Final Review: British Tier X Freemium Battleship Incomparable

Ladies and Gentlemen, with the release of Update 0.11.0, a new monster will be added to the Armory. The British battlecruiser HMS Incomparable will be available for the cost of 31 000 Steel!

Is she worth it? Are her gigantic 508 mm guns worth this hard-earned steel? Here is my opinion on the subject.

The Historical background

HMS Incomparable was a battlecruiser design from 1915, pushed by Admiral John Fisher. The Incomparable was basically taking the concept of a battlecruiser to its limits. A very large ship displacing 46 000 tons at standard displacement and fitted with powerful engines allowing it to reach a speed of no less than 35 knots. In exchange, her armor would have been quite thin with a belt of 279 mm.

When it comes to the firepower… well Incomparable was definitely a fitting name. The ship was meant to be armed with six 508 mm guns in three twin turrets, two superfiring at the front and one at the rear.

In the end, considering the questionable military value of such a ship and with the events of Jutland in mind, the design was completely abandoned.

In World of Warships, Incomparable is, to nobody’s surprise, a “Battlecruiser-like” battleship with thin armor, especially on the bow and stern as well as accurate guns.
Incomparable is also equipped with an Engine Boost similar to Repulse as well as a Short-range Hydroacoustic Search.
As a side note, when it comes to her appearance, Incomparable was altered quite a bit by Wargaming as they decided to make the superstructure very similar to the one of HMS Hood, including the addition of a second funnel. They also ended up slapping torpedo launchers on the ship because why not.

Also, as you can see with the imagine below, while that thing is narrow, it’s stupidly long:

Credits to Ch0m1n for that picture.

Ship’s commemorative flag

The Good and the Bad

The Good

• 508 mm guns able to overmatch up to 35 mm platings
• Good AP penetration, in line with ships like Yamato, Thunderer or Ohio
• Very high alpha damage per shell
• Fast turret traverse
• One quadruple torpedo launcher on each side to help in brawling situations
• Reasonably good armor protection except for the 25 mm bow and stern
• Great base top speed of 33 knots on top of having an Engine Boost consumable
• Same improved acceleration as British light cruisers
• Fantastic concealment with a minimum detection range by sea of 10.6 km (for reference, Des Moines is at 10.9 km).
• Short-range Hydroacoustic Search to help against torpedo threats
• Specialized Repair Team to print a new ship when needed
• Solid anti-air with high mid-range DPS

The Bad

• The ship “only” has 6 guns
• No improved HE penetration like the other British battleships (127 mm of HE penetration would have been quite funny, let’s be honest)
• Relatively short main battery firing range with only 17.570 km
• Lowest HP pool of all tier X battleships, this ship really isn’t good at tanking
• The Specialized Repair Team can only heal 10% of citadel damage
• 25 mm bow and stern external protection
• Massive turning radius of 1 160 m due to her being so long

The camouflage

The permanent camouflage of the Incomparable 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

Modules

Hull	Engine	Gun Fire Control System	Main battery	Torpedoes
Incomparable	160 000 HP	Mk X mod. 1	508 mm/45 Mk I	‎533 mm Mk IXM

General Characteristics and Playstyle

Consumables
Slot 1	Slot 2	Slot 3	Slot 4	Slot 5
Damage Control Party Work time: 15 s Cooldown: 80 s	Repair Party Number of charges: 3 Work time: 20 s Cooldown: 80 s HP regeneration: 2.0%/s Casemate damage regeneration: 50% Citadel damage regeneration: 10%	Engine Boost Number of charges: 3 Work time: 180 s Cooldown: 120 s Speed bonus: +8%	Short-Range Hydroacoustic Search Number of charges: 3 Work time: 180 s Cooldown: 120 s Torpedo spotting range: 3.0 km Ship spotting range: 3.0 km	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: 4

I will have to be honest here, Incomparable is an absolute blast of a ship. She has one of the most effective combinations of characteristics with incredible concealment making her stealthier than most cruisers as well as the Specialized Repair Team to be able to recover a lot of HP in case she takes an intense beating.

On top of that, she is one of the fastest battleships in the game and thanks to the Engine Boost as well as the skill Brisk that she can trigger very easily because of her 10.6 km spotting range, she can reach a staggering 41.2 knots. This allows her to get in the blink of an eye in an advantageous position, especially in the early game and simply annihilate cruisers that aren’t going to expect you here. She is “Speed and Power” (although here, the power is more for the guns than for the engines).

Talking about her guns, they are something that you should, under no circumstances, ignore. While it’s only six shells per salvo, just two of them can have a devastating effect because of the high alpha damage. On top of that, she is able to overmatch 32 mm platings to happily ruin the day of enemy battleships and cruisers. Honestly, being able to pop on the broadside of enemy ships at less than 12 km with such devastating firepower is absolute bliss.

There is one thing that you need to be really careful with Incomparable and it’s the combined weak main belt and enormous turning radius. You need to be particularly careful with these unless you want to get demolished. Thankfully, the high speed and low detectability range will most of the time allow you to safely disengage to turn when needed. Otherwise, when angled, her armor is fairly effective and thanks to the well-protected sides and 51 mm deck, you will have no problem at bouncing shots from enemy battleships. Even with this in mind, don’t expect her to tank a lot because of her low HP pool.

When it comes to the firing range, unless you play on ASIA which is riddled with CVs and with the long-range camping snore-fest that they have as meta, I definitely recommend using Main Battery Modification 3 for the reduced reload. The speed and concealment largely allow you to negate the below-average firing range.

Sadly, I don’t have a replay to provide this time because I basically saw yesterday evening that the NDA was getting lifted today instead of another date I had in mind. While I have a few games where I got 150 000 damage or more, it’s either far too short with everything happening in less than 5 minutes or games that would be incredibly boring to watch.

Main Armament

3 x 2 508 mm/45 Mk I
Maximum Firing Range	17.570 km
Reloading Time	29.0 s
180 Degree Turn Time	30 s
Optimal firing angles at the front	30°
Optimal firing angles at the rear	30°
Sigma	2.00 sigma
Maximum Dispersion	196 m
Shells
Type of Projectile	HE – 508 mm HE Mk I
Alpha Damage	7 400
Penetration capacity	85 mm
Explosion size	3.56
Fire chance	55 %
Projectile Speed	751 m/s
Air Drag	0.39
Projectile Mass	2 053 kg
Type of Projectile	AP – 508 mm AP Mk I
Alpha Damage	19 500
Projectile Speed	751 m/s
Air Drag	0.39
Projectile Mass	2 053 kg
Projectile Krupp	2 300
Projectile Detonator	0.033 s
Detonator threshold	77 mm
Ricochet Angles	45° – 60°

Incomparable joins the very restricted club of ships being able to overmatch 32 mm platings with her huge 508 mm guns. Technically, she even overmatches 35 mm platings but there is literally only the Riga with enough surface with that armor thickness to make it relevant.

These guns, while a tiny bit trolly at times just wreck everything in sight. Because of the low shell velocity and ballistic, you don’t get that much overpenetration with AP, meaning that even if you don’t get citadels, you will still get big numbers with each salvo. The penetration itself is really good, being on par with ships like Thunderer, Yamato and Ohio. You just need to keep in mind that the shells are, as I said, quite slow so you need to aim accordingly.

Here are also some comparisons between Incomparable and Shikishima, the closest comparison in terms of firepower:

As you can see, while Incomparable has a lower sigma, her battlecruiser dispersion and small vertical dispersion greatly compensate for it. Obviously, you will still get some salvo where shells will go everywhere except where you want but these guns remain very consistent and it’s not hard to achieve a 50% hit ratio.

Secondary Armament

11 x 2 102 mm/45 QF Mk XIX
Maximum Firing Range	7.000 km
Reloading Time	3.0 s
Sigma	1.0 sigma
Shells
Type of Projectile	HE – 102 mm HE 35 lb
Alpha Damage	1 500
Damage	310
HE penetration	17 mm
Explosion Size	0.3
Chance to Cause Fire	6 %
Projectile Speed	811 m/s
Air Drag	0.33
Projectile Mass	15.88 kg

Don’t expect much from these secondaries outside of a few random fires. While the ship has a broadside of 12 guns, the 102 mm just don’t have the penetration to do anything meaningful, even against destroyers.

Torpedo Armament

The torpedoes of Incomparable are a welcome addition to her already great kit. While they will not turn you into a 302 m long torpedo boat, they will still be nice to have when kiting an enemy ship or in brawling situations, especially with the great firing angles that won’t require you to make heavy turns to launch them. They are also nice to have when you have an Harugumo or Smolensk smoked up in a bad spot and you just want to send them a little unexpected gift.

Anti-air Armament

The anti-air of Incomparable is very good because of her collection of 40 mm AA guns. While the long-range itself leaves much to be desired, this mid-range will be nice to shred enemy dive bombers and torpedo bombers.

The Armor

Unlike what you would expect from a battlecruiser with 25 mm bow and stern, the armor on Incomparable is actually not bad at all. the bow and stern are fairly small to begin with compared to the rest of the ship and inside, you can find armored decks and bulkheads that will fully protect the ship’s citadel athwartships. When showing broadside, however, it will absolutely not be the same story as her main belt is only 279 mm thick and the citadel’s sloped deck is not far behind. Considering that the Specialized Repair Team only covers for 10% of citadel damage, Incomparable will not accept any angling mistake.

Against HE, outside of the low HP pool, she is fairly durable because of the 51 mm deck and the superstructure itself isn’t that big.

External armor protection:

Front and rear armor protection of the middle section:

Citadel armor protection:

Turrets armor protection:

Hidden armor protection inside the bow and stern:

Final Opinion

Well if you ask me, this ship is honestly a very good acquisition. She might prove to be troublesome to play for those having problems with angling and positioning properly but otherwise, she is straight-up nuts and worth every unit of steel that she requires. Her guns are slapping hard anything they hit, they are reliable, the ship is ultra-fast and stealthy, she gets a Specialized Repair Team, it’s just an incredibly solid package.

Now, if I had to chose, I would personally go for Bourgogne first because of how much I love this ship but Incomparable is very close behind.

Recommended Build

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

I don’t particularly recommend using one of the Dunkirk brothers or Andrew Cunningham although the latter has an improved Consumable Specialist and has the Equipment Spoils giving you additional consumable charges for 2 kills. I recommended Furious considering that fires won’t be much of a problem on Incomparable with the Specialized Repair Team and low detectability range but you can obviously switch it to Fire Prevention Expert. As for Gun Feeder and Priority Target, you can swap them for Super-Heavy AP Shells but personally, on a ship with such gigantic and vulnerable broadside, I prefer knowing what might be aiming at me and angle accordingly.

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

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Have a good one and see you soon!

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Yuzorah

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