Warship Wednesday - Cruisers

Third in our review of classes in World of Warships is the mighty Cruiser class.

Battleships are hard hitting behemoths and destroyers are fast moving hornets with deadly torpedo stingers, and cruisers fill the middle of the road between the extremes. Compared to battleships they are faster, more agile, and have main guns that rotate faster and fire more often. Compared to destroyers they are tougher, longer ranged, and have better anti-aircraft support. But there are downsides of being the middle of the road as well because cruisers are not as tough as battleships lacking the armour, hitpoints, and ability to self repair some damage while being easier to see, track, and hit than the small destroyers are.

How this plays out in game really depends on the individual cruisers. Some cruisers have powerful torpedo batteries themselves which make them want to close distance with the enemy battleships and deliver crippling blows, while others have fast shooting long range artillery that they use to rain shells down on the enemy while weaving a serpentine course across the sea.

The American cruisers currently in game start with torpedo launchers but tend to move away from them as you increase in tiers while the Japanese tend to continue making use of them. I'll admit that the Japanese cruiser line is one I didn't work on recently as I needed the slots for American battleships.

During a battle cruisers have two primary goals. The first is to provide anti aircraft cover for battleships as they tend to have high AA rating and at higher tiers a special ability for AA barrage which can really cripple air squadrons. Their second goal is to fend off approaching destroyers as their main artillery can track the fast transversal better and fire rapidly while having the agility to dodge incoming torps (hopefully). Destroyers hate cruisers.

After those goals are seen to, cruisers are capable of engaging any other ship on the field of battle with decent success. A wolfpack of cruisers can easily burn down a battleship before succumbing to its main guns, and a lone cruiser can work well with a friendly destroyer to overwhelm a hostile cruiser quickly or run down a spotted carrier.

On the other hand, cruisers should try to avoid situations where they are one on one with a battleship or facing multiple targets shooting at them as they lack the hitpoints, armour, and repair to survive very long.