Jakajan's 100 games of Krasny Krym Russian light cruiser review.

[Jakajan]

 

Would the real Krasny Krym please stand up? A lot of people misrepresent this ship and her strengths, I would like to give you all my impression of her after 100 games of playing her. I do have a lot of fun with her, I love her effective guns and noises she makes as she fights, there is so much chaos and excitement, it kind of reminds me of the fun I have playing destroyers except here I am in a cruiser!

 

Pros:

With a good captain, Has the longest standard ranged artillery of any tier V ship

Sets fires with extreme justice

Fights destroyers superbly

Superior anti air choice
 

Cons:

Is at a greater disadvantage than some cruisers of her tier against tier seven cruisers

Is not quite as durable as a Furutaka or a Murmansk, but in my opinion a pinch more so than Kirov and Konigsburg.

She is a little slow at 29 knots top speed

 

Worth it?:
If you are after raw power for a tier 5 cruiser get the Murmansk, she is less specialized but a better all rounder. If you want something different and interesting and do not mind something on par with a Marblehead in performance then the Krasny Krym is for you. If you are into sniping ships don't think you can hit cruisers well at 16.2km, but you can tickle them and bombard battleships at that range.

 

A bite of history:

Krasny Krym is based on the Svetlana class cruiser and began construction in 1913, Krasny Krym would have been the first Svetlana class cruiser finished, however because of German invasions and stuff like the Russian civil war she was not completed till 1926. She was upgraded several times, once with a crane so she could recover sea-planes and another time with better secondary guns to make her more suit for duty in the pacific theatre. Once refitted Krasny Krym served as a convoy escort ship in WW2, notably earning The Guards medal in 1942. She even served after the war from 1954 to 1959 as a training ship before being scrapped.

 

A ship and her Guns:

The light cruiser Krasny Krym, AKA "Krispy Kreme" is a capable light russian cruiser, following the typical role of a 

Russian light cruiser she has lower caliber guns, a long firing range, and is very likely to set targets on fire. 

Indeed, her most appealing feature are her fifteen 130mm primary guns with seven on each side and one on her bow.  They have a maximum range of 16.2km with advanced fire training captain skill and up to an 11% chance to cause fires with the demolition expert captain skill. Her maximum rate of fire is just over 7 rounds per minute giving her the ability to spew fire at foes, lighting battleships and destroyers alike ablaze. While she can engage other cruisers well, her armor piercing rounds do not work very effectively unless under 7km range. 

 

 Additionally she has six 100mm secondaries that have up to a 5.3km gun range with standard modules, captain skills and secondary bonus flag. These are actually very handy, any ship within torpedo range these secondaries can and will often hit first.  She Also she has eight 37mm anti air guns making her anti air power something to be respected. Many people call this cruiser the Atlanta of her tier and somewhat accurately. She shares many of the advantages and disadvantages of the Atlanta class cruiser, but also brings her own flavor to the dough.

 

The torpedoes are okay:

The torps are functional, especially now that they have been buffed in 0.5.9 to have a 5km range. They are very fast  at 65 knots and good for ambushing ships that get too close to her. I have even managed to get several double strikes in this ship thanks to these torpedoes.

 

Thoughts on matchups against cruisers she faces and some gameplay thoughts.

Krasny Krym plays a lot like a Blyskawicca, except she is a tier 5 with a cruiser body. Still the basic tactics of play are identical to Russian destroyers. Keep visible, be a nuisance, set things on fire and let people know you are there so they can fire on you, the trick is don't get hit and keep the rain of fire coming. If you like destroyer guns then you will be right at home with this boat, because that is what you get.

 

One of her bigger weaknesses is her 13.3km detection range. I have never had this get me killed outright, but keep in mind this boat is not stealthy at all. Also she is fairly reliant on captain skills, but so are most of the boats I use. Half the games I played her I did not have a fully skilled captain, but I did start with eight points trained. Also she is a little less agile than other cruisers her tier, but still has no problem dodging torpedoes.

 

Krasny Krym has no problem sinking every tier 4 cruiser. I find her 130mm guns can hit and citadel them with ease, even beyond 7km gun range.

 

She can toast any tier V cruiser that gets close to her. Her biggest enemy is probably the Japanese cruiser Furutaka because the Furutaka's 203mm guns which can pierce the Krasny's armor even while angled and it's sturdy hp makes it difficult to burn down. Kirov, Konigsburg, Marblehead, Omaha, and Murmanks can all be burnt down very effectively. I feel she has the largest advantage against Omaha and Kirov class cruisers, though the Konigsburg felt to be the easiest to citadel.

 

Against tier 6 cruisers she does well against the Cleveland class cruiser and Budyonny class but Aoba eats her for lunch even more than Furutaka. The Nuremberg is difficult but not impossible to beat at least.

 

The situation gets worse at tier 7 where Pensacola can demolish her, not to mention the Yorcks, though at least she can do fairly well against Atlanta class and Myoko are long enough that maybe she can catch them on fire or torp them up close, but fighting tier 7 cruisers is far from ideal.

 

Krasny Krym can engage any destroyer and win, they honestly didn't give me a hard time at all in her, even the tier 7 Kiev and Blyskawica fall fast to her. 

 

Against battleships it gets pretty ugly. Krasny can engage tier four and five battleships relatively well, but tier six and seven battleships can sometimes one shot her, even while angled.

 

​Recommended captain skills:

Tier 1, Basic Firing Training: Is a must to improve her primary and secondary armament

Tier 2, Improved Marksman: To have my guns rotate even faster and bear more often. I do not find my engine and rudder knocked out, pretty much ever so I do not see the need for last stand.

Tier 3, Vigilance: Even though I can feel it in my bones that they are coming, it is good to spot the fish earlier.

Tier 4, Demolitions expert: I personally find the 3% higher chance to cause fire is worth more than increased range.

Tier 4, Advanced firing training: This one allows her to be more competitive at a higher tier, with the change in 0.5.9 advanced fire training might be more handy that demolitions expert but it all comes down to style.

 

I would not bother with concealment expert, even though it is possible for Krasny Krym to gain 600 meters or so of a stealth fire window, this is not her specialty and honestly I don't think I could hit anything other than a battleship at that range.

 

Tricks and tips unique to the Krasny Krym:

One trick I learned with these guns was if I turn my ship sideways and cross my target over my bow I can fire one broadside then the other, effectively allowing me to fire all fifteen of my guns, then swinging back the other direction I can repeat this pattern to maximize firepower. Also dodging randomly once in a while is good to throw off peoples aim. Doing this helps to avoid almost all torpedoes, though sometimes an air wing has caught me by surprise because I am too focused on power sliding my ship.

 

Don't be afraid to use your Hydroacoustic search, this skill is so handy in Krasny that I feel like I have underestimated it all these years. If you see a Minekaze at 7 kilometers from you, use it, there is no way you won't see his torps in time to dodge them. Usually I see them the instant they launch! Dodge them, Then just mow him down with your guns and or torps.

 

Dispelling the Myth of her poor performance, my stats and overall stats:

I'm not a super good player, but I have close to a 52% win rate. This ship, honestly has helped my win rate. You can see my own performance in this ship as well as my performance in some of my other ships. I don't think I have managed to get a 62% win rate in any other premium ship that i have fought this much in. I think a lot of it is because I am good with destroyers of all nations, and as I am a great shot with destroyer guns like these and am very familiar with the ins and outs of them.

 

 

Also here are the stats in general versus every other tier 5 cruiser. 

 

Her damage output is second only to the Murmansk, with a comparable win rate. She isn't really OP or UP, she is just different than every other 155mm or higher tier 5 cruiser and I appreciate that she brings something new to the table.

 

In the end, I like her, I think she is different, not necessarily better or significantly weaker than other tier 5's. Her uniqueness and the fact that she, unfortunately is not likely to be owned by many cruiser operators makes me appreciate her more. I love the guns and the feel of the way she plays, her gun arcs are low and easy to predict below 14km range.

 

Other thoughts:

I think, that while I like this ship a lot, she was much better before 0.5.9 when she could hunt down smaller tier III and IV ships more often. Now she plays a lot more like an Atlanta that hunts destroyers, shells battleships, and understands that cruiser battles are dangerous but with the right support it can go smoothly, rather, she is the support cruiser for most of those fights when at range, in order to really excel she has to get up close, surprise her target and machine gun them with lots of rounds, or a torpedo or two. I just won a fight against a Minekaze and a Myoko the night I wrote this torpedo dueling with them. It was epic, I wish I had it recorded.

 

If WG were to consider any minor buffs for her I would think slightly thicker, more shot bouncy armor would be good and or maybe 2k more HP would put her in line with the top tier V cruisers in terms of performance, but it is a tricky balance and right now she is pretty good, but again it feels like her average performance is a bit weaker since the 0.5.9 patch because she can no longer set as many South Carolina's or even Wyoming's and Myogi's on fire because she is on average matched against higher tiered opponents.

 

I would still recommend you buy this ship, if you feel the tier V gameplay is a little stale and want to play something different, or if you are a history buff and want to collect the ships, or if you like destroyer guns a lot, because the guns are really fun to mess with.

 

Some of my best games with the Krasny Krym

 

[Skye_Hino]

Nice review. Gave me some good ideas for how to run him. Think I already had most of the technical side (spec'd my upgrades for Secondaries, plan to use RU DD captain), but this gives me a good idea of what to do IN the game. Though I think I'll wait till my DD captain has Demo (already got AFT, most useful 4 point skill for RU DD) before taking him for a spin.

[Jakajan]

I'm thinking about writing a review for IJN Hosho next because I have 100 games in her, but I am afraid my terrible bias for the Hosho may hasten a nerf for her. She is incredible and I am no even a super carrier user.

[Skye_Hino]

I keep thinking I should get into carriers. Started once. Did pretty decent (in the 3 games I played, 2 Hosho, 1 Langley), but kinda gave up after that. Still went and bought Saipan when it was on sale though, so I really should take another crack at them.

[MrEndeavour]

The fact that you were able to slug through so many battles with such a challenging ship is astonishing. +1

[Jakajan]

She is a very fun ship. I main destroyers and her destroyer caliber guns are a lot of fun. I also enjoy powerslide turning her to up her pew pew power.

 

My most challenging ship was Kagero, that ship was rough. Fletcher has better torps, Udaloi has better guns, Kagero just has stealth.

[reivision]

 

I put in about 65 matches with the Krasny Krym for the Gremy contest, and I agree largely with your points and ended up with similar stats (60% winrate, 33k avg damage). I was basically starting from scratch, captain-wise, and was only able to get up to DE on her. In the distant future I might be able to get both DE and AFT, and I agree that having both tier 4 skills is stronger than CE on this ship.

I prioritized DE over AFT as her DD guns really struggle when she (rather often, it feels) gets tier 7 MM. DE at least lets you leverage your shell output to start more fires, whereas AFT does little to fix your damage problems against tier 7 armor. And at max AFT range, only slow BBs and straight line drivers are semi-reliable targets.

I actually enjoyed the ship a decent amount, but then again the Svietlana was one of my favorite tier IV cruisers.

I think tier V is actually appropriate given the better gun characteristics compared to the Svietlana (faster RoF, faster traverse, better range). She also has faster torps that hit individually harder, but the Svietlana has twice the number and faster reload so I call it a wash. Svietlana is more about close range ambushing anyway.

She's definitely not as bad as the mass opinion would have you believe upon her release, IMO, and I think just one buff to her handling or concealment would make her a solid average-performing tier V cruiser.

Having the exact same handling as the Svietlana in tier V MM was painful. A rudder shift buff might be too strong given the fishtailing wiggle you can do to alternate broadsides, but I think it would do a lot to make the ship more competitive. Barring that, a small increase in speed could be viable to say 32 knots or so and would make her much more pleasurable to handle.

Alternatively, a reduction in base concealment down to somewhere between 11-12 km could give her more of the old Svietlana feel. The jump in concealment from 9.9km on the Svietlana to 13km+ on the Krasny basically makes it very tricky to pull off the ambushing playstyle that works well on the Svietlana, especially on the higher tier maps the Krasny can get put into.

Preferential matchmaking would also be a very good fix to cover her weaknesses, especially since she can no longer murder tier III ships like a Svietlana on steroids. The ship was actually a terror when it got tier III MM, like a fully evolved Bogatyr with 29 knots speed, even better guns that the Svietlana, and 65-knot, 5km torps.

I think the armor is actually fine given her tight turning radius and somewhat slim profile. All of the tier V cruisers have paper armor, and I'd prefer better handling over simply marginally better armor. She's pretty good at fishtailing around near 12km range or so and drawing/surviving enemy fire, though again the rudder shift is painfully slow when compared to her sister Murmansk. The AA was surprisingly good, and again with the tight turning circle she's pretty good at dancing around torpedos from TBs and DDs alike (especially with Hydro).

A rather enjoyable ship when you are lucky enough to be top tier (especially if you liked Bogatyr/Svietlana), and good at bullying DDs of any tier with absurd shell output, decent ship handling, and Hydro. It's just kind of unfortunate how difficult the match becomes as soon as you get matched against tier VIIs.