World of Warships – Ship Type Guide

Here is a quick overview of all ship types in the World of Warships game.

Ship Type Rundown

By Yurra

Battleships (BBs)

They are large ships with large HP pools, large calibre guns, powerful AP shells, long range, mostly good armour, but are relatively inaccurate (more or less), have bad concealment and are usually slower and less manoeuvrable than most other ship types

Their role in battle is tanking and/or fire support. They can be divided into several archetypes.

The first division is by average engagement range:

• Brawlers/close range (Germans (KM), Soviets (VMF))
• Mid range BBs (USN, Brits (RN), French, Italians)
• Long range BBs (Japanese (IJN), some premiums like Slava, Thunderer, Incomparable, Constellation, Borodino)

The second division is by role in battle

• Tank BBs (most BBs’ role in battle is tanking to some extent)
• Close range specialists (KM BCs)
• Fire support BBs (USN hybrid BBs, FR BBs, some premiums like Slava, Thunderer, Incomparable, Constellation, Borodino)

These roles are not strict and more or less overlap in different ratios.

Cruisers (CA/CLs)

It’s the most diverse class.

By gun calibre, they’re divided into:

• Ultralight (up to 130 mm guns; also known as anti-aircraft cruisers)
• Light (140-180 mm)
• Heavy (190-254 mm)
• Battlecruisers/large cruisers (283 mm and larger)

Ultralight and light cruisers are usually more agile and stealthy than other cruisers, have higher damage output but also weaker armour and shorter effective range.

Heavy cruisers, and especially battlecruisers, have guns that are more optimised for medium and long range combat, better armour and larger HP pools but worse manoeuvrability.

By archetype, they’re divided on DPS, utility and tank cruisers

• DPS cruisers’ main role is impacting games through damage (IJN CAs and CLs, KM CAs, FR CA/Ls, RN CAs, RN CLs when equipped with smoke, IT CAs, NL CAs, Pan Asian CLs, Salem, most cruisers below T8).
• Utility cruisers impact games by controlling cap zones with their radar (USN CAs and CLs, VMF CLs, Tallinn, RN CLs equipped with radar).
• Tank cruisers usually sacrifice damage output, and sometimes utility, for high survivability (VMF CAs, Pan American CLs, Napoli).

These roles can also overlap to varying degrees; for example, Moskva can be considered a tank/utility cruiser.

Destroyers (DDs)

They are also very diverse.

The main division is on universal-type and DPS-type DDs – this depends on whether their concealment is good enough to contest capture zones comfortably (DPS types usually make up for this with good damage output).

Universal-type branches and ships are:

• USN DDs
• IJN DDs (Shimakaze branch, and the Harugumo branch below T8)
• KM DDs (Z branch and pre-split)
• RN DDs
• Ognevoi
• Grozovoi
• Neustrashimy
• EU DDs (Halland branch)
• Tromp
• Pan Asian DDs
• Vampire.

DPS type branches and ships are:

• Forrest Sherman
• FR DDs
• KM DDs (Elbing branch)
• VMF DDs (except the above mentioned ones)
• IJN (Akizuki and above)
• IT DDs
• EU DDs (Gdansk branch)
• Friesland/Groningen
• Ragnar.

Universal types are further divided into gunboats, torpedoboats and true hybrids, depending on their main damage source.

The main role of universal-types is contesting cap zones in the early game, keeping enemy DDs in check, spotting enemy ships, and supporting with damage, smokes or other forms of utility.

DPS types’ main role is doing damage, flanking and disrupting the enemy team, whereas contesting cap zones is secondary and is usually done in the mid to late game.

Aircraft carriers (CVs)

It’s a class that is designed around applying damage anywhere on the map with relatively low risk, and the interaction between them and other ships is quite superficial, which is why they’re almost universally hated.

Their main role is doing damage and killing ships, with spotting as a secondary role with strike aircraft or fighters (even though they can deploy fighter patrols, they are mostly useless for defending allies).

Submarines (subs)

They are mostly assassins, sneaking up to enemy ships and pumping their face full of torpedoes or trying to hit the enemy with homing torpedoes from a distance while remaining undetected; much like with CVs, counterplay options against subs are quite limited and the tactics they employ are extremely annoying for most players to interact with.