World of Warships Final Review: German Tier X Freemium Battleship Mecklenburg

Mein Kerle, it is time. The Mecklenburg, the new tier X German battleship will be available in the Armory for 31 000 steel starting with Update 0.11.4. Is she worth it? Are her sixteen guns able to compensate for their low caliber by their sheer volume of fire? Here is my opinion on it.

Historical background

Mecklenburg doesn’t really have a historical background to speak of. It is a Friedrich Der Grosse (though it has a unique 3D model) on which Wargaming installed quadruple 305 mm turrets. If I remember correctly, these turrets were intended for one of the hybrid designs Germany worked on but never built.

Her catapult was also moved between the funnels and the secondary battery was revised, being only composed of dual-purpose twin turrets with 128 mm guns. She is also equipped with two quadruple torpedo launchers, one on each side of the ship.
Her main battery gets battlecruiser dispersion, a high sigma value of 2.05, fast reload and the classic German HE penetration.

Ship’s preview

Ship’s commemorative flag

The camouflage

The permanent camouflage of the Mecklenburg provides the classic bonuses for tier X ships:

• -3% to surface detectability range
• +4% to maximum dispersion of shells fired by the enemy at your ship
• -50% to the cost of ship’s post-battle service
• +20% credits earned in the battle.
• +100% to experience earned in the battle

The Good and the Bad

The Good

• Massive sixteen guns broadside
• Below average main battery reload time
• German improved HE penetration
• Battlecruiser dispersion
• 2.05 sigma
• Heavy secondary battery
• 4 torpedoes per side for close-quarter engagements
• Fairly strong anti-air with Defensive AA Fire
• Pretty much immune to citadels
• Above-average speed

The Bad

• Low HP pool for a tier X
• Horrible firing angles
• Low shell caliber
• Low HE damage like the rest of the German ships
• Low fire chances
• Low AP penetration for a battleship
• Torpedoes with a short firing range
• Poor agility

Modules

Hull	Engine	Gun Fire Control System	Main battery	Torpedoes
Mecklenburg	Propulsion: 180 000 HP	‎‎FKS Typ 10 Mod. 1	305 mm/56 SK C/39 in a turret	G7a T1

General Characteristics

Consumables
Slot 1	Slot 2	Slot 3	Slot 4
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%	Defensive AA Fire Number of charges: 3 Work time: 40 s Cooldown: 80 s Damage from continuous DPS: +50% Damage from flak explosions: +300%
		Fighter Number of charges: 3 Work time: 60 s Cooldown: 90 s Number of planes in a squadron: 4 Patrol radius: 3.0 km

Broadly speaking, Mecklenburg follows the same archetype as ships such as Scharnhorst, Odin, or Brandenburg. A battleship with small-caliber guns but with a fast reload. At this point, I’m waiting for a supership using the hull of the Kurfürst and with quintuple turrets or something like that.

Overall, the ship carries that archetype far better than the previous ones thanks to her high number of guns, allowing her to not fall too far behind the other battleships in terms of firepower. If I had to summarize the Mecklenburg, it would be a particularly fat Hindenburg. Because of the weaker guns and worse survivability, you end up playing her more like a really big cruiser rather than a proper battleship. It’s not quite to the point of Bourgogne but not too far from it. You also end up switching to HE fairly often since you cannot overmatch many platings at this tier unless you are dealing with things like British light cruisers.

One thing to keep in mind with this ship is the combination of the fast main battery reload and the horrible firing angles. Because of this, you don’t really get the luxury to angle the hull between salvos so you really need to be careful regarding what you are engaging. If you aren’t careful enough, you will just end up taking big chunks of damage one after the other.

Apologize on this one but there is no replay for the Mecklenburg review. Between the short NDA lift notice, the Warships Spring Championship and generally speaking, my IRL obligations, I didn’t get a game that was worth featuring.

Main Armament

4 x 4 305 mm/56 SK C/39 in a turret
Maximum Firing Range	21.970 km
Reloading Time	26.0 s
180 Degree Turn Time	30.0 s
Optimal firing angles at the front	47°
Optimal firing angles at the rear	41°
Sigma	2.05 sigma
Maximum Dispersion	233 m
Shells
Type of Projectile	HE – 305 mm P.Spr.Gr. L/4.9
Alpha Damage	3 600
Penetration capacity	76 mm
Explosion size	1.65
Fire chance	27 %
Projectile Speed	865 m/s
Air Drag	0.28
Projectile Mass	415.0 kg
Type of Projectile	AP – 305 mm Spr.Gr. L/3.8
Alpha Damage	9 400
Projectile Speed	865 m/s
Air Drag	0.28
Projectile Mass	415.0 kg
Projectile Krupp	2 450
Projectile Detonator	0.033 s
Detonator threshold	51 mm
Ricochet Angles	45° – 60°

The main battery of the Mecklenburg is… an incredible mess. In the direct line of Scharnhorst, Odin, and Brandenburg, we are getting a battleship with low caliber guns with fast reload to compensate. The thing is that, unlike Scharnhorst or Odin which, these days, end up falling behind other battleships firepower-wise, the Mecklenburg is seeing things in big. If many guns aren’t enough, use more guns. In this case, sixteen of them and with improved dispersion, please.

With her sixteen guns, Mecklenburg ends up being great to deal against cruisers and destroyers but not so much to deal against battleships. The thing is that, against battleships, she will purely rely on penetration damage instead of hoping for citadels. With her small guns, sadly, don’t expect to penetrate any battleship main belt, except at close range with AP. Don’t worry though, disintegrating destroyers greatly make up for it.
As for the HE… well we are talking about a German ship so even with the sixteen guns broadside, don’t expect miracles. The shells still suffer from low damage per hit as well as low fire chances.

In the end, the limitations of the main battery really make you feel like you are more of an oversized cruiser than a proper battleship.

Secondary Armament

12 x 2 128 mm/61 KM40 in a turret
Maximum Firing Range	8.300 km
Reloading Time	4.0 s
Sigma	1.0 sigma
Shells
Type of Projectile	HE – 128 mm Spr.Gr. Kz.
Alpha Damage	1 500
HE penetration	32 mm
Explosion Size	0.41
Chance to Cause Fire	5 %
Projectile Speed	900 m/s
Air Drag	0.313
Projectile Mass	26.0 kg

Mecklenburg presents a heavy secondary battery composed of numerous 128 mm twin turrets. While this sounds impressive since they can penetrate 32 mm of armor, have slightly improved dispersion, etc. in my opinion, you shouldn’t build Mecklenburg around secondaries.

The problem is that with her low HP pool as well as the weaker armor compared to a Preussen or a Kurfürst, she will have a lot more trouble surviving while going full gun blazing with the secondaries. Additionally, considering how potent her main battery is, it would be better to get the most out of it instead with Aiming System Modification 1 or Main Battery Modification 3 for example. Another thing worth keeping in mind is that it’s not the same secondary dispersion as Schlieffen so even with such heavy secondary armament, you will not get as much value out of it as you would like.

Torpedo Armament

The torpedo armament of Mecklenburg is the classic short-range torpedoes of German battleships. They are always useful when dealing with enemy ships in close-quarter engagement but that’s about it.

You just need to pray that they will not get incapacitated and God knows that it happens often because of how exposed they are.

Anti-air Armament

The anti-air of Mecklenburg is surprisingly strong compared to what you would expect from a German battleship. The base DPS is pretty good, she generates a lot of flaks and on top of that, both the close and mid-range anti-air have good firing range.

Add to this the Defensive AA Fire consumable and… we are somehow getting a German ship with strong anti-air.

The Armor

Just like the rest of the high-tier German battleships, Mecklenburg has a lot of armor everywhere and her citadel is pretty much untouchable except by carriers. However, her main belt is much thinner than the one of Preussen so she can easily get punished when giving broadside.

External armor protection:

Front and rear armor protection of the middle section:

Turtleback:

Citadel armor protection:

Turrets armor protection:

Hidden armor protection inside the stern:

Final Opinion

As interesting as Mecklenburg can be, overall, I would put her at a fairly low priority compared to other steel ships. In terms of actual game impact, a Bourgogne, a Ragnar, or an Incomparable for example will be far more effective.

Compared to the other steel battleships, Mecklenburg might be easier to play because of many guns, good dispersion, and no risk of getting citadelled. However, when it comes to making actual plays, being able to punish broadside battleships, or overmatch to crap bow-in cruisers, she will be far behind the likes of Bourgogne with her main battery reload booster or Incomparable and Shikishima with their huge guns.

Recommended Build

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

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

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Yuzorah

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