Cruisers

Hi folks!

Next up, we'll take a closer look at the different ship classes, and the respective playstyles. First, the cruiser, since it's the class that's designated "easiest" to play by the game, and it's what you'll be starting out with in tier one.

The Cruiser

Cruisers have average, but balanced capabilities in terms of manoeuvrability, firepower and armour. When progressing through the tiers, cruisers have, on average, around double the hitpoints of destroyers, but only half of battleships. Their armament includes a good number of primary guns, at a lower calibre than battleships' main batteries, but with a faster rate of fire. Secondary guns quickly get replaced by torpedoes, but in smaller numbers than destroyers.

Against other classes

The cruiser usually is quite powerful against destroyers - it's fast enough to chase them, and the numerous main guns get through the weak armour quickly, with fast reload time giving it enough shots to compensate for misses due to the destroyer's agility and small size. You'll have to watch out for torpedoes though, since a single salvo from a destroyer is usually enough to sink a cruiser. While they're more agile than battleships, evading a well-targeted torpedo salvo at close range is almost impossible.

Against battleships, cruisers can again bring their fire rate to bear, but have a very similar problem as against destroyers: A battleship's main battery salvo can shred through a cruiser very quickly, their armour-piercing shells doing some severe critical damage. And, unlike the destroyers, they don't have to come close, but actually outrange your main guns. Cruisers are big enough targets for battleships to hit at 10 km with relative ease.

The next problem a cruiser captain is facing against battleships is their armour plating. Sure, you've got quick-firing triple-gun turrets, but they're 150 mm calibre, and your armour-piercing shots mostly just bounce off the battleship's hull plating, doing no damage whatsoever. Then they respond with a full broadside of their 320 mm main battery, and half your hitpoints are gone in a single salvo.

Lastly, against aircraft carriers. The main issue with destroying aircraft carriers is that you have to get to them. There are some problems with that:

• They're at the other end of the map
• You only have 6 minutes to get there
• The whole rest of the enemy fleet is kind of in the way
• They'll start sending aircraft out to drop unpleasant things on you once you get close

Cruisers are actually quite useful in that task, since they're decently fast, and have enough range and firepower on their main guns to sink the weakly armoured carriers quickly.

Strategies

If we're looking at the historic role of cruisers during the early 20th century, they're often designed for escort and merchant interdiction purposes. The big naval battles were fought by heavily armoured battleships, descendants of the ships-of-the-line, in direct broadside engagements.

This is quite close as you should play them in "World of Warships" as well: stick with the heavier battleships, and keep pesky destroyers off their slow-moving backsides. Going out alone with a cruiser is quite risky - run into an enemy battleship line, and you're toast. Run into an enemy destroyer pack, and you're torpedo-toast.

The other option is to go pack-hunting with the destroyers. Cruisers can keep up mostly in terms of speed, and can pack a good punch against enemy destroyers at range. "Warships" is a team game, and mostly those who can work together will win very convincingly.

Nations

There are four nations currently in the game: Soviets, USA, Japan and Great Britain. Three of them have cruisers in the tech tree - the Soviets, in fact, only have cruisers, and the British really just come along for the ride with a single premium ship at the moment anyway.

The Soviet cruisers are focused on main guns. Starting tier four, their range is close to battleships, with a good firing rate. Their torpedoes are a bit of an afterthought, with very short range they're more of a rarely used measure if a careless enemy gets too close.

The US cruisers are more balanced designs, with average torpedo range and main guns, and a decent defence.

The Japanese cruisers play more like oversized destroyers, with very strong, long-range torpedoes, but often inferior main guns. They're fast and good hunters, most suitable to the destroyer-pack approach.

That's it for today, next time, we'll take a closer look at the battleship.