World of Warships Final Review: French Superbattleship Patrie

Camarades, the French tech tree is getting its second supership. Patrie, the superbattleship will soon become available buuuuut… there is a catch. She will first only be available in auction and will only be fully released with Update 0.11.9 which will go live in early October. As for the auction, it will start tomorrow the 21st, and will last until the 25th for a total duration of 96 hours. The minimal bid will be at 100 000 000 credits and there will be a total of 500 potential winners ACROSS ALL FOUR SERVERS.

So… is Patrie worth it? Is she a proper supership even though she lacks a Combat instruction? Here is my opinion.

Historical background

Obviously, Patrie doesn’t have any real historical background to speak of. The ship is essentially an upscaled design n°3 Alsace-class battleship and armed with the same 431 mm guns as République.
The secondary battery is quite interesting as we get the same 152 mm triple turrets as République but also a twin version of the French 100 mm/55 modèle 1953. Now, I’m actually not sure if that twin mount is purely made up by Wargaming or if it was considered at some point.

Ship’s preview

The camouflage

The permanent camouflage of the Patrie comes with the standard permanent supership economy bonuses:

• +200% XP
• +200% Commander XP
• +100% Free XP

The Good and the Bad

The Good

• Huge alpha damage per salvo
• AP shells with high penetration
• Strong HE shells with high fire chances
• High firing range
• Fast turret traverse
• Very high rate of fire on the secondaries
• High amount of flak
• above average top speed
• Access to a 15% Engine Boost
• High amount of HP
• Heavily protected citadel on the sides
• Heavily protected against AP bombs

The Bad

• 30 seconds main battery reload time compared to 24 seconds for République
• No 32 mm overmatch compared to the other superbattleships
• 1.8 sigma
• French battleships dispersion, one of the worst in the game at all ranges
• Major part of the secondaries are 100 mm guns with 17 mm penetration
• Few anti-air mounts
• Gigantic ship, an easy target
• Fully covered with 32 mm armor
• No internal armored deck on the bow and stern

Modules

Hull	Engine	Gun Fire Control System	Main battery
Patrie	Propulsion: 220 000 HP	‎‎PCA n° 11 Mle 1	431 mm/50 Mle 1940 in a turret

General Characteristics and Playstyle

Consumables
Slot 1	Slot 2	Slot 3
Damage Control Party Work time: 15 s Cooldown: 80 s	Repair Party Number of charges: 4 Work time: 28 s Cooldown: 80 s HP regeneration speed: +0.5%/s Casemate damage regeneration: 50% Citadel damage regeneration: 10%	Engine Boost Number of charges: 3 Work time: 120 s Cooldown: 120 s Speed bonus: +15%

There are many terms you can use to characterize the French battleships line. “Consistent” is definitely not one of them. From Lyon to République, it was already a mess in terms of progression, may it be in terms of gun layout, reload time, or dispersion. When you thought that this was over, Wargaming decided to make it even more of a mess with Patrie.

To summarize the ship quickly, it is basically a VERY large Bourgogne with big guns but without the main battery reload booster. When I say very large, I mean it because Patrie happens to be the 3rd largest in the entire game after Hannover and United States.

The problem is that not only is the ship massive, but she is also covered with 32 mm armor which is a significant issue. Both Hannover and Satsuma have guns able to overmatch such plating and considering that, during the first months, there will not be that many Patrie around, your chances of getting matched against either of these two are very high. Considering that Satsuma is a lot more popular, things get even worse as she gets her Combat Instruction that significantly reduces her main battery dispersion. Long story short, a Satsuma that won’t give flat broadside constantly will eviscerate a Patrie in short order. It will be a downhill battle like you rarely see one.

Other than that, Patrie follows the same playstyle as the previous ships, especially the Alsace. You will generally play at medium range, if possible while staying on the move. You will also use your speed to reach advantageous positions to punish broadside targets. Patrie is especially good at flanking considering that she gets a 15% engine boost instead of the 8% one. Once you are on a flank, get ready to slap people hard because her main battery is honestly no joke.

As a side note, I’m particularly happy that Wargaming seem to be stepping away from Combat Instruction or Alternative Firing.

If you want to see the ship in action, here is a commented replay:

Main Armament

3 x 4 431 mm/50 Mle 1940 in a turret
Maximum Firing Range	26.630 km
Reloading Time	30.0 s
180 Degree Turn Time	36.0 s
Optimal firing angles at the front	30°
Optimal firing angles at the rear	30°
Sigma	1.8 sigma
Maximum Dispersion	327 m
Shells
Type of Projectile	HE – 431 mm HE OEA Mle 1940
Alpha Damage	6 300
Penetration capacity	72 mm
Explosion size	2.83
Fire chance	48 %
Projectile Speed	840 m/s
Air Drag	0.35
Projectile Mass	1 321.0 kg
Type of Projectile	AP – 431 mm AP OPfK Mle 1940
Alpha Damage	14 500
Projectile Speed	840 m/s
Air Drag	0.35
Projectile Mass	1 321.0 kg
Projectile Krupp	2 550
Projectile Detonator	0.033 s
Detonator threshold	72 mm
Ricochet Angles	45° – 60°

Patrie’s main battery is impressive for sure but not exactly flawless. To begin with, she uses the same guns as République. That means amazing AP penetration, great ballistics as well as strong HE shells. On top of that, she gets the 30 mm overmatch to slap cruisers hard.

Compared to République, we also get a whole additional turret that kicks the alpha damage of each salvo through the roof. Sadly, there is a cost to all of this. Compared to République which had a very fast reload time as well as 2.0 sigma, Patrie only gets a 30s reload time and 1.8 sigma.

As much as I missed the consistency of the 2.0 sigma or the amazing reload time, it really isn’t the end of the world as this ship just slaps incredibly hard most of the time. May it be for the AP penetration that can nail battleships at max range or the HE and its fire chances that happen to be particularly useful against angled targets, the firepower definitely felt like an upgrade over République.

Secondary Armament

3 x 3 152 mm/55 Mle 1930 on an Mle 1950 mount
Maximum Firing Range	8.300 km
Reloading Time	8.0 s
Sigma	1.0 sigma
Shells
Type of Projectile	HE – 152 mm HE OEA Mle 1937
Alpha Damage	2 200
HE penetration	25 mm
Explosion Size	0.58
Chance to Cause Fire	12 %
Projectile Speed	870 m/s
Air Drag	0.34
Projectile Mass	55.0 kg
8 x 2 100 mm/55 Mle 1945 on a CAD Mle 1953 mount
Maximum Firing Range	8.300 km
Reloading Time	1.5 s
Sigma	1.0 sigma
Shells
Type of Projectile	HE – 100 mm HE OEA Mle 1928
Alpha Damage	1 400
HE penetration	17 mm
Explosion Size	0.29
Chance to Cause Fire	6 %
Projectile Speed	780 m/s
Air Drag	0.314
Projectile Mass	13.5 kg

The secondaries of Patrie can almost be called a downgrade to those of République or Bourgogne. The problem is that the 127 mm guns were replaced by 100 mm ones. While these guns have amazing reload time, they suffer from weaker HE penetration that reduces the amount of stuff you can penetrate to destroyers and cruisers’ superstructures, as well as, British light cruiser hulls.

I personally recommend you to stay away from secondary builds on this ship. The secondaries don’t have anywhere near enough penetration and the ship is also too easy to farm down.

Anti-air Armament

The anti-air of Patrie is nothing to ignore. The long-range is one of the strongest in the game with very high DPS and as an impressive number of flak. As for the medium range, While you don’t have many mounts, the DPS is still reasonably high.

The Armor

Interestingly, unlike all previous French high-tier battleships, Patrie doesn’t have hidden armored decks inside the bow and stern. The problem is that between this and the fact that she is fully covered with 32 mm armor, the ship gets completely obliterated by Satsuma and will generally suffer against Hannover or literally any other battleship with 32 mm overmatch.

At least against the rest, the ship has a really nice protection against AP, especially on the sides of her citadel.

External armor protection:

Main belt:

Front and rear armor protection of the middle section:

Turtleback:

Citadel armor protection:

Turrets armor protection:

Hidden main armor deck:

Final Opinion

On one hand, Patrie is dragged down by her huge hull that gets easily farmed by HE spammers or overmatched to shit by the likes of Yamato, Satsuma, or Incomparable. On the other hand, her guns are honestly bonkers with a massive alpha strike power, good ballistics, high penetration, and an excellent capacity to demolish cruisers and broadside targets as a whole.

As a whole though, the ship was a really pleasant experience outside of the times I got T-posed by a Satsuma. Not sure If I would burn more than 100 million credits for her but otherwise, she is worth it.

Recommended Build

For the Patrie, I recommend the following commander build and upgrades:

This concludes my review of Patrie. Thank you for reading this article!

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Yuzorah

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