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World of Warships Final Review: Soviet Tier X Freemium Cruiser Sevastopol

9 min read

Komrads! Exactly 9 months ago after the ship was announced, she is finally getting released! Sevastopol which went missing for a few months because of… *cough* certain geopolitical events happening somewhere East of Europe is now finally coming. The ship will be available with the release of Update 0.11.7 for 58 000 Research Points.

Is the ship worth it? Is she a functional hybrid between Siegfried and Kronshtadt? Here is my opinion.

Historical background

Sevastopol was the second ship of the Kronshtadt-class of battlecruisers from the Soviet Union.

Initially, the Kronshtadt-class (Project 69) was meant to be built with three triple 305 mm turrets with two superfiring at the front and one at the rear. The problem is that the 305 mm turrets were well behind schedule while the hulls were already under construction. As an emergency solution, the Soviets bought surplus 380 mm guns and turrets from the Germans. This modified design was called Project 69-I.
Modifications obviously had to be made on the hulls that were already under construction.

Sadly, with uncle Adolf starting Operation Barbarossa and as such, declaring war on the USSR, the turrets and guns were never delivered. The hull of both ships, completed at around 10% survived the war in relatively good shape and while there were considerations to complete them as aircraft carriers, the plans never went through. The hulls were scrapped in 1947.

In World of Warships, Sevastopol appears as she should have been completed with the modified design (Project 69-I). However, Wargaming also gave her a hypothetical Cold War modernization with modern 100 mm dual-purpose secondaries as well as twin 57 mm AA mounts from the 1960s.
She is equipped with a short-duration 20% Engine Boost as well as a special Repair Party that lasts for 90 seconds but with a very long cooldown. She also gets slightly improved AP penetration angles and fuse timer.

Ship’s preview

Ship’s commemorative flag

The camouflage

The permanent camouflage of the Sevastopol 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

  • Great firing angles at the front
  • Standard cruiser dispersion
  • AP shells with improved penetration angle
  • AP shells with reduced fuse timer
  • Higher penetration than German 380 mm AP due to the lower air drag
  • Great ballistics
  • Large main belt to protect against AP shells
  • Thick armor protection around the citadel
  • Special Repair Party with improved damage recovery percentage and 90s duration
  • Access to a 20% Engine Boost
  • Great concealment for a ship of this size

The Bad

  • Weak HE damage output
  • Only six guns
  • long reload time for a cruiser
  • Poor vertical dispersion which hurts coupled with the low number of guns
  • Slow turret traverse
  • Low HP pool for a ship of her size, especially compared to Kronshtadt
  • Low number of AA mounts that quickly get destroyed
  • Very large turning radius
  • Very large ship compared to other cruisers
  • 30 mm casemate plating
  • Enormous citadel
  • Repair Party with an extremely long cooldown.
  • Access to the Fast Damage Control Team consumable instead of the standard Damage Control Party
  • 60s fire duration

Modules

Hull
Engine
Gun Fire Control System
Main battery

icon_module_Hull_installed

Sevastopol

icon_module_Engine_installed

Propulsion: 150 000 HP

icon_module_Suo_installed

‎GFCS X mod. 1

icon_module_Artillery_installed

380 mm/52 SK C/34 on a Drh LC/34 mount

General Characteristics and Playstyle

TierX
Health62 600 HP
Torpedo Damage Reduction34%
Displacement42 600 tons
Dimensions
Overall length240.00 m
Beam31.7 m
Overall height (keel to the highest point on the ship)29.0 m
Freeboard6.0 m
Main Armament
Maximum Firing Range19.100 km
380 mm/52 SK C/34 on a Drh LC/34 mount3 x 2 380 mm
Secondary Armament
Maximum Firing Range7.300 km
100 mm/70 on an SM-52 mount8 x 2 100 mm
Maximum speed33.5 knots
Turning Circle Radius980 m
Rudder Shift Time15.1 s
Surface Detectability13.62 km
Air Detectability10.42 km
Detectability After Firing Main Guns in Smoke12.85 km
Consumables
Slot 1
Slot 2
Slot 3
Slot 4
Fast Damage Control Team
Number of charges: 3
Work time: 10 s
Cooldown: 30 s
Defensive AA Fire
Number of charges: 4
Work time: 40 s
Cooldown: 80 s
Continuous Damage: +50%
Damage from shell explosions: +300%
Repair Party
Number of charges: 3
Work time: 90 s
Cooldown: 180 s
HP regeneration: 0.5%/s
Casemate damage regeneration: 75%
Citadel damage regeneration: 50%
Engine Boost
Number of charges: 4
Work time: 45 s
Cooldown: 60 s
Speed bonus: +20%
Hydroacoustic Search
consumable_PCY016_SonarSearchPremiumNumber of charges: 3
Work time: 100 s
Cooldown: 120 s
Torpedo spotting range: 3.5 km
Ship spotting range: 5.0 km

Sevastopol is a particularly gimmicky ship with a set of consumables that is as awkward as you can get and with one of the worst large cruiser hulls that exists in this game. That’s for the short version.

When it comes to consumables, we already have problems there. Firstly, she is using a Fast Damage Control Team instead of a standard Damage Control Party. This means that you must be particularly careful with what you are using it on as she only gets 4 charges. As you might guess, combined with the 60 seconds of fire duration due to her battlecruiser nature, HE spam is something she particularly dislikes.
The Repair Party isn’t really helping either. It is a very strange repair party, able to recover 75% of normal penetration damage and 50% of citadel damage while lasting for a whole 90 seconds. However, it also has a 180 seconds downtime. Three whole minutes during which the ship will be completely naked. Not only is the cooldown particularly problematic, but you will also rarely get to recover all the HP one of the Repair Party charges can grant you compared to standard ones. Also, it is merely lasting for so long to compensate for the truckload of damage this ship will take due to her massive size and lack of armor.
Finally, she has a strange 20% Engine Boost that only lasts for 45 seconds, reducing heavily its usage to just quickly reaching a flank/specific position, disengaging, or rushing a target. Considering that you only have up to five charges, you will need to use them wisely.

Other than her weird set of consumables, Sevastopol doesn’t have much to offer honestly. Due to her armor profile and over-reliance on AP shells, you will mostly try to go for flanking actions and get the broadside of targets while trying to maintain a low profile. Except when your battleships don’t want to push because they are too scared of losing HP while they are still at 100%, avoid being the spearhead of aggressive action. The ship just doesn’t handle focus fire well and the moment the Repair Party will be on cooldown, you will quickly go down.

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

Main Armament

3 x 2 380 mm/52 SK C/34 on a Drh LC/34 mount
 Maximum Firing Range19.100 km
 Reloading Time22.0 s
180 Degree Turn Time36.0 s
Optimal firing angles at the front27°
Optimal firing angles at the rear32°
Sigma2.05 sigma
Maximum Dispersion153 m
Shells
Type of Projectile HE – 380 mm HE Model 1939
Alpha Damage5 350
Penetration capacity 64 mm
Explosion size2.26
Fire chance34 %
Projectile Speed820 m/s
Air Drag0.22
Projectile Mass800 kg
Type of ProjectileAP – 380 mm AP Model 1939
Alpha Damage11 300
Projectile Speed820 m/s
Air Drag0.22
Projectile Mass800 kg
Projectile Krupp2 450
Projectile Detonator0.022 s
Detonator threshold63 mm
Ricochet Angles50° – 65°

The main battery of Sevastopol lives and dies depending on the amount of broadside you can catch.
Let’s get the HE out of the way first by saying that it’s mediocre at best. While it doesn’t suffer from the reduced damage you get with Siegfried, the damage output is still less than acceptable and the fire chance remains low for that caliber. This leads to Sevastopol dealing rather poorly with angled targets as well as destroyers, especially coupled with her long main battery reload time.

The AP will be the bread and butter of the ship. Compared to Siegfried’s 380 mm AP shells, Sevastopol gets improved penetration angles similar to those of Petropavlovsk. She also gets reduced arming time to increase the chances of shells dealing penetration damage instead of overpenetration. Finally, in true Soviet fashion, she gets a lower air drag, leading to better ballistics and better penetration.

AP Penetration of Sevastopol and Siegfried over the firing range

While all of this seems great, you need to keep in mind that the penetration angles are only improved by 5° so it will not have as much impact as one would like. Obviously, that AP will definitely slap hard when finding broadside targets but at the end of the day, unless it’s cruisers that you can get citadels on, the actual damage will be somewhat underwhelming.

Another issue with Sevastopol’s guns is that you only have six of them. While it would seem fine considering the cruiser dispersion, things aren’t as good as they would seem to be. The problem is that due to the high shell velocity, the ship suffers from poor vertical dispersion, and as such, on numerous occasions, you will get shells landing either too short or behind the target.

In the end, that main battery is all about the paid actors you might face and even then, you will heavily rely on getting citadel hits on cruisers to deal meaningful damage.

Secondary Armament

8 x 2 100 mm/70 on an SM-52 mount
Maximum Firing Range7.300 km
Reloading Time4.0 s
Sigma1.0 sigma
Shells
Type of ProjectileHE – HE-55
Alpha Damage1 400
HE penetration17 mm
Explosion Size0.29
Chance to Cause Fire6 %
Projectile Speed1 000 m/s
Air Drag0.295
Projectile Mass15.6 kg

Well… 100 mm secondaries with standard dispersion are about as useless as you can get. Even against destroyers, you will not get any sort of meaningful damage.

Anti-air Armament

8 x 2 100 mm/70 on an SM-52 mount
Sector range0.1 km – 5.8 km
Hit chance90 %
Sector’s damage37
Sector’s damage frequency0.29 s
Sector’s damage per second130
Flak clouds number6
Flak cloud damage1 470
6 x 2 57 mm AK-725 mount
Sector range0.1 km – 4.0 km
Hit chance90 %
Sector’s damage110
Sector’s damage frequency0.29 s
Sector’s damage per second385

The anti-air of Sevastopol is terrible.  In terms of DPS, both auras are decent but not much more. The problem is that all the anti-air depends on a grand total of 14 mounts, secondaries included and I can tell you… keeping them functional is a challenge, to say the least.

The moment you start taking a bit of HE damage, you can expect to lose at least a third of your mid-range DPS. As for the rest, it won’t take long before it also dies. This ship is honestly free food for a carrier.

The Armor

The armor of Sevastopol isn’t particularly good. While she gets a huge main belt to tank AP when angled. The problem is that the citadel is equally huge, extending well beyond the turrets at the front and the rear. Because of this, the ship is rather merciless with the way you angle. There is one “safety net” for shells coming from long range as the ship has a 90 mm armored deck right above the citadel, protecting it to some extent.

External armor protection:

Front and rear armor protection of the middle section:

Citadel armor protection:

Turrets armor protection:

Main armor deck:

Final Opinion

The more I played this ship, the more I grew to dislike it.  It is just full of weird gimmicks packed on a suboptimal hull that ends up being some sort of unholy mix between Kronshtadt and Siegfried but without the utility of the former and the tanking capacity of the latter.

There is basically no reason to grab Sevastopol other than for pure collection purposes. Siegfried is a more interesting ship within the Research Bureau and if you want a Soviet cruiser, Moskva and Stalingrad are here.

Recommended Build

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

If you decide to get the ship, I heavily recommend using the unique commander Kuznetsov for his Will to Victory.

This concludes my review of Sevastopol. 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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