Today, I'll start a series of posts about the ships I'm currently sailing. Given the steep price increase past tier 6 (which is around 900k silver), I decided on skipping over tier 7 (2.7m silver) and going straight for tier 8 (6.3m silver plus about 150k free XP). I'm aiming for the "Admiral Hipper" class heavy cruiser, since my current favourite ship is the tier 6 "Nürnberg" class light cruiser.
Strengths
The German navy line in the tech tree was introduced fairly recently, and I was already well into the Japanese tech tree, but decided to switch, since they looked like great allrounder ships. Before it got nerfed somewhat in the 1.0.0 update, the Nürnberg was an absolute killer. I did a full fleet sunk twice, here's a screenshot from one of the battles:
These were three human players and four AI players.
The Nürnberg is a fast, well-armed light cruiser. Her nine guns, fully upgraded, do a whopping 640 damage with AP shells, and reload in under 8 seconds. This means you can sink a destroyer at full health in three good salvos. At a range of 10km, and with the "precise aiming" perk, these guns wreak serious havoc against enemy destroyers and cruisers.
The cruiser has four triple torpedo launchers (two on each side) for a total of 12 torpedoes, with a range of above 5km. They can be used in spread to hit unsuspecting destroyers which snuck up on you, or concentrated fire to sink enemy battleships.
Lastly, at 33kn, she can keep up with vanguard destroyers, and the "sonar" perk allows for improved first detection when fired at the right time.
Weaknesses
Being a light cruiser, the Nürnberg's main guns have trouble dealing damage against battleships. AP shells usually don't get through the armour plating, and HE shells only do about 180 damage, which means you'd need about 20 full salvo hits. This leaves two options: staying away from them and dodging, or closing in and using torpedoes.
The ship's armour is weak for a cruiser, just barely above destroyer plating. Together with only 20k health at full upgrades, this means two or three good hits from a battleship can finish her off, so you definitely can't rush into battle head-first.
My playstyle
I'm seeing her as a long-range, manoeuvrable hunter and ambush predator. Her main gun firepower means she can stand up in a one-to-one with any other cruiser, and is deadly to destroyers.
In the opening phase, I usually rush ahead with the vanguard up to detection point - when the enemy battleship line comes into view, it's time to hit the sonar and turn about. You'll run into the enemy destroyers at that point, so I want to fall back and take them out at about 5km distance - too far for them to hit me with torpedoes.
Once the destroyers are dealt with in my section of the battlefield, it's time to turn about again and start the second run-up. Either against enemy cruisers or battleships, using cover if possible, and get torpedo hits in.
If things get rough in the opening moves - for example, you run alone into two or three fast cruisers - the best strategy is to run for it. In a battle today I had a run-in with a US Omaha class cruiser, plus a French De Grasse. The Nürnberg has a configuration of two aft turrets, so I was able to run from the De Grasse, losing the Omaha in the process, and getting enough shots in that I was able to sink the better armoured Frenchman, who was clearly getting frustrated at me dodging most of his shots.
All in all, even after the nerfing in version 1.0.0, she's still my favourite ship overall, and I can usually make a decent killing of three enemy ships per battle.
Next week, I'll be talking about the Japanese Fubuki class destroyer.
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