World of Warships: Siroco and Bayard review – French destroyer Premium containers
11 min readLadies and Gentlemen, now that we are in Update 0.8.6, it is time to look at the 2 new premium ships that are finalized and the containers that are also coming with the French destroyers arc. These containers have a chance to drop missions to get French destroyers in early access like for the previous new ship lines introductions.
Let’s first have a look at the containers!
The French Destroyers Premium Containers
These containers drop each time 3 items and have a small chance of dropping as a 4th item a French destroyer mission.
For the 3 normal items, you will always get 5 French Riviera camouflages giving the following bonuses:
- -3% to the ship’s detectability range by sea
- +4% to the dispersion of shells fired by enemies at your ship
- +100% XP per battle
- +75% Commander XP per battle
- +50% Free XP per battle
For the other 2 items, they are variable with the first one being a bundle of 5 “Dragon” flags:
| Flag | Name | Effect |
|---|---|---|
 | Dragon |
|
 | Wyvern |
|
 | Red Dragon |
|
 | Ouroboros |
|
 | Hydra |
|
 | Basilisk |
|
 | Scylla |
|
 | Leviathan |
|
And the second one being one of these possible drops:
- 1 500 Coal
- 1 day of Warships Premium Account
- 300 000 credits
- 150 doubloons.
As usual, Wargaming provided Community Contributors with a total of 15 crates. When opening them, I got these drops:
- 5x French Riviera Camouflage, 5x Leviathan flag, 300 000 credits
- 5x French Riviera Camouflage, 5x Dragon flags, 1 500 Coal
- 5x French Riviera Camouflage, 5x Wyvern flag, 1 500 Coal
- 5x French Riviera Camouflage, 5x Ouroboros flag, 300 000 credits, Special mission for French tier VII destroyer Vauquelin
- 5x French Riviera Camouflage, 5x Scylla flag, 1 day of Warships Premium Account
- 5x French Riviera Camouflage, 5x Hydra flag, 150 doubloons
- 5x French Riviera Camouflage, 5x Wyvern flag, 1 500 Coal, Special mission for tier V French destroyer Jaguar
- 5x French Riviera Camouflage, 5x Red dragon flag, 1 day of Warships Premium Account
- 5x French Riviera Camouflage, 5x Scylla flag, 1 day of Warships Premium Account
- 5x French Riviera Camouflage, 5x Red dragon flag, 1 day of Warships Premium Account
- 5x French Riviera Camouflage, 5x Leviathan flag, 300 000 credits
- 5x French Riviera Camouflage, 5x Dragon flags, 1 500 Coal
- 5x French Riviera Camouflage, 5x Scylla flag, 1 day of Warships Premium Account
- 5x French Riviera Camouflage, 5x Ouroboros flag, 300 000 credits
- 5x French Riviera Camouflage, 5x Basilisk flag, 150 doubloons
Interesting thing to note, the drops for the flags and the other variable item are linked. For example, if you get Ouroboros flags, you are guaranteed to also get 300 000 credits.
Outside of this, well overall, the containers are not really worth in my opinion. The gain seems pretty small for the cost unless I got unlucky when it comes to the missions.
Now, let’s move to the interesting part, the ships reviews!
Ships Reviews:
French Tier VIII Premium Cruiser Bayard: Bons Baisers de Paris
Her permanent camouflage gives the standard Tier VIII Premium bonuses:
Now, for the true patriots of France (or the people that are just whales), there is an alternative skin and it’s simply GLORIOUS!
Covered in blue, the flags everywhere, the gold ornaments, this is just beautiful in my opinion.
As for its bonuses, they are still the standard Tier VIII Premium ones:
The Good and the Bad
The Good
- Very good damage output
- Reload booster
- Fast turret traverse
- Great anti-air
- Good maneuverability and speed
- Good concealment
- Good armor protection
The Bad
- Limited firing angles
- Only 3 torpedoes per side
- Sits high on the water
- Vulnerable rudder
- Lowest HP pool of all tier VIII cruisers (without counting stock hulls)
My opinion
The Bayard is simply amazing. She has the firepower, the agility, the concealment, the AA power, the armor. She is just a splendid ship.
Health pool
Let’s first clear her only real weak point, the health pool. The Bayard, indeed, only has 34 700 HP. This is the lowest after the Edinburgh at 36 400.
Main batteries
| 4 x 3 152 mm/55 Mle 1930 | |
| Maximum Firing Range | 16.440 km |
| 180 Degree Turn Time | 15.0 s |
| Reloading Time | 7.5 s |
| Optimal front firing angle | 40° |
| Optimal rear firing angle | 40° |
| Sigma | 2.00 sigma |
| Maximum Dispersion | 146 m |
| Shells | |
| Type of Projectile | HE |
| Alpha Damage | 2 200 HP |
| Damage | 790 HP |
| HE penetration | 29 mm |
| Explosion Size | 0.58 |
| Chance to Cause Fire | 12 % |
| Projectile Speed | 870 m/s |
| Air Drag | 0.34 |
| Projectile Mass | 55 |
| Projectile Krupp | 1 |
| Type of Projectile | AP |
| Alpha Damage | 3 300 HP |
| Chance to Cause Fire | -0.5 % |
| Projectile Speed | 870 m/s |
| Air Drag | 0.323 |
| Projectile Mass | 57.1 |
| Projectile Krupp | 2 225 |
| Projectile Detonator | 0.025 s |
The firepower of the Bayard is fantastic for this tier. While she is behind the Cleveland and Montpelier in terms of HE and AP DPM, she brings on the table a much better ballistic allowing her to score hits more easily and also a better range to give you a better comfort zone. As if her standard armament wasn’t enough, she also comes with a certain French consumable, the Main Battery Reload Booster! The consumable reduces her reload by 50% for 15 seconds. If an enemy battleship pops his Damage Control Party, you know what to do.
Another interesting feature is that Bayard’s HE penetration follows a 1/5 caliber rule. This means that with IFHE, she can reach 38 mm of penetrations.
The only downside of the main batteries is the firing angles that can be limiting with 40° both at the front and the back. Then again, this is compensated by her agility.
Overall, she is a very strong roaming cruiser and with her ballistic, you can still use island covers.
The secondary batteries
| 4 x 2 100 mm/55 CAD Mle 1945 | |
| Reloading Time | 3.0 s |
| Sigma | 1.00 sigma |
| Horizontal Dispersion | 50 m |
| Vertical Dispersion | 110 m |
| Shells | |
| Type of Projectile | HE |
| Alpha Damage | 1 400 HP |
| Damage | 300 HP |
| HE penetration | 16 mm |
| Explosion Size | 0.29 |
| Chance to Cause Fire | 5 % |
| Projectile Speed | 855 m/s |
| Air Drag | 0.314 |
| Projectile Mass | 13.32 |
| Projectile Krupp | 1 |
For a quick look at the secondaries, the Bayard has 4 x 2 100 mm dual-purpose secondary turrets. You don’t really have to care about them, they are more for the anti-air than anything else.
The torpedo armament
| 2 x 3 550 mm tube lance-torpilles | |
| Reloading Time | 90 s |
| Maximum Distance | 9.0 km |
| Optimal front firing angle | 20° |
| Optimal rear firing angle | 20° |
| Damage | 14 833 |
| Speed | 60 kt |
| Surface Detectability | 1.3 km |
As a little side dish, the Bayard carries the classic French cruisers torpedoes with as usual 3 per side. Overall, these torpedoes are decent but can be quite good for eventual Yolo pushes thanks to the great firing angles.
The anti-air armament
| 4 x 2 100 mm/55 CAD Mle 1945 | |
| Sector range | 3.8 km – 5.8 km |
| Hit chance | 85 % |
| Sector’s damage | 25 |
| Sector’s damage frequency | 0.29 s |
| Sector’s damage per second | 88 |
| Flak clouds number | 4 |
| Flak cloud damage | 1190 |
| 6 x 2 57 mm/60 ACAD Mle 1951 | |
| Sector range | 1.0 km – 3.8 km |
| Hit chance | 85 % |
| Sector’s damage | 130 |
| Sector’s damage frequency | 0.29 s |
| Sector’s damage per second | 455 |
| Flak clouds number | 7 |
| Flak cloud damage | 980 |
| Sector reinforcement | |
| Sector reinforcement bonus | +25% |
| Sector reinforcement time | 10 s |
| Sector reinforcement shift time | 10 s |
All hail the French post-WW2 anti-air! The Bayard with her 100 mm dual-purpose and her 57 mm ACAD will be shredding planes without much issue, now even more than before with all the changes that were applied to the constant DPS mechanic.
Maneuverability and Concealment
| Maximum speed | 34 kt |
| Turning Circle Radius | 730 m |
| Rudder Shift Time | 9.3 s |
| Surface Detectability | 12.24 km |
| Air Detectability | 7.16 km |
| Detectability After Firing Main Gus in Smoke | 5.9 km |
The Bayard, when it comes to dodging and staying concealed is also doing quite well. Her base speed is 34 knots. Put the Sierra Mike flag and activates her Engine boost (of course she has one, she is French) and you can reach a nice and juicy 42.84 knots. This combines well with her roaming cruiser playstyle. Her rudder shift time is also quite good at 9.3 seconds base.
The only downside is that it’s a French cruiser so like the others (Except Henri IV), her rudder is fairly vulnerable.
Her concealment is also very good. Once fully specced for it, it goes down to 9.6 km detection by sea and 5.8 km detection by air. This will give her more comfort when moving around the map.
The armor
The armor on Bayard is stronger than one would expect. The bow, the stern and the superstructure are 16 mm thick. As you can see, she already has the new armor plating Wargaming want to introduce on cruisers. Overall, it doesn’t change that much compared to other tier VIII cruisers in terms of overmatch. What does make her armor interesting is the 27 mm middle section. This allows her to bounce battleship shells with a caliber of 381 mm or lower.
Her main belt is quite decent with 120 mm plating under the turrets and 105 mm plating for the middle part. This main belt protects her citadel that is in spaced armor configuration.
Thanks to this, her citadel is much narrower than the ship and enemy AP shells will overpenetrate quite a few times. For the citadel itself, the sides are 25 mm thick and the deck is 38 mm thick except under the turrets where it’s only 19 mm. In general, it’s a bit of an overpenetration fiesta.
The consumables
Slot 1 | Slot 2 | Slot 3 | Slot 4 |
 Work time: 5 s Cooldown: 90 s |  Number of charges: 2 Work time: 40 s Cooldown: 120 s |  Number of charges: 2 Work time: 180 s Cooldown: 120 s Boost: +20% maximum speed |  Number of charges: 3 Work time: 15 s Cooldown: 180 s Boost: -50% main battery reload time |
 Work time: 5 s Cooldown: 60 s |  Number of charges: 3 Work time: 40 s Cooldown: 80 s |  Number of charges: 3 Work time: 180 s Cooldown: 90 s Boost: +20% maximum speed |  Number of charges: 4 Work time: 15 s Cooldown: 120 s Boost: -50% main battery reload time |
 Number of charges: 2 Work time: 100 s Cooldown: 180 s Torpedo spotting range: 3.5 km Ship spotting range: 5.0 km | |||
 Number of charges: 3 Work time: 100 s Cooldown: 120 s Torpedo spotting range: 3.5 km Ship spotting range: 5.0 km |
Conclusion
The Bayard is a fantastic roaming cruiser. Her damage output is great, her agility and mobility as well, her concealment gives her all the room she wants to get into position to hammer the enemy and her armor is doing a satisfying job.
I think that it’s clear enough by now, I really recommend the Bayard!
Recommended build
During the testing of the Bayard, I used the following captain build and upgrades:
Captain build:
- Priority Target
- Preventive Maintenance
- Last Stand
- Adrenaline Rush
- Jack of all Trades
- Superintendent
- Concealment Expert
- Inertia Fuse for HE Shells
Upgrades:
Main Armaments Modification 1
Engine Boost Modification 1
Aiming Systems Modification 1 or 
AA Guns Modification 1
Steering Gears Modification 2
Concealment System Modification 1
French Tier V Premium Destroyer Siroco: A wind of meh
Her permanent camouflage gives the standard Tier V Premium bonuses:
Just like for Bayard, the Siroco also have a special skin for that makes her look so good that you would be sad to shoot at the ship and ruin her aesthetic.
The bonuses remain the same as you can see here:
The Good and the Bad
The Good
- Decent firepower
- Main battery reload booster
- Fast reload on the torpedoes
- Saturable middle section
- Decent HP pool
The Bad
- Bad firing angles
- bad ballistic
- Meh-ish concealment
- No smoke generator
- Laughable anti-air
My opinion
I played Siroco a fair bit and unless you are top tier with a lot of destroyers to bully, overall, she is okay but that’s about it.
Health pool
The Siroco, since it’s an uptiered tier IV doesn’t have a very high HP pool with 11 900 HP. Overall, she is in the middle of the pack with only the Jaguar and her huge 16 600 Health pool being far above.
She does compensate the low HP pool with the saturable middle section that you can find on French destroyers leading quickly to reduced damage received.
Main batteries
| 4 x 1 130 mm/40 Mle 1919 | |
| Maximum Firing Range | 11.810 km |
| 180 Degree Turn Time | 18.0 s |
| Reloading Time | 6.0 s |
| Optimal front firing angle | 47° |
| Optimal rear firing angle | 55° |
| Sigma | 2.00 sigma |
| Maximum Dispersion | 104 m |
| Shells | |
| Type of Projectile | HE |
| Alpha Damage | 1 900 HP |
| Damage | 570 HP |
| HE penetration | 21 mm |
| Explosion Size | 0.45 |
| Chance to Cause Fire | 9 % |
| Projectile Speed | 725 m/s |
| Air Drag | 0.323 |
| Projectile Mass | 34.85 |
| Projectile Krupp | 360 |
| Type of Projectile | AP |
| Alpha Damage | 2 300 HP |
| Chance to Cause Fire | -0.5 % |
| Projectile Speed | 725 m/s |
| Air Drag | 0.323 |
| Projectile Mass | 32.05 |
| Projectile Krupp | 1 803 |
| Projectile Detonator | 0.025 s |
The firepower of the Siroco is decent. That’s about it. The alpha damage of her shells is good but the slow reload will not be helpful when facing higher tier destroyers. She does, however, have the Main Battery Reload Booster to help her but use them wisely.
The range is decent with 11.81 km and you should use it when engaging cruisers and battleships to give you more chance to not take big chunks of damage. Remember, you have no smoke to farm damage safely.
The torpedo armament
| 3 x 3 533 mm Triple | |
| Reloading Time | 75 s |
| Maximum Distance | 7.0 km |
| Optimal front firing angle | 60° |
| Optimal rear firing angle | 60° |
| Damage | 12 233 |
| Speed | 57 kt |
| Surface Detectability | 1.2 km |
Her torpedoes are… let’s say okay. They have a good reload time but they don’t hit very hard and their flooding chance is quite low. Their range at least allows you to launch them from stealth but, except that, they won’t be your bread and butter.
The anti-air armament
| 2 × 1 37 mm/50 CAS Mle 1925 | |
| Sector range | 0.9 km – 3.0 km |
| Hit chance | 88 % |
| Sector’s damage | 5 |
| Sector’s damage frequency | 0.29 s |
| Sector’s damage per second | 18 |
| Flak clouds number | 1 |
| Flak cloud damage | 280 |
| 2 x 2 13.2 mm/76 CAD Mle 1929 | |
| Sector range | 0.1 km – 0.9 km |
| Hit chance | 83 % |
| Sector’s damage | 10 |
| Sector’s damage frequency | 0.29 s |
| Sector’s damage per second | 35 |
| Sector reinforcement | |
| Sector reinforcement bonus | +50% |
| Sector reinforcement time | 5 s |
| Sector reinforcement shift time | 5 s |
Anti-air? What anti-air?
More seriously, though, to give you an idea of how bad it is, the last game I played with her, a Langley focused me the whole time. Overall, was easy to dodge everything he was throwing at me, may it be bombs or rockets. However, in this whole fight, I shot down 1 plane and it was a fighter from the Langley after I sank it.
Maneuverability and Concealment
| Maximum speed | 33 kt |
| Turning Circle Radius | 550 m |
| Rudder Shift Time | 3.0 s |
| Surface Detectability | 6.84 km |
| Air Detectability | 2.7 km |
| Detectability After Firing Main Gus in Smoke | 2.6 km |
French destroyers are supposed to be fast right? Well, the Siroco is the slowest tier V destroyer when she isn’t using the Engine boost. When equipped with the Sierra Mike flag and with the Engine boost active, she reaches 41.58 knots. The big problem is that the Engine boost lasts only 120 seconds.
The concealment is decent with, once fully specced for it, 6.0 km detection by sea and 2.4 km detection by air. You are roughly in the middle of the pack at tier V.
The consumables
Slot 1 | Slot 2 | Slot 3 |
Work time: 5 s Cooldown: 90 s |  Number of charges: 2 Work time: 15 s Cooldown: 180 s Boost: -50% main battery reload time | Number of charges: 2 Work time: 120 s Cooldown: 180 s Boost: +20% maximum speed |
Work time: 5 s Cooldown: 60 s |  Number of charges: 3 Work time: 15 s Cooldown: 120 s Boost: -50% main battery reload time | Number of charges: 3 Work time: 120 s Cooldown: 120 s Boost: +20% maximum speed |
Conclusion
The Siroco is overall a decent destroyer when top tier but doesn’t handle very well being uptiered. While her firepower is fine against destroyers and light cruisers, against heavier targets, she will not be able to do much. Her torpedoes are also nothing to write stories about.
Another very dark point is that she relies too much on her consumables to perform well.
Recommended build
During the testing of the Bayard, I used the following captain build and upgrades:
Captain build:
- Priority Target
- Preventive Maintenance
- Last Stand
- Adrenaline Rush
- Superintendent
- Basic Firing Training
- Survivability Expert
- Concealment Expert
When he will be available, I strongly recommend using Philippe Auboyneau as a captain for French destroyers by the way.
Upgrades:
- Main Armaments Modification 1
Propulsion Modification 1- Aiming Systems Modification 1
Final word
Now that this review is done, it is time to start the giveaway. As usual, the Giveaway will last 24 hours and will be made on our official Discord server.
This time, I will give away the following gifts:
- French Tier VIII Premium Cruiser Bayard
- French Tier V Premium Destroyer Siroco
- 9 codes for Community Contributor containers
For those that will join the giveaway, I wish you good luck!
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