World of Warships Final Review: Italian Tier VII Premium Destroyer FR25

FR25, the tier VII Italian destroyer will soon be available in World of Warships. The ship will cost, for the cheapest bundle 6 800 doubloons or roughly 23€.

Is she worth it or not? Well, here is my opinion about it.

Historical background

FR25 doesn’t really have a historical background to speak of. The ship is a member of the Guépard-class of destroyers from the French Navy that would have been captured, possibly by the German forces, and then given to Italy.
While such a thing happened with Lion that was then renamed FR21 and Valmy, renamed FR24, there was no Guépard-class that was renamed FR25.

In World of Warships, FR25 is some oddball sitting halfway between the French and the Italian destroyers but without being able to capitalize on the strength of either line.

Ship’s preview

Ship’s commemorative flag

The Good and the Bad

The Good

• SAP shells with high penetration
• Decently fast reload time for the torpedoes
• High HP pool
• French 20% engine boost
• Italian Exhaust Smoke Generator

The Bad

• Horrible ballistics
• No special saturation unlike French destroyers
• Poor firing angles, especially above a certain gun elevation
• Disappointing damage output
• Torpedoes with only 6 km firing range
• Low base speed of 36.0 knots
• Poor turning radius for a destroyer
• Poor detection range by sea

The camouflages

The permanent camouflage of the FR25 provides the classic bonuses for tier VII ships:

• -3% to surface detectability range
• +4% to maximum dispersion of shells fired by the enemy at your ship
• -10% to the cost of ship’s post-battle service
• +50% to experience earned in the battle

There is also the Golden Sun camouflage giving the same bonus.

Modules

Hull	Engine	Gun Fire Control System	Main battery	Torpedoes
FR25	Propulsion: 64 000 HP	SDT 7	139 mm/40 Mle 1923 on an Mle 1924 mount	550 mm 23DT

General Characteristics and Playstyle

Consumables
Slot 1	Slot 2	Slot 3
Damage Control Party Work time: 5 s Cooldown: 40 s	Exhaust Smoke Generator Number of charges: 4 Work time: 30 s Cooldown: 90 s Smoke duration time: 10 s Smoke radius: 450 m	Engine Boost Number of charges: 3 Work time: 120 s Cooldown: 120 s Bonus: +20% speed

FR25 is… a mess. You would expect a French destroyer to be a good gunboat but compared to the real Guépard, her firepower is quite limited due to the longer reload time and the lack of a Main Battery Reload Booster. On top of that, FR25 also lacks the special French destroyer saturation that offers a massive edge in engagements against enemy ships.

When it comes to the rest of the package, WG basically tried to turn her into a low-tier Paolo Emilio but it is a massive fail. First and foremost, compared to Paolo, FR25 is very slow with 36 knots base top speed. Theoretically, you can reach 45.36 knots with Sierra Mike and the Engine Boost active but well… you will never be able to maintain such speed unless you go in a straight line for a while. On average, it will be more around 40 knots. Meanwhile, Paolo does 43.5 knots before even counting Sierra Mike and the Emergency Engine Power (she can reach 57.09 knots with these). So yeah, long story short, FR25 is too slow to properly yolo stuff and by the time you reach the target, the smoke will be close to ending after which, you are possibly screwed.
The torpedoes themselves are also nowhere near as good as those of Paolo. Not only do you only have 6 of them but they also deal far less damage, limiting the options to torp rush enemies even more.

In the end, the ship suffers from a massive identity crisis between a French destroyer that can’t properly gunboat and a budget Paolo Emilio that can’t do Paolo Emilio things.

I didn’t record any replay this time because… well I just hated this ship and don’t want to suffer with it more than necessary.

Main Armament

5 x 1 139 mm/40 Mle 1923 on an Mle 1924 mount
Maximum Firing Range	12.6500 km
Reloading Time	6.6 s
180 Degree Turn Time	15.0 s
Optimal firing angles at the front	41°
Optimal firing angles at the rear	38°
Sigma	2.00 sigma
Maximum Dispersion	110 m
Shells
Type of Projectile	HE – 139 mm proiettili HE 1928
Alpha Damage	2 000
Penetration capacity	23 mm
Explosion size	0.49
Fire chance	9 %
Projectile Speed	700 m/s
Air Drag	0.3
Projectile Mass	40.2 kg
Type of Projectile	SAP – 139 mm proiettili CS 1924
Alpha Damage	2 700
Penetration capacity	39 mm
Projectile Speed	700 m/s
Air Drag	0.296
Projectile Mass	39.9 kg
Ricochet Angles	60° – 75°

The firepower of the FR25 is a big disappointment. You would expect a French destroyer to be a good gunboat but sadly, compared to Guépard or Vauquelin, the reload is much longer and obviously, you don’t have the main battery reload booster that is a key element of the French destroyers’ firepower. In the meantime, you still have to deal with horrendous ballistics that will make you struggle to hit anything at range.
The firing angles of the ship aren’t helping either as they are fairly bad and even get worse when firing at a target above a certain distance. Some of the guns can’t elevate enough because of the superstructure.

I think that at this point, you got the point, FR25 makes for a poor gunboat, even with SAP shells to give her an extra kick of damage compared to HE.

Torpedo Armament

The torpedoes of the FR25 are intended to be used to rush stuff from behind islands or with the Exhaust Smoke Generator active. Sadly, you only have 6 torpedoes and they are much weaker than those of the Paolo Emilio. While it can still be fine against low-tier targets, against battleships, as you go up the tiers, it quickly ends up being nowhere near enough to take one down.

Anti-air Armament

Nothing that will scare a carrier trying to attack this ship.

The Armor

Final Opinion

FR25 is simply bad. It is sitting in that awkward spot of trying to be a gunboat but without the proper firepower to back it up. It also is trying to be a low-tier Paolo Emilio but is far too sluggish for that and also lacks the torpedo power.
Also, it makes for a poor captain trainer for Italian destroyer as Main Battery and AA Expert is a terrible choice on it due to the ballistics.

In the end, we get a particularly unappetizing package that will quickly be forgotten and that isn’t worth one cent.

Recommended Build

For the FR25, I recommend the following commander build and upgrades:

This concludes my review of the FR25. Thank you for reading this article!

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Yuzorah

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