preview Kitakaze and Harugumo in [early] Preview!

[Hayashio]

Kitakaze and Harugumo In [early] Preview

 

The information presented in this preview is marked “Work in Progress”. The ships in question are therefore still subject to change. Take everything you read here with a grain of salt.

 

 

 

History

 

Kitakaze was what the Japanese Navy referred to as the “V7” project. It was supposed to be improved, more streamlined in production version of the existing Akizuki-class destroyer. Kitakaze was to be faster, have improved AA performance, be cheaper to produce, and feature an experimental 6×61cm torpedo launcher. A peak speed of 36.7kn was to be achieved, and existing work on the prior “V6” Super-Shimakaze was cancelled in favour of V7. The first few ships in the class were directly transferred, while the last set was to be purpose built. None were produced by the end of the war as shortages became greater and greater, and finally the war had ended.

 

Harugumo is Wargaming’s take on what a feasible successor of V7 might’ve been like. She features even more AA, the experimental Japanese Bofors-Chi, as well as an extra 10cm mount towards the aft. There is no more history to this ship.

 

---

 

In-game rundown

 

I will not be mincing words and will straight out get down to business. There are a lot of stats that will be interesting but we’ll keep it for the actual review once they hit the live server. What is important right now are the big 4. Concealment, Maneuverability, Survivability, Armament.

 

 

T9 - Kitakaze [北風]

 

Kitakaze is, for all intents and purposes, a carbon copy of Akizuki, she has 400 more hitpoints, Identical Maneuverability and Concealment. That’s right, she’s still at 33kn. She is however, in addition to the 10cm DP guns, armed with a sextuple torpedo tube now. Kitakaze can dish out a respectably sized spread of torpedoes, albeit at a slower rate than Akizuki (torpedo reload times are dependent on how many torpedoes are in the tube).

 

 

 

Pros:

• Decent torpedo Armament
• Very good AA armament

 

Cons:

• Almost identical hitpoints to lower tier predecessor
• Torpedo reload time
• Still no defensive fire!
• Slooooow

 

Conclusion

 

Kitakaze will pretty much be the same as Akizuki. There are no major changes to how she plays. Her AA is scaled a bit to a more reasonable AA setup for T9+, even though she still doesn’t receive defensive fire. The torpedo tube can be considered a useful upgrade due to quad spread being atrocious, But we’ll see how these will perform on the live server (perhaps the new meme launchers).

I’d have loved to see her gain her “historical” speed. But Then again, that’s something that might be included in future tests.

 

T10 - Harugumo [春雲]

 

Harugumo is where things start to become interesting. She’s Bigger, faster, and better armed than Akizuki and Kitakaze. Harugumo gains 4000 additional hitpoints. She also receives the same sextuple torpedo launcher, an additional 10cm gun mount (25% dpm increase!). Harugumo gains a top speed of 35.7kn (expect to bleed a lot of that in turns though!).

 

 

Pros:

• Strong Armament overall
• Very good AA armament
• Sizeable hitpoint pool of 29100 maximum (SE)
• HISTORICAL CAMOUFLAGE (okay, that might only be a plus for me!)

 

Cons:

• Detection range of 6.2km!
• Maneuverability of a small cruiser

 

Conclusion

 

Harugumo will suffer from the same problems both Akizuki and Kitakaze suffer from, but even more seeing as she will ALWAYS see tier 10. I am of course, talking about the fact that her guns don’t allow her to penetrate even tier 8 destroyers. While specing IFHE resolves this problem, you will still have a hard time penetrating cruiser armour. Setting fires will likely be a good way of farming damage off ships in Harugumo. Her fire chance might not be the best at 5%, she will certainly have the fire rate to do so somewhat reliably, should a captain choose not to spec for IFHE. Finally, she will be the least stealthy destroyer at her tier after Khabarovsk, so working with that will be... interesting.

 

---

 

So that’s that! These are the new ducks and my initial opinion on both. What I’d like to see I’ve stated above, but here’s a TL;DR: Faster speed on Kitakaze – That’s about it. They both look fun, and should the 13mm change take place, they’ll be able to hold their own against even the most formidable destroyer foes.

[Hayashio]

Before I forget to mention it.

#duckhype

[Major_Damage225]

I really wonder what spread those sextuple launchers will have, anything over 8km and you can park a cruiser sideways and youll still have room. 

Thats my bet if i judge by shimas spreads. 

 

Really looking forward to the Harugumo though, do this one right wg, please. 

[orzel286]

>sex-tuple

S-so lewd...

[Hayashio]

9 minutes ago, Major_Damage225 said:

I really wonder what spread those sextuple launchers will have, anything over 8km and you can park a cruiser sideways and youll still have room. 

Thats my bet if i judge by shimas spreads. 

 

probably like this (very scientific) image indicates.

[Fogas21]

I can't wait to see people do wide spread with sextuples
quarter of the map cowered

[loppantorkel]

Radar-Grozo seems better...

[Major_Damage225]

9 minutes ago, Fogas21 said:

I can't wait to see people do wide spread with sextuples
quarter of the map cowered

And gets a dev strike on a DD 12km away 

[Zemeritt]

Couldn`t they atleast give the T9 already the speed increase?

The T10 gains enough with the 5th turrent and the 4k HP.

[Juanx]

So nothing interesting?

Well, at least I will be able to use the exp accumulated in akizuki.

[dasCKD]

I do think that these destroyers could work with switching their smoke out for a heal like the Khabarovsk considering how cruiserlike they are and how they'll likely be used considering their firepower. They could also change it out for radar to fulfill a more cruiserlike role, but more radar right at this moment is probably not what destroyer gameplay needs.

[anonym_DKZABZXaXZld]

I just hope they give us the option to exchange torpedo reload with defensive AA.

 

Imagine getting dropped in these massive sluggish things by a T10 CV... Oh god...

[Commander_Cornflakes]

Vor 3 Stunden, Zemeritt sagte:

Couldn`t they atleast give the T9 already the speed increase?

The T10 gains enough with the 5th turrent and the 4k HP.

The T9 does get the 6th upgrade slot, that's a good jump from Akizuki.

[BeauNidl3]

3 hours ago, dasCKD said:

I do think that these destroyers could work with switching their smoke out for a heal like the Khabarovsk considering how cruiserlike they are and how they'll likely be used considering their firepower. They could also change it out for radar to fulfill a more cruiserlike role, but more radar right at this moment is probably not what destroyer gameplay needs.

 

Not a chance, if they handle anything like Akizuki not having a smoke would be suicidal, they simply don't have the agility or speed to be anything like survivable in a run and gun mode for any time. 

Sure it's possible in a 1 on one for a period, but many cruisers are close to being as fast (a few are faster) and a few BB's are barely slower come to that, it's possible to kite in Akizuki, but it's damn dangerous.

 

I do hope these new boats get a decent speed and handling increase as they will be constantly against fast ships with long guns and a fair bit of radar. 

[dCK_Ad_Hominem]

Iirc the T10 has an initial turning circle of 830m. That is 10m fewer than Zao. ....

 

While I like the Akizuki, she fills a niche. Imo these boats are interesting, but will likely fail to keep up with their competition due to their handling which exposes them quite a bit. It is a bit like the ultimate game of chicken. Very high risk high reward boats. Still, with heal and SE the Khaba should still have more overall hp.

 

Suspense rating: 5/10. Don't really care, but not mad either.

[FallOutBoi]

5 hours ago, Commander_Cornflakes said:

The T9 does get the 6th upgrade slot, that's a good jump from Akizuki.

And two ships that differentiate itself by almost just an upgrade slot is already appealing to you ? So you wouldnt mind if WG takes new line T7 ships and additionally copy+paste them to T8 and T9 ?

 

For me Harugumo with this turning circle is just a worse Grozowoi. So honestly not very interessted in this ship. I wonder how WG would buff her if nobody plays her ? I would prefer RN-Heal, defAA, PA-Smoke and Radar of course.

 

 

[ShinGetsu]

I'm so mad at the lazy design choice of Wargaming for the Kitakaze.

The whole point of the Kai Akizuki was to improve speed, and not only they don't get any improvement in this regard, but they don't offer any significant increase of performance. 6 torpedo tubes is a side upgrade, not something that deserves an uptier. Especially with the huge downsides they bring.

 

As for Harugumo, what the hell is that ? Why make it a bad Khabarovsk ? Was it THAT hard to makes it play like a tier 10 Akizuki ? At least drops the concealment to 6.0km ffs.

[Runegrem]

14 minutes ago, ShinGetsu said:

As for Harugumo, what the hell is that ? Why make it a bad Khabarovsk ? Was it THAT hard to makes it play like a tier 10 Akizuki ? At least drops the concealment to 6.0km ffs.

Compared to a Kebab she has some 30% more firepower (87% of Des Moines DPM) and more health if Kebab uses smoke. I'm not sure a 6km concealment with that would be balanced.

[ShinGetsu]

3 minutes ago, Runegrem said:

Compared to a Kebab she has some 30% more firepower (87% of Des Moines DPM) and more health if Kebab uses smoke. I'm not sure a 6km concealment with that would be balanced.

And worse balistics, even worse turning radius, and no 50mm plating that trolls HE cruisers all day every day.

[stinkmorchel]

andno Speed max of almost 50knots......

 

i have over 1.000.000 EXP on the Akizuki - so i will go to the T10 (i see not much sense in the T9 without more Speed even with  he additional Modulslot that can improve Gun Range, Gun RPM, AAA or Torpreload) but, it will be hard work to sail it These matches i guess.

 

YY has Radar

Gearing DEF-AA

Z-52 Hydro

Grosovy gets Radar (&Smoke&DefAA).............

Khaba Heal (and speeeeeeeed)

 

Shima and Harugumo.........well. At least the Shima has good concealmant

 

Lets see , they are WIP

 

AND for sure, i will not sell my Akizuki !

[Runegrem]

2 minutes ago, ShinGetsu said:

And worse balistics, even worse turning radius, and no 50mm plating that trolls HE cruisers all day every day.

I'll admit to never have played the Akiducky (it's on the to-do list, promise. I just need to buy the Grozovoi first to have a radar + smoke DD), but how are the ballistics at 6.2km?

[stinkmorchel]

with a 14point Cpt the Akizuki it is realy worth to Play.

And a T8 has a much better MM , sometimes it is Hightier . But the Aki has no problems beeing matched in T10 games

[ShinGetsu]

8 minutes ago, Runegrem said:

I'll admit to never have played the Akiducky (it's on the to-do list, promise. I just need to buy the Grozovoi first to have a radar + smoke DD), but how are the ballistics at 6.2km?

Oh, at 6.2km it's not an issue.

But at max range for the current Aki (around 13km) you're already over the 10 seconds of flight time. When they said Kita and Haru could have a max range of about 17km I facepalmed hard. It would be approx. 15-16 seconds of flight time at this range... 

 

It performs better than Khaba at very close range, is even at around 8km, and becomes worse and worse after that. After all the 100mm have very high initial velocity but, as light shells, also suffers a lot more from drags than 130mm.

 

And yeah, no 50 knots max speed with the boost either. And I already get blap'd by large calibers guns at some 13km with Khaba sometimes... 

[Runegrem]

1 minute ago, ShinGetsu said:

Oh, at 6.2 it's not an issue.

But at max range for the current Aki (around 13km) you're already over the 10 seconds of flight time. When they said Kita and Haru could have a max range of about 17km I facepalmed hard. It would be approx. 15-16 seconds of flight time at this range... 

So at close ranges you can melt other DDs and at long ranges you can fire over islands?

 

Yeah, 17km range with those ballistics sound a bit long. It might be fun to see how many shells you can have in the air at any given time though.

[AnotherDuck]

Duckies still deserve Defensive Anti-Air Fire consumable. They're explicitly designed as dedicated AA destroyers for duck's sake.