Final Review: German Tier X Battleship Preussen

Alongside the Soviet destroyer Delny, a second new tech tree ship will make her entrance to the game. Let’s talk about Preussen that will replace Grosser Kurfürst as the tier X of the German battleships line.

After Preussen becomes the tier X tech tree ship of the branch, the following changes will be made to the Grosser Kurfürst after the replacement of the ship:

• Grosser Kurfürst will become a special ship – the cost of the ship’s post-battle service will be decreased. You will be able to assign Commanders from other ships of the same nation to her without any penalties and retraining requirements. Current commanders will keep their specialty.
• The ship will be added into the Armory for Coal.
• Grosser Kurfürst will remain on the accounts of its owners. If the ship was researched but not bought, sold, or the branch was reset, she will be invoiced to the player’s account.
• The ship will keep its unique upgrade and any purchased permanent camouflages. If permanent camouflage Type 20 was not purchased – it will be credited.

All players who own any permanent camouflage for Grosser Kurfürst will receive the Type 20 permanent camouflage for Preussen. The ship herself can only be obtained after researching and purchasing it in the tech tree.

As for the Grosser Kurfürst, she will cost 256 000 coal in the Armory.

The Historical background

Just like the Grosser Kurfürst, the Preussen is based on the various German H-class battleship designs, specifically H-42 and H-43.

In 1941, Uncle Adolf declared that his naval engineers didn’t go deep enough with the H-class. With the H-41 design finalized, he actually decided to request something even larger with no tonnage limitation. In action, no sane person ever considered these designs as anything else than conjecture. Their purpose was to determine what would be big enough to counter whatever the Allies might throw at them. No traditional slipway would be able to handle a ship of that size anyway.

In total, 3 different designs, H-42 to H-44, would come to be with displacements ranging from 90 000 tons to 131 000 tons and a main battery of eight 480 mm guns or 508 mm guns.

In the case of Preussen, while her displacement is well below that of H-42, in terms of dimensions, she is sitting between H-42 and H-43 with the main battery being brought down to 457 mm guns (fictional guns from Wargaming. She also doesn’t have a torpedo armament.

Also, compared to Kurfürst, Preussen is using more modern tri-axial 128 mm secondary mounts as well as 30 mm AA guns.

The Good and the Bad

The Good

• 457 mm guns that can overmatch 30 mm plating
• Improved HE penetration
• Below average main battery reload time
• Better firing angles than Grosser Kurfürst
• Strong secondary armament with improved dispersion and HE penetration
• Secondaries with long firing range
• One of the largest HP pool in the game
• Heavy armor protection all over the ship
• Nearly impossible to citadel (unless we are talking about AP bombs from carriers. In that case, it’s free real estate.)
• German improved Hydroacoustic Search

The Bad

• Poor firing angles at the front
• Horrendous dispersion
• Only 1.8 sigma
• Only eight guns
• Fairly unreliable AP shells
• Short main battery firing range
• Sluggish and with a large turning radius
• Low torpedo protection
• Very vulnerable to AP bombs
• While it’s hard to citadel, it takes massive damage from normal penetrations
• One of the largest ships in the game
• Poor surface and air spotting range

The camouflage

The permanent camouflage of the Preussen 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
Preussen	Propulsion: 167 600 HP	‎FKS Typ 10 Mod. 1	457 mm/52 SK C/34 on a Drh LC/1942 mount

General Characteristics and Playstyle

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%	Hydroacoustic Search Number of charges: 3 Work time: 120 s Cooldown: 120 s Torpedo spotting range: 4.0 km Ship spotting range: 6.0 km
		Fighter Number of charges: 3 Work time: 60 s Cooldown: 90 s Number of planes in a squadron: 4 Patrol radius: 3.0 km

Let’s just get straight to the point, I absolutely hated Preussen. It is fat, it is sluggish, it takes massive damage from everywhere and the guns are just pure concentrated frustration because of how unreliable they are.

With that out of the way, let’s go a bit more in detail…

Overall, Preussen is, to nobody’s surprise, very similar to the Kurfürst in terms of playstyle. It is primarily a mid/close-range battleship designed to be the punching bag of the enemy team while your team can (in theory) get the job done. The thing is that while she tanks well thanks to the huge HP pool, she doesn’t really shine when it comes to actually dealing damage in return. She is an absolute shotgun and against cruisers, more often than not, you will also get a lot of overpenetrations to sprinkle salt on the wounds.

Personally, I definitely don’t recommend to go for a secondary build on this ship. The main battery, even with Aiming System Modification 1 is already a mess and unlike Schlieffen with her very accurate secondaries, coupled with the great speed and concealment, Preussen is spotted from far away, is particularly sluggish and once committed, won’t be able to disengage easily if things go south. You can however run a hybrid build with which you would still take the secondary skills at the cost of Basics of Survivability andEmergency Repair Expert.

Sorry if there is no replay for this one but I just couldn’t bring myself to play it more than I already did.

Main Armament

4 x 2 457 mm/52 SK C/34 on a Drh LC/1942 mount
Maximum Firing Range	20.600 km
Reloading Time	24.0 s
180 Degree Turn Time	30.0 s
Optimal firing angles at the front	38°
Optimal firing angles at the rear	30°
Sigma	1.80 sigma
Maximum Dispersion	266 m
Shells
Type of Projectile	HE – 457 mm Spr.Gr. L/4.4
Alpha Damage	5 450
Damage	3 900
Penetration capacity	114 mm
Explosion size	3.01
Fire chance	45 %
Projectile Speed	810 m/s
Air Drag	0.282
Projectile Mass	1 464 kg
Type of Projectile	AP – 457 mm P.Spr.Gr. L/4.4
Alpha Damage	15 000
Projectile Speed	810 m/s
Air Drag	0.282
Projectile Mass	1 464 kg
Projectile Krupp	2 300
Projectile Detonator	0.033 s
Detonator threshold	76 mm
Ricochet Angles	45° – 60°

As said above, the main battery of the Preussen is honestly the worst of all battleships with 431 mm guns or bigger. While the reload time is nice and can go down to 21.1s just like République, the dispersion is just horrendous, especially when it comes to the vertical dispersion. More often than not, shells will fall either too high or too low and it’s not the 1.8 sigma that will improve the situation.

As you can see with these 2 dispersion plots, République will get shells on target far more easily thanks to the higher sigma and tighter dispersion.

As if the dispersion wasn’t enough of an issue, the AP shells themselves are also prone to overpenetrate the target when it comes to cruisers because of their ballistics.
Technically, when it comes to stuff like Minotaur, Smolensk and other small light cruisers, you can citadel them with HE but that isn’t really something worth praising.

Secondary Armament

8 x 2 150 mm/55 SK C/28 on a Dop. L. C/34 mount
Maximum Firing Range	8.300 km
Reloading Time	7.5 s
Sigma	1.0 sigma
Shells
Type of Projectile	HE – 150 mm Spr.Gr. L/4.5
Alpha Damage	1 700
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 2 128 mm/61 Doppelflak 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

The secondary battery of Preussen is the same as the one of Kurfürst. You get a heavy secondary broadside with eight 150 mm guns and ten 128 mm guns with improved dispersion and HE penetration.

While I don’t recommend running a full secondary build on this ship, these secondaries will definitely be of use when fighting at close range and will allow you to get the edge thanks to the extra damage you get from them. It is especially true with a hybrid build.

Anti-air Armament

The anti-air on Preussen is definitely better than on the Kurfürst but it remains the anti-air of a German battleship. When a carrier sees one of these, it’s instant neurone activation because of how easy German battleships are to bully.

The DPS all across the board is low and the amount of flak explosion is also unimpressive.

The Armor

As they share the same hull, Preussen has the same armor as the Kurfürst. She tanks well when angled and is resilient to most HE shells from destroyers and cruisers. She is also near impossible to citadel except by AP bombs.

External armor protection:

Front and rear armor protection of the middle section:

Secondary barbettes:

Turtleback:

Citadel armor protection:

Turrets armor protection:

Hidden armor protection inside the bow and stern:

Final Opinion

I said it above, I will repeat it. Preussen was a particularly dreadful experience with the unreliable main battery and sluggishness of the ship. It is basically all I hate seeing on a ship wrapped in a Germany size package and God knows that I tried to make her work.

At the end of the day, if you want a ship with 431+ mm guns and somewhat similar role, you can just take Ohio or even République if you don’t mind playing a bit more passive. Alternatively, you have Grosser Kurfürst that might have smaller guns but is at least able to hit things far more reliably.

Recommended Build

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

Alternatively, you can go a hybrid build by trading Basics of Survivability and Emergency Repair Expert for Long-Range Secondary Battery Shells and Manual Secondary Battery Aiming. As for a recommended commander, Günther Lütjens is always a good option if he isn’t already allocated to another tech tree ship.

This concludes my review of the Preussen. 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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