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World of Warships – German Carriers: Early Access and Personal Opinion on them

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With the upcoming 0.9.6 update, we will enter the early access phase of the introduction of the German Aircraft Carriers. Let’s have a look at how the early access will work and I will also give you my opinion and recommendations for this new line.

Early Access

German carriers IV RheinVI Weser, and VIII August von Parseval are entering Early Access!

Rewards from Daily Shipments and for completing Directives: German Carriers containers.

Rewards from containers: combat missions that unlock Early Access to German carriers IV RheinVI Weser, and VIII August von Parseval; the “Black, White, Red” expendable camouflage; and other valuable rewards.

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You can get up to five additional German Carriers containers for participating in the official World of Warships streams—activate bonus codes and complete special combat missions!

German Tokens are a new temporary resource, which you can get for completing special chains of combat missions. In total, there are four chains with rewards such as German Tokens and the Iron Cross permanent camouflage for IV RheinVI Weser, and VIII August von Parseval.

Rewards available in exchange for Tokens in the Armory: Iron Cross permanent camouflages for X Großer KurfürstX Z-52X Hindenburg, and X Manfred von Richthofen; “Black, White, Red” expendable camouflage patterns; credits; and signals.

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But what makes German aircraft carriers so special?

  • Their attack aircraft are equipped with a new type of ammunition—armor-penetrating rockets. When successfully used, these are capable of inflicting heavy damage to enemy citadels. However, they may also ricochet or fail to penetrate armor when hitting a target at an acute angle—in this respect, they function in a similar way to armor-penetrating shells. When striking the thin armor of destroyers at 90-degree angles, they will often overpenetrate and deal 1/10 of the maximum damage.
  • German bombers carry armor-penetrating bombs. A squadron initially flies at high altitude, and an attacking flight can dive without the need to first climb to a higher altitude. As it is quite difficult to adjust the position of the target reticle during an attack, their bombs are most effective when dropped on slower targets.
  • The torpedoes dropped by German aircraft are fast, but have a short range and cause only modest damage.
  • The aircraft have a high cruising speed, but somewhat small HP pool.
  • German carriers are armed with accurate, long-range secondary guns.

Aircraft carriers IV RheinVI WeserVIII August von Parseval, and X Manfred von Richthofen will become available to research in Update 0.9.7.

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Personal opinion and recommended build

Overall, out of all 4 lines of carriers, the German ones are, in my opinion, the more skill demanding ones. Their rockets require a good approach angle to deal damage, the planes have low HP, meaning that if you take any flak, you will get punished harder for it than with others. The dive bombers are also flying very high which means that using islands to sneak around with them is impossible. For any drop with theses dive bombers, you will have to use the good old “Just dodge the flak”.
Due to their low HP and, for the dive bombers, the longer exposure to AA with their slow drop, you will also need to be more careful than other CVs with your reserves, even with the great plane speed.

Now, let’s have a look at the load-outs. First of all, let’s talk about the rockets. These rockets have a very specific usage, slamming the broadside of cruisers. When using them, you will be looking for cruisers that are not paying attention to your planes, are forced to stay angled against your teammates, or cannot turn because they are blocked by islands. When you get any of these scenarios, it is the jackpot for you. Overall, these rockets have good armor penetration and unless we talk about heavily armored cruisers like Kronstadt, Alaska, or Siegfried/Ägir, getting citadels on cruisers will be possible as long as you have the right timing.
Due to the horizontal ellipse, coupled with the high speed of the planes, you have to be careful to not drop too soon and completely miss or too late and only get normal penetration damage. One thing for sure, you don’t want to play with these rockets when you have ping issues.
Against destroyers and battleships, you will be able to get small bits of damage but in both cases, not much at all. However, against a good portion of the other carriers, these rockets are also fairly brutal, I can tell you that.

When it comes to their bombs, the German aircraft carriers have a very unique (and at first, terribly annoying) reticule. It is positioned almost directly under the squadron so when approaching a target for a drop, if there are other ships around, it will be a bit tricky to have your eyes both on the reticule and on the flaks in front of you.
When starting the drop, you also want to take more lead than you normally would with other dive bombers. When dropping, the planes lose a lot of speed and on top of that, the bombs themselves are fairly slow. Due to these characteristics, they are more suited against battleships. Against very agile cruisers, you will struggle to get proper hits. The bombs have a high penetration value and getting citadels with them will be fairly easy.
Something to note, however, is that they have an even spread between the external and the internal layers of the reticule while, on IJN carriers, it’s more likely for bombs to land in the inner layer.

Finally, the torpedoes are following the concept of being very easy to land but at the same time, not dealing much damage. You will basically be able to score hits with them against any type of ship and, with a bit of training, even against destroyers. These torpedoes combine the highest speed of all aerial torpedoes at their respective tier and a low arming time, making them very comfortable to use. The attack cone also narrows down fairly quickly. Overall, they will be, alongside the bombs, your bread and butter.

A small mention regarding the secondaries of these ships though… Yes, they have an improved dispersion and longer range than on other carriers. However, don’t go imagine that you would be able to achieve the same results as you would with Graf Zeppelin. They all have way smaller secondary broadsides than her and only have 105 mm guns, limiting their capacities to deal with more armored targets. If a destroyer rushes you, you will definitely be able to defend yourself though.

Captain build:

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During the testing of the German aircraft carriers, I used the following build (in the recommended order):

  • Air Supremacy: A must-have on carriers for the faster regeneration speed of the planes, especially useful in the late game.
  • Improved Engine: Faster planes, less time in AA, more strikes per minute. I think that you understand the idea.
  • Aircraft Armor: Aircraft armor is better to take first because, compared to Survivability Expert, it is not bound to the tier and will give a fixed resistance against continuous DPS.
  • Survivability Expert: A key skill on carriers for the extra survivability on the planes.
  • Concealment Expert: This skill is useful to be able to get closer to the action and send your planes faster where they are needed. It also makes it easier to determine where a destroyer chasing you could be.
  • Last Gasp: Last Gasp ends up being fairly useful on the German carriers to make sure that as many planes as possible will go through on the last strike. It is also, alongside Improved Engine Boost, much better than torpedo acceleration since the torpedoes already go very fast and increasing the arming distance would be a waste.
  • Improved Engine Boost: Useful to make longer runs with the Engine boost active when you need to strike a target fast.
  • Advanced Firing Training: Considering the fast aiming speed on all load-outs, Sight Stabilization isn’t worth it. That extra secondary range can always be useful if a cruiser or a destroyer gets too close to you. Outside of these, there aren’t any perks really worth taking anyway.

Upgrades:

  • icon_modernization_PCM003_Airplanes_Mod_I.png Air Groups Modification 1: It is basically the only upgrade worth taking on this slot, more speed for the returning squadrons is always useful.
  • Wows_icon_modernization_PCM068_PlaneEngine_Mod_I.png Aircraft Engines Modification 1: Same scenario here, buffing your planes is the priority.
  • Icon_modernization_PCM012_SecondaryGun_Mod_II.pngSecondary Battery Modification 1: Overall, here, it’s the best option. The Aeria Torpedoes Modification 1 isn’t that great since your torpedoes already have a high speed and it will increase the arming distance anyway.
    The secondaries upgrade can actually be useful, combined with the improved secondaries, in case a destroyer tries to rush you.
  • Wows_icon_modernization_PCM065_DiveBomber_Mod_I.png Bombers Modification 2: Compared to the 2 other plane types, the dive bombers on German carriers will be taking more damage with their low drop speed and the fact that, with the reticule position, you will be taking flaks more often. The other 2 can just zoom through the AA of enemy ships when doing their attack runs.
  • icon_modernization_PCM009_FlightControl_Mod_I Flight Control Modification 1: A must-have on pretty much all carriers except the Kaga that gets away with her already enormous reserves. With this upgrade, you get better reserves and a faster regeneration rate for the planes. What is not to like?
    There is no point for the Concealment System Modification 1. None of your planes has any particular detection range, unlike the Japanese Torpedo bombers.
  • icon_modernization_PCM016_FlightControl_Mod_II Flight Control Modification 2: Since we are at it, let’s also clear the question of the 6th upgrade. The planes are from the start very fast and don’t have a lot of HP. As you know by now, speed with planes also means more survivability since you spend less time in AA. Speed also means more strikes per minute. Long story short, go for more speed, don’t bother with the bonus to the planes HP that will anyway not help much.

Directives

The new game event tasks you with completing 28 missions spread across four Directives. The first Directive will become available with the release of Update 0.9.6, while those that follow will be unlocked each week. Completing the missions and Directives will reward you with German Carriers containers, сredits, and signals.

In addition to that, you’ll be able to complete Directives of the Dockyard event that began in Update 0.9.5. They will remain available until August 3.

German Carriers Containers

Players will be able to obtain up to 22 containers for completing Directives and up to three containers from Daily Shipments.

German Carriers containers may drop a combat mission that unlocks Early Access to IV RheinVI Weser, and VIII August von Parseval; the “Black, White, Red” expendable camouflages; credits; and other valuable rewards.

A German Carriers container includes:

  • One of the following items: 1 000 Coal; or 1 day of Warships Premium Account; or 8x “Black, White, Red” expendable camouflages; or 2x special signals of the same type (Dragon, Wyvern, Red Dragon, Ouroboros, Hydra, Leviathan, Basilisk, or Scylla); or 15x signals of the same type (Zulu, Papa Papa, India Yankee, Juliet Charlie, November Foxtrot, November Echo Setteseven).
  • A chance to get a special combat mission that will unlock Early Access to a German aircraft carrier.

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You can get even more German Carriers containers for completing chains of combat missions that are available on the weekends of the second and third weeks after the release of the Update. The difficulty of the chains, as well as the number of containers that you will receive, depends on your activity during the previous updates. The more you play, the more German Carriers containers you can obtain.

The chains are not available to players who haven’t logged in to World of Warships for more than 180 days prior to the date the combat missions become available.

The Armory offers German Carriers Premium containers for doubloons. These carry a greater number of rewards.

German Carriers Premium containers include:

  • 8x “Black, White, Red” expendable camouflages.
  • 10x special signals of the same type (Dragon, Wyvern, Red Dragon, Ouroboros, Hydra, Leviathan, Basilisk, or Scylla), or 10x “Black, White, Red” expendable camouflages.
  • One of the following items: 2 000 Coal; or 1 day of Warships Premium Account; or 5 000 Free XP; or 25 signals of the same type (Zulu, Papa Papa, India Yankee, Juliet Charlie, November Foxtrot, November Echo Setteseven).
  • A chance to get a special combat mission that will unlock Early Access to a German aircraft carrier.

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How to Earn German Tokens

Throughout Update 0.9.6, four chains of combat missions will be available to players. For each completed task, you will receive German Tokens. The final rewards of the three chains are even more German Tokens, as well as the Iron Cross permanent camouflage for IV RheinVI Weser, and VIII August von Parseval. The final missions of these chains must be completed playing the corresponding aircraft carriers: Rhein, Weser, or August von Parseval. The last mission in the fourth chain can be completed playing VIII Graf Zeppelin or VIII Graf Zeppelin B.

Thus, if you don’t have the aircraft carriers required to complete the chains, you can earn up to 300 German Tokens. If you have obtained all the German aircraft carriers in Early Access, and you have VIII Graf Zeppelin or VIII Graf Zeppelin B, then you can receive up to 600 German Tokens, as well as three Iron Cross permanent camouflages for IV RheinVI Weser, and VIII August von Parseval.

Bundles with chains of combat missions for German battleships, cruisers, and destroyers are also available in the Armory in exchange for doubloons. You can get up to 1 800 German Tokens for completing these chains.

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You can get an additional 600 Tokens from special bundles in the Premium Shop.

Rewards for Tokens in the Armory

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Daily Shipments

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During Update 0.9.6, enter the game in the period between July 9 and 23, inclusive, to start getting valuable rewards from the Daily Shipments section.

You can get a total of 10 rewards, while the shipments are available for 14 days. Thus, you can skip 4 days out of 2 weeks and still claim all the valuable rewards.

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