Supertest: Italian Tier I Cruiser Eritrea
3 min readAs I now have some time between ship testing, Clan battles and Ranked, let’s start looking at the upcoming ships of the Italian cruiser line.
Semi-armor piercing shells
Semi-armor piercing shells have the features of two types of shells at once:
- Semi-armor piercing shells can ricochet, but the angles of the ricochet are more comfortable than those of armor-piercing shells (60–85°);
- For semi-armor piercing shells, the 14.3-caliber rule will apply;
- If the ricochet does not happen, the mechanics of semi-armor piercing shells are similar to high explosive ones;
- Semi-armor piercing shells don’t have over penetrations;
- Can’t cause a fire;
- Damage and penetration is better than high explosive shells;
- Semi-armor piercing shells deal only 10% of their damage to destroyers.
Semi-armor piercing shells are designed to deal stable high damage when armor-piercing shells are not effective.
Fuel smoke
Fuel smokes are almost similar to a usual smoke generator, but a ship equipped with fuel smokes is able to be concealed at full speed. Therefore, Italian cruisers will be able to hide from enemy ships or aircraft, without sacrificing speed and the ability to maneuver. Fuel smokes last from 25 to 40 seconds and disperse in 10 seconds.
The Eritrea was a sloop or colonial ship from the Regia Marina. Commissioned in 1937, she mostly served in the Indian and Western Pacific Oceans.
The ship, originally stationed in Massawa during the war, left her homeport in February 1941 with the Auxiliary cruisers Ramb I and Ramb II as the situation on the East African Campaign started to go bad. All 3 ships managed to slip through a British blockade off Perim. After this, Eritrea reached Kobe in Japan and from there was supposed to operate as a commerce raider in the Pacific Ocean. However, due to a disagreement between Italy and Japan, the ship was not allowed to leave Kobe until Japan entered the war in December 1941. The ship was then authorized to assist Japanese transport submarines.
After Italy declared the armistice, the ship instantly sailed back to Colombo in Ceylon to surrender. The ship managed to avoid Japanese aerial and naval units and ended up being intercepted by the Ceylon Naval Volunteer Force.
After the war, the ship was turned to France under the name “Francis Garnier”. She served until 1965 as a colonial ship before being used for a nuclear test in 1966.
Hull | Engine | Gun Fire Control System | Main battery |
Eritrea |
Propulsion: 7 800 hp |
SDT 1 |
120 mm/45 Armstrong 1919 |
| Tier | I |
| Health | 8 100 HP |
| Main Armament | |
| Maximum Firing Range | 9.940 km |
| 120 mm/45 Armstrong 1919 | 2 x 2 120 mm |
| Maximum speed | 20 kt |
| Turning Circle Radius | 310 m |
| Rudder Shift Time | 5.7 s |
| Surface Detectability | 6.84 km |
| Air Detectability | 7.12 km |
| Detectability After Firing Main Gus in Smoke | 2.43 km |
| 2 x 2 120 mm/45 Armstrong 1919 | |
| Reloading Time | 4.5 s |
| 180 Degree Turn Time | 22.5 s |
| Optimal front firing angle | 40° |
| Optimal rear firing angle | 45° |
| Sigma | 2.00 sigma |
| Maximum Dispersion | 90 m |
| Shell | |
| Type of Projectile | HE – 120 mm proiettili HE 1918 |
| Alpha Damage | 850 HP |
| Damage | 385 HP |
| HE penetration | 19 mm |
| Explosion Size | 0.37 |
| Chance to Cause Fire | 6 % |
| Projectile Speed | 750 m/s |
| Air Drag | 0.47 |
| Projectile Mass | 23.15 |
| Projectile Krupp | 480 |
| 2 x 1 40 mm/39 QF MKII | |
| Sector range | 0.1 km – 2.5 km |
| Hit chance | 90 % |
| Sector’s damage | 20 |
| Sector’s damage frequency | 0.29 s |
| Sector’s damage per second | 70 |
| 2 x 2 13.2 mm/76 Breda 1931 | |
| Sector range | 0.1 km – 1.5 km |
| Hit chance | 85 % |
| Sector’s damage | 18 |
| Sector’s damage frequency | 0.29 s |
| Sector’s damage per second | 63 |
Slot 1 |
 Work time: 5 s Cooldown: 40 s |
The armor
Well… it’s a tier I ship, what do you expect? It’s simple, the ship is covered in 6 mm of armor.
Personal opinion
Well… the ship has by a large margin the highest HP pool at this tier and her firepower is quite good as well. I guess she is going to be strong but well… I didn’t touch tier I in ages.
