World of Warships: Italian Tier V Cruiser Genova review

As the Italian cruisers updates arc just started, it is time to have a look at the Genova while telling myself that there will soon be British Heavy Cruisers that actually look interesting to play, unlike the Italian cruisers.

Tier V Italian Premium Cruiser Genova: The semi-AP, what a horrible invention!

Her permanent camouflage gives the standard Tier V permanent camouflage bonuses:

The Good and the Bad

The Good

• Strong AP power
• Good speed
• Good agility
• Large HP pool
• Good concealment

The Bad

• Very long reload
• Italian semi-armor-piercing shells
• Slow torpedoes with low damage per hit
• Terrible armor protection
• Weak anti-air

My opinion

Italian cruisers are about to be fully released in World of Warships… Boy, I wish they weren’t coming in that state…
I didn’t enjoy testing the Italian cruisers that I consider as inferior to the other roaming cruisers because their only influence compared to the others is their damage output that is far from convincing. The Japanese cruisers have their concealment, strong HE and torpedoes, the Germans have the good HE penetration and long-range hydroacoustic search and the French have the speed and the reload booster for big bursts of damage.
The Italians? They just have the semi-AP that is supposed to compensate the long reload by high alpha damage but they remain the weakest ammo type of the game. There is the full-throttle smoke that can be useful but sadly for you, Genova doesn’t get one.

Health pool

If there is at least something that Genova has, it’s HPs. She has 30 100 HP in total, which is the 3rd highest HP pool at tier V behind Furutaka and Hawkins. Sadly, she doesn’t have the armor that comes with that health pool.

Main batteries

Main Battery

4 x 2 203 mm/50 Ansaldo 1924
Maximum Firing Range	14.300 km
Reloading Time	20.0 s
180 Degree Turn Time	25.7 s
Optimal firing angle at the front	30°
Optimal firing angle at the rear	30°
Sigma	2.0 sigma
Maximum Dispersion	132 m
Shells
Type of Projectile	SAP – 203 mm proiettili CS 1924 mod.1
Alpha Damage	4 850 HP
Penetration capacity	54 mm
Projectile Speed	840 m/s
Air Drag	0.319
Projectile Mass	110.6
Type of Projectile	AP – 203 mm proiettili AP 1924 mod.1
Alpha Damage	4 700 HP
Projectile Speed	840 m/s
Air Drag	0.361
Projectile Mass	125.3
Projectile Krupp	2 400
Projectile Detonator	0.033 s

The Genova’s firepower is… a bit underwhelming. First, her reload is awful for a cruiser at 20 seconds. Now, it isn’t that bad since her SAP has very high alpha damage but if you want it to work, hope that the enemy ships will not be bow-on to you or kiting away. If it’s the case, her damage output just drops completely. The only exception are for ships with 13 mm of armor or less. The SAP can actually overmatch platings so there will be no chance for it to bounce on them. Also, you can’t rely on fires to deal additional damage.

What the Genova is good at, it’s at delivering demolishing volleys on destroyers.

The AP is also strong for this tier and it will be able to punish enemy cruisers effectively.

Secondary batteries

Secondaries

12 x 1 102 mm/35 OTO 1933
Maximum Firing Range	4.00 km
Reloading Time	4.0 s
Sigma	1.00 sigma
Shells
Type of Projectile	HE – 102 mm proiettili HE 1933
Alpha Damage	1 450 HP
Damage	620 HP
HE penetration	16 mm
Explosion Size	0.3
Chance to Cause Fire	6 %
Projectile Speed	811 m/s
Air Drag	0.33
Projectile Mass	15.88

Not much to say here, it’s the secondaries of a tier V cruiser. They might save you from a destroyer that rushes you but don’t expect too much.

The torpedo armament

The torpedoes of the Genova are almost more for the decoration than for an actual combat purpose. While they reload very fast, they are slow at 51 knots of speed and their damage is absolutely terrible. During testing, I rarely saw them having an actual impact.

The anti-air armament

Her anti-air is far from good. It lacks the range and it also lacks the DPS. The fighter consumable isn’t even going to change anything since it only shoots down 2 planes at best.

Basically, if a carrier targets you, hope that the player is not good and that you can dodge his drops.

Maneuverability and Concealment

Compared to the Italian cruisers in general, the concealment of the Genova is actually very good. This somewhat compensates for the lack of Full Throttle Smoke. With Concealment Expert, she has a 10.3 km spotting range by sea and 7.5 km by air.

When it comes to maneuverability, just like the rest of the Italian cruisers, she is doing well and thank God for that because her armor just doesn’t allow her to take any hit from battleships.

The armor

If the Genova was covered with Lasagna sheets, it would be more armored than she currently is.

Her bow and stern are 13 mm thick which is the standard for Tier V and that leads to AP shells from 203 mm guns being able to overmatch them. The deck and sides are 16 mm thick. Now… now comes the painful part. Her main belt that protects the citadel is 70 mm thick. The Omaha has a thicker main belt than that and is well known to explode when a battleship looks in her general direction. It’s also not like in high tier with the Smolensk where you can just sail broadside at close range and have battleship AP shells just going through the whole ship. Here, you will just get devastated.

But wait, there is more! Her citadel deck is exposed where her torpedo tubes are located so HE shells or even bombs able to penetrate its 50 mm of armor will be able to deal citadel damage.

For the front and rear athwartships, they are tapering from 60 mm at the top to 40 mm and then deep underwater, 13 mm. This ship will eat citadels VERY easily.

The consumables

Consumables

Slot 1	Slot 2
Damage Control Party I Work time: 5 s Cooldown: 90 s	Fighter I Number of charges: 2 Work time: 60 s Cooldown: 135 s Patrol radius: 3.0 km Number of fighters: 2
Damage Control Party II Work time: 5 s Cooldown: 60 s	Fighter II Number of charges: 3 Work time: 60 s Cooldown: 90 s Patrol radius: 3.0 km Number of fighters: 2
	Spotting Aircraft I Number of charges: 4 Work time: 100 s Cooldown: 360 s Bonus: +20% maximum firing range
	Spotting Aircraft II Number of charges: 4 Work time: 100 s Cooldown: 240 s Bonus: +20% maximum firing range

Conclusion

The Genova is a cruiser with low combat effectiveness due to her terrible reload and the nature of the SAP that is WAY less effective than the British cruiser AP (in case people wanted to make a comparison). Her torpedoes are also very situational and with their low damage per hit, the few times they will be useful, they will not have a major impact.

Finally, to make sure that you don’t want to play the ship, her armor is terribly thin and giving even a bit of broadside will put a smile on the face of the enemy battleships.

Basically, don’t bother with that ship.

Recommended build

During the testing of the Genova, I used the following captain build and upgrades:

Captain build:

• Priority Target
• Preventive Maintenance
• Expert Loader
• Adrenaline Rush
• Expert Marksman
• Jack of All Trades
• Superintendent
• Basic Firing Training
• Concealment Expert

You might be wondering why I use Superintendent and Basic Firing Training. It’s simply because it is my Venezia build and since the ship has quite a scary anti-air and that I had no other interesting option, I just decided to go for that.

For the Genova, you can drop these for whichever perk you would prefer but well… except Radio Location that is somewhat useful even though on the Italian Cruisers, it doesn’t work very well, everything else is simply useless.

As a side note, until you reach Venezia, you will prefer having Last Stand on tech tree Italian cruisers because their rudder gets jammed quite easily, especially on the Amalfi. I had secondary hits jamming her rudder.

Upgrades:

•  Main Armament Modification 1
•  Propulsion Modification 1
•  Aiming System Modification 1

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Yuzorah

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