World of Warships Supertest: Soviet Super-cruiser Novosibirsk

Historical background

Unlike the majority of superships, Novosibirsk isn’t quite some weird mishmash of projects that were then modified extensively, to fit as a supership or a straight-up WG creation.

Back in the 1930s, the Soviets started working on a project of large cruiser. After a great number of designs were proposed and rejected, a new design designated as Project 22 was brought up. It had a displacement of 23 000 tons and was armed with 254 mm guns. This design was later canceled however because of the Anglo-Soviet Quantitative Naval Agreement of 1937. At the time, the Soviets were also working on the B-type battleship project (Poltava as we know it) but this project was also impacted by the Naval agreement and had to be shrunk to meet the new limits. At this point, Project 22 was canceled and the B-type battleship also had to be shrunk to fit the new limits and evolved into the Project 25. After revisions to the design, four ships were ordered in 1937. However… the Great Purge happened and after some of the ship’s designers were arrested and executed, Project 25 was rejected. Later on, it would continue to evolve into the Project 69, better known as the Kronshtadt-class battlecruiser.
In parallel, there was also the development of the Ansaldo large cruiser that we know in the game as Napoli but its history is a bit vague.

As for Novosibirsk, she is likely based on a mix of Project 22 and Project 25 with a post-war modernization.

As you can see here, it isn’t what one would call a small ship, especially compared to Petropavlovsk.

Ship’s preview

Ship’s permanent camouflage

For the classic reminder, this is a ship in testing, anything can change so don’t look at her like she would already be released.

Modules

Hull	Engine	Gun Fire Control System	Main battery
Novosibirsk	Propulsion: 210 000 hp	GFCS XI mod. 1	254 mm/55 B-48 on a МК-13 mount

General Characteristics and Playstyle

Consumables
Slot 1	Slot 2	Slot 3	Slot 4
Damage Control Party Work time: 5 s Cooldown: 60 s	Defensive AA Fire Number of charges: 4 Work time: 40 s Cooldown: 180 s Continuous Damage: +50% Damage from shell explosions: +300%	Surveillance Radar Number of charges: 3 Work time: 15 s Cooldown: 120 s Ship spotting range: 12.0 km	Repair Party Number of charges: 3 Work time: 28 s Cooldown: 80 s HP regeneration speed: +0.5%/s Casemate damage regeneration: 50% Citadel damage regeneration: 33%
	Hydroacoustic Search Number of charges: 3 Work time: 100 s Cooldown: 120 s Torpedo spotting range: 3.5 km Ship spotting range: 5.0 km

Main Armament

3 x 3 254 mm/55 B-48 on a МК-13 mount
Maximum Firing Range	19.000 km
Reloading Time	14.0 s
180 Degree Turn Time	32.7 s
Optimal firing angles at the front	30°
Optimal firing angles at the rear	37°
Sigma	2.05 sigma
Maximum Dispersion	196 m
Shells
Type of Projectile	HE – 254 mm HE Model 1938
Alpha Damage	3 550
Penetration capacity	42 mm
Explosion size	18.3 m
Fire chance	16 %
Projectile Speed	900 m/s
Air Drag	0.2
Projectile Mass	285.0 kg
Type of Projectile	AP – 254 mm AP Model 1938
Alpha Damage	6 900
Projectile Speed	900 m/s
Air Drag	0.2
Projectile Mass	285.0 kg
Projectile Krupp	3 400
Projectile Detonator	0.033 s
Detonator threshold	42 mm
Ricochet Angles	50° – 65°

Secondary Armament

6 x 2 152 mm/57 on a BL-115 mount
Maximum Firing Range	7.300 km
Reloading Time	8.0 s
Sigma	1.0 sigma
Shells
Type of Projectile	HE – 152 mm OFU-35
Alpha Damage	2 200
HE penetration	30 mm
Explosion Size	8.7 m
Chance to Cause Fire	12 %
Projectile Speed	950 m/s
Air Drag	0.321
Projectile Mass	55.0 kg

Anti-air Armament

ASW Airstrike

Beriyev Be-6 – Depth charge airstrike PLAB-300
Reloading Time	30 s
Number of charges	2
HP per plane	2 000
Attack range	0.5 km – 8.0 km
Number of planes in the squadron	1
Number of bombs in payload	2
Damage	4 900
Detonation timer	3.5 s – 4.5 s
Sink speed	7.5-11.3 m/s
Explosion radius	375 m
Fire chances	28%
Flooding chances	300%

The Armor

External armor protection:

Citadel armor protection:

Turrets armor protection:

Hidden armor protection inside the middle section, bow, and stern:

Personal Opinion

Novosibirsk… is a mess. Compared to Petropavlovsk, her firepower gets a substantial improvement as her 254 mm guns have a completely bonkers AP penetration and access to 16 mm overmatch. The problem is that a lot of other elements get worse. The firing angles suffer heavily as you lose the 360° rotating turrets and the rear-firing angles are horrible. On top of that, the turrets are far more fragile than those of Petropavlovsk coupled with them being bigger too.
Just like the turrets, the ship itself is much bigger than Petropavlovsk and sits higher on the water with a more exposed citadel (although with thicker armor). The deck might get a 50 mm plating but the upper belt is now only 35 mm thick, giving Incomparable and other ships with 510 mm guns the capacity to overmatch it.
Other than that, the concealment is much worse, making the radar less of a threat, especially with that 15 seconds duration and the anti-air is also worse than on Petropavlovsk. While the medium-range aura has more than twice the DPS, the long-range has less than half of her predecessor as well as a weaker flak barrage. At least, I was told that the range would be brought up to 6.6 km instead of the 5.8 km initially announced. Even with that in mind, that long-range is so bad that even carriers with low skill levels will be able to strike Novosibirsk with ease while Petropavlovsk has the flak barrage that serves as a skill check.

In the end, big guns but at what cost?

Don’t hesitate to subscribe to our notifications to ensure you don’t miss any future articles.
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!

About Author

Yuzorah

See author's posts