World of Warships Final Review: German Supercruiser Clausewitz

Ladies and Gentlemen, after Patrie and Edgar, it is time for two new superships to make their way into the game. Clausewitz and Dalarna will become available as separate lots in a new Auction starting on the 29th of September at 12:00 UTC and lasting until the 3rd of October at 12:00. Just like the last time, the minimum bid will be at 100 000 000 credits and in total, it will be 500 of each which will be available for all servers COMBINED.

After that, the ships will become fully available with the release of Update 0.11.11. Which should be in early December.

So… is Clausewitz worth it? How is she stacking against the monsters that are Annapolis and Condé? Here is my opinion.

Historical background

Clausewitz doesn’t have a historical background to speak of. Essentially, she is a larger version of Hindenburg with 210 mm guns and 128 mm secondaries. She also has improved armor, notably with a 50 mm deck.

Ship’s preview

The camouflages

The permanent camouflage of Clausewitz comes with the standard permanent tier VIII economic bonuses:

• +200% XP
• +200% Commander XP
• +100% Free XP

The Good and the Bad

The Good

• Improved HE penetration
• High AP shells damage
• Good ballistics
• Good firing range
• Fast turret traverse
• heavy torpedo broadside
• Pretty good anti-air
• 50 mm deck armor
• Extended belt on the bow and stern
• German 6.0 km Hydroacoustic search
• 4 charges of Repair Party compared to the standard 3

The Bad

• Squishy turrets
• Fairly bad firing angles
• Low HE shell damage
• Fairly underwhelming AP penetration
• No alternative firing mode
• Torpedoes with short firing range
• Individual torpedoes dealing low damage
• Low ship speed and as a whole, poor handling

Modules

Hull	Engine	Gun Fire Control System	Main battery	Torpedoes
Clausewitz	Propulsion: 165 000 HP	FKS Typ 11 Mod. 1	210 mm/60 SK C/34 on a Drh LC/40 mount	G7 T1 Ausf.C

General Characteristics and Playstyle

Consumables
Slot 1	Slot 2	Slot 3	Slot 4
Damage Control Party Work time: 5 s Cooldown: 60 s	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	Spotting Aircraft Number of charges: 4 Work time: 100 s Cooldown: 240 s Maximum firing range: +20%	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%
	Defensive AA Fire Number of charges: 3 Work time: 40 s Cooldown: 80 s Damage from continuous DPS: +50% Damage from flak explosions: +300%	Fighter Number of charges: 3 Work time: 60 s Cooldown: 90 s Number of planes in a squadron: 4 Patrol radius: 3.0 km

Clausewitz is almost what any supership should be. She doesn’t have any sort of bull***t alternative firing mode or Combat instruction, doesn’t have very different characteristics from the previous ship, and just sticks to the ol’ reliable. In essence, it really is a bigger Hindenburg with almost stronger everything with only one substantial downside. Sadly, she suffers from worse firing angles than Hindenburg by 2° at the front and 4° at the back.

Overall, these firing angles remain fairly manageable unless you are dealing with U.S. heavy cruisers AP and more specifically, pray that you will never meet an Annapolis. Against battleships, not only does the 50 mm deck helps a lot on its own but on top of that, you will have a decent margin to angle in time. The additional armor compared to Hindenburg allows you to play somewhat more aggressively but don’t get overconfident in case your battleships decide that it’s better to camp at the back and do nothing. At that point, you would become the priority target and even with the improved armor, the inability of the ship to properly dodge shots will be your downfall.

Other than that, it really is the classic Hindenburg playstyle of farming damage with the HE until you find a broadside target at which point, you can get the high alpha damage of the AP in action. Compared to Hindenburg, the AP penetration is also much better so punishing cruisers will be easier.

Now, the big problem is that while she works well as an improvement over Hindenburg, it isn’t all nice and happy when comparing her to Condé and Annapolis. For starters, both of them get the alternative firing mode, especially Condé’s one that works incredibly well with her reload booster to deal with the long reload time. Annapolis’s citadel protection also improves massively compared to Des Moines. As if it wasn’t enough, in both cases, their firepower is also a lot superior to that of the previous ship as they keep the same guns (and reload time for Annapolis) but also get an additional 3 barrels. In the case of Clausewitz, the firepower increase is far more limited. I know that I say it often but I’m still scratching my head, trying to figure out how Annapolis and Condé are considered fine.

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

Main Armament

4 x 3 210 mm/60 SK C/34 on a Drh LC/40 mount
Maximum Firing Range	18.510 km
Reloading Time	10.5 s
180 Degree Turn Time	22.5 s
Optimal firing angles at the front	37°
Optimal firing angles at the rear	39°
Sigma	2.05 sigma
Maximum Dispersion	161 m
Shells
Type of Projectile	HE – 210 mm Spr.Gr. L/4.7
Alpha Damage	2 950
Penetration capacity	53 mm
Explosion size	0.9
Fire chance	15 %
Projectile Speed	925 m/s
Air Drag	0.297
Projectile Mass	138.7 kg
Type of Projectile	AP – 210 mm Spr.Gr. L/4.4
Alpha Damage	6 200
Projectile Speed	925 m/s
Air Drag	0.297
Projectile Mass	138.7 kg
Projectile Krupp	2 400
Projectile Detonator	0.033 s
Detonator threshold	35 mm
Ricochet Angles	45° – 60°

Clausewitz’s main battery is very similar to that of Hindenburg but gives it some extra kick. In action, the raw HE DPM goes up by 10% and the fire starting capacity also gets improved. It isn’t a massive improvement but still quite appreciable.

As for the AP, it is a bit more mitigated. the raw DPM itself is a tiiiiiiiiny bit reduced compared to Hindenburg but at the same time, you get better penetration and better alpha. As a whole, she gets an appreciable improvement in her capacity to punish broadsides.

While her firepower is an overall improvement over Hindenburg, she has the problem of getting nowhere near the same firepower improvement compared to Condé and Annapolis. If you face any of these two, unless the guy is a complete smooth brain, it’s gonna be a downhill battle. Don’t get me wrong though, Clausewitz remains a very strong damage-farming cruiser but as a whole, she lacks the actual impact to fully influence a game.

Secondary Armament

10 x 2 128 mm/61 KM40 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

Even though Clausewitz presents a heavy secondary broadside, it’s still a cruiser with standard secondaries so don’t go try running some dumb secondary build.

Torpedo Armament

The torpedoes of Clausewitz are particularly useful for close-range combat. While each torpedo deals low damage, she can drop 10 of them per side which will be more than enough to kill anything you will come across.

Anti-air Armament

The anti-air of Clausewitz is solid for a German ship. While the long-range aura isn’t that effective, the mid-range and close-range have high DPS coupled with an above-average range.

The Armor

Compared to Hindenburg, Clausewitz gets a fairly substantial improvement in terms of armor protection. The most notable change is the 50 mm deck armor that gives the ship an easier time against battleships with 431 mm guns and bigger which are the ban of Hindenburg. Other than that, the rest of the armor also gets thicker and the extended belt on the bow and stern is longer as well.

External armor protection:

Front and rear armor protection of the middle section:

Main belt:

Turtleback:

Citadel armor protection:

Turrets armor protection:

Hidden armor protection inside the bow and stern:

Final Opinion

While Clausewitz is definitely behind the Annapolis and Condé in terms of overall game impact, she is by absolutely no means a ship that one can call weak. She very much is an improvement over Hindenburg and if you enjoyed her predecessor, Clausewitz will suit you perfectly with her higher firepower and higher tanking capacity. However, it might take a little bit of time to get used to the new firing angles.

As for going ham on the auction, it is up to you. Personally, I’m waiting for the Sekiryuu auction because… well… SUPER-HAKURYU!!! but by all means, if you want to grab Clausewitz in advance, you should normally not regret it.

Recommended Build

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

If you have Günther Lütjens, his Main Battery Loader talent will be very useful and the improved Grease the gears is always nice to have.

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

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Yuzorah

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