World of Warships Final Review: German Tier IX Premium Cruiser Schröder

Ladies and Gentlemen, with Update 0.11.11 will begin the next Dockyard event. As such, it’s time to look at the ship that you will be working hard to complete, the Admiral Schröder. The ship will be the final reward of the event, at the 30th stage alongside her War Paint camouflage, a commemorative flag, and a 10 points commander.
For the Dockyard, two starter packs will be available. The first will cost 5 000 doubloons for four phases and the second will cost 10 000 doubloons for 10 phases. Considering that you will be able to unlock 26 phases with missions, it might not be a bad idea to grab the 4 phases booster.

Historical background

Admiral Schröder is based on a German battlecruiser design from 1928. This design was intended as a treaty cruiser killer, armed with eight 305 mm guns in four twin turrets as well as a heavy secondary battery with 150 mm guns in triple turrets. Those ships would have a standard displacement of 17 500 tons and be able to reach 34 knots but in return, the main belt was quite thin with only 100 mm of armor.

For such ships to ever come to be, a nullification of the Versailles treaty was necessary as it was limiting Germany to build ships with a maximum displacement of 10 000 tons. However, Vice-Admiral Hans Zenker, the one in charge of this battlecruiser design as well as the “father” of the Panzerschiffe design, annoyed the Reichstag a bit too much, constantly pushing them to negotiate the nullification of the Versaille treaty. As a result, he was replaced with Erich Raeder and the 1928 design was abandoned. However, when Hitler came to power, he would dust it off, and the Scharnhorst-class would be born from its ashes.

In World of Warships, Admiral Schröder is based on the 1928 design but gives it a major modernization, may it be in terms of armament with the 128 mm secondaries and modern anti-air or even radars. She also seems to get a longer Atlantic bow. Other than that, her secondaries have the same dispersion as those of German battleships (AKA Preussen and co.) and she gets a 15% Engine Boost.

Ship’s preview

Ship’s commemorative flag

The camouflages

The permanent camouflage of Admiral Schröder comes with the standard permanent tier IX economic bonuses:

• +10% Credits
• +100% XP
• +100% Commander XP
• +100% Free XP

By completing the Dockyard, you will also get a special commemorative camouflage for Schröder.

The Good and the Bad

The Good

• High HP pool
• 305 mm guns able to overmatch 16 mm of armor
• Fastest reload for 305 mm guns among tier IX cruisers
• low vertical dispersion
• HE with improved penetration
• slow AP shells more likely to get penetration hits
• Good firing angles
• 4th turret able to rotate at 360°
• Fast turret traverse
• Particularly heavy secondary broadside
• 128 mm and 150 mm secondaries firing HE with improved penetration
• Same secondary dispersion as German battleships
• Heavily armored middle section and hard-to-reach citadel
• Amazing concealment
• Access to a 15% Engine Boost
• Access to the German Hydroacoustic Search

The Bad

• Horribly weak HE damage
• Low fire chances
• Poor ballistics
• Weakest AP penetration among large cruisers at tier IX
• “Only” eight guns
• No ASW airstrikes
• Average at best anti-air
• Repair Party only covering for 10% of citadel damage
• 60s fire duration
• Large size
• Somewhat large turning radius

Modules

Hull	Engine	Gun Fire Control System	Main battery
‎Admiral Schröder	Propulsion: 160 000 HP	‎‎Admiral Schröder	305 mm/50 SK L/50 on a Drh LC/1925 mount

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	Engine Boost Number of charges: 3 Work time: 180 s Cooldown: 90 s Speed bonus: +15%	Repair Party Number of charges: 3 Work time: 28 s Cooldown: 80 s HP regeneration: 0.5%/s Casemate damage regeneration: 50% Citadel damage regeneration: 10%

Overall, Schröder is part of the same archetype as Napoli. A cruiser with superior armor to her counterparts, with great concealment, mobility, and strong secondary armament. There are a few differences though. The biggest one is the consumables kit. Napoli has access to her Exhaust Smoke Generator to enhance her capacity to sneak around, disengage from bad situations or close the distance for free. Schröder, on the other hand, is relying on her 15% Engine Boost to reach a 39 knots top speed to get in and get out of the action quickly. Also, her concealment is truly amazing for her size, going down to a 10.2 km spotting range by sea. On top of that, whenever you want to go in and might be scared of torpedoes, she has the German Hydroacoustic Search and its 6.0 km range.
Another big difference is that, while Napoli has improved dispersion on her secondaries, Schröder relies on the volume of fire with a heavier broadside and higher rate of fire. Her secondaries also have greater range and are firing HE shells to add fires as a damage source.

In terms of gameplay, Schröder is going to play mostly at medium distance and staying on the move while looking for opportunities to sneak up on the broadside of enemy cruisers and nail them with AP. At long range, the problem is that her ballistics will make it slightly difficult to get proper salvos.
If you get the opportunity to make aggressive pushes on a weakened flank, you shouldn’t hesitate too much. With her armor and HP pool, she can take quite a decent beating as long as you angle properly. The only problem is that she “only” has a 30 mm deck armor, making her vulnerable against battleships with 431 mm guns or bigger. Also, her secondaries are bringing out an appreciable additional damage source, especially with the amazing firing angles that make it very easy to bring them into action.

The only true enemies of the Schröder are submarines. The problem here is that Schröder has deck-mounted depth charges instead of ASW airstrikes. This means that unless the submarine is particularly dumb, it will be suicidal to go hunt one hiding underwater. If you get targeted by a sub and nothing else can deal with it, just run.

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

Main Armament

4 x 2 305 mm/50 SK L/50 on a Drh LC/1925 mount 4th turret is able to rotate at 360°
Maximum Firing Range	18.360 km
Reloading Time	18.0 s
180 Degree Turn Time	25.7 s
Optimal firing angles at the front	30°
Optimal firing angles at the rear	36°
Sigma	2.05 sigma
Maximum Dispersion	202 m
Shells
Type of Projectile	HE – 305 mm Spr.Gr. L/3.8 Bdz.
Alpha Damage	3 400
Penetration capacity	76 mm
Explosion size	1.56
Fire chance	22 %
Projectile Speed	850 m/s
Air Drag	0.414
Projectile Mass	406.0 kg
Type of Projectile	AP – 305 mm P.Spr.Gr. L/3.4
Alpha Damage	8 300
Projectile Speed	855 m/s
Air Drag	0.419
Projectile Mass	405.0 kg
Projectile Krupp	2 311
Projectile Detonator	0.033 s
Detonator threshold	51 mm
Ricochet Angles	45° – 60°

The main battery of Schröder was a welcomed surprise for me as the ship is quite literally using tier IV shells (same as on Kaiser). This means that the ballistics are not great and the penetration will definitely be lacking on the AP. However, it isn’t the end of the world as, up until 15 km, it’s pretty much the same flight time as Alaska for the AP.
The thing is that the low shell velocity has its own advantages. Due to the vertical dispersion being in part affected by shell velocity, the vertical dispersion of Schröder is excellent and you will be far less likely to see shells falling too low or too high compared to other cruisers. Overall, even with Secondary armament modification 1, she proved to have quite consistent dispersion. Also, another good thing with these slow shells is that it’s quite easy to get penetration hits on angled targets from hits on the superstructure. This is very useful as otherwise, you would have to switch to HE and the HE shells of Schröder are… pretty damn weak.

To be clear on one aspect, you should generally avoid using the HE. It’s the usual problem of German ships having horrible HE shells beside the improved penetration. You will get better results with the AP almost all the time since you will get penetration hits on superstructures because of the slow shells.

Secondary Armament

3 x 3 150 mm/60 SK C/25 on a Drh Tr C/25 mount
Maximum Firing Range	7.950 km
Reloading Time	6.6 s
Sigma	1.0 sigma
Shells
Type of Projectile	HE – 150 mm Spr.Gr. L/4.4 Kz.
Alpha Damage	1 700
HE penetration	38 mm
Explosion Size	0.54
Chance to Cause Fire	8 %
Projectile Speed	960 m/s
Air Drag	0.331
Projectile Mass	45.5 kg
10 x 2 128 mm/61 KM40 in a turret
Maximum Firing Range	7.950 km
Reloading Time	3.4 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

The secondary armament of Schröder is an interesting topic. Compared to Napoli which has a greatly improved dispersion formula, Schröder “only” has the same dispersion as German battleships. It is better than the standard dispersion but well behind the German battlecruiser dispersion. However, Schröder has a heavier broadside than Napoli and her secondaries also have an easier time damaging the target because of the high HE penetration, the fires, and the fact that HE isn’t affected by angling compared to SAP.
Another advantage of her secondary armament is that they don’t have the reduced range like on Napoli. If you want to fully go brawling mode with Secondary Battery Modification 1, the range will go up to 10.02 km range which is just short of 200 m of the concealment range.

Anti-air Armament

The anti-air of Admiral Schröder is nothing great. The DPS on the long and medium range is decent but that’s about it. She also doesn’t have a particularly strong flak barrage.

The Armor

For a tier IX, Admiral Schröder’s armor is pretty impressive. The middle section is heavily armored with thick side armor and a 30 mm deck, allowing her to effectively tank shots from a wide variety of enemies. The moment it does get problematic is when you face battleships able to overmatch 30 mm of armor or particularly strong cruiser HE spammers.

While she doesn’t have extended belts on the bow or stern, she at least has a 27 mm bow and stern to help against 381 mm AP shells or smaller ones.

External armor protection:

Front and rear armor protection of the middle section:

Turtleback:

Citadel armor protection:

Turrets armor protection:

Hidden armor protection inside the stern:

Final Opinion

Schröder turned out to be a pleasant surprise. While her main battery firepower isn’t too impressive, her combined survivability, concealment, and mobility offer a pleasant experience. The only times where I can say that I was having a rough experience were when I was dealing with some games with a great number of superships or when I had a submarine focusing me. Otherwise, I truly enjoyed Schröder.

As a side note, the ship has a pretty low skill floor thanks to her hull characteristics. As such, I can happily recommend her to anyone with the time and energy to grind through the Dockyard.

Recommended Build

For the Admiral Schröder, I recommend the following commander build and upgrades:

Günther Lütjens can be useful with his various talents

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

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Have a good one and see you soon!

Also if you are new to the game or want to get back to it, feel free to use my Recruiting Station code for free goodies such as Premium ships, premium time, and more: https://warships.net/yuzorah

Have a good one and see you soon!

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Yuzorah

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