World of Warships Final Review: German Tier VIII Premium Battleship Anhalt

Ladies and Gentlemen, another update, another bunch of Premium ships getting released. This time, we will talk about the new German tier VIII Premium battleship Anhalt. The ship will be available starting from the 16th of September for 12 800 doubloons for the cheapest bundle in the Armory or for 42,11 € in the premium shop.

Is she worth it? Are her fifteen 350 mm guns able to compensate quality by quantity? Here is my opinion.

Historical background

Anhalt is based on the Linienschiff L21a, one of the numerous designs of battleships on which German engineers started working after the Battle of Jutland. Out of the various ideas that these designs were exploring was the possibility to fuse the concepts of battleship and battlecruiser into a new type of ship, the so-called fast battleship.

Studies on Linienschiff L21a started in late December 1916. This design called for a displacement of 42 000 tons and a main battery consisting of ten 380 mm guns in five twin turrets.

In World of Warships, Anhalt represents a modified version of the design with fifteen 350 mm guns in five triple turrets. She is also presenting an extensive modernization with a modern superstructure, lengthened bow, and modern anti-aircraft.
Unlike other German battleships, she has no Hydroacoustic Search but she gets underwater torpedo tubes.

Ship’s preview

Ship’s commemorative flag

The camouflages

The permanent camouflage of Anhalt comes with the standard permanent tier VIII economic bonuses:

• +5% credits
• +50% XP
• +50% Commander XP
• +50% Free XP

Another camouflage called “Legend of the Ocean” will also be available in the random bundles. It has a special animation in port where the ship deploys solar sails of some kind.

The Good and the Bad

The Good

• 15 guns broadside
• Decent ballistics
• German improved HE penetration
• AP with a low arming threshold due to the lower caliber
• Stronger than average secondary battery with a good firing range and German improved HE penetration
• Wiggling torpedoes offering wide firing angles
• Torpedoes with fast reload time
• Strong armor protection against HE and AP
• High HP pool

The Bad

• 1.7 sigma
• 350 mm guns leading to very limited overmatch capabilities
• Low AP penetration
• Torpedoes with a short firing range
• Torpedoes with low speed
• Poor turning radius
• Low maximum speed
• No access to Hydroacoustic Search

Modules

Hull	Engine	Gun Fire Control System	Main battery	Torpedoes
Anhalt	Propulsion: 100 000 HP	FKS Typ 8 Mod. 1	350 mm/45 SK C/14 on a Drh LC/1919 mount	‎J9

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%	Spotting Aircraft Number of charges: 4 Work time: 100 s Cooldown: 240 s Maximum firing range: +20%
		Fighter Number of charges: 3 Work time: 60 s Cooldown: 90 s Number of planes in a squadron: 3 Patrol radius: 3.0 km

Broadly speaking, Anhalt follows the same archetype as Mecklenburg or Brandenburg. She has lots of guns but a lower caliber than what you would normally see at their tier. In the case of Anhalt, we are talking about a broadside of fifteen 350 mm guns, the same as those of Mackensen.

Just like the other two, Anhalt will be mostly played at medium range. At long range, her AP shells will lack penetration to deal any form of substantial damage and at close range, the ship’s low speed and slow turret traverse will be a pain to deal with. These actually are the two major problems of this ship. She is painfully slow with a top speed only reaching 25 knots without flag or Brisk and the turrets badly need some WD40 with 45 seconds being needed for a 180° turn. If you have Günther Lütjens available, his improved Grease the Gears skill will be very useful. One thing is for sure, positioning with this ship will be key as you particularly want to get on people’s broadside, and once there, be sure that you will be as useful as possible. Otherwise, with her low speed, you will be running after targets to shoot at.

When it comes to the build, this ship will want to use a standard battleship build as she isn’t particularly suited for close-range combat with her limited secondary battery.

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

Main Armament

5 x 3 350 mm/45 SK C/14 on a Drh LC/1919 mount
Maximum Firing Range	21.120 km
Reloading Time	30.0 s
180 Degree Turn Time	45.0 s
Optimal firing angles at the front	35°
Optimal firing angles at the rear	35°
Sigma	1.7 sigma
Maximum Dispersion	271 m
Shells
Type of Projectile	HE – 350 mm Spr.Gr. L/4.2 Bdz.
Alpha Damage	4 000
Penetration capacity	88 mm
Explosion size	1.93
Fire chance	27 %
Projectile Speed	815 m/s
Air Drag	0.407
Projectile Mass	600.0 kg
Type of Projectile	AP – 350 mm P.Spr.Gr. L/3.6
Alpha Damage	9 500
Projectile Speed	815 m/s
Air Drag	0.33
Projectile Mass	490.0 kg
Projectile Krupp	2 700
Projectile Detonator	0.033 s
Detonator threshold	59 mm
Ricochet Angles	45° – 60°

While one might think that with 350 mm guns, Anhalt’s firepower will be disappointing, it is nothing close to that. Her shells are obviously weaker than those of other battleships at the same tier (except Brandenburg) but when you throw fifteen of them at the target, the results rarely disappoint.

Generally speaking, you will be firing AP except at long range on high-tier battleships or against destroyers. In the first situation, the penetration will be insufficient to cause proper damage and in the second case, you will be only getting overpenetration damage with very little module damage compared to HE shells. In other situations, even against angled targets, you will be fine with sticking to AP shells. With 15 rounds per salvo, the damage from penetration hits will remain more than enough, especially since, with the lower gun caliber, the arming threshold is met more easily on superstructure compared to other battleships. For broadside targets, you will be clapping cruisers just fine and against battleships, while getting citadels will be tricky, the damage from penetration hits alone will be more than enough.

Secondary Armament

8 x 1 150 mm/45 SK L/45 on an MPL C/06 mount
Maximum Firing Range	7.600 km
Reloading Time	8.57 s
Sigma	1.0 sigma
Shells
Type of Projectile	HE – 150 mm HE K Gr 18
Alpha Damage	1 800
HE penetration	38 mm
Explosion Size	0.57
Chance to Cause Fire	10 %
Projectile Speed	835 m/s
Air Drag	0.407
Projectile Mass	45.3 kg
6 x 2 105 mm/65 SK C/33 on a Dop. L. C/37 mount
Maximum Firing Range	7.600 km
Reloading Time	3.35 s
Sigma	1.0 sigma
Shells
Type of Projectile	HE – 105 mm Spr.Gr. Kz.
Alpha Damage	1 200
HE penetration	26 mm
Explosion Size	0.31
Chance to Cause Fire	5 %
Projectile Speed	900 m/s
Air Drag	0.33
Projectile Mass	15.1 kg

The secondaries of Anhalt present the general characteristics of those of German battleships with improved HE penetration and slightly improved dispersion. The problem is that, in action, her secondary broadside is pretty weak with only four 150 mm guns and six 105 mm guns.
Obviously, it will still be a decent addition to your firepower at close range and especially against destroyers. However, it’s just not worth it to give her a secondary build, especially when considering her lack of speed to quickly bring them into action.

Torpedo Armament

4 x 1 700 mm 700 mm J9
Reloading Time	45 s
Maximum Distance	6.000 km
Damage	20 633
Flooding Chance	343%
Speed	54 knots
Surface Detectability	1.7 km

Just like British battleships and unlike Forrest Sherman, Anhalt gets wiggling torpedoes. This means that while the torpedo tubes themselves are fixed on the ship, the torpedoes will wiggle around until they reach the desired bearing when firing them. In action, you can pretty much fire your torpedoes while being almost fully angled. However, it will be one torpedo at a time as the firing angles of the two launchers on each side don’t cross each other at any point.

There is one thing to keep in mind when firing these torpedoes though. In certain situations, the torpedoes actually need to cover more distance to arm themselves compared to the dead zone displayed by the UI. When firing the torpedoes, always keep a certain margin to be safe and avoid bad surprises.

Other than that, the torpedoes reload very fast and deal decent damage per hit but are painfully slow, requiring you to be very careful about your target’s movements.

Anti-air Armament

The anti-air of Anhalt is nothing crazy at all. She only gets proper DPS on the close-range anti-air and as you know, since planes only spend a short amount of time inside it, it will not matter much at the end of the day.

The Armor

Anhalt, as a proper German battleship has solid armor protection all across the ship, both against HE and AP shells. However, unlike other German battleships, Anhalt’s turtleback is pretty weak. When sailing broadside, battleships can still potentially punch through it and reach the citadel.

External armor protection:

Front and rear armor protection of the middle section:

Hidden deck:

Turtleback:

Citadel armor protection:

Turrets armor protection:

Hidden armor protection inside the bow and stern:

Final Opinion

Well overall, Anhalt ends up being a solid premium. Her firepower is quite satisfying with the large number of guns combined with decent penetration for the AP, acceptable HE damage and a dispersion that isn’t equivalent to that of a sawed-off shotgun. It makes her main battery particularly versatile and able to effectively engage all sorts of targers. She also has good tanking capacity with strong armor protection and a high HP pool.

Her only true downsides are the low speed and slow turret traverse but honestly, you get used to it. It will require you to have a proper positioning nonetheless.

Recommended Build

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

If you have Günther Lütjens still available, I recommend using him on Anhalt, especially for the improved Grease the Gears.

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

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Yuzorah

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