to punch in, but only slightly. For example, 203mm AP shells normally have a 50/50 chance of ricocheting at 52º or so. That doesn't happen to Cheshire until about 55º. This a far cry from the American auto-ricochet angles, which on Baltimore run from 60º to 67.5º, This keeps Cheshire's AP from being a universal shell. Still, there are some targets that even angling against Cheshire will not avail them. Her AP shells can overmatch 16mm hull sections; an important armour threshold being found on the extremities and hulls of tier VI and VII heavy cruisers and tier VIII+ very light cruisers. It's also the armour value found tier VI and VII destroyer hull forms, providing the 234mm AP shells a whole range of targets where they need not wait for perfect broadsides in order to be effective. So that's kinda nice, if a bit of a niche superpower that 203mm AP shells can't pull off themselves. I did get a chance to put it to good effect against a Dallas in a brawl during playtesting which was nice -- he couldn't angle against me while I was able to smash shells down the length of his hull even when he angled. But that was one time in all of my play-testing. Matchmaking was part to blame in this -- being continually up-tiered meant that there were fewer targets where Cheshire's overmatch could be used, but even seeing an opponent I could overmatch didn't guarantee that I would have an opportunity to do so. These three elements make Cheshire's AP shells more useful than the AP shells of Albemarle though they don't stray into the potency of American Piercing shells which can be used a lot more often. So British 234mm AP shells are "more gooder" than Albemarle's 203mm AP shells, but I'd argue they're not good enough to make up for that alpha / DPM disparity. HE Performance The big numbers to concern ourselves with here are the thresholds needed to directly damage various parts of tier VIII+ battleships. These thresholds are: 1.) Their extremities (32mm) 2.) The upper hull and amidship deck of British & French battleships (32mm) 3.) The amidships deck of American battleships (38mm), 4.) The amidships deck of German battleships 50mm 4.) The amidships deck of Japanese battleships (57mm) 5.) The amidships deck of Soviet battleships (60mm). There is one thing, and one thing only to get excited over in regards to Cheshire's HE performance and that's her improved HE penetration. Cheshire has 59mm of base HE penetration as opposed to the 39mm she would be expected to have. This crosses an important (albeit, not crucial) threshold, allowing her to directly damage the amidship decks of many battleships along with the infamous extended armoured prows of Soviet ships. This, to me, creates a target preference for Cheshire . Specifically, she's better suited to hammering any vessel with extensive deck armour which includes most high-tier battleships (with the exception of the French and British) than most 203mm armed heavy cruisers. Cheshire is capable of stacking direct damage here where other cruisers will have their damage partially mitigated by shells that stray onto these thicker armoured sections. As nice as this is for Cheshire, it's a bit of a booby prize. While it does allow her to damage a wider variety of targets, when it comes to that DPM disparity mentioned previously, this advantage only comes into play in those select circumstances. HE penetration is a binary after all -- you can either penetrate or your shells shatter. There's no advantage to having more than you need. There's no point to Cheshire's 59mm of HE penetration when she's shooting up a destroyer or light cruiser. Thus, the only way her 234mm HE shells keep up with Albemarle's 203mm guns is through farming damage off of select battleships. That's really it. I've included the FPM of heavy cruisers using IFHE for the sake of comparison when trying to encroach upon Cheshire's massive penetration values (don't do this, it's silly). Overall, Cheshire is not a bad fire starter for a heavy cruiser. She's not great, mind you,but she's not bad. Cheshire may single fire her torpedoes like other British ships which is nice. I wish she had more range. These weapons are nice and hard hitting and could have done a lot to pad her mediocre gun DPM. But are they worth it? Heck no. Look, 234mm guns aren't terrible but short of pounding high-tier battleships with HE, Cheshire's main battery firepower offers nothing worthwhile. They didn't stand up to a direct comparison to Albemarle's guns and they're no rock stars, so where does that leave these things? Well, not in a good place. This isn't a ship that kills anything quickly, and that can be a real problem if she doesn't have the longevity to farm meaningful damage. To me, this means that the ship better have some miracle or gimmicks buried in the hull itself in order to make it worthwhile. Sadly, these don't materialize in her weapon systems. While Cheshire's six-guns are definitely a hurdle to overcome, I lay a lot of the blame with this ship's performance on her range. Her 16.1km main battery reach and her 8km range on her torpedoes makes maximizing Cheshire's firepower difficult. As you'll see in later sections regarding this ship, she just doesn't stand up to return fire. More range would have provided her with at least the semblance of being able to dodge. At 17.5km or more, I think I would have felt a lot more comfortable in this ship. 10km fish wouldn't have hurt either. In short, Cheshire's firepower is just plain bad. Her main battery guns can't keep up. Her torpedoes are too short ranged to be used in any role save that of desperation and cruiser secondaries are (still) not worth it. Like London, Cheshire's fire arcs aren't particularly good but at least they're consistent. For those wondering, "good" entails being able to fire 30º off the long axis of the ship, allowing the ship to fire while still giving her the best chance to take advantage of auto-ricochet mechanics. Still, Cheshire's 10º/s gun traverse is sexy. Verdict: Awful because she only has six guns. Also her torpedoes are too short ranged, but mostly because she only has six guns. Defense Hit Points: 42,500 Minimum Bow & Deck Armour: 25mm extremities with 30mm plating and deck amidships. Maximum Citadel Protection: 152mm belt armour Torpedo Damage Reduction: 19% With Cheshire's firepower woes, I was really (REALLY) hoping for some miracles in regards to her durability. I was an early optimist until I started playing this damn thing. Lemme show you why: [ Cheshire is a certified chungus. Look at that. Big healthy heals and a pretty chunky hit point pool to boot. Awesome! There's a whole lot to love here -- namely that Repair Party isn't a universal upgrade at tier VIII and just having one is a pretty solid advantage. Having a British "portable drydock" which heals back up to 40% of the ship's health per charge is amazing. In theory, Cheshire is built to outlast most of her contemporaries, which should largely make up for any deficits in her firepower. In theory. Cheshire's 30mm deck stands out -- normally tier VIII heavy cruisers only have 27mm thick decks. This does provide some benefits against small caliber HE shells from destroyers and overmatch protection against battleship caliber AP shells smaller than 429mm. That all falls apart when you realize that her protection scheme is a joke. Her citadel is specifically designed to maximize the number of citadel hits she takes -- I wish I was kidding. It's nigh impossible to angle Cheshire successfully against battleship fire of 380mm caliber or greater. Every incoming salvo is potentially world ending. She practically prints Devastating Strike medals for enemy battleships if they catch her out in the open, which means the best protection she could hope for is a big ol' rock to hide behind. The guilty party here is Cheshire's "stepped" citadel. Not only does this section sit up significantly higher (and let's keep in mind, the rest of Cheshire's citadel already peeks over the waterline), but the upright angles ensure that battleship caliber shells that are slamming down the length of the ship will still smack against the citadel if they're aimed high. Furthermore, it creates a weak point where ships capable of overmatching her 27mm upper hull can STILL dunk shots into her citadel when she's steeply angled where as other cruisers could at least content themselves that their belt armour will keep out the worst of it. And, while Cheshire does have some hull sections that can ricochet up to 381mm AP shells, her soft bow and stern provide openings that even these will get through. This isn't a problem unique to Cheshire, it's shared by Albemarle and to a lesser degree by Goliath. But spreading the pain doesn't make this any more acceptable. Kiting and dodging in open water a fool's errand -- any shots that come in are potentially lethal. When Cheshire is top tier, on the rare occasions where she's facing 356mm armed battleships (or smaller), surprise-surprise, she becomes a little monster. But banking on that kind of Matchmaking is a fool's errand for a tier VIII cruiser. I'm no stranger to playing squishy cruisers, but I'm used to there being some trade-off for it. Maybe the ship has excellent firepower. Maybe her consumables are amazing. Maybe she has excellent agility and speed to facilitate dodging. Maybe her Repair Party could come off cooldown very quickly? I dunno, I would expect something for all of Cheshire's woes. So here's the bad news. That 'hump' of Cheshire's stepped citadel is her Achilles' heel. It's too easy to hit and it makes angling in this ship next to impossible against high penetration AP shells. Oh, those thick citadel decks will also guarantee that AP bombs wreck you thoroughly. Verdict: Her Repair Party is amazing. Too bad she can't survive long enough to take advantage of it. Agility Top Speed: 34kts Turning Radius: 720m Rudder Shift Time: 10.5s 4/4 Engine Speed Rate of Turn: 5.8º/s On the whole, I have to give Cheshire decent marks here. Her top speed is respectable for a cruiser. Her turning radius isn't horrible. Her rate of turn is acceptable. The only real glaring flaw is her rudder shift time and even that's not irredeemable. Don't get me wrong, she could certainly be better -- but she's not terrible. The only thing that I wish she had was better acceleration, especially given her love of island-humping. That can be partially corrected by taking Propulsion Modification 1 but that would preclude her from fixing her rudder shift time with Steering Gears Modification 1. I certainly value the former over the latter given the current meta. Given Cheshire's firepower and durability problems, "respectable" agility just doesn't cut it. In of itself, Cheshire's agility would be fine for a heavy cruiser -- even good, but with everything else stacked against this ship, it's just not enough. I would kill for her to have British light cruiser improved engine power -- to make taking shelter behind islands easier or to facilitate dodging. I would love it if she was even two knots faster, to make running down destroyers or dodging in open water feel a bit more viable, but it's just not there. Man, I've gotten to re-use this graphic three times now. All the time saved makes me very happy. VERDICT: She's not terrible, but she doesn't stand out here in a good or bad way. Anti-Aircraft Defense Flak Bursts: 7 explosions for 1,470 damage per blast Long Ranged (up to 5.8km): 168dps at 90% accuracy Medium Ranged (up to 2.5km): 228dps at 90% accuracy Short Ranged (up to 2.0km): 249dps at 85% accuracy Cheshire has some truly monstrous levels of AA firepower -- it's enough to grant her near immunity to tier VI carriers. This, of course, translates to merely inconveniencing tier VIII and X aircraft carriers. Cheshire will shoot down a lot of planes. Given that she's not starved for commander skill points, you could even go so far as to spend a few towards boosting her AA performance further if you were so inclined. This ship has to be good at something, after all. With apologies (still) to the colour-blind. Cheshire has arguably the best AA firepower of any tier VIII vessel. Unless it was show-stopping levels of air-defense, you couldn't sell me a premium based on its AA firpower, though. Verdict: Really good. Like, "make tier VI carriers cry" levels of good. Refrigerator Base/Minimum Surface Detection: 12.1km/9.51km Base/Minimum Air Detection Range: 7.51km/6.08km Detection Range When Firing in Smoke: 7.5km Main Battery Firing Range: 16.1km Cheshire has good surface detection values. They're not great, but they're good. Any cruiser capable of dropping their concealment below the 10km range is really nice and I can't complain here at all about Cheshire's concealment values. Had this been paired with benefits anywhere else, such as agility, durability, firepower, good consumables, etc, I would probably be singing this ship's praises, but here we are. Cheshire doesn't interact well with smoke -- her 7.5km detection range when opening fire is scarcely better than her improved surface detection so she can't dare follow destroyers in to take advantage of their advanced smoke screens. Again, this further relegates this ship to humping islands and hoping against hope that she's an unappealing target. Verdict: Good, but not enough to save the ship. Final Evaluation I'm not going to mince words here. I hate this ship. I hate playing it. I'm glad this review is over. I'm not touching it again until Wargaming does something to improve her lot. Cheshire offers nothing, nothing of value. Her 234mm guns with their improved HE penetration could have been a very interesting armament but their performance stops well short of that mark. This ship needs more range, more agility and/or a faster reload before I would consider her to be a worthwhile investment. Even in co-op battles, while it's certainly possible to do well, you're not really gaining anything over taking out Albemarle instead. Yes, you might be able to get a few more HE penetrations on high-tier battleships, but you could get the same if you just stuck to peppering superstructures or the bows with 203mm guns. While overmatching the snoots of charging tier VI and VII bot-cruisers with AP shells is entertaining, it's not worth the price paid to acquire this ship. I'm sorry I didn't get this review out sooner. Keep well clear of this failure. Conclusion Reviewing Cheshire has been really taxing. My enjoyment of World of Warships was severely compromised with having to keep coming back to this damn thing. It's bad enough to play a bad ship, but it makes every little frustration just that much more poignant. Anyway, it's over, finally. I'm going to go do something else for a bit to recharge my batteries.

A while ago, just over a year in fact, I posted a proposal for a line of Royal Navy AA cruisers. These ships would have been dedicated AA ships that used smoke and defensive AA fire against aircraft, and would have had low caliber guns for their tier as a offset. And then, WG put that line into the game. Sure, they made it pan Asian and only used one of the ships I wanted, but the flavor was implemented. This leaves me with a lot of ships that I want in the game not in the game and my proposed playstyle already issued. So, its back to the drawing board. And after some doodling, I return with a whole new playstyle and a revamped lineup of RN AA Crusiers and attached premiums. In terms of the historical reasoning for this line, during the 2nd world war, Britain was one of two countries to go all in with the idea of creating surface ships with a main role of screening against air attacks, and the first one to come up with the idea. In all, a total of 25 ships were built or refit as AA cruisers for the Royal Navy, more than any other navy in the world. These ships would serve from the beginning of the war, taking part in numerous surfaces actions, sometimes heavily outgunned, but punching far above their weight. At the end of the European theater, the Kriegsmarine would formally surrender on one of these vessels. Gameplay wise, there is a slight call for these ships to be added, with the feeling of CV’s being broken, perhaps a measure to help correct that. Really this is like a band-aid on a bullet wound, but a series of ships with noticeable AA advantages over their peers would be nice. Apart from that, the gameplay need is simple, new content to keep people engaged. So before we get into the individual ships of the line, we need to get into the characteristics of the line. The Feel of the Line. There are a lot of characteristics to this line that will be dictated by the characteristics of the historical ships in the line, and from here the remaining characteristics are added to flow with that established flavor. 1. These ships are small in comparison to other ships of their class and tier, this comes with the advantages of having best or near best in tier concealment, as well as best in tier or near best in tier agility, but at the detriment of having worst in tier or near worst in tier HP pools. 2. These ships have uninspiring armor, worse even than the British light cruisers. 3. The ships main battery are dual purpose mounts, and there is no secondary battery. They will have shorter range and are smaller in caliber than nearly every other cruiser gun in game. 4. The ships long range AA is going to be best in tier. This is where most of the AA firepower comes from. The flak will usually have the longest range in tier, and the flak bursts will typically be the highest damage in tier. 5. These ships are not particularly fast, in fact in many cases they are quite slow for a cruiser. So those are the historical constraints, and they already take care of the guts of the lines character. Now what needs to be filled in are any specific traits from the box of gimmicks to flesh things out. As far as this line specific traits, I have in mind a few. These traits being. 1. The ships have the RN CL acceleration, like the recently added Dido. This and their already short turning radius's and pretty good rudder shift times make them very easy to chuck around and dodge incoming fire. They will need this ability. 2. This is the big one. With alternate fire modes being added, pressing the 3 key gives you a new type of shell attached to a new type of firing mode. This shell will be called the VT shell. In this case, VT stands for variable timed fuse shell and this shell, and the combined firing mode will be what makes these ships exceptional AA ships. How it works will be as follows. When you select the 3 key your ships main guns will reload to the VT shells and the camera will enter a special ‘director view’ that is similar to the zoomed in gun view from below. When in this mode, the ship does not create its own flak bursts, these are now replicated by the VT shells. In the director view, the player aims the main battery guns at the enemy (the main battery guns still use the same traverse, elevation, and reload rates as they do against surface ships) gets the lead on the target correct, fires, and waits for the shells to cross the planes trajectory. Once the shells are as near to the enemy planes as possible, they explode as a flak burst. If they miss the planes and never get within burst range, they explode at the max range of the outer AA aura. Standard flight times and arcs are included, and give the aircraft a visual indicator that they are under fire before the shells hit. Further, the amount of fire that the ship can put up against the planes now depends on the angle of the ship to the planes, for example with Dido only 3 turrets contribute against aircraft dead ahead, 4 against aircraft between 20 ish and 50 ish degrees off the bow, the full battery between 50 and 140 degrees, and only 2 between 140 ish and 180 degrees off the bow. This means that the AA ship must maneuver to ensure they can put the maximum firepower up against aircraft, and cannot engage surface ships at the same time. What they get in return is the ability to actually have the flak clouds work to their full potential. If you have ever been in a training room or Co-op game and engaged a squadron you probably noticed that they die pretty quickly because they just fly right into the flak. With this manual fire mode, the possibility of hitting the enemy player with accurate flak and destroying his squadron outright is on the menu. It does cost more player involvement, but the capability against aircraft increased. Now, people may be saying that that’s all well and good against aircraft, but what about all those non-cv matches? Well, the VT-shells will have a secondary surface capability as well. Against surface targets, the VT shells do the following. They have reduced penetration by 25% threshold (Ex, 5.25 shells penetrate 22mm of armor natively, with the VT Fused shells, this is 16mm of armor. if they have IFHE, this gets bumped up to 20mm) . They have reduced damage They have a reduced fire chance They do increased module damage They have a larger HE damage radius They airburst as near the target as possible While it may look like this is not a good trade the airbursting will allow more shells to do damage to the target than a typical HE salvo where a few shells miss due to the RNG. Also the increased module damage can strip the target of AA, torpedoes, guns, and mobility quicker than even regular HE salvos. These factors should make the VT shells deadly for any destroyers or light cruisers that get too close. Finally, there is the question of what consumables would be used. I propose that these ships should have Defensive AA, Repair party, and Radar from T8 and up. So there we go. In general, this is how the line would feel. Now to the individual ships. Ships of the Line Tier 3: The C class AA Cruiser. This is the AA ship that started it all. With the ships on hand and obsolete, the Royal Navy decided to do a refit after the Italian invasion of Abyssinia (Ethiopia) in 1935. The Italians had a large air force at this point, and the Royal Navy in the Mediterranean would have to deal with them. Thus, there were 3 series of refits to the C class cruisers to make them AA ships. The first two converted, Coventry and Curlew, had 10 single 4 inch cannons and 2 octuple pompoms. However, the standard outfit was 8 of the dual 4-inch mounts that are ubiquitous on British cruisers, as well as a single quad pom-pom and a pair of quad Vickers 50 cals. This would be the A hull for this ship. The B-hull would be the refit applied to HMS Colombo, being 3 of the dual 4-inch mounts, 2 twin 40mm bofors, and 14 20mm cannons arranged in 6 dual mounts and a pair of singles. Tier 4: The Proposed D class Cruiser AA refit. As a part of the AA cruiser refits, it was decided that the similarly obsolete but larger D class cruisers would get a slightly larger and better laid out version of the C class AA refit. These would be armed with 4 twin 4.5 in turrets (similar to the secondary battery of Ark Royal), a quadruple pom pom, and the 2 quad 50 cal Vickers guns. as below, but lose the aft pom pom and replace the 20mm cannons at the stern, behind x turret, and on the wing deck with a smaller amount of quad vickers guns, i'm thinking 4. B hull is as below, exactly as is. This means 3 quad pom poms, and 9 single 20mm mounts. This can be adjusted, but shows the general look and changes between hulls. Tier 5: Charybdis HMS Chardybis was a Dido class cruiser but modified to meet the urgent requirements of war. She and Scylla were modified from the standard dido design to use 4.5-inch turrets originally made for the proposed D class AA cruisers, just because they were on hand and the ships could be completed much faster than waiting for the proper 5.25-inch mounts. Charybdis would have the 4 twin 4.5 inch cannons, as well as 2 triple torpedo tubes, 2 quad pom-poms, and 8 20mm. b hull would add 10 more 20mms. Tier 6: Cleopatra… or Argonaut… or Euraylus With the lead ship of the class in game as a premium, I have decided to add in one of the more famous Didos as the in branch representation of the class. The reason I’m picking between these three ships is due to the differences in the A and B hulls. A hull will have mediocre short range AA but the full 5 turrets of 5.25 inch, while B hull will have the refits where they were reduced to 4 main turrets, but with much improved mid and short range AA. As a note, these ships would have a reload of 6 seconds on their guns, basically having the firepower of Didos original stats, but without the smoke screen that justified their nerfing. Tier 7: Diadem One of the improved Didos (Bellona subclass), this ship is a Dido with better concealment, better torpedoes, improved 5 second reload, faster turret traverse by a factor of 2, and much improved mid and short range AA. The B hull will be Diadem fitted out as she was just before being transferred to Pakistan as PNS Babur, with a unified mid-range AA armament of 40mm bofors. Tier 8, cruiser proposal M1 One of the proposed 1943 light cruisers. Armed with 3 twin 5.25in turrets with improved gun and mounting, 6 dual 40mm mounts, 8 dual 20mm, and 2 quad torpedo launchers. Envision a chunky Lightning. The initial mount would have a reload of 5 seconds, but B hull gets access to the proposed Mk IV mounting with autoloader, and has a 3 second reload. Also, the ship is pretty darn slow at 29 knots initially, only going up to 30 with the improved horsepower. There are literally no pictures of this thing. Tier 9: Cruiser proposal N2: The other proposed 1943 light cruiser. Armed with 4 dual 5.25 in turret like m1, with 8 dual 40mm mounts and 12 dual 20mm mounts, as well as 2 quad torpedo launchers. Initially this ship also goes 29 knots, and has the 5 second reload turrets. Fully upgraded N2 would have 2 quad launchers per side, be capable of 30 knots, and have the 3 second reload MK IV mounts. Tier 10: Her Majesty's Ship The Future: This is the ship proposed by @Lord_Magus and its pretty crazy. This is Sketch A of the 1960 cruiser, named so because the admiralty was convinced that in 1948 when they drew it that it would not be possible to make until 1960. It uses 4 of the very experimental N1 5"/70 cannons, with a proposed shell weight of 70 pounds, muzzle velocity of 1036 m/s, and maximum fire rate of 66 rounds per minute! This design has some pros, its a dual purpose gun ship, that would be new, would be a AA cruiser, and with a crazy low profile would fit in with the line to a good degree. Also, the 2 quad torp launchers per side scale well with the launchers on N2 . The cons are the guns. At 127mm they would not benefit the same way that the 5.25 inch guns would from IFHE and thus the commander skills for this ship would be different from the rest of the line. More importantly, its crazy guns would be weird to balance. The High muzzle velocity would change the playstyle, not to mention the firing rate would need to be nerfed and the shell characteristics are wacky (the AP shell is basically SAP as specified, penetrating 1 inch of armor at "minimum striking velocity's and angles of 50 degrees" and having a bursting charge of 5 lbs, compared to the 6 inch cannons 3.75) this ship would be interesting to implement. Premium ships! Tier 5, HMS Delhi: Imagine a Fletcher, but with worse concealment, no torpedoes, slower, and with a citadel. Tier 6: Sirius A premium for the RN Cl line. It being a Dido class I put it here, but gameplay wise it would be 100% RN CL. Originally I had proposed this at Tier 7, but with Dido at tier 6 Sirius should be down tiered as such. Tier 6: Scylla Being a Dido class I put this here, but it has little to do gameplaywise with the RN AA Cl’s. I have a full writeup here. Premium at tier 8: K25F A paper design during the process of designing Fiji, has 8 of the twin 5.25in cannons. Would be a higher tier captain trainer. Premium at tier 8: RN 1951 emergency cruiser A proposed wide hulled Bellona with 4 of the 4.5 inch cannons of Daring and modernized FCS. I have a writeup of it here.

The following is a review of Dido, to tier VI premium British light cruiser, supported by my patrons on Patreon. To the best of my knowledge, the statistics discussed in this review are current as of patch 0.11.1. Please be aware that her performance may change in the future. The purpose of this review is to support the players, not the company behind the product. Posting this review is not an endorsement of current goings on nor is it a statement about them. It's been a while, and not for the lack of trying. I have a half-finished Giuseppe Verdi and Kearsarge reviews archived before I got distracted with mapping sustianed AA DPS (kinda important when talking about Kearsarge's planes). My AA project has ballooned out of control which I feared it might. I'm putting those reviews on hold to get a (relatively) faster one out. Now Dido is a ship that players have wanted for a long time. A quick forums search finds talk about these ships going all of the way back to the game's launch, with players eagerly looking forward to more "Atlanta-style" ships. This ship has definitely been one I've highly anticipated knowing how important it is to not only Royal Navy enthusiasts but also players in the Commonwealth nations where she might be used (with modifications) to represent HMNZS Bellona or HMNZS Black Prince. Wargaming seems to have developed allergies for rapid-fire ships over the course of 2021 (to say nothing of AA specialists), with ships increasingly having longer and longer (and unfun) reloads and Dido's implementation obviously suffers from this new design direction. I was expecting Nürnberg levels of rapid-fire. Instead we got Dallas with much weaker guns. The silver lining (supposedly) is that they gave her smoke. So let's see if reaching into the Box o' Gimmicks™ has saved us from unfun design choices. Quick Summary: A fragile British light cruiser with ten, slow-firing destroyer-calibre guns. She's agile with good concealment and boasts a Short-Burst Smoke Generator. PROS Small citadel. Large battery of ten 133mm guns that fires both HE and AP. 360º traverse on rear turrets. Powerful, single-fire torpedoes. Excellent acceleration and decent agility. Good concealment. She has smoke. CONS Tiny hit point pool. Very thin citadel protection, vulnerable to even 203mm AP overmatching. Uses cruiser dispersion instead of destroyer dispersion. Slow firing for such small-calibre guns. Low HE and AP penetration. Clumsy main-battery firing angles. Bad anti-aircraft firepower. No access to Hydroacoustic Search. Overview Skill Floor: Simple / CASUAL / Challenging / Difficult Skill Ceiling: Low / Moderate / HIGH / Extreme Dido has a nice, comfortable skill floor for inexperienced players. Park in smoke, apply HE to faces. Displace. Rinse and repeat. For veteran players, there's a lot to know. Map awareness, map positioning, proper smoke use habits, commander skill builds, ammunition juggling, using and abusing concealment, etc. They'll all serve you well here and help pad some of the ship's obvious weaknesses. Dido's carry potential is somewhat limited, however, by the issues with her penetration and damage output. She just doesn't hurt things quickly enough for bold plays barring a torpedo strike, so this is a ship that requires patience, caution and even more patience. Options The most variety you're going to find in optimized Dido builds comes from commander skill selection, and that's mostly focused around whether or not to take Inertial Fuse for HE Shells or to emphasize fire setting instead. One of these is a bad idea. Consumables Dido's Damage Control Party is standard for a cruiser. It comes with unlimited charges and a 60 second reset timer. It is active for 5 seconds. Her Defensive AA Fire consumable is standard for a non-American cruiser at this tier. It starts with three charges and it has a 40 second active period and an 80 second reset timer. While active, it increases sustained damage by 50% and quadruples flak explosion damage. Dido comes with a Short-Burst Smoke Generator reminiscent of that found on Belfast '43 and British destroyers. However, it's very much its own beast with no direct clones that I could find. It starts with five charges and emits smoke for 15 seconds. However, the smoke clouds only last for 35 seconds each (Belfast '43's smoke lasts for 40) . Her reset timer is also longer than her tier VIII cousin, with an 80 second wait time instead of 70 seconds. Upgrades Not much variety here. Start with Main Armaments Modification 1. Next, take Engine Room Protection. Aiming Systems Modification 1 is the only upgrade worth considering in slot three. And finally, Steering Gears Modification 1 is also the only upgrade worth taking. Commander Skills Why haven't you taken Heavy HE & SAP Shells yet? YOU MUST TAKE HEAVY HE & SAP SHELLS for Dido. There's no reason not to. Take it now. NOW. Have you done it yet? Okay, good. Now we can talk. You're going to want to pair that with Inertial Fuse for HE Shells along with the usual light-cruiser suspects of Concealment Expert and Last Stand is also recommended. You've got some wiggle room after that. I highly value Priority Target and I wanted the extra charge of smoke with Superintendent (though you're not always going to get to use it). With such as a small hit point pool, the extra 2700 (or 11% total) hit points from Survivability Expert is worth taking, though you could trade one of the latter two for Adrenaline Rush if you wanted. Finally, I had a point leftover which I dropped into Grease the Gears. Here's some of the skills I'd consider but didn't have room for in my current build: Gun Feeder - On more than one occasion, I wish I had this skill when the flat broadside of a cruiser finally presented itself. Demolition Expert - Nice to have, but expensive at two points. Adrenaline Rush - Mentioned above. Radio Location - See Demolition Expert. This would be nice to have but it's too expensive given Dido's priorities. Of course, if you're only playing Co-Op and scenarios, than other than Heavy HE & SAP Shells, your choice of skills doesn't matter much. Camouflage If you unlock Dido through the Gibraltar Pillars event, she comes with two camouflage options. Her Type 10 and Atlantic camos are palette swaps of one another, providing the identical bonuses of: -3% surface detection +4% increased dispersion of enemy shells. -10% to post-battle service costs. +50% to experience gains. This is Dido-s standard Type 10 camouflage. If she's put on sale on the regular later, this is the paint scheme with which she'll come. You can unlock this alternative palette for her Type 10 camouflage through completing a specific part of the Naval Aviation collection. For early adopters, they also received this Atlantic - Dido camouflage which is nice and striking. My guess is we'll see this as a purchasable option for and estimated 1,000 doubloons or 6,000 community-tokens for later-comers if they become available separately. Firepower Main Battery: Ten 133mm/50 guns in 5x2 turrets in an A-B-C-X-Y superfiring configuration. Torpedoes: Six tubes in 2x3 launchers on wing mounts straddling the rear funnel. Dido barely survives a ram attempt from Kijkduin, using her powerful torpedoes to sink the cruiser just before impact. Dido has better rearward than forward torpedo arcs. Torpedoes Let's start with the fish! Dido has surprisingly powerful fish for her tier. This is owing to her using the same torpedoes found on the tier VIII destroyer, Lightning, giving her quite a heavy punch. Their 8km range means you're not stealth firing at anyone barring extreme kiting situations or using concealment to setup a torpedo attack. However, their individual hits are devastating. A full broadside of her torpedoes will sink just about any cruiser she comes across. BUT (and I stress this but!) three torpedo hits aren't enough to take down any of the battleships she faces short of Viribus Unitis, so don't suicide charge anything that's not already damaged. Like other British cruisers and destroyers, Dido can single fire her fish which is welcome. It's just a shame these aren't a little longer ranged. Oh well, they're good at what they do when you are able to use them. Those these may be destroyer calibre, they do not have a destroyer's rate of fire. Tech Tree versus Premium I'm honestly surprised Wargaming chose to release another premium with destroyer-calibre guns, to say nothing of a whole tech tree lined based on the armament, without first addressing player concerns about their performance. Firepower wise, specialized cruisers are in a rough spot since the commander skill rework a couple of years back. Wargaming has made improvements, but super-cruisers and cruisers with destroyer-calibre weapons had their efficiency severely reduced. Ostensibly, Dido's arrival long after the rework (nevermind a full Pan Asian line dedicated to this armament choice) means that Wargaming has designed these ships with these deficits in mind. Ostensibly. Maybe they're couching their implementation with the promise of future fixes. I dunno. I can't hold their feet to the fire like I used to. These teething troubles are still apparent with Dido's gunnery and it takes a careful hand (and careful skill choices) to fix these issues. She's not quite a comfortable gunnery platform -- she gets close, but her weapons are far from the fun weapons of Atlanta and Smolensk, for example. As a premium version of Rahmat, the tier VI Pan Asian tech-tree vessel, it's natural to want to compare her and Dido. There's a lot of give and take between the two ships. Dido has better range than Rahmat, with a reach of 14.1km to Rahmat's 12.496km. This is a huge improvement. Rahmat has better fire angles on her Y-turret with a 270º arc compared to Dido's 268º. Minor, but still. Rahmat has the better rate of fire, reloading in just 7.5 seconds to Dido's 8.5 seconds. This is pretty big. Dido's shells have less drag and thus better ballistics. This is important. The reduced drag gives Dido's AP shells better penetration too. This is not so important, as we'll cover. Dido's AP shells have longer fuse timers of 0.033s instead of 0.025s. This is more of academic interest than practical. This all translates to Dido being a more comfortable platform to engage targets at a distance, which is good, but you pay for it with overall damage output. Of course, besting Rahmat's range is like bragging that your ship is faster than New Mexico. It's a pretty damn low bar to hurdle. Dido is short ranged, make no mistake, but she is the longest-ranged of any of the smoke-bearing cruisers at this tier barring Trento. Between having to choose between range and rate of fire, I'll take the range, especially when paired with Dido's improved ballistics. I'm not happy about Dido's rate of fire, especially when paired with her penetration woes. This isn't a cruiser that kills things quickly. Dido's DPM is middling. Her lack of penetration makes it very difficult to realize these numbers, however. It should be noted that Dido (and Rahmat) can boost these listed numbers by 10% by taking the Heavy HE and SAP shells commander skill, which they totally should. This bumps up Dido's AP DPM from 180,000 to 198,000 and her HE DPM from 134,118 to 147,530. With her guns being only 133mm in calibre, she doesn't suffer the accompanying concealment penalty normally associated with this skill. Dido's improved ballistics means that her AP penetration is lightly better than Rahmat's, even though they're using the same guns. This ballistic difference translates into Rahmat's shells taking 10.63 seconds to reach 12.5km. Dido's cover the same distance in 9.46 seconds and doesn't experience the same kind of floaty arc as Rahmat until a range of 13.47km. These arcs allow Dido to make good use of terrain cover to lob shells over islands. Dido's penetration isn't good. Her AP penetration is among the worst for cruisers at tier VI. Landing citadel hits against cruisers requires not only the enemy ships to provide a broadside to shoot at, but also specific armour thresholds. While something soft and squishy like Pensacola's 76mm belt over her machine spaces can be contested in excess of 12km, the 102mm plating over her magazines is proof until you get into sub-10km ranges. Dido's AP works well against lower-tiered and very light and scout cruisers but it's nowhere near reliable against higher tiered ships. The long fuse timer on her shells also makes overpenetrations more likely against soft parts like battleship superstructures. Her HE penetration doesn't get much better. Sure, the 22mm she starts with is enough to contest all destroyers and most (but not all) tier V, VI and VII cruisers she might face. This is also enough to hurt the extremities of tier V battleships and the superstructures of the remaining vessels. Taking Inertial Fuse for HE Shells greatly expands the targets she can directly hurt, being able to smouldering HE holes into any cruiser she might come across as well as opening up the extremities of tier VI and VII battleships as well. Pair this with the Heavy HE and SAP Shells commander skills and Dido's DPM starts to look respectable. This comes at the expense of setting fires, of course, but Dido's not a great fire starter to begin with. Even with a deep build into fire setting, she barely gets close to the stock-values of the 152mm armed ships. So I stress again: Take Inertial Fuse for HE Shells and Heavy HE and SAP Shells on your commanders or Dido's gunnery performance suffers. I'm not happy with this solution. It means that in order to be competitive, destroyer-calibre armed ships like Dido must pay a commander skill tax. If skills like these are so game-changing as to become mandatory, that's bad for the player-base. Players are punished if they don't take them. Dido is only ever a modest fire-setter. You can dump skills and consumables into trying to improve it, but you're only ever going to be as good as a stock Makarov. It's better to bite the bullet, take IFHE and go from there. British ships are notorious for having bad fire angles. Dido's forward fire angles are good for four out of her five turrets, but Y-turret sucks. Her rearward fire angles are pretty bad, though. There are two good points though: Her X-turret has phenomenal fire arcs and both it and Y-turret have a 360º traverse arc. Gun Handling & Accuracy Dido keeps up with the British tradition of cramming their guns in so tightly to their superstructures that it impedes their gunnery arcs. Her fire arcs are bad, with her Y-turret being especially awful. You can mostly ignore this when firing forward, with four guns capable of addressing very accute fire angles. It's just Y-turret that's nigh-impossible to bear without flashing your full broadside. Unfortunately, things are worse rearward, with her forward turrets having bad arcs. At least her turret traverse isn't painfully slow and her rear turrets can rotate 360º. So you're not going to be able to fire all five guns safely without cover. Being out in the open is just asking for trouble with Dido anyway, so use the crummy arcs as a bit of a reminder to get back into cover ASAP. Special mention should be made about her dispersion. Dido, like Rahmat, uses cruiser horizontal dispersion formulas; namely: dispersion in meters = {[(range in km) x 6.9]+33 } as opposed to the more accurate destroyer dispersion formula {[(range in km) x 7.5] + 15}. Wargaming has never been consistent with when it applies one formula or the other. Bogatyr and Krasny Krym, for example, use cruiser dispersion while ships like Atlanta, Flint and Smolensk use the destroyer version. The difference isn't huge, but it is noticeable -- especially with destroyer calibre guns that fire as slowly as Dido's do. Summary As a weapon platform, Dido is okay, but only okay. There's nothing novel about her gunnery. She's not like Atlanta or Smolensk or Colbert where a smaller calibre weapon brings the promise of a greater rate of fire. This is a shame, because spamming small calibre shells is a lot of fun. Instead, it's better to think of Dido as analogous to a 152mm-armed ship but with nerfed AP and HE performance. Her shells are bad; they can be made functional with the correct commander skill build, but that's more of a bandaid solution than a true fix. You can bring them up to a state of usability but they're never going to cross that threshold into being truly competitive. The same goes for her fish. They hit like trucks (which is awesome), but having only three isn't enough to make them a true trump card. Furthermore, her 8km range is only ever going to be okay and not great. She'd need another 2km onto their range to become something that could be used on the regular and another 2km beyond that to become a mainstay weapon. VERDICT: Very meh. Functional, but very meh. Durability Hit Points: 23,600 Bow & stern/superstructure/upper-hull/deck: 13mm / 10mm / 89mm / 25mm Maximum Citadel Protection: 89mm belt Torpedo Damage Reduction: 4% That's not a lot of health. I don't think anyone was expecting Dido to be anything but squishy. She's not a heavily armoured cruiser and as far as tonnage goes; she's quite small compared to her contemporaries. The only question I had was whether or not she would get access to a Repair Party consumable to pad these vulnerabilities and the answer is decisively: "Very no". As it stands, it takes as little as a pair of 381mm citadel hits to send her to the bottom. Fun! I'm not going to tell you that "Akchooally, dis is gud," cuz it's not. This sucks. This sucks moose balls. This sucks so much that it makes Survivability Expert not only a viable skill choice, but arguably a necessary one. The commander skill-tax on patching Dido's flagging performance gets more and more expensive (for those keeping track, we're up to 10 mandatory skill points). The only decent thing about Dido is the size of her citadel. It's a small target and in my playtesting, its small size has kept me alive just a little longer as players overestimate it's scope. So catastrophic ends, while still possible, are a little less likely owing to this small target. Of course, once word gets out and familiarity with this ship jumps up with exposure, this advantage will mean less and less. Most of us now know how to blow apart an Omaha-class or an Emerald, for example, despite their citadels being smaller than higher-tiered cruisers. That same kind of baseline knowledge will eventually disseminate down to Dido as well and she'll pop as readily as the rest of them. Still, you might be able to pull off the occasional troll manoeuvre. Angling in Dido is generally a bad idea as even 203mm AP shells can overmatch her bow and blow her machine spaces apart (incidentally 203mm AP can overmatch much of her citadel roof too, so dueling with American heavy cruisers is generally a stupid idea). Remember that at ranges less than 8km, it's better to show a full broadside to most enemy battleships than to try and angle against them, trusting that their AP shells don't have sufficient time to arm inside your ship. This doesn't work for shorter-fuse timers from AP shells, such as the 305mm rounds on König, Scharnhorst's 283mm or Yukon's 381mm guns, but go nuts on trying it out against other battleships. Just remember: flat broadside. Any kind of angle and you risk giving enough room for those shells to pop you good. Given Dido's short range, German secondaries ended up being something I dreaded facing. HE of just about any calibre hurt and it's important to keep a respectable distance away from anything bristling with functional (or semi-functional) secondaries. This dittos for HE spam from gunship destroyers, but they tended to keep a healthy distance from Dido's guns for the most part. So, yeah. Dido's durability sucks. No surprises there, though, so don't get hit. Dido is made of squish. Dido's citadel is much smaller than players might think. You have to aim beneath her funnels to score citadel hits. Otherwise, you're very likely to overpenetrate. Dido's citadel is shown here in yellow. Her magazines do not count as part of the citadel and are featured here in dark red. This image comes from Gamemodels3d.com.. VERDICT: Bad but not like, meme-worthy bad (which would be kind of redeemable). Shooting beneath Dido's turrets may disable them or even knock them out, but you're not getting citadel hits if you aim there. You can try baiting shots here by offering up a full broadside at very close ranges, trusting her thin armour to prompt overpenetrations from battleship calibre guns. Agility Top Speed: 32.3 knots Turning Radius: 580 meters Rudder Shift Time: 6.5 seconds 4/4 Engine Speed Rate of Turn: 6.9º/s at 25.8kts Main Battery Traverse Rate: 10.0º/s Dido does not have all of improved agility characteristics as other British light cruisers do. Still, Dido has some pretty good agility according to her in port stats. She has a tiny turning circle radius and a good rudder shift time. However, the tech tree British light cruisers and destroyers have improved engine performance, given them much better handling than their stats alone would otherwise indicate. Dido gets a half-measure of this bonus. She accelerates much faster than normal ships. However, she doesn't get the improved energy retention in a turn, decelerating to the normal 80% of maximum speed when she comes about instead of retaining 97.5% to 98.5%. You can see this here in the time it takes the tier VI cruisers to each 30 knots. The percentage in brackets is how much 30 knots is relative to their top speed, with the idea being that the closer this is to a ship's maximum speed, the longer it will take them to accelerate. 10.0 seconds Dido (92.9%) 10.5 seconds Perth (92.3%) 10.8 seconds Leander (92.3%) 11.3 seconds Mysore (94.9%) 22.9 seconds Dallas (92%) 23.8 seconds Molotov (83.3%) 24.3 seconds Budyonny (85.5%) 24.5 seconds Duca d'Aosta (82.0%) 24.9 seconds Trento (85.5%) 26.5 seconds Aoba (85.5%) 27.0 seconds De Grasse (89.6%) 27.5 seconds London (92.6%) 27.9 seconds Huanghe (90.6%) 28.8 seconds Pensacola (92%) 29.8 seconds Kijkduin (90.6%) 30.8 seconds Canarias (90.6%) 32.1 seconds La Galissonniere (96.8%) 32.1 seconds Nurnberg (93.8%) 32.1 seconds Makarov (93.8%) 35.5 seconds Devonshire (95.5%) It's obvious looking at this that Dido, along with Perth, Leander and Mysore, has much improved acceleration over their peers. She's hitting 30 knots while they're struggling to make 10. Even when her rivals are equipped with Propulsion Modification 1, their acceleration just doesn't compare. Here's a few examples of the same test, but this time equipped with the upgrade: Dallas: 20.8 seconds (2.1s faster) Budyonny: 19.2s (5.1s faster) Nurnberg: 26.9s (5.2s faster) Duca d'Aosta: 19.4s (5.1s faster) (Note: There's something weird going on with Dallas). So other than that, there's nothing too surprising going on here. Dido's not especially fast (she's not slow either). She has a good rate of turn, but not outstanding. Her turning circle radius is nice and tight, which is great. She doesn't get top marks in this category (Perth and Leander are a thing), but she's pretty damn good. Dido combines the small turning circle radius of Huanghe and Rahmat with the improved acceleration of Mysore, Leander and Perth. She does not have the improved energy preservation of the latter two, though, which would have spiked her rate of turn from 6.9º/s up to 8.4º/s! VERDICT: On a scale of one to awesome, Dido is super-great. Anti-Aircraft Defence Flak Bursts: 2+0 explosions for 1,260 damage per blast at 3.5km to 5.2km Long Ranged (up to 5.2km): 63 dps at 90% accuracy (56.7 dps) Medium Ranged (up to 2.5km): 63 dps at 90% accuracy (56.7 dps) Short Ranged (up to 2km): 94.5 dps at 85% accuracy (80.325dps) DPS Aura Ranges Total DPS by Range Effective Damage vs 186.2knot Aircraft Dido's AA firepower stinks worse than unwiped monkey butts. And I take issue with this. Dido's 133mm only have a 5.2km range and this makes me grumpy. 'What's the big deal?' you might justifiably ask. After all, the dual purpose guns on the KGV-class, Famous & Historical Monarch and Yukon all share the same range. It's that consistency which is bothering me. You see, Rahmat, using the same guns, gets a 5.8km range. Yeah! No consistency there. In the Pan Asian cruiser's case, I imagine it's to make the 133mm guns feel like a 100% upgrade over her 113mm weapons. Can't have the upgraded guns making her AA worse now can we? I also take exception to Wargaming's game design in regards to large calibre anti-aircraft firepower. It's been troublesome and busted since the rework back in 2019 and no iteration has worked sufficiently to my liking. It nerfed the Hell out of Hood's defensive AA rockets. It made Atlanta's AA power go from top tier to bottom. It makes Dido's AA power terrible in game, despite having a good track record historically. This is not the first ahistoric gameplay element to marr World of Warships but given the sorry state of surface ship to aircraft interaction, it's infuriating to me that Wargaming still hasn't ressurected the AA-picket ship role that has been gone since patch 0.8.0. Dido was a chance to amend this and they didn't take it. I'm not surprised they didn't. The whole CV rework reeks of incompetence three years on. Dido's AA, when paired with Defensive AA Fire will shoot down a plane or two so long her small and medium calibre AA guns are still intact (these will break as soon as you get hit by HE). She doesn't do enough damage, nor does she spit out enough flak bursts for any specialization into this role to be worthwhile. So don't bother. A few HE rounds between the funnels will strip her of most of her small and medium calibre AA and there's nothing you can realistically do about it. VERDICT: Ahistorical and laughably bad. Vision Control Base/Minimum Surface Detection: 10.54km / 9.2km Base/Minimum Air Detection Range: 5.78km / 5.2km Detection Range When Firing in Smoke: 4.43km Maximum Firing Range: 14.1km There's good and bad here. THE GOOD Low surface detection Upgraded aerial detection matches her long-range AA battery range Smoke! THE BAD Cannot stealth-fire torpedoes No access to Hydroacoustic Search Each smoke cloud only lasts 35 seconds (a max of five salvos) It's the lack of access to Hydroacoustic Search that stings the most. Especially because her Defensive AA Fire is so bloody useless when paired with her abysmal AA values. Parking in smoke out in open water is just asking to get fish shoved up your butt, which is an embarrassing and carpy way to go out. I found myself prefering to keep smoke on standby while using islands as my prefered way to keep out of sight. Using smoke if spotted by aircraft or by an unseen vector became the better play. I even used it to help flush out a destroyer in a Ranked Batlte which was much more useful than parking in it. If Dido did have hydro, she could make some aggressive plays on occasion and behave a little more comfortably in open water, but it's not meant to be. Overall, she's good here. As limited as her Short-Burst Smoke Generator is, it's still very handy to have and it will help you win games. I'm just being bitter. Islands make better waifus than smoke. VERDICT: Good save for lacking hydro Anti-Submarine Warfare ASW Armament Type: Depth charges Number of Bombs per String: Five Number of Strings Carried: Two (may be increased to four with Depth Charges Modification 1) Reload Time per String: 40 seconds Drop Pattern: Rolled off rear deck in a line. Maximum Bomb Damage: 5,000 (estimated 2,567 damage) Fire Chance: 20% At the time of writing, submarines have been removed from public testing. I'm merely recording the data as it exists. It may become relevant later. Without Hydroacoustic Search, taking on subs is going to be a bad idea with Dido. Drop order of Dido's depth charges. Final Evaluation So Dido's good. Not great, but she's good. She's a cruiser with smoke that exists in an environment that's not saturated with Surveillance Radar and claustrophobic maps with lots of islands to shoot over. She'd have to be pretty terrible across most metrics not to do well. I'm not a fan of her given her lack of Hydroacoustic Search, mostly because I like bold-aggressive plays at low and mid-tier matches and not having the tools to dig out lolibotes sours me to the whole experience. Go figure, I don't have fun when my own idiocy gets me justifaibly blown out of the water for over-extending. Her lack of AA performance also bothers me considerably more than it should, admittedly. I wasn't looking for her to be god-tier when it came to shooting down planes. I just expected her to be better than bloody Molotov and Leander for crying out loud. But such isn't meant to be. Sucks to be me and have my preferences, I suppose. I admittedly haven't played her as much as I should, what with trying to get some Ranked Battle time in and poking at Canarias too. Still, the more I played her, the better things were turning out. I'm very curious to see how the community receives her. I personally feel her tiering holds her back. Wargaming just isn't incentivizing playing mid-tiers enough and they really should. I think it's a riot, but that's just me. Speaking of preferences, London is the better buy when it comes to tier VI premium British cruisers. She's much more reliable and nasty. In Closing I want to talk a little about what goes into making one of these reviews and just how much of a time investment these are. This one graphic demonstrates it quite well, I think. It takes me about two hours to put together one of these twirling graphics, assembling it through assets I make by hand with MS Paint and a calculator and then importing them over to photoshop to piece together in layers. That's already a lot of work, but it's only scratching the surface. There was no template for this. I had to make it. That took a lot of trial and error and a lot of botched attempts. I listened to feedback from my readers and my peers on how to improve my earlier results until I could create something that would show with a reasonable level of accuracy, how individual ships performed in a way that cut through the obfuscation of in-port statistics. I'm reasonably happy with how these turned out, though the number of ships at a given tier is making them too cluttered, so I will have to pair them down to only the relevant ships. But that still doesn't speak to all of the work that went into this, because there's all of the data collection that went into it as well. Simply timing ships twirling isn't all of it either (as arduous a task as it is keeping that database up to date). That ignores all of the testing and head scratching and math that went into figuring out how the in-port stats were created in the first place. This was further complicated by just how many ships had incorrect values listed in port too which created further hurdles. I have over 100 hours of recorded twirling data in my archives. 100 hours spent watching ships twirl in circles. And this is just for one graphic, I remind you. This has been repeated for other elements as well, be it detonations and module damage, smoke emission and ship hit boxes or god knows how much time I've lost trying to map dispersion. I'm not getting that time back short of using the data to share information. And I'm just speaking about my own time invested in these. @Lert and @Chobittsu are right there beside me, listening to me grumble. They provide feedback and suggestions, art and editing. To be able to speak confidently about any one aspect of a given ship's performance -- something I can back with actual provable stats -- takes time. It takes more time than you might assume from some throwaway DPM graphic or a funny little blurb about moose-testicles or an Angry YouTuber "meh". These reviews stand upon a a mountain of 'behind the scenes' work, an investment of a bunch of time about a video game that, let's be honest, hasn't treated me well over the last couple of years. It's hard producing these reviews. It's a lot of hard work that's built upon a lot of other work done in the past. Every new ship that's added to the game increases the workload. The last time I reviewed a tier VI cruiser, I didn't have to worry about Rahmat, Canarias, Dido or Kijkduin. Now I have to make sure those ships are covered too. I say this all not to complain, but to express my gratitude. The only thing that makes all of this time spent worthwhile is that you all see value in what I do here. For that, I am forever grateful. Thank you for reading.

so with San Diego coming to wows we now have a total of four Atlantas in game ignoring Atlanta b and San Diego's stats are concerning. as it is basically a low tier austin a ship that is known to not be that good. to make San Diego more enjoyable it should get the same consumables as Atlanta and 3 second reload with a heal instead of the unlimited MBRB. that is all.

well , I have the Canaria Cruiser, NO is bad Ship but he has wrost thing: Comparation with Sisters SHips London, Devonshire ,Canarias, AP Damages well So London& Devonshire has same AP damage 4500 aprox... AP 203mm 256lb the Canarias has the Same shells Ap 203mm 256lb BUT has 3800 damage. WHY??? the canarias NOT HAVE HE , and the AP sucks!!!! The LONDON, DEVONSHIRE & CANARIAS are County Class Brithis , the Canaria Need ADD heal, he NOT HAS= HE SHELLS, SMOKE,HEAL,TORPS. PLEASE ADD HEAL. he sooo Basic only AP sucks damage :( my Battle 65 hits and only 25 impact penetration, the 40 ¿sucksss

the Gibratar need buff he has bad Health, no he , no torps, smoke with 9.5k detection guns fire, ok is very bad. AA bad, protection anti torps bad, many things bad!

Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dido-class_cruiser "The Dido class was a class of sixteen (including five within the Bellona sub-class) light cruisers built for the British Royal Navy. The design was influenced by the inter-war Arethusa-class light cruisers. The first group of three ships were commissioned in 1940, the second group (six ships) and third group (two ships) were commissioned between 1941–1942. The Bellona subclass ships were commissioned between 1943 and 1944. Most members of the class were given names drawn from classical history and legend. Post war in the expanded 1951 programme of the Korean War Emergency a broad beam Bellona class armed with 4 twin Mk 6 4.5 guns was considered as a cruiser option along with the 1951 Minotaur class and the Tiger class completed with two Mk 24 6 inch turrets and 4 twin Mk 6 4.5. From the initial trials of the lead ship of the class, Bonaventure the new light cruisers were considered a significant advance, with the 5.25 turrets, far more modern in design than previous light cruiser turrets, and offering efficient loading up to 90 degrees to give some DP capability. While some damage was experienced initially in extreme North Atlantic conditions, modified handling avoided the problem. The fitting of the three turrets forward in A,B and Q position depended on some use of Aluminium in structure and the non availability of aluminium after Dunkirk was one of the reasons for only 4 turrets being fitted to the later ships. The Dido class were designed as small trade protection cruisers and for action in the Mediterranean Sea, where they were surprisingly effective in protecting crucial convoys to Malta and managed to see off far larger ships of the Italian Royal Navy. The 5.25-inch (133 mm) gun was primarily a surface weapon, but it was intended to fire the heaviest shell suitable for anti-aircraft defence and accounted for around 23 aircraft and saw off far more. Four original Dido-class ships were lost during the war: HMS Bonaventure, HMS Charybdis, HMS Hermione, and HMS Naiad. The original ship of the class, HMS Dido, was mothballed in 1947 and decommissioned ten years later. HMS Euryalus was the last remaining in-service ship of the original class, being decommissioned in 1954 and scrapped in 1959. The Bellona class (as well as four rebuilt Dido ships) were mainly intended as picket ships for amphibious warfare operations, in support of aircraft carriers of the Royal Navy and United States Navy in the Pacific. HMS Spartan was the only ship of the sub-class to be sunk, struck by a German Fritz X while supporting the Anzio landings. Post war modernisation proposals were limited by the tight war emergency design which offered inadequate space and weight for the fire control and magazines for four or five 3-inch twin 70 turrets combined with the fact the heavy to handle 5.25-inch shells fitted when the cruisers were built had a large burst shock which made them a more effective high level AA weapon than post war RN 4.5-inch guns. HMS Royalist was somewhat different from the rest of the class, as it was modified to be a command ship of aircraft carrier and cruiser groups intended for action against German battlecruisers. It was later ordered to be rebuilt, by Winston Churchill, for potential action alongside HMS Vanguard against the post-war Soviet Sverdlov-class cruisers and Stalingrad-class battlecruisers. In 1956, Royalist was loaned to the Royal New Zealand Navy (RNZN), with whom it served until 1966. Despite being part of the RNZN, Royal Navy officers made up the majority of the senior command. During the Indonesia–Malaysia confrontation, it was regarded not only as the last Dido-class ship but also the last cruiser of the Royal Navy. The ship was decommissioned in 1967. The class were intended to be armed with ten 5.25-inch (133 mm) guns in five twin turrets, which were of the same circular design as the secondary armament in the King George V-class battleships. A shortage of the guns, due to difficulties in manufacturing them, led to the first group being armed with only eight 5.25-inch guns in four twin turrets. The fifth twin turret was added later to Dido only. The first group was also armed with a 4-inch (102 mm) gun for firing star shell and two quadruple QF 2-pounder (40 mm) "pom-poms". The second group had the five twin 5.25-inch guns but did not have the 4 in (102 mm) gun. The third group's armament was changed due to the shortage of 5.25 in guns, being armed with eight 4.5-inch (113 mm) guns in four twin turrets instead. The 4.5-inch gun was better suited to the primary anti-aircraft role of the Dido class. The forward A & B 4.5 turrets were mounted on the top of conjoint deckhouses, extending the superstructure to allow the 2 cruisers to play a flagship role with more accommodation and radar rooms. The high mounting of the 4.5 turrets forshadows the high freeboard and superstructure of the twin 4.5 A & B mounting on the County GMDs, 20 years later. The high rate of fire of the 4.5 turrets and the unique arrangement for a British cruiser of the shell and charge being loaded in a combined case,and simpler DP twin DCT, Red DCT for A 7 B and Blue for X & Y m meant in many senses the Scylla and Charbydis were the only Dido class that were, true AA cruisers The 4.0-inch (102 mm) gun was also fitted and the 2-pounder armament was increased from eight to ten. The Bellona subclass differed in appearance somewhat from their predecessors. They had eight 5.25-inch (133 mm) RP10MkII guns in four twin turrets and had greatly improved anti-aircraft armament, with twelve 2-pounder guns and twelve Oerlikon 20 mm cannons. The bridge of the Bellona class was lowered by one deck compared to the previous three groups, which allowed full radar control to be fitted to the 5.25-inch (133 mm) turrets and 2-pounder guns, due to the decreased topweight. These ships used the HACS high angle fire control system. The two funnels were more upright than the raked ones of the original Dido class. In World War II, the Dido class saw much action, including the Battle of Cape Matapan, the Second Battle of Sirte, Operation Torch, Operation Overlord and the Battle of Okinawa, as well as many other duties in the Mediterranean and Pacific. The class lost five ships during the war (Bonaventure, Charybdis, Hermione, Naiad, and Spartan); in addition Scylla was badly damaged by a naval mine and declared a constructive total loss. The post-war survivors continued in service; all were decommissioned by the 1960s. Bellona, Black Prince and Royalist were lent to the Royal New Zealand Navy post-World War II. In 1956, Diadem was sold to Pakistan and renamed Babur. The Dido's Bonaventure completed with only four twin 5.25 in turrets because of shortages and received a 4-inch starshell gun in "X" position. She had received a radar set before October 1940 but was otherwise unaltered. Naiad completed with five turrets. She received five single 20 mm in September 1941 and had radar Type 279 by this time. Phoebe completed with four turrets and was fitted with a 4-inch gun in "Q" position forward of the bridge. The latter was landed during her refit between November 1941 and April 1942 at New York City, along with the .5-inch machine guns and Type 279 radar, while a quadruple 2 pdr supplanted the 4-inch gun and eleven single 20 mm guns were fitted. Radars were now Type 281, 284 and 285. The "A" turret was temporarily removed at the end of 1942 after torpedo damage. During repairs in the first six months of 1943, all three quadruple 2 pdr mounts were landed, as were seven single 20 mm, to be replaced by three quadruple 40 mm Bofors guns and six twin 20 mm. Radar Type 272 was also fitted. A turret was replaced in July 1943. Her light anti-aircraft weaponry in April 1944 was twelve 40 mm (3 × 4) and sixteen 20 mm (6 × 2, 4 × l). Dido had four turrets and a 4-inch gun similar to Phoebe. The 4 in and the machine guns were removed in the latter half of 1941 at Brooklyn Navy Yard, when Q 5.25 in turret was shipped and five single 20 mm were fitted. In the early summer of 1943 three single 20 mm were exchanged for four twin 20 mm and the radar outfit was altered by the addition of Types 272, 282, 284 and 285. April 1944 lists show only eight 20 mm. Euryalus completed with her designed armament. In September 1941 the .5 in MGs were landed and five single 20 mm fitted. Two more were added by September 1942. By mid-1943 two single 20mm had been removed and four twin 20 mm shipped. The type 279 radar was replaced by types 272, 281, 282 and 285. In a long refit from October 1943 to July 1944, Q turret was replaced by a quadruple 2 pdr and two twin 20 mm were fitted. Radar 271 and 272 were removed and types 279b, 277 and 293 fitted. Hermione was also completed as a five-turret ship. She had the .5 in MGs removed in October/November 1941 and received five single 20 mm. Sirius was completed with five turrets and five 20 mm. She had received two more 20 mm by mid-1943. One of these was landed at Massawa at the end of 1943 and two 40 mm Bofors Mk III were fitted. She is listed as having only seven 20 mm as light AA in April 1944. By April 1945 she had two Mk III 40 mm fitted and had landed two single 20 mm. Cleopatra was completed with two 2-pounders in 1942 in lieu of the .5 in MGs but these were removed in the middle of the year and replaced by five 20 mm. A sixth 20 mm was added in mid-1943. During repairs between November 1943 and November 1944, Q turret was removed, as were two quadruple 2 pdr and five 20 mm. Three quadruple 40 mm Bofors and six twin 20 mm were fitted and the singles numbered four. In 1951 the US sourced quad bofors and Oerilikon's were replaced by 3 twin MK 5 Bofors and 8 single Mk 7. Argonaut was completed with four single 20 mm in lieu of the .5 in MGs. She had Q turret removed during repairs in 1943/44, and lost the four single 20 mm. She received a quadruple 2 pdr in lieu of the 5.25 in, and had five twin 20 mm fitted. By April 1944 her light AA comprised three quadruple 2 pdr, six twin power-operated 20 mm and five single. By the end of the war with Japan she had received five 40 mm Bofors and three single 40 mm Bofors Mk III. Scylla was completed with four twin 4.5 in Mk III in UD MK III mountings because of a shortage of 5.25 in mountings. The forward superstructure was considerably modified to accommodate these and also to increase crew spaces. Her light AA on completion was eight single 20 mm. Six twin power-operated 20 mm were added at the end of 1943. Charybdis was also completed with four twin 4.5 inch, and had in addition a single 4 in Mk V forward of X mounting. Her light AA at completion was four single 20 mm and two single 2 pdr. The 4 inch starshell gun and two single 2 pdr were removed and replaced by two twin and two single 20 mm, probably in 1943. Bellonas Spartan received no alterations as far as is known. Royalist was converted to an escort carrier squadron flagship immediately on completion, when an extra two twin 20 mm were fitted as well as four single 20 mm. She was the only ship to receive an extensive postwar modernisation ordered for the RN but was later sold to New Zealand. Plans were drawn up to fully modernise the four improved Didos with either four twin 3 inch L70 guns or Mk 6 4.5 inch guns. However, that would have required building new broad beamed Didos (as was seriously considered in 1950-54). This was because the magazines of the Royalist type could hold only enough 3 inch ammunition for 3 minutes and 20 seconds of continuous firing. The refit of Royalist was shortened and that of Diadem abandoned because new steam turbines were regarded as both necessary and unaffordable. Royalist′s reconstruction, like that of Newfoundland, incorporated much of the RN's late 1940s and early 1950s view of a desirable cruiser. Royalist′s 5.25 inch armament was given some of the improvements of the final 5.25 inch mounts built for Vanguard, but not the extra space or power ramming. Also added was a secondary armament of 3 STAAG auto twin 40mm, new 293, 960M radar and Type 275(2 sets) DP fire control for the 5.25 guns, and a lattice mast. (Royalist was loaned to the RNZN in 1956, in exchange for Bellona). Bellona had four single 20 mm added by April 1944, and received an extra eight single 20 mm by April 1945. (She was loaned to the RNZN after the war and operational 1946-52, the twin Oerlikons had been replaced by 6 single MK3P 40mm in the RNZN unique kiwi electric powered mount, but Bellona was never actually fitted with 6 standard tacymetric directors, requested by the RNZN for controlling the Bofors. The RNZN mothballed the quad pom pom mounts for manning reasons, but maintained the single oerlikons on HMNZS Bellona.). Black Prince and Diadem also received eight single 20 mm, and had a further two twin 20 mm by early 1945. (Black Prince was loaned to the RNZN after the war and was operational briefly in 1947 before part of her crew mutinied and were discharged, and after a 1952 refit with 8 single Mk3P 40mm which were electric powered, like the RN Mk 9 and 6 single Oerlikon and operated till 1955, which included a visit to the 1953 Fleet Review at Spithead. Diadem was sold to Pakistan in 1956, after a modest refit with 293 and 281 radar and standardised 40mm twin and single light AA guns. Her 5.25" guns were fired in Pakistan's brief war with India in 1961. Diadem became a cadet training ship in 1962 and was renamed Babur)." They were basically RN versions of the USN Atlanta, and in-game could possibly work the same; instead of radar getting a British heal? I honestly don't know for this one, tell me what you think they could do for this series of ships.

After WG making an entire line of Pan-asia AA cruisers, using projects of Other nations that never saw the light of the day except the tier V that was comissioned in China and the others weren’t comissioned for the asiatic navies they represent in-game or were limited to blueprint stage. I decided to make my own research and propose my tech-tree of British AA cruisers, in a few minutes I will post another topic for US. The role and gameplay of this line in-game will be similar with the British light cruisers armed with 6 inch guns, but with dual purpose main weapons, higher RoF and weaker balistics and better AA. Also, to give more room for discussion and to not make my post too large, I will put only the most relevant content for the game itself. So the line starts at tier IV, making it a big tech-tree sub branch. I don’t think a fancy gimmick is needed to make this line interesting, since the ships themselves are already interesting enough to fit WoWs. I won't post the pictures, just to play safe, but I will give the sources below. Tier IV: HMS Carlisle (C-class/ Carlisle sub-class AA conversion) - 4290 long tons - 29 knots (4x2) - 102mm guns; (2) - 76mm AA guns; (2x4) - 40mm Pom-pom guns; No torps; (2x4) when built; Tier V: HMS Bellona (Sirius/ Bellona sub-class) - 7200 tons full load - 32.25 knots (4x2) - 133mm guns; (3x4) - 40mm Pom-pom guns; (24) - 20mm guns; (2x3) - 533mm torpedoes; OR a Hawkins-class cruiser AA conversion with 6 twin 133mm guns, she would balance better here, but unfortunatelly I didn’t find more info; Tier VI: HMS Argonaut (Sirius) - 6850 tons full load - 32.25 knots (5x2) 133mm guns; (2x4) - 40mm Pom-pom guns; (4) - 20mm guns; (2x3) - 533mm torpedoes; Tier VII: Design K25-F Light cruiser - 10450 tons full load (Crown Colony hull) - 32 knots Armour: 76mm Belt, 32mm Deck, Turrets had 76mm faces, 25mm sides and roofs; (8x2) 133mm Guns; (2x8) (2x4) 40mm Pom-pom guns (4x4) 12,7mm AA guns; (2x3) 533mm Torpedo Tubes; Tier VIII: Design K25-G Light cruiser - 10450 tons full load (Crown Colony hull) - 32 knots Armour: 76mm Belt, 32mm Deck, Turrets had 76mm faces, 25mm sides and roofs; (7x2) 133mm Guns - all in superfiring positions, also better firing angles, unlike K25-F; (2x8) (2x4) 40mm Pom-pom guns (4x4) 12,7mm AA guns; (2x3) 533mm Torpedo Tubes; Tier IX: OUR Project, there’s a big gap between pre-war and post-war designs to balance in WoWs, similar in a way to the gap between Omaha and Brooklyn, mainly in tonage. Tier X: Royal Navy Large cruiser Sketch I -17500 full load - 31 knots Armor: 89mm belt, 76mm deck; (4x2) 127mm/70 QF Mark N2 guns, 40 RPM; (6x2) 76mm/70 QF Mark N1 guns; (2x4) 40mm/70 OQF Mark XII AA guns; (4x4) -533mm torpdoes; Tier V (premium): HMS Delhi (Danae) - 5925 tons full load - 29 knots (5x1) 5-inch 38-calibre DP Mark 12; (4x2) 40mm Bofors; (12) 20mm Oerlikon; Reasons to become a premium: British cruiser armed with Amercian weapons; Sources for the ships that never were built: www.navweaps.com https://www.secretprojects.co.uk/threads/the-1948-rn-cruiser-projects.34780/ Norman Friedman - British Cruisers: Two World War and After; Norman Friedman - The Postwar Naval Revolution; Alan Raven, John Roberts - British Cruisers of World War Two; David K. Brown, George Moore - Rebuilding the Royal Navy: Warship Design Since 1945; Also I have to thank Tzoli, his arts made easier to visualize the projects; https://www.deviantart.com/tzoli/gallery/77565994/rn-warships

I posted earlier a similar topic focusing on British CLAAs, now it is time for the American ones. Player 40902nd made a similar topic, but I tried to give a smoother progression to the line like avoiding aircraft facilites on board, while using one more comissioned ship compared to his proposal. Also I recommend you guys to take a look. https://forum.worldofwarships.com/topic/241880-proposal-usn-anti-aircraft-light-cruiser-line-redux/?tab=comments#comment-5518675 If you are familiar with Atlanta the gameplay would be similar, but to make the line different from the premium versions while not creating a cancerous gameplay experience for the receiving end, my suggestion would not give them reload booster, radar or smoke and instead give the tiers VI and VII a standard heal, while the tiers VIII-X a heal similar to Salem to compensate their low HP at higher tiers. That means a more shellfish gameplay, moving away from the utility the premium versions offer. Tier VI: scheme 1A - 1936, I didn’t find the source or similar designs, so for this one take a look at the other topic I posted in the intro. Tier VII: USS San Diego CL-53 (Atlanta-class) - 8340 tons full load - 32.5 knots, famous! Very important! (8x2) 5in/38 Mark 12; (4x4) 40mm Bofors; (13) 20mm Oerlikon; (4x2) 533mm torpedoes; Tier VIII: USS Juneau CL-119 (Juneau-class) - 8450 tons full load - 32.5 knots (6x2) 5in/38 Mark 12; (These can be balanced at tier VIII with a higher RoF to compensate the reduced amount of weapons and less of them not in superfiring positions); (7x2) 3in AA guns; Doesnt have depth charges like the Atlanta-class, ironically making her better to deal with submerged submarines, since she can call aircraft to strike instead of rushing the target; Tier IX: S-511-23 “8100 Ton 5” Cruiser Design study DP Design study - 9950 tons full load - 33.5 knots, Sejong from the Pan-Asia faction is a similar design in-game (8x2) 5in/54; Smaller AA guns not mentioned; (4x2) 533mm torpedoes; Tier X: CL-154 - 11950 tons full load - 34.5 knots, sister from Austin in-game (6x2) or (8x2) 5in/54 autoloading; (6x2) or (8x2) 3in AA guns; Tier IX premium: S-511-36 “6” AA cruiser scheme “C” - 4 twin turrets - 14400 tons full load - 33 knots (4x2) 6in/47 DP guns; Smaller AA guns not mentioned; Source for S-511-23 and S-511-36: https://www.history.navy.mil/our-collections/photography/numerical-list-of-images/nhhc-series/s-file/S-511-23.html https://www.history.navy.mil/our-collections/photography/numerical-list-of-images/nhhc-series/s-file/S-511-36.html I was looking for “Atlanta-prototypes” or possible AA coversions for the Omaha-class as AA cruisers, in a similar way the British did with their WWI cruiser designs, unfortunatelly I couldnt find any relevant information.

I found some blueprints for submarines, destroyers, cruisers, and aircraft carriers designed by other countries for the Kuomintang. The National Archives of Taiwan opened these drawings for viewing at the beginning of this year. Submarine: Destroyer: Cruiser: Aircraft carrier: I also found a Thai light cruiser designed by Italy: Taksin-class light cruiser The current Pan-Asian cruiser branch, to be honest, is disappointing. :(

The following review of Rochester, the tier VIII premium American heavy cruiser, was sponsored by my patrons on Patreon who helped me afford this ship. To the best of my knowledge, the statistics discussed in this review are current as patch 0.10.9. Quick Summary: Imagine a Baltimore-class cruiser with slight tweaks (generally nerfs) across all performance parameters and strip out her access to Surveillance Radar. In compensation, give her access to Defensive AA Fire and Hydroacoustic Search and a Smoke Generator consumable. PROS American/German 27mm hull extremities. Access to "American Piercing" AP shells with higher shell damage, penetration and auto-ricochet angles. Great gun fire angles, especially to the rear (it's about time I got to review another ship with these). Good anti-aircraft firepower for a tier VIII cruiser. Competitive concealment and decent stealth range while firing in smoke for a 203mm armed cruiser. Does not have to choose between Hydroacoustic Search and Defensive AA Fire. Has a Smoke Generator. CONS No health regeneration. Low DPM & fire setting for a pure-gunship heavy cruiser. Painfully slow turret traverse. Not terribly agile. No access to Surveillance Radar. Overview Skill Floor: Simple / CASUAL / Challenging / Difficult Skill Ceiling: Low / Moderate / HIGH / Extreme Rochester pretty new-fish friendly. Without Surveillance Radar to worry about, there's no reason to push in too close which may help reduce the amount of "death by over-extending". Furthermore, her good concealment and decent smoke-firing properties give her a comfortable buffer. Firing from smoke is pretty easy and Rochester makes it about as comfortable as it can get for an American heavy cruiser. Furthermore, the forgiving nature of 203mm HE and her AP auto-ricochet angles will take the sting out of sloppy ammunition choices. So good marks here. Her carry potential in the hands of an expert is a little more limited. Good knowledge of how to use and abuse islands will take you far, as will proper ammunition use. Abusing her concealment along with her 27mm bows can yield some pretty meme-worthy encounters against 381mm and smaller-armed battleships that keep trying to use SAP or AP against her at close range. But, while her Smoke Generator does have some team play uses (along with her DFAA and Hydro consumables), her lack of Surveillance Radar is dearly felt. She just doesn't put the pressure on destroyers like she should, not without some incredible risk taking. Options Rochester is defined by her consumables. Really, it's the reason you're buying this ship. So if this doesn't intrigue you, close your wallet now and skip to the end. Consumables Rochester's Damage Control Party is standard for a cruiser. It has unlimited charges, a 5 second active period and a 60 second reset timer. Her Defensive AA Fire is also standard for an American cruiser providing and additional 50% continuous damage and 300% flak damage for 40 seconds. Like many other American cruisers, it comes with a bonus charge to start (four total instead of the usual three) and an 80 second reset timer. The Hydroacoustic Search Rochester detects torpedoes at 3.5km and ships at 5km for 100 seconds. It comes with one fewer charge than normal Hydroacoustic Search consumables with only two (instead of three) but it has a standard reset timer of 120 seconds. Finally, Rochester has a Smoke Generator in her fourth slot. Like other American smoke consumables, this generates clouds for a full thirty seconds (which is good). It comes with two charges and a 160 second reset timer. The duration of each smoke cloud is a bit odd. She matches Anchorage's duration of 104 seconds which is decent, but not quite top grade. Here's some of the equivalent smoke duration times at tier VIII for Smoke Generator consumables. 124 seconds: American Destroyers, Loyang 104 seconds: Rochester & Anchorage 99 seconds: Edinburgh 89 seconds: Most destroyers, Mikhail Kutuzov 70 seconds: Lightning, Cossack, Z-35, Belfast '43 (these have very quick reset timers) 69 seconds: Z-23, Harekaze II 10 seconds: Italian Exhaust Smoke Generator equipped ships (these have longer emission time) The only other comparable values to consider are Flint (121 seconds) and Smolensk (89 seconds). I'll talk about this more in the Vision Control (Refrigerator for you old-timer readers) section below. But suffice to say, Rochester's smoke is pretty good. She makes a lot of it and it lasts a fairly long time. Upgrades Your choices here aren't anything revolutionary. The big decision here is whether or not to focus her upon camping in smoke or for more open-water manoeuvrability. Start with Main Armaments Modification 1. Generally speaking, Hydroacoustic Search Modification 1 is your best choice in slot two. It will cost you cost 17,000 in the Armory. If you cannot (or will not) afford that then default to Engine Room Protection. In slot #3, Aiming System Modification 1 is best. However, if her sluggish gun traverse ticks you off as much as it does me, you can sacrifice some accuracy for Main Battery Modification 2. This latter choice is more worth while in an open-water build if you plan to be actively wiggling and dodging. If you're planning to hug islands or camp in smoke primarily, then the extra acceleration provided by Propulsion Modification 1 is optimal. Still, there's a place for Steering Gears Modification 1 if you're planning to aggressively pursue a more open-water style of play. Finally, Concealment System Modification 1 is generally considered optimal because of the stacked bonuses of air, sea and underwater stealth AND the increased dispersion to incoming fire. However, if you're a smoke-hiding, island-humping pro, or just intent on once again going full-hog to the open-water route, then you can get Steering Gears Modification 2 instead. Commander Skills I haven't talked about heavy cruiser commander skills much since the (repeated) skill rework earlier this year. It's going to be difficult to do so without going on a prolonged rant, but here goes: Cruisers got screwed with the rework. While battleships had to spend more points to get the same features as before, I really don't feel like there's enough good choices for heavy cruisers to be worth investing into. If your ship doesn't need Inertial Fuse for HE Shells then you're kind of starved for compelling, competitive options. I would love to be able to say that this is a good thing; that you can pick among your favourites without much fear of losing in-game performance. But the rework didn't really add anything worth discussing to heavy cruiser game play. The most daring build would be to eschew any shell-performance buffs and dip your toe into trying to be an AA ship if you wanted. That's kinda neat, I guess, but AA performance isn't interesting anymore. It hasn't been since the 0.8.0 rework. It's a shame. For a 10 point, brainless standard build, go with: Grease the Gears at tier 1. Reasonable alternatives (in no particular order) include: Gun Feeder, Incoming Fire Alert and Last Stand. The extra turret traverse is best if you're going to grab Priority Target as I recommend at tier 2. If not, then Incoming Fire Alert goes way up in value. Priority Target remains my favourite tier 2 skill and I admit a healthy bias towards it. Alternatives include: Demolition Expert and our first AA skill: Focus Fire Training. With Rochester's reliance on smoke, it's a pretty simple choice to default to Superintendent. Adrenaline Rush and Heavy AP Shells are the best alternates. To no one's surprise, Concealment Expert is best at tier 4. Don't get me wrong, Radio Location is nice, but give us some variety please, Wargaming! The only other skill that vaguely interests me at this tier is AA Defence and ASW Expert and that's only if you're building an AA ship for the memes. Feel free to double back through the options here to mix and match for a build you find works for you. You really can't go wrong here, so don't sweat it. Camouflage You got one camo. It provides the usual: -3% surface detection +4% increased dispersion of enemy shells. -10% to post-battle service costs. +50% to experience gains. Rochester's default (pale) palette looks best in my opinion. You can unlock the darker version through completing the 5th tab of the American Cruiser Collection. Firepower Main Battery: 3x3 203mm/55 guns in an A-B-X superfiring configuration Secondary Battery: Twelve 127mm/38 guns in 6x2 turrets with one superfiring forward over the main battery forward, one superfiring aft and the other four divided evenly along the sides. American Piercing Rochester has comfortable if unimpressive firepower for a tier VIII cruiser. Her main battery of nine 203mm guns are unbacked by any other competitive assets with both her secondaries and her ASW airstrike both being entirely forgettable. For being Rochester's sole weapon system, there is an expectation of competitive damage output from them to compensate for the lack of any other. She kinda-sorta gets there with her improved AP shells. For those unaware, American heavy cruisers tend to have better AP shells than their contemporaries. Despite their low muzzle velocity, they have good penetration. This is joined by good damage values for their calibre and reduced chance of ricochets from angled armour. Grace of her Smoke Generator consumable, Rochester has the ability to cycle her guns more often than other American heavies -- she is not as reliant on making use of island cover to fire and stay alive. Let's reuse this older penetration graphic from my Anchorage (and earlier, Wichita) review. Anchorage and Wichita share the same AP penetration values. Rochester has the same AP penetration as Baltimore, which is among the best at her tier. At point blank ranges (such as the frequent jousts in co-op) Rochester has enough AP penetration to citadel through the belt of some battleships. Rochester pays for this ease-of-use granted by her smoke with a less-than-ideal reload time on her guns. While Baltimore and Wichita may cycle their weapons every 10 seconds, Rochester needs 12. This extra bit of wait is just enough to take the edge off the competitiveness of her weapons whenever she's using anything other than AP shells. Her damage output between fires and HE spam is comparable to that of Atago without the latter's ability to back this up with the occasional torpedo strike. As such, it's imperative to use Rochester's AP shells whenever the opportunity arises. Rochester can and will citadel just about any other cruiser it comes across at any engagement range if they present a broadside. She can even smack shells into their machine spaces when they angle thanks to that one-two combination of great penetration values and those improved auto-ricochet angles. The only issue with relying too heavily on AP rounds is the lack of fire-setting. I can't count the number of times I got a target low with AP and they successfully managed to disengage. A fire might have finished them off, you know, provided Rochester could stack one past their Damage Control Party. However, Rochester isn't good at this, being among the worse fire-setters at her tier. Charles Martel is listed twice. That with the asterix (*) is using her Main Battery Reload Booster for 15 seconds. Amalfi uses SAP instead of HE. Rochester's AP DPM is competitive while her HE DPM is not. Rochester's fire-setting ability isn't great -- especially when you appreciate that your actual chances of setting a blaze are roughly half of what you see here once you account for your target's innate fire resistance. She's comparable to Atago and most of the heavies pale in fire setting compared to the light cruisers. The best light cruisers have FPMs up near 16 and 17 blazes, but this gets butchered if they take the Inertial Fuse for HE Shells commander skill. Despite having a Smoke Generator, Rochester's game play does not stray very far from that already established by the American tech-tree heavy cruisers. This generally summarizes to: Find island. Peek from island. Cycle guns until you get their attention and hide until contact is broken / their attention goes elsewhere. Rinse and repeat this until it's time to push forward or fall back. The ballistics on Rochester's guns (especially her AP shells) makes her very comfortable in this role, allowing her to snuggle quite close to landmasses that will safely screen return fire from battleship calibre and higher-velocity rounds. In open water, Rochester doesn't fare so well. The same ballistics that make yeeting AP rounds over islands makes her long-range gunnery rather poor against anything but the most predictable of targets. Combine this with a slow rate of fire and every dodged salvo hurts that much more. But worse, Rochester's sub-16km range (with no way of increasing it) makes her dangerously vulnerable to return fire. Even with the comfortable over-the-shoulder fire angles, Rochester doesn't kite particularly well, having neither the speed, range or agility to pull it off. Add on the only modest damage output with anything other than AP broadsides and she's only a modest damage-dealer. So yeah, Rochester is just your typical American heavy cruiser when it comes to her firepower. The pair of wrinkles to keep in mind is that she has smoke to facilitate her slower reload. Yaaaaaaaas! ♪ It's too bad she doesn't pair this with some great turret traverse rates. Oh well. VERDICT: Comfortable yet ultimately unimpressive. Durability Hit Points: 41,900 Bow & stern/superstructure/upper-hull/deck: 27mm / 16mm / 27mm / 27mm Maximum Citadel Protection: 152mm belt (+27mm bows for head on shots) Torpedo Damage Reduction: 13% Rochester has a reasonable slug of hit points for a tier VIII cruiser, at least so long as you ignore her lack of a heal. While you might not feel this lack when she's top tier, against tier IX and X opponents, her inability to recover health becomes a serious handicap when every other cruiser (and many destroyers besides!) can claw back health. I can't talk about tier VIII cruiser survivability without addressing the elephant in the room: Repair Party consumables. Fully one-third of tier VIII cruisers have the ability to regenerate health and this creates a huge disparity between the survivability of those who can and those who cannot. Ostensibly, the balance is supposed to wors out. Those ships with heals are either extremely fragile (generally prone to giving away Devastating Strike medals to their opponents) or their damage output sucks, with the idea being that they need to survive longer (on average) in order to make up for the damage disparity. That only kinda works out in practice and these rules do not apply universally across all of the ships at tier VIII. This makes the lack of a heal feel much more pronounced on ships that go without when the difference of which ships have it (particularly legacy vessels) isn't clearly defined. Rochester is semi-okay without heals. I mean there are other ways to keep a ship safe and her Smoke Generator sure goes a long way to helping with that. However, it would be a mistake to think she's going to shrug off much in the way of damage. Her 27mm hull plating is nice but not as nice as it was, once upon a time. While she can still troll 381mm or smaller calibre AP shells by prompting ricochets with steep angling, with penetrating hits to turrets and barbettes now giving away damage, face-tanking isn't anywhere near as effective as it used to be. Thus, barring bullying the occasional Italian, German or British battleship at stupidly-close ranges, you can't count on her structural plate for repelling AP rounds. Her citadel protection is decent for a cruiser though nothing remarkable. Her citadel abuts against the exterior of the hull around her machine spaces and sticks up over the waterline besides. Her citadel roof cannot be overmatched, however, so you're only giving away citadel damage to shells that strike near or at the water's surface, so that's okay. Her 152mm belt also means she's proof against citadel hits from HE shells from enterprising Royal Navy battleships. She also has a pretty healthy numberof hit points, being in the top third for her tier if you look past healing potential. Finally, she does have at least some anti-torpedo protection, which is more than can be said for most cruisers. It's not really going to do much against ship or submarine-launched fish but it may protect you from some flooding from carrier-borne weapons. Rochester's armour profile is pretty straight forward for an American heavy cruiser. VERDICT: I wish she had a heal when she's bottom tier. Otherwise, she's okay. Agility Top Speed: 33 knots Turning Radius: 750 meters Rudder Shift Time: 10.5 seconds 4/4 Engine Speed Rate of Turn: 5.4º/s at 26.4kts Main Battery Traverse Rate: 6.0º/s Rochester's agility is very middle-of-the-road. If your cruiser can't be fast, you want to turn quickly. Rochester can do neither. I gotta give Rochester poor marks here. Comparing her to other cruisers, you can make the following claims about Rochester's agility: She's not fast. Her turning radius isn't small. Her rudder shift time is slow. Her rate of turn is sluggish. Being on the poor side of average has a lot of stacked detriments for a cruiser. The most effective combination for a cruiser is range and high speed -- this allows a cruiser to stand off at a distance where she can pummel enemy ships and give herself the maximum amount of time to avoid enemy fire. Even with horrible handling, high speed and enough range can make up for any other agility detriments to keep a cruiser in the game longer than it has any right to be. Rochester's downright pedestrian 33 knots doesn't provide that speed threshold needed and her sub-16km range doesn't tick the other box either. Now if you can't have that speed + range combination then hopefully you have a very tight turning radius and good rudder shift time. Up close, your reaction times to dodge are much reduced and unless you can change course and/or speed quickly, dodging fire gets that much more difficult. And here, again, Rochester falls short. Her 750m turning radius isn't appalling nor is her 10.5 second rudder shift time the worst we've seen (it is pretty bad, though), but neither hit the benchmarks needed to help her avoid damage. As a result, Rochester punishes you more than other cruisers for being caught out. Combine this with what I said earlier about the lack of health recovery and being in the wrong place at the wrong time gets her punished hard. It's very difficult to extract her when she over-extends and she's heavily reliant upon her Smoke Generator to band-aid misplays. Now, it really doesn't matter what the source of incoming damage is -- be it battleship shells, HE spam, torpedoes or an air-drop of some sort, Rochester just doesn't avoid things well. She's certainly better at it than a battleship, but not by much, all things told. Her reliance on her smoke kinda precludes her from making good use of rudder-shift upgrades (you'll really want the extra acceleration provided by Propulsion Modification 1). That, in turn, hurts Rochester's already mediocre open-water fighting ability. Add on her sluggish turret traverse and I'm not a fan of fire and manoeuvre in this ship. She can do it (all cruisers can), but she's not built for that kind of game play. It's better to stick to the American standbys of finding an island and making it your waifu interlaced with a bit of smoke play. This isn't a problem unique to Rochester by any means. Only Wichita, out of the American tier VIII heavies, breaks the mould. VERDICT: A whole lot of meh.. Anti-Aircraft Defence Flak Bursts: 5 + 1 explosions for 1,540 damage per blast at 3.5km to 5.8km. Long Ranged (up to 5.8km): 108.5dps at 90% accuracy (97.7dps) Medium Ranged (up to 4km): 353.5dps at 90% accuracy (318.2dps) Anything that doesn't specify whether it cannot or will always have DFAA has the choice of taking it, usually at the expense of relinquishing access to their Hydroacoustic Search. Rochester's As the meta stands currently, Rochester stands in contention for having the second-best AA power among the tier VIII cruisers (way) behind De Zeven Provincien. The Dutch cruiser is an AA powerhouse, and one of the few rare examples in the game after the butchering of the anti-aircraft interdicting cruiser role with the CV rework (more on that in her own review). Rochester's AA power is closely comparable to that of Cheshire. While she lacks the higher overall damage output of the British heavy cruiser, she has better range on her medium-calibre guns, allowing them to put out damage for longer. In addition, Rochester will always have access to Defensive AA Fire while the British heavy might not. This may sound like pretty high praise, but it's really not. Yes, Rochester has good AA firepower values for at tier VIII cruiser, but she's not a complete monster in this regard. Even with Defensive AA Fire active, she's still not reaching De Zeven Provincien's levels of sustained AA DPS. In practical terms, this means that a pristine Rochester, correctly played is all but untouchable to tier VI carriers. Fully specialized she can almost prevent tier VIII carriers from dropping. Tier X can still dump on her but it gets expensive fast. That may be enough to discourage carriers from even attempting to poke at her but in end-game situations with the game in the balance, I wouldn't count on being immune to high-tier carrier attacks. You'll have to Just Dodge™ like the rest of the plebs. VERDICT: Good as Rochester's AA firepower is, the AA interdiction cruiser archetype is still missing from World of Warships. Vision Control Base/Minimum Surface Detection: 12.06km / 9.48km Base/Minimum Air & Underwater Detection Range: 7.25km / 5.87km Detection Range When Firing in Smoke: 6.79km Maximum Firing Range: 15.86km So, here's the 11,300 doubloon question: Is it worth dropping a Surveillance Radar to get access to a Smoke Generator? Conveniently enough, this question has already been answered in another tech tree line. The British light cruisers allow you to swap smoke for radar from tier VIII+ starting with the Edinburgh. Generally speaking, Surveillance Radar provides more influence in a battle with the provision that you have team mates that will capitalize upon your spotting. Sinking destroyers early on wins games, after all. However, in solo-play, a Smoke Generator is the safer option. If you only have your own self to rely upon, then increasing your own survivability is the way to go. It's a bit of a fallacy to say that Rochester is just a Baltimore that drops radar for smoke. Rochester isn't a Baltimore-class cruiser. There's a lot of small differences between them that adds up quickly to disparities of performance, even before you swap out consumables. Thus, the question on whether or not smoke is worth more to radar between the two vessels is complicated. Specifically to this section of my review, Rochester has much better concealment than Baltimore. Rochester shaves a whole 540m off her base surface detection range. After all of the upgrades are applied, this shrinks to a 420m advantage which is still noticeable. Rochester sits towards the upper half of concealment within her tier and near the very top within her matchmaking. So her concealment is good and in select scenarios can even be abused to flex, attack or disengage as needs be without the use of her smoke. But even her use of smoke is remarkable as she has better concealment values while firing in smoke than Baltimore or Anchorage which are visible at 7.18km and 7.98km respectively compared to Rochester's 6.79km. Rochester isn't the first "sneaky" American heavy cruiser. We've seen all of this before in Wichita. She and Rochester share concealment values and I find her a better ship to compare Rochester to than Baltimore. Both Rochester and Wichita can make some pretty bold plays by using and abusing their stealth and then following it up with clever consumable use. However, I prefer Wichita's consumable combination for this, though. Surveillance Radar is my kinda jam as it lets me abuse lolibotes and smoked up cruisers in all kinds of hilarious ways that Rochester simply can't. Rochester's smoke is good, do not mistake me. It provides Rochester with a greater level of survivability than that enjoyed by most of the other American cruisers at this tier barring Congress. However, the ability to scatter the roaches is still preferable in my books, especially when a lot of what Rochester's smoke provides can be made up for with good use of terrain. Who needs smoke when you have an island waifu? VERDICT: Wichita-good, but not Wichita-great. I'd rather have radar. Anti-Submarine Warfare ASW Armament Type: Airstrike up to 5km away Number of Salvos: Up to two Reload Time: 90 seconds Aircraft: Two flights of two PBY Catalinas with 2,000hp per plane. Drop Pattern: 6 bombs each dropped evenly over roughly a 4km column Maximum Bomb Damage: 2,100 Fire Chance: 12% Rochester's air strike reticule with some ships for scale. The length of this column is roughly 4km. Hey, new section! Oh, how I wish I could take subs into the training rooms or populate them as targets. Rochester's airstrike ability is brand new with patch 0.10.9 and represents the bare minimum Wargaming will issue for anti-submarine warfare for those who have so far gone without. It's so new, I have barely time to do any testing of it short of derping bombs into open water because no subs are available to test against at the time I'm writing this. Anticipate anything and everything having to do with subs still to change significantly. So let's theory-craft a little. Note that Rochester's 5km range is where the strike starts,. The drop pattern covers approximately a 4km stretch with six bombs dropping per plane at fixed intervals with a left/right scatter, effectively allowing her to engage submarines up to 9km away. It takes 15 seconds from the time the airstrike is called for the first set of depth charges to detonate. The bombs themselves are listed as having a maximum damage of 2,100 but the reality is that like all submarine damage, this appears to follow a blast-style damage similar to that used by torpedoes, meaning there's a whole bunch of parameters modifying this damage that I don't yet understand. Don't even get me started with how this damage scales up with skills because I have no idea. The in port values jump up to 2,415 with all bonuses applied. Will that reflect in game? NO IDEA! It's a brave new world, people. At any rate, to engage submarines with Rochester, you're going to have to get pretty damn close which means taking an active role in order to do so. Barring submarines being stupid (please be stupid) this largely relegates Rochester's anti-submarine combat to late-game if it materializes at all. VERDICT: Still not ready for Random Battles. I do love me some PBYs. Final Evaluation Do you want a premium Baltimore? You're spoiled for choice. If you want a Baltimore that trades AP shell performance for stealth and agility, get Wichita. If you want a Baltimore that trades AP shell performance and radar for smoke and torpedoes, get Anchorage. If you want a Baltimore that trades radar for smoke and stealth, get Rochester. Rochester's strength here is that she more closely duplicates Baltimore's AP gunnery than Wichita or Anchorage and changes up the game play from team-based with Surveillance Radar to a more selfish style with her Smoke Generator. That's really not my cup of tea, so I'm not going to be playing Rochester much (if at all) after this review. Wichita is the more compelling choice for me; I prefer that aggressive style of play of providing vision and molesting lolibotes over Rochester's admittedly easier "angry smoke cloud" game play. This said, it's not like I'd be running out to throw money at Wargaming to get Wichita either. I'm not in the market for a premium Baltimore-class. Maybe you are. That's really all I have to say about Rochester. She's not terrible -- anything with smoke and not-horrible range is always going to be competitive. She's just not offering me the kind of play that I want. I had only modest success in her with no amazing games (rushing this review out precluded me from getting in only a handful of games to confirm her performance) but I'm certain that some players will be able to get some truly monstrous results out of her if people let her farm. Overall? I'm likely to forget about her before long. She's ultimately a very "safe" premium. There's nothing surprising here to trip up the developers when it came to balancing her or for tripping up consumers who bought her blind. She is exactly what you'd expect out of an American heavy cruiser premium. Thanks for reading. Mouse out!