Final Review: German Premium Tier VIII Battleship Brandenburg

Ladies and Gentlemen, arriving with the German battlecruisers event, here is the new tier VIII Premium battleship Brandenburg. Is she worth it? Is she doing anything better than Tirpitz and Odin? Here is my opinion on it.

Historical background

Not much to talk about here. In essence, it’s just a Tirpitz with the turrets being swapped with the triple turrets found on Odin or Aegir armed with 305 mm guns. Essentially, it’s a tier VIII Pommern. Sadly, the ship gets shafted hard when it comes to the HP/tonnage formula as she gets, just like Odin, a much lower HP pool than she should have.

As a side note, surprisingly, it’s a unique model.

The Good and the Bad

The Good

• 12 gun broadside
• Shorter main battery reload time than other tier VIII battleships
• Decent dispersion
• Strong secondaries with improved penetration, dispersion and high firing range
• 4 torpedoes per side
• High top speed for a tier VIII battleship
• Good concealment
• Well protected against HE and German turtleback that protects the citadel

The Bad

• Very low HP pool
• Terrible firing angles
• Only 305 mm guns which means weak AP penetration
• Secondaries are mostly composed of 105 mm guns so they can only penetrate 26 mm of armor
• Fragile torpedo launchers
• Bad anti-air
• No Hydroacoustic Search
• Vulnerable to AP bombs

The camouflage

The permanent camouflage of the Brandenburg provides the classic bonuses for tier VIII ships:

• -3% to surface detectability range
• +4% to maximum dispersion of shells fired by the enemy at your ship
• -10% to the cost of ship’s post-battle service
• +50% to experience earned in the battle

Modules

Hull	Engine	Gun Fire Control System	Main battery	Torpedoes
Brandenburg	Propulsion: 180 000 hp	FKS Typ 8 Mod. 1	305 mm/56 SK C/39 in a turret	‎G7a T1

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	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

The Brandenburg is somewhat sitting in-between the traditional German battleships and the German battlecruisers. Just like the German battleships, she is well armored and has the same main battery and secondary battery dispersion but at the same time, just like the German battlecruisers, she has a low HP pool, high speed and low detectability.

One thing for sure, while her secondaries are quite strong, she isn’t really suited for extensive close-quarter engagement because of her low HP and the speed, coupled with the concealment will be valuable tools to disengage if things go bad.

Overall, while she will do decently as top tier, the moment you get uptiered, the ship becomes nothing more than a damage pinata. She just doesn’t have the firepower or survivability to deal properly with higher-tier ships. When downtiered, you will be forced to play much more passive if you don’t want to melt in a few minutes.

Also, she might be one of the worst tier VIII Battleship to fight other high tier battleships because of the combined low HP pool and horrible firing angles which would force you to be broadside, leading to you taking massive damage.

If you want to see the ship in action, here is a replay from one of my games:

Main Battery

4 x 3 305 mm/56 SK C/39 in a turret
Maximum Firing Range	18.460 km
Reloading Time	26.5 s
180 Degree Turn Time	36.0 s
Optimal firing angles at the front	41°
Optimal firing angles at the rear	42°
Sigma	1.80 sigma
Maximum Dispersion	245 m
Shells
Type of Projectile	HE – 305 mm Spr.Gr. L/3.8
Alpha Damage	3 600 HP
Damage	2 960 HP
Penetration capacity	76 mm
Explosion size	1.65
Fire chance	27 %
Projectile Speed	865 m/s
Air Drag	0.28
Projectile Mass	415 kg
Type of Projectile	AP – 305 mm P.Spr.Gr. L/4.9
Alpha Damage	9 400 HP
Projectile Speed	865 m/s
Air Drag	0.28
Projectile Mass	415 kg
Projectile Krupp	2 450
Projectile Detonator	0.033 s
Detonator threshold	51 mm
Ricochet Angles	45° – 60°

The main battery of the Brandenburg isn’t anything to praise. Just like the Odin, she is armed with 305 mm guns which lead to multiple issues. Firstly, the AP penetration of these 305 mm guns is not great. While it will definitely be enough against cruisers, against BBs, their performances at medium to long range are definitely lacking. Secondly, you aren’t overmatching a lot of plating with this caliber. The only relevant one is the 16 mm plating on some light cruisers. There is also the general issue of German battleships with the HE being quite weak in terms of damage and fire chances.

Another massive problem of the main battery of the Brandenburg is the horrible firing angles of the ship. She needs to show a lot of broadside to be able to fire all her guns, which, combined with her low HP pool, leads to her being easy prey for other battleships.

Secondary battery

6 x 2 150 mm/55 SK C/28 on a Dop. L. C/34 mount
Maximum Firing Range	7.600 km
Reloading Time	7.5 s
Sigma	1.00 sigma
Shells
Type of Projectile	HE – 150 mm Spr.Gr. L/4.5
Alpha Damage	1 700 HP
Damage	670 HP
HE penetration	38 mm
Explosion Size	0.54
Chance to Cause Fire	8 %
Projectile Speed	875 m/s
Air Drag	0.33
Projectile Mass	45.3 kg
10 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	1.00 sigma
Shells
Type of Projectile	HE – 105 mm Spr.Gr. Kz.
Alpha Damage	1 200 HP
Damage	330 HP
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 the Brandenburg are more or less her most valuable asset. While she has the same range and dispersion as the other German battleships, she has more secondaries to bring on target. However, compared to Odin that gets 128 mm which are able to penetrate 32 mm platings, here, you are mostly stuck with 105 mm secondaries that would need IFHE to shine.

Torpedo Armament

The torpedoes, just like on Tirpitz or Odin will be decorative 90% of the time until you are kiting a ship at less than 8 km rushing your ass or, as a whole, in brawling situations.

In true German fashion, these torpedo launchers are completely exposed and might randomly get crippled or destroyed by random HE shells passing by.

Anti-air Armament

The anti-air of the Brandenburg isn’t great, even for self-defense. As per usual, even though the DPS is quite high, you are still suffering from the limited range so the planes don’t take that much damage overall as they spend less time in your anti-air.

The Armor

The Brandenburg presents very similar armor protection to Tirpitz and Bismarck. She is quite tanky, both against HE and AP (when angled) but her horizontal protection is terrible so planes with AP bombs will just destroy the ship.

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

In my opinion, Brandenburg really isn’t worth it. She is basically a hybrid between Tirpitz and Odin but in worse.

What mostly kills her is the combination of low HP and horrible firing angles which make it very painful to play against other battleships.

Recommended Build

For the Brandenburg, I recommend the following commander build:

• Demolition Expert
• Inertia Fuse for HE Shells
• Long-Range Secondary Battery Shells
• Concealment Expert
• Manual Secondary Battery Aiming
• Emergency Repair Expert
• Adrenaline Rush

You can also switch Emergency Repair Expert for Fire Prevention.

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

Don’t hesitate to subscribe to our notifications to make sure that you don’t miss any future articles.
Have a good one and see you soon!

About Author

Yuzorah

See author's posts