World of Warships: O-class battlecruiser coming soon

Ladies, Gentlemen and other wehraboos, this morning, Wargaming shared a very interesting picture to tease an upcoming new ship. This ship is labeled as a German cruiser.

So far, that picture doesn’t show that much due to the fog covering the ship. The only visible parts are the bow, the stern and a rear turret with what looks like a superfiring secondary battery.

When I saw that rear section, it almost instantly reminded me of the German battlecruiser O-class that was part of the Z-plan from the Kriegsmarine.

Soon after, a friend of mine (Thank you very much Grunilg) shared this picture, making the ship much more visible.

As you can see, it seems clear that the main armament of the ship is composed of 3 turrets with 2 superfiring at the front and one at the rear with a secondary battery in superfiring position. The fire directors are also much more visible.

Let’s now compare it with an estimation of what a completed O-class battlecruiser would have looked like.

I don’t know for you but this definitely looks like an O-class battlecruiser with the disposition of the main batteries, secondary batteries and fire director.

What was the O-class?

The O-class was planned to be 3 battlecruisers built as a part of the Kriegsmarine’s Z-plan from the 1930s.  The ships were planned to carry the following armament:

• 3 x 2 380 mm SK C/24 (same guns as the Bismarck-class)
• 3 x 2 150 mm SK C/28
• 4 x 2 105 mm SK C/33
• 4 x 2 37 mm SK C/30
• 20 x 1 20 mm SK C/30
• 2 x 3 533 mm torpedo tubes

As for the armor, it was planned to be a 190 mm main belt with the turtleback configuration and, behind it, a bulkhead of 45 mm or thicker depending on the area.

The ships actually had an interesting nickname bound to their lack of armor compared to capital ships, linked to the name of the class: “Ohne Panzer Quatsch” (Without armor nonsense).

They were planned to reach a top speed of 35 knots with a propulsion of 116 000 HP.
All of this combined would have made them reach a total displacement of  35 400 tons.

The role of these ships would have been to attack convoys and specifically merchant ships while bigger capital ships would keep the escorting ships busy. Their main batteries and armor would have allowed them to fight possible escorting heavy cruisers. As for their high speed, it would have also allowed them to escape from more heavily armed British battleships if needed.

What about World of Warships?

If we follow the recent logic of Wargaming with things like Kronshtadt, Stalingrad, Alaska, Azuma or Yoshino, this ship will be another tier IX or X battlecruiser. The thing is that with only 6 380 mm guns, I can already see her getting an improved dispersion. MAYBE a cruiser dispersion formula or something similar to the Azuma and Yoshino. Otherwise, that ship just won’t hold at high tier.

For the anti-air, they will certainly not stick to the old and useless twin 37 mm. I personally expect a mix of the more modern twin 37 mm LM/42 that you can see on things like B-hull Bismarck, etc and also some 55 mm L/77 Gerät 58.

This is, for now, my personal theory-crafting on the subject. I guess that we will see a devblog this week covering it since the update 0.8.4 is coming next Wednesday or Thursday and with it, the supertest of the update 0.8.5.

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Yuzorah

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