Supertest: French Tier VIII Premium Battleship Flandre

So… the Flandre… boy, that ship triggers me so much, you have no idea my friends…

The  Flandre is based on the design n°1 and design n°3 of the never-built Alsace-class battleships from the Marine Nationale. This class of battleships was ordered to counter the H-class battleship the Kriegsmarine was planning to build. They were meant to follow the construction of the 4 Richelieu-class battleships as any dockyard big enough to build them was currently occupied.

Overall, 3 designs were being considered for the Alsace-class.
Design n°1 had a 40 000 tons standard displacement and its main armament was consisting of 3 triple turrets with 380 mm guns, the same as on the Richelieu-class. The engine power was reaching 170 000 horsepower for a maximum speed of 31 knots.
Design n°2 was heavier with a 42 500 tons standard displacement, a slight increase of the engine power to 190 000 horsepower and a main battery consisting of 3 triple turrets, but this time with newly designed 406 mm guns. These actually aren’t the same guns fitted on the Champagne in World of Warships.
Finally, the design n°3 is the Alsace-class as we have it in-game (even though in-game, the engine power is only 192 000 horsepower while in reality, the design had an engine power of 220 000 horsepower and was planned to reach 32 knots. It was the largest design of all 3.

In the end, any work on the class stopped with the fall of France in June 1940. Some historians claim that France would have settled for the Design n°1, others say that they settled on Design n°3 since they didn’t need to design triple turrets and would then stick to the already existing quadruple turrets.

If you want to learn more about the Alsace-class, here is a video from Drachinifel about it:

When it comes to Flandre, the ship is taking the armament of the design n°1 but (quite possibly to save time for Wargaming) she uses the hull of the design n°3. Also, for whatever reason, Wargaming decided to slap an additional 100 mm twin turret on each side to kill the aesthetic of the ship. It is seriously a hugely missed opportunity as the name Flandre could have been used to “bring back to life” the design n°2 armed with 406 mm guns. No matter what, counting Wujing the Chinese copy-paste of the Alsace, we now have no less than 4 Alsace-class battleships in the game.

Modules

Hull	Engine	Gun Fire Control System	Main battery
Flandre	Propulsion: 192 000 hp	PCA n° 8 Mle 1	380 mm/45 Mle 1935

General Characteristics

Main Battery

3 x 3 380 mm/45 Mle 1935
Maximum Firing Range	20.000 km
Reloading Time	33.0 s
180 Degree Turn Time	36.0 s
Optimal firing angles at the front	36°
Optimal firing angles at the rear	30°
Sigma	1.80 sigma
Maximum Dispersion	262 m
Shells
Type of Projectile	HE – 380 mm HE OEA Mle 1945
Alpha Damage	5 400 HP
Damage	4 360 HP
Penetration capacity	63 mm
Explosion size	2.28
Fire chance	36 %
Projectile Speed	830 m/s
Air Drag	0.279
Projectile Mass	884 kg
Type of Projectile	AP – 380 mm AP OPfK Mle 1943
Alpha Damage	11 900 HP
Projectile Speed	830 m/s
Air Drag	0.279
Projectile Mass	885 kg
Projectile Krupp	2 347
Projectile Detonator	0.033 s
Detonator threshold	63 mm
Ricochet Angles	45° – 60°

Secondary battery

3 x 3 152 mm/55 Mle 1936
Maximum Firing Range	7.600 km
Reloading Time	12 s
Sigma	1.00 sigma
Shells
Type of Projectile	HE – 152 mm HE OEA Mle 1937
Alpha Damage	2 200 HP
Damage	790 HP
HE penetration	25 mm
Explosion Size	0.58
Chance to Cause Fire	12 %
Projectile Speed	870 m/s
Air Drag	0.34
Projectile Mass	55 kg
14 x 2 100 mm/55 CAD Mle 1945
Maximum Firing Range	7.600 km
Reloading Time	3 s
Sigma	1.00 sigma
Shells
Type of Projectile	HE – 100 mm HE OEA Mle 1945
Alpha Damage	1 400 HP
Damage	300 HP
HE penetration	17 mm
Explosion Size	0.29
Chance to Cause Fire	5 %
Projectile Speed	855 m/s
Air Drag	0.314
Projectile Mass	13.32 kg

Anti-air Armament

Consumables

Slot 1	Slot 2
Damage Control Party Work time: 15 s Cooldown: 60 s	Repair Party Number of charges: 3 Work time: 28 s Cooldown: 80 s HP regeneration: 0.5%/s

The Armor

The Flandre basically presents the same armor protection as Alsace or Bourgogne except that her torpedo bulge is, for whatever reason, 50 mm thick. Just like the rest of the French high tier battleships, she is well protected against AP bombs and AP shells but quite vulnerable to HE.

External armor protection

Internal main belt, citadel side armor, main armor deck, front and rear bulkheads

Turtleback

Citadel and hidden armored decks

Front and rear protection of the middle section

Turrets

Personal opinion

Right now, I don’t really see much value to the Flandre. It has by far the most HP of all tier VIII battleships, good armor, the 2nd highest base speed of all battleships after Champagne but except that… nine 380 mm guns at tier VIII with a 33 s reload isn’t really appealing. Also, there is the fact that she only has 3 charges of Repair Party instead of 4.

Side-note: She is also joining the club of the ships with a helipad but without any helicopter to use. It now includes République, Bourgogne, Flandre, Colbert, Bayard, Borodino, Slava, Petropavlovsk, Alexander Nevsky, Småland and Goliath. Hopefully, I didn’t forget any.

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Yuzorah

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