World of Warships Final Review: Commonwealth Tier X Freemium Cruiser Brisbane

Ladies and Gentlemen here is our first final review of the year. Today, we are taking a look at the Brisbane, the new tier X Commonwealth cruiser. The ship will be the reward of an upcoming web campaign alongside a unique-voiced commander called Matilda Kelly (previously called Anne Bonny).
Later in the future, the ship will be available for coal.

Will the ship be worth the grind? Is she interesting enough compared to Minotaur? Here is my opinion.

Historical background

Brisbane, just like Minotaur, is based on the never-built Minotaur-class, also called Design ZA from 1947. This design was made as an improvement over the previous (also never-built) Neptune-class. Instead of the triple turrets of the previous design, the Minotaur-class was using the far superior twin Mk 26 mounts that would later be used on the Tiger-class.
Sadly, the Design ZA was canceled, mostly because of the state of the British economy after the Second World War.

When it comes to Brisbane, there are a few modifications brought to her armament. Namely, her quadruple torpedo launchers were replaced by quintuple launchers and extra 40 mm Bofors were added to enhance her anti-air armament.

Ship’s preview

Ship’s commemorative flag

The camouflage

The permanent camouflage of the Brisbane comes with the standard permanent tier X economy bonuses:

• +50% credits
• +100% XP
• +100% Commander XP
• +100% Free XP

The Good and the Bad

The Good

• Fast main battery reload
• Fast turret traverse
• Good firing angles
• Access to both HE and AP shells compared to Minotaur
• Ballistics allowing Brisbane to rain shells upon enemy ships while staying hidden behind islands
• Particularly strong torpedo armament with ten torpedoes per side
• Torpedoes with a range of 13.5 km
• Strong anti-air
• British baked-in acceleration
• Good concealment
• Large main belt to bounce AP shells
• Access to the Specialized Repair Team consumable
• Access to a 12 km Surveillance Radar with a large buffer zone
• Access to ASW airstrikes

The Bad

• Lazy ballistics, making it difficult to hits fast moving at long range
• Standard AP penetration angles compared to Minotaur
• Poor armor protection all across the board
• 16 mm casemate, making the ship particularly vulnerable against ships with 234 mm guns or larger because of the overmatch mechanic
• Large citadel sitting high above the waterline
• Surveillance Radar with a short duration

Modules

Hull	Engine	Gun Fire Control System	Main battery	Torpedoes
Brisbane	Propulsion: 110 000 HP	Mk X mod. 1	152 mm/50 QF Mk.V on a Mk.XXVI mount	‎533 mm Mk VII

General Characteristics and Playstyle

Consumables
Slot 1	Slot 2	Slot 3	Slot 4
Damage Control Party Work time: 5 s Cooldown: 60 s	Specialized Repair Teams Number of charges: 3 Work time: 20 s Cooldown: 80 s HP regeneration: 2.0%/s Casemate damage regeneration: 50% Citadel damage regeneration: 50%	Hydroacoustic Search Number of charges: 3 Work time: 100 s Cooldown: 120 s Torpedo spotting range: 3.5 km Ship spotting range: 5.0 km	Surveillance Radar Number of charges: 3 Work time: 20 s Cooldown: 120 s Ship spotting range: 12.0 km

Brisbane, even though she is in appearance a near clone of her sister Minotaur, ends up being quite unique. As a first big difference, she has access to HE shells while having normal AP shells which offers the ship far more versatility in terms of targets that she can effectively engage.
Also, like it or not but with Brisbane, you are stuck with Surveillance Radar. You will not be able to hide in your smoke and farm damage. This already means that the skill floor of Brisbane is much higher than with Minotaur. The good thing is that it is a 12.0 km radar, offering you an impressive buffer zone of more than 2.0 km. This allows you to assist on capture points without having to risk getting deleted from overextending. At least, she still has the Specialized Repair Team to recover a lot of HP in case you screw up. Also, as a cherry on top, unlike Minotaur that would need to risk getting shotgunned by a submarine she hunts, Brisbane has access to an anti-submarine airstrike. This is quite a major advantage as she is able to engage submarines from a safe distance.

Besides the main battery and the consumables, the torpedo armament of Brisbane is widely different from that of the Minotaur. Brisbane can, in fact, be considered as a torpedo cruiser. She has a total of twenty torpedoes with ten per side. With their combined range, reaction time, damage, and sheer number, they are a frightening tool at Brisbane’s disposal. It will especially be good when having to kite away from a group of pushing enemy ships.

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

Main Armament

5 x 2 152 mm/50 QF Mk.V on a Mk.XXVI mount
Maximum Firing Range	15.760 km
Reloading Time	5.0 s
180 Degree Turn Time	4.7 s
Optimal firing angles at the front	30°
Optimal firing angles at the rear	35°
Sigma	2.05 sigma
Maximum Dispersion	142 m
Shells
Type of Projectile	HE – 152 mm HE Mk XXVIM
Alpha Damage	2 150
Penetration capacity	30 mm
Explosion size	8.1 m
Fire chance	9 %
Projectile Speed	768 m/s
Air Drag	0.347
Projectile Mass	58.85 kg
Type of Projectile	AP – 152 mm AP Mk V
Alpha Damage	3 200
Projectile Speed	768 m/s
Air Drag	0.347
Projectile Mass	59.85 kg
Projectile Krupp	2 672
Projectile Detonator	0.025 s
Detonator threshold	25 mm
Ricochet Angles	45° – 60°

As said before, Brisbane has access to HE shells compared to Minotaur. While in return, she loses the improved penetration angles, arming time, and arming threshold of Minotaur’s AP, she still obtains an appreciable versatility.  Whenever a ship angles too hard against you, you can just switch to HE and farm damage as well as set fires.

Since it is British 152 mm guns, the ballistics isn’t anything great, making it difficult to hit targets at long distances if it’s a fast cruiser but at least, you will easily be able to abuse island covers.

Outside of that… well there isn’t much to talk about here. She has a pretty standard main battery.

Torpedo Armament

The torpedo armament of Brisbane is particularly impressive compared to other cruisers at her tier.

Firstly, she gets the third-best torpedo firing range of her tier among cruisers with 13.5 km. The thing is that compared to Yoshino or to that steaming pile of crap that is Yodo, her torpedoes have a proper reaction time of 7.45 s which is more than 3 seconds less than Yodo and less than half of Yoshino’s 20 km torpedoes with 15.02s. This means that they offer far less opportunity for their targets to dodge them.

Also, you drop ten torpedoes per side and since Brisbane is a rather stealthy and agile ship compared to the other two, she can make a 180° to double that quickly for a total of twenty torpedoes.

She can honestly be considered as a torpedo cruiser. To be honest, though, she would be more of a hybrid as her main battery is also quite strong.

Anti-air Armament

The anti-air of Brisbane is pretty damn strong compared to other tier X ships. Her medium-range DPS is particularly high and she also generates flak explosions with high damage.
On top of that, she gets a 6.9/4.0 km AA range for some extra damage and to defend ships next to her.

ASW Airstrike

S.25 Sunderland – Depth charge airstrike 650-lb. Bomb Mk VIII
Reloading Time	30 s
Number of charges	2
HP per plane	2 000
Attack range	0.5 km – 8.0 km
Number of planes in the squadron	1
Number of bombs in payload	2
Damage	4 900
Sink speed	7.5-11.3 m/s
Explosion radius	375 m
Fire chances	28%
Flooding chances	300%

The Armor

Brisbane has the same armor protection as Minotaur. This means that the thing is particularly squishy and unforgiving. You don’t have much room for mistakes between the large citadel and the 16 mm casemate armor, giving the ship a high skill floor.
The thin protection of the citadel also means that even light cruisers and destroyers like Kléber have an easy time getting citadels on you.

External armor protection:

Citadel armor protection:

Turrets armor protection:

Final Opinion

Overall, Brisbane has been a great experience. Because of her toolkit, she easily sets herself apart from Minotaur and ends up being a particularly flexible ship with her potent main battery combined with Surveillance Radar for the offense as well as her strong torpedo armament for a more defensive approach.
While she will definitely not be for everyone because of how squishy and unforgiving she is, for those that can deal with that issue, she will deliver big time. I sadly don’t know how hard will be the grind to get her but as long as it isn’t like Puerto Rico back in the days, it’s definitely going to be worth the effort.

Recommended Build

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

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

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Yuzorah

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