Friedrich der Grosse review

The Road So Far:

• Anything before the Koenig really isn't worth mentioning. You play them for less than 15 games, and aren't particularly memorable.
• Koenig is a capable ship, but suffers due to relatively constant uptiering.
• Bayern is a very good ship, with excellent maneuverability and strong guns which have poor traverse speed. The Bayern also suffers from the state of T6 MM, but can hold its own.
• Gneisenau is where the line really "takes off", in my opinion. The latter ships feel like extensions and upgrades on this platform, in the way that the American cruiser line feels like it really starts at the Pensacola or New Orleans and constantly improves. The high speed, great AA, and brawling ability are unmatched at its tier, though you have few guns and poorer turning characteristics than the T6.
• Bismarck was easily the high point of the line. The secondaries are extremely strong for their tier, while your armor and primary armament feel considerably better. The AA suite is decent and can be upgraded to be very deadly. While not as maneuverable or fast as the Gneisenau, I found the Bismarck to still be quite agile. The addition of hydroacoustic search is still silly, as this ship would be just as balanced without hydro and with a better torpedo belt.

Friedrich der Grosse Review

I let the Bismarck sit in my port for a long time, gathering dust. I swam through the German BB line to T8 in less than a month, and I felt underwhelmed by the Bismarck. While her secondaries are hilarious, her poor dispersion and bad gun layout made her very punishing when uptiered. Eventually, I decided I was going to grind to atleast the Friedrich to see what all of the hubbub was about.

Without much difficulty, and with a few fun games and alot of +100% XP camo, I got to the Friedrich in short order. With about 50k of free XP, I got through the stock hull and eventually worked through the GFCS and speed upgrades.

• Maneuverability: In a word, the Friedrich's maneuverability is poor. Your top speed is good at 30 kts, but any sort of maneuvering will cut this speed down around 24kts very quickly. The 950m turning circle and glacial 17.5s rudder shift (fully upgraded, no module) are immediately apparent as a downgrade from the highly maneuverable Gneisenau and Bismarck. With the Bismarck, you could rely on your quick turning and turtleback to minimize damage when turning around, but the Friedrich is simply so clumsy and large that I found myself eating 40k volleys if I tried to turn around between enemy salvos.

• Armor: You can bow tank quite well in this ship (and you should). While it has a good turtleback, I probably got citadeled once every two games because skilled players know to shoot for your barbettes at close range. This will heavily punish you for showing your side. You are a large target and your armor side armor is actually slightly worse than the Bismarck. Friedrich eats tons of AP damage through the sides, even from cruisers. The large superstructure is very vulnerable to light cruiser AP, and all kinds of HE.

• Main armament: To put it lightly, I found it very underwhelming. I felt stronger in T10 games with my North Carolina than I did with this ship. While the guns traverse and reload quickly, they still suffer from poor dispersion and (from my perspective) poor penetration. I don't know the numbers on autobounce, but my guns felt very weak in almost all scenarios. They didn't have the accuracy to reliably get plunging fire citadels, and they seemed to be negated by even slight angling. In short, they only felt marginally stronger than the Bismarck's 380mm guns. And, just like the Bismarck, the Friedrich has the same awful rear turret angles which make you eat tons of damage to use more than 50% of your firepower. The one great trait of these guns is the reasonably quick turret traverse speed, and 28 second reload on the 406mm guns. This gives you very good (theoretical) DPM with MBM3, and the guns still rotate quite well. The 420mm guns are okay, but after reading up on the penetration similarities and lack of overmatch difference, I decided to keep the 406mm guns due to the superior DPM.

• Secondaries: I put in alot of games with a secondary build captain. The secondaries which were extremely strong at T8 were suddenly very weak at T9. Fewer and fewer engagements would occur at close enough distances to make secondaries relevant. In the games were secondaries played a large role, the alpha and fire damage they gave were still dwarfed by my main gun damage. In short, it wasn't worth showing that much side just to get some extra damage, but it was hard not to charge in and show broadside just to maximize secondary gun damage.

• Anti-aircraft Armament: When you look at the numbers, the Friedrich's AA seems quite impressive for its tier, totaling around 450DPS. However, it has the same auras as the Bismarck, which is to say that you have good (~150DPS) at 4.2km and a nice chunk (~270DPS) at 3.5km. That sounds like quite a bit of damage, but due to the short AA ranges, enemy planes will hardly be scratched by the time they have completed the drop. Since you are so clumsy, you have little hope for dodging torpedoes and bombs. In short, if a carrier wants to drop you, he can. With ease. Your best bet is to attach yourself to an AA cruiser if you see a T9 or T10 CV in the match. Even a T8 carrier is a threat to you.

• Consumables: Premium heal and premium damage control are necessities. If you show side, you will be taking large amounts of heavy damage and maybe some citadels. This makes the heal feel weaker than at T8. The hydro is nice, but if you are within that range, you are likely screwed. You don't have enough forward firepower to delete healthy DDs, and you don't have the maneuverability to unleash a full broadside and then turn into torpedoes.

• Modernizations and upgrades: All of the modernizations are good. I recommend first getting the hull upgrade to get a good shot of HP, and a significantly improved rudder shift. From there, you can choose. I went for the engine upgrade to get up to 30kts, then I got the range upgrade, and lastly I got the 420mm guns, though I didn't keep them on the ship. As for upgrades, I recommend AAM1 or MAM1 (depends on if you lose turrets), AAGM1 (for a bit more AA range), MBM3 (for 24.6s reload), DCM1 and DCM2 and Concealment. As you can see, I moved away from the secondary build.

• Captain builds: Friedrich is one of those ships where it can play completely differently with different captains. It has good enough AA that with full AA-spec, it can compete with a North Carolina for DPS (but not range). A secondary spec is likely, coming from a Bismarck commander. However, I just couldn't find any love for the secondary build. They simply don't deal enough damage at higher tier to make up for the amount of damage you need to absorb while showing broadside. Ultimately, I went for Flamu's stealth-tank build. The reduced fire damage is palpable, and is the best way to deal with enemy CVs and cruisers. Concealment is incredibly important. To be an effective tank, you need to be able to disengage to heal. If you aren't running full concealment, you will struggle to move away from the battle before you get burned down. Concealment also lets to get closer to enemy targets, increasing the effectiveness of your very inaccurate main guns.

I am looking forward to eventually unlocking the Grosser Kurfurst, but for now, I thought this review might be useful to some players who are considering going up the line.

TL;DR German BB line: good and fun up to Friedrich, which is still a capable ship, but lacks the fun and feeling of strength of earlier ships in the line.