World of Warships Supertest: British Tier X Freemium Aircraft Carrier Malta

Historical Background

The Malta-class was a never built class of aircraft carriers from the Royal Navy. In total, four ships were ordered in 1943: Malta, Gibraltar, Africa, and New Zealand. However, based on the experience of the U.S. Navy in the Pacific, the design was revised on multiple occasions.

Due to the increase in size and speed of the carrier-based aircraft as well as the increased importance of aircraft carriers as a whole, the new design was meant to be much larger than previous ships. The first design, design X, was actually larger than the Midway-class and even too large for its own good. Due to its size, the class wouldn’t have been able to fit in most British dockyards without expansion works being needed. As such, a smaller design was presented called X1. Compared to previous designs, a partially open hangar was considered, allowing aircraft preparation before being brought on the flight deck. An unarmored flight deck and an armored hangar deck were selected for the final design. However, due to the experience of American and British carriers in the Pacific, an armored flight deck was considered but it was too late in development to heavily alter the design.

When it comes to its air group, the Malta-class was intended to carry a total of 108 modern aircraft.

In the end, the Malta-class was canceled in late 1945 before construction had started as part of austerity measures and on the basis that previous classes could still be modernized to accommodate the soon-to-be-ready jet aircraft.

In World of Warships, Malta is based on the X1 design but with a slightly modified bow as well as the addition of an armored flight deck. Compared to classic British CVs, her bombers are dropping AP bombs. The ship will be available for Coal and we can already estimate her price to be similar to that of Max Immelmann at 264 000 Coal.

If you want to learn more about the Malta-class of aircraft carriers, here is a video from Drachinifel covering it:

Ship’s preview

Ship’s commemorative flag

Ship’s camouflages

For the classic reminder, this is a ship in testing, anything can change so don’t look at her like she would already be released.

Modules

Hull	Attack Aircraft	Dive Bombers	Torpedo Bombers	Propulsion
Malta	Blackburn Firebrand	Blackburn Firebrand	Blackburn Firebrand	Propulsion: 200 000 hp

General Characteristics

Consumables
Slot 1	Slot 2
Damage Control Party Work time: 60 s Cooldown: 90 s	Fighter Number of charges: 4 Work time: 600 s Cooldown: 40 s Patrol Radius: 3.0 km Planes in a squadron: 4

Attack Aircraft

Attack Aircrafts – ‎Blackburn Firebrand
Tier	X
Hitpoints per plane	2 190
Cruise speed	137 knots
Maximum speed	177 knots
Engine boost time	5 s
Engine boost reload time	10 s
Size of attacking flight	4
Aircraft per squadron	12
Rocket type	RP-3 60 lb No2 Mk.I
Rocket per plane	10
Machine gun sequence	2.97 s
Maximum rocket damage	2 350
HE penetration capacity	28 mm
Explosion size	0.51
Fire chance	9 %
Detectability range	10.0 km
Aircraft restoration time	64 s
Aircraft on deck	18

Consumables
Slot 1	Slot 2
Engine Cooling Number of Charges: 2 Work time: 5 s Cooldown: 80 s	Patrol fighter Number of Charges: 3 Work time: 60 s Cooldown: 10 s Aircraft per squadron: 7 Patrol radius: 3.5 km

Torpedo Bombers

Torpedo bomber – Blackburn Firebrand
Tier	X
Hitpoints per plane	2 250
Cruise speed	136 knots
Maximum speed	171 knots
Engine boost time	20 s
Engine boost reload time	40 s
Size of attacking flight	4
Aircraft per squadron	12
Torpedo type	Mark XVII
Torpedoes per plane	1
Maximum torpedo damage	5 933
Maximum torpedo range	2.4 km
Torpedo speed	35 knots
Torpedo arming time	5.0 s
Flooding chance	51%
Detectability range	10.0 km
Aircraft restoration time	64 s
Aircraft on deck	18

Consumables
Slot 1	Slot 2	Slot 3
Engine Cooling Number of Charges: 2 Work time: 5 s Cooldown: 80 s	Patrol fighter Number of Charges: 3 Work time: 60 s Cooldown: 10 s Aircraft per squadron: 7 Patrol radius: 3.5 km	Repair Number of Charges: 3 Work time: 5 s Cooldown: 180 s Repair speed: 10% HP/s

Dive Bombers

Dive bomber – ‎Blackburn Firebrand
Tier	X
Hitpoints per plane	2 320
Cruise speed	134 knots
Maximum speed	169 knots
Engine boost time	20 s
Engine boost reload time	40 s
Size of attacking flight	5
Aircraft per squadron	15
Bomb type	500 lb G.P. Bomb
Bomb per plane	4
Maximum bomb damage	4 300
AP penetration capacity	109 mm
Projectile Detonator	0.03
Detonator threshold	30 mm
Detectability range	10.0 km
Aircraft restoration time	51 s
Aircraft on deck	23

Consumables
Slot 1	Slot 2
Engine Cooling Number of Charges: 2 Work time: 5 s Cooldown: 80 s	Patrol fighter Number of Charges: 3 Work time: 60 s Cooldown: 10 s Aircraft per squadron: 7 Patrol radius: 3.5 km

Secondary Armament

8 x 2 113 mm/45 QF Mk.7 mod.P on a RP 41 Mk.VII mount
Maximum Firing Range	5.000 km
Reloading Time	5.0 s
Sigma	1.00 sigma
Shells
Type of Projectile	HE – 113 mm HE Mk XVI
Alpha Damage	1 600 HP
HE penetration	19 mm
Explosion Size	0.36
Chance to Cause Fire	7 %
Projectile Speed	746 m/s
Air Drag	0.33
Projectile Mass	25.0 kg

Anti-air Armament

The Armor

External armor protection

Internal hangar protection

Front and rear protection of the middle section

Citadel armor protection

Personal Opinion

As of right now, Malta looks fairly strong. Compared to Audacious, her reserves’ characteristics are far better with large base reserves and fast plane restoration.

Her torpedo bombers should also be brutal and will work wonderfully with Andrew Cunningham and the Lightning Fast talent as the skill only requires 2 floodings and you drop 4 torpedoes with each attack, making it very easy to trigger. Since it’s the same torpedoes as stock Audacious, they also get a short arming distance, making it easy to land them.
When it comes to the bombs, while the penetration is particularly low with an effective penetration that will be even lower considering the drop angle bombs in carpet bombing attacks, they might still work well. In total, it’s no less than 20 bombs dropped per attack and with a reticule size that should be just a bit bigger than that of a stock Audacious. Even if you don’t get citadel hits, these bombs might still hit really hard from pure penetration hits.
The rockets are going to be the weak squadron of Malta by a long shot. While the rockets are the same as those of Audacious, the reticule is WAY bigger. This will undoubtedly lead to them being particularly bad against small targets.

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Yuzorah

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