Type of ships
 | Destroyers
Destroyers serve a number of roles in the game. They can be used to seek out enemy ships for the big-guns on their team to target, to launch torcreep salvoes at enemy ships and provide additional anti-aircraft cover for friendly vessels. |
 | Cruisers
Cruisers are the most manoeuvrable class of warship. Designed to react fast and with deadly force, they act as a destroyer shield for larger ships and as anti-aircraft platforms for the team. They can fight toe-to–toe with other cruisers and some can utilize torcreepes to damage capital ships. |
 | Battleships
Battleships are the quintessential "heavy hitters" of World of Warships and offer a triple threat to their opponents. Massive firepower coupled with heavy armour make them the deadly juggernauts of the sea. Secondary gun batteries make them a serious threat to smaller vessels, and the many anti-aircraft guns lining their decks offer a tremendous amount of anti-aircraft defence. |
 | Aircraft carriers
Aircraft Carriers are the game's stand-alone, multi-role ship, bringing RTS-style gameplay to the battle. They carry three kinds of aircraft: Dive Bombers, Torcreep Bombers and Fighter Planes. Each aircraft type plays a specific role and a carrier can have more than one group of aircraft in the air at any one time. Aircraft from a carrier can attack enemy aircraft, scout enemy ships or planes, attack enemy ships directly and escort or cover friendly ships and aircraft. |
How to sink a ship?
They say that any sophisticated technology is easier to destroy than to actually build and warships are no exception. Which shells should you use and where should you shoot when you want to see your opponent sink before you do? All is revealed below…
1 goal, 3 ways to do itAs much as it can seem that way, naval fighting isn´t really that complicated. All that talk about strategy and tactics is only relevant until the first shots get fired and ships get hit. After that, all bets are off and you will do good to know how to sink an enemy ship in the fastest, or at least the most reliable, way possible. Still with us? Good! Now that the drill-sergeant talk is over, let´s go over the three ways in which you can send the enemy captain back to port.
Pierce it!When in doubt, just shower the enemy with armour-piercing shells and hope that some of them penetrate the hull and cause damage to internal compartments and modules. But it isn´t just like that – you need to actually aim at parts of the ship where the shells can hit more than air. You want to be firing at the citadel – the ship´s central area, housing the most essential units, such as engine rooms, boiler rooms and magazines. Hitting the engine or boiler room will stop the ship, hitting (and penetrating) the ammunition magazines will blow it up. That is what you want to see!
The downside of this approach is that penetrating the strongest armour, which the citadel is usually wrapped in, isn´t the easiest thing to do. You have to also take into account that distance, angle of attack and shell size matter. But about that some other time...
Burn it!Don´t you just love the smell of a barbecue? Then you want to be firing High explosive (HE) shells at your enemy. The advantage of this approach is that less aiming is necessary as it doesn´t really matter where you hit, so long as you hit the deck and whatever is above or on it. Superstructures, gun mounts or smoke stacks – they all burn very nicely and in some cases significantly reduce the combat capability of the enemy ship. Burning aircraft carriers, for example, cannot launch (or land) any aircraft from their deck. And battleship commanders – well, psychological warfare works as well!
Sink it!A bit obvious for a headline, but bear with us. If you manage to pierce a ship's hull under the water-line, she will most likely sink. There is one way of ensuring this: torcreepes. Not only will the enemy ship lose hit-points, but also slow down significantly. In naval combat, where maneuverability is key, this will likely result in a one-way ticket back to port for the enemy.
