Kolberg: 170 and no kills. 150 hits and no kills. My guns are spitwads

[tanelorn2]

As the title says. what is with the Kolberg, and all other I-IV german cruisers? My high angle AP hits should be plunging, but instead they mostly do 0 damage, or 300 max. I can sit there all game with the button down, and basically no effect on the enemy. All I do really is distract them with loud noises as the non-german ships hurt the enemy. Get in midrange, and the angles are all wrong and everything hits at crap angles. Get in close... well, you don't live that long. 

 

wth Wargaming?!?!?

[Aloeus]

They are armed with 105s, what exactly do you expect?. These things are DD guns at best. Wouldn't even bother with ap, just use them as he hoses. 

[DaJokr]

I feel your pain. I skipped tier 4 for that reason. Good news, it gets better. Torps

 

[Aloeus]

I feel your pain. I skipped tier 4 for that reason. Good news, it gets better. Torps

 

The funny thing is, the tier 4 actually has 155s. 

 

They are just really crappy 155s and the rest of the ship is even worse. 

[Taichunger]

Free XPed past that ship directly to the Koney, which is a blast. That was why. 

[awiggin]

They are armed with 105s, what exactly do you expect?. These things are DD guns at best. Wouldn't even bother with ap, just use them as he hoses. 

 

This^. Kolberg appears to be a firebug, and can keep a battleship burning forever with some decent shot placement, use islands for cover and lob. Some people seem to be able to make them work effectively in that manner

 

[capncrunch21]

The Kolberg's guns are crap. And when it's built as a gunship (no torps, no AA), it absolutely stinks as a combat ship.

http://forum.worldofwarships.com/index.php?/topic/55188-gott-im-himmel-what-is-that-smell/

Can't wait to grind out of it (feel envious of those who had enough free XP to skip it) - WORST. SHIP. EVER.

[tanelorn2]

254 hits and 1 kill. I finally got a kill!!!!!! 

 

Also, I just broadsided about 100 AP hits on a St. Louis at 2km. PERFECT. FKIN. OBLIQUE. HITS. And ZERO damage. 100hits = ZERO damage with AP at 2km hitting side armor perfectly. 

 

How do you even grind this ship to get past it when you can't even make XP on it?

[Gothik_Knight]

Yeah. I agree that the tier i-iv KM ships are pretty bad, with Kolberg pretty much taking the title of worst early tier ship.  It's not even really a fire-bug, as there have been a few times where I had to hit a BB or aircraft carrier more than 40 times before starting it on fire.  That said, I do have to brag a little that I got a 6 kill game in the Kolburg earlier.  I was lucky enough to be top-tier in a game with no cv's and only 2 BB's per side.  There were 5 DD's and 5 cruisers per side.  My team wasn't really working together, so they kept damaging the enemy pretty bad but getting destroyed before finishing the enemy off, and I had gone the opposite side from the enemy BB's, so I didn't have to deal with them.  Basically, I got first blood on a Russian DD (with the help of allied DD's), but the majority of my kills were just cleaning up the messes left by the rest of my team.

[Aloeus]

254 hits and 1 kill. I finally got a kill!!!!!! 

 

Also, I just broadsided about 100 AP hits on a St. Louis at 2km. PERFECT. FKIN. OBLIQUE. HITS. And ZERO damage. 100hits = ZERO damage with AP at 2km hitting side armor perfectly. 

 

How do you even grind this ship to get past it when you can't even make XP on it?

 

Why the hell do you keep shooting ap if it doesn't do anything? HE exists for a reason, use it. That ship cannot pen anything more than a tenryu, and even then only if the tenryu is flat on at 3km or less

[LeGuin]

If you check Japanese ships, their 3" guns have stronger HE than the 10.5 cm (4"). The damage numbers have to be some kind of oversight.

[BossmanSlim]

I have 80+ hits in a game with 10K damage, which works out to 125 damage per hit.  With a normal hit, it should do 360 damage with HE.  This means 53, or 66% of my shots did no damage.  I find this unacceptable as the AP does no damage nor does the HE.

 

I only had 1K exp left on the ship and immediately free exped to the next ship.

 

 

[Bronco]

I have 80+ hits in a game with 10K damage, which works out to 125 damage per hit.  With a normal hit, it should do 360 damage with HE.  This means 53, or 66% of my shots did no damage.  I find this unacceptable as the AP does no damage nor does the HE.

 

I only had 1K exp left on the ship and immediately free exped to the next ship.

 

 

 

It's HITS, not penetrations. Big difference. A hit means the shell made contact with the ship, doesn't guarantee it will result in any type of damage.

 

Using the wrong ammo at the wrong time or against the wrong target can result in a lot of bounces (ie. non-penetrations). Next time you have a lot of hits but not much damage, take a look and the stat for penetrations. It's listed at the bottom of the damage section just above the torpedoes section. I wouldn't be surprised if you see that out of 80+ hits, only 15-20 penetrated. Maybe even less if your targets were properly angled.

[Clunas]

If you double that hit count, you can get decent results

 

[BossmanSlim]

 

It's HITS, not penetrations. Big difference. A hit means the shell made contact with the ship, doesn't guarantee it will result in any type of damage.

 

Using the wrong ammo at the wrong time or against the wrong target can result in a lot of bounces (ie. non-penetrations). Next time you have a lot of hits but not much damage, take a look and the stat for penetrations. It's listed at the bottom of the damage section just above the torpedoes section. I wouldn't be surprised if you see that out of 80+ hits, only 15-20 penetrated. Maybe even less if your targets were properly angled.

 

Let's see HE raining down vertically on a BB doesn't bounce.  Switching to AP, it doesn't do any damage either.  This ship as a rough time dealing with BBs, which are rare at tier 3, but when you get matched up and are fighting T4 and T5 BBs, its pretty annoying to no be able to deal any damage.

[centarina]

I've been doing good with kolberg.  4 battle with 4 wins.   27k dmg average.  better than I've done with russian DDs .   I've learned my lesson from dresden on how to play this ship.       I sucked  with storozehvoi.    I burned down a kawachi in one of the game

 

 

[JojoTheMongol]

The Lolberg is garbage. I would be like taking the Chester and giving it a tiny bit more range and a 2 thousand more HPs and throwing it into tier 3.  That's essentially what they did froom Dresden to Kolberg. I'm glad I had about 70k of free XP saved up to skip past the garbage tier 3 and 4 to the beautiful Konig.

[Gylukios]

This ship is very much in need of separate matchmaking from the other T3 cruisers. This ship is basically a Dresden that can get into T4 matches.

 

Because as bad as it is in T3 matches, it is completely useless if it gets into a T4 match. Plenty of hits just do no damage at all, and everything has 3-4km of range on top of you.

 

Give it the same kind of matchmaking as the T3 Destroyers/T3 battleships (only able to get in T2-T3 games).

[tanelorn2]

I've been doing good with kolberg.  4 battle with 4 wins.   27k dmg average.  better than I've done with russian DDs .   I've learned my lesson from dresden on how to play this ship.       I sucked  with storozehvoi.    I burned down a kawachi in one of the game

 

 

 

thanks for telling us that you did well Now PLEASE tell us HOW.

[tanelorn2]

 

Why the hell do you keep shooting ap if it doesn't do anything? HE exists for a reason, use it. That ship cannot pen anything more than a tenryu, and even then only if the tenryu is flat on at 3km or less

 

I tried to find sweet spots where I could citadel it. But of course I learnt that you simply can't penetrate a T3 ship's armor with a T3 german cruiser.

[Carl]

The Kolberg stats wise is keeping up with the Tenyru.

 

Also HE penetrating hits function just like AP penetrating hits that don't go into the citadel. 33% of listed damage. Also you fire a full broadside at a base 90rpm. The one tier higher Phoneix only manages half that. Don't be shocked that your getting hundreds of hits. That's going to be par for the course with a ship with this kind of RoF, just as it is for the cleavland as an example.

[Captain_Wizard]

I dunno - supposedly accurate guns?  I've seen broadside after broadside land everywhere but on the target.  rounds land to the left and right but almost never hit a target when firing straight on.  I'm sure that WOWS is using a Pk (Probability of kill), but darn it - if I shoot accurately I should get hits.  Otherwise it's just a probability game... which this is beginning to look more and more like.    Another thread gives me hope for the tier 5, but tier 1-4 are pretty pathetic.  Lots of ROF, few hits per broadside, and even fewer damage points inflicted.  Kind of like shooting peas at the Jolly Green Giant.

 

I particularly notice that the sound effects are triggered BEFORE the visual impacts of rounds actually occur.  Also, I've been cheated out more kills than I can count because the game ended and the final kill isn't counted - even thought the rounds landed or torps hit.

[bad_arcade_kitty]

If you check Japanese ships, their 3" guns have stronger HE than the 10.5 cm (4"). The damage numbers have to be some kind of oversight.

 

it's intended... japanese ships have strong he shells

 

120mm guns on minekaze do more he damage than 130mm guns on gnevny

[Rusty_Bucket__]

Here are the results from my first spin out with the Kolburg

 

 

[wadavid]

I feel like the comparison of these guns to DD guns is--if anything--an insult to DD guns. I've rained HE like a fountain on BBs, landed dozens of close range shots against DDs and the damage is so tiny it's a joke. The same shots in a Wickes would have done twice as much damage. I am opening the free XP bucket for this one.