Final Review: Soviet Tier X Destroyer Delny

Ladies and Gentlemen, as update 0.11.1 is right upon us, it is time to have a look at the ships that will be released with it. Let’s begin with the Delny and Preussen that will respectively replace Khabarovsk and Grosser Kurfürst as the tier X tech tree ships of Soviet destroyer leaders and German battleships branches.

After Delny becomes tier X tech tree ship of the branch, the following changes will be made to the Khabarovsk:

• Khabarovsk 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 without penalties and retraining. Current commanders will keep their specialty.
• The ship will be added in Armory for Coal.
• Khabarovsk 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 bought – it will be credited.

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

As for her price, Khabarovsk will cost 240 000 Coal.

Historical background

According to the devblog, Delny is a project of improved Tashkent based on experiences from the war. Sadly, as awesome looking as the ship is, it’s actually a WG-made design.

The Good and the Bad

The Good

• Fairly good effective HE DPM
• Good ballistics that allows the ship to hit targets consistently
• Strong AP for a destroyer
• Very good firing angles
• High speed
• Access to a Repair Party consumable
• Above-average HP pool
• 50 mm side armor that gives the ship a tiny bit of survivability boost

The Bad

• No real firepower improvement over Tashkent
• Torpedoes with relatively low damage
• large turning radius
• Poor concealment
• Poor anti-air
• Smoke clouds with short duration

The camouflages

The permanent camouflage of the Delny 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
Delny	Propulsion: 150 000 HP	‎‎GFCS X mod. 1	130 mm/60 on a BL-101 mount	‎53-51

General Characteristics and Playstyle

Consumables
Slot 1	Slot 2	Slot 3
Damage Control Party Work time: 5 s Cooldown: 40 s	Smoke Generator Number of charges: 3 Work time: 20 s Cooldown: 160 s Smoke radius: 450 m Smoke duration: 97 s	Engine Boost Number of charges: 3 Work time: 120 s Cooldown: 120 s Speed bonus: +8%
	Repair Party Number of charges: 3 Work time: 28 s Cooldown: 80 s HP regeneration: 0.5%/s Casemate damage regeneration: 50%

Delny is a typical gunboat destroyer, well in line with the previous ships Kiev and Tashkent. It’s basically your classic run-and-gun type of destroyer that is mostly all about dealing damage and, when she gets the chance, taking down enemy destroyers. Sadly, in the second category, she isn’t particularly good at it due to her DPM being somewhat limited compared to other tier X gunboats, especially compared to the ship she is replacing, Khabarovsk.

When it comes to choosing between Smoke Generator and Repair Party, I highly recommend you to go for Repair Party as it will allow you to play more aggressively and will generally open a lot more gates to make meaningful plays. The Smoke Generator will allow you to do some no-brain damage farming to some extent or to disengage if you screwed up but you will quickly see its limitations.

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

Main Armament

3 x 2 130 mm/60 on a BL-101 mount
Maximum Firing Range	13.128 km
Reloading Time	5.0 s
180 Degree Turn Time	9.0 s
Optimal firing angles at the front	28°
Optimal firing angles at the rear	28°
Sigma	2.00 sigma
Maximum Dispersion	101 m
Shells
Type of Projectile	HE – HE-42
Alpha Damage	1 900
Penetration capacity	22 mm
Explosion size	0.43
Fire chance	8 %
Projectile Speed	950 m/s
Air Drag	0.291
Projectile Mass	33.0 kg
Type of Projectile	AP – SAP-42
Alpha Damage	2 600
Projectile Speed	950 m/s
Air Drag	0.294
Projectile Mass	33.4 kg
Projectile Krupp	1 900
Projectile Detonator	0.01 s
Detonator threshold	22 mm
Ricochet Angles	45° – 60°

While Khabarovsk gets a significant increase in firepower compared to Tashkent as she gets an additional turret, Delny… doesn’t get any sort of improvement. She gets a bit less than 500 m of additional range and that’s it. Obviously, it’s not the end of the world and her firepower is still pretty good. Sadly, for a gunboat, it’s definitely below average. Grozovoi which is, these days, more of a hybrid destroyer, has a higher DPM by almost 20k damage per minute.

In action, you will be spamming HE most of the time to farm damage on larger ships or when fighting other destroyers. Farming fire damage will also be relatively easy as long as you don’t get screwed by RNG.
The AP is nothing to ignore either and will be of use when you get the broadside of cruisers or even battleships with soft upper belts like the French or Japanese ones.

Torpedo Armament

The torpedoes of Delny are a decent side dish although their damage is quite low. Even with that in mind, these torpedoes are quite versatile thanks to their range, especially when compared to those of Khabarovsk.

Anti-air Armament

Well, the anti-air of the ship is… yeah. If a carrier wants to sink this ship, you will rely a lot more on her agility than on her anti-air.

The Armor

In a similar way to Khabarovsk, Delny possesses a strip of 50 mm armor plating on the side of the ship. However, it is much smaller, only covering the engines while on Khabarovsk, it also covers the barbettes. Delny also doesn’t get the 25 mm deck of Khabarovsk.

Final Opinion

Effectively, while Delny is an improvement over Tashkent, I have a hard time calling her a proper tier X ship. Most other tier X ships display as much beefier compared to their respective tier IX or VIII predecessors. Delny on the other hand… it’s really disappointing and you don’t have the “Houmpf!” you would expect from getting your hands on a tier X ship. It definitely isn’t a bad ship with all things considered but tier for tier, Tashkent is without hesitation much better.

If I had to pick between her and Khabarovsk, I would honestly go for the latter, especially with the Unique Upgrade that makes her a really good gunboat destroyer.

Recommended Build

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

I also recommend using the commander Alexander Ovechkin for the improved Survivability Expert.

This concludes my review of the Delny. 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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