Paolo Emilio! Italian Destroyer

After forever it seems, I have gotten my FIRST research ship, the Paolo Emilio!

It is an interesting ship, most players I know feel I was crazy to go for this ship because it is supposedly boxed into a specific role by World Of Warships.  But I read an in-depth review of it written by Little White Mouse and she noted that it has some surprising features.  I also did some research from other players (players who were also wrapped up in naval history) and learned that the Paolo was originally designed (or at least considered to be more like) a light cruiser, larger than a typical destroyer.

Well, my favorite ships to play are light cruisers in game.  They have next to no armor so you really need to "dance around" and hide when you can, and then appear and fire off as many rounds at a target as you can.  Another nice feature of light cruisers are torpedoes; most have them.

So it occurred to me that, hey, if I treat this over-sized destroyer as a light cruiser, and play to protect myself from being hit but hit as often as I can I should be good, right?

I learn to play ships in co-op mode (which means people vs bots) so the score is not necessarily very indicative of how a random match (player vs player) or a clan battle would go, but even so in my second battle with this ship I was the top scorer in the match and here are the results:

I am not displeased with that.  In co-op mode it is every man for him/herself.  People play co-op to earn easy points, to earn badges, to "practice" a new ship, etc.  I have no idea if I can have success in a random match, will have to try that, but I am encouraged to find that with my gun range, and reload speed build, I can play this destroyer like a "light cruiser" and survive.

Yumugo

 I might have mentioned previously that in order to complete a (long and arduous) campaign, I found out (when I unlocked the final step) that I needed a tier X destroyer!  Not just any, had to be British, American or Japanese.  Well, I am not much of a destroyer player, but I liked the early tier IJN destroyers so I happened to have one lying around.

Since that time, I have been grinding like a madman to get XP and silver coins to upgrade through the IJN (Imperial Japanese Navy) destroyer tree.  I have used my tier VIII cruisers and BBs to accomplish most of this, and some using the destroyers themselves.

ANYWAY...  I made it to tier IX!!!  Very exciting.  Took me a week though.  I imagine since at every tier the requirements virtually double, that this will take another 2 weeks before I can upgrade to the Shimikaze.  This ship, the Yumugo, with stealth upgrade and stealth captain ability, is pretty darn sneaky.  It's torpedoes are 10K range, my concealment us something like 5.4K range.  So I am able to settle in, set up where I know ships will come, and just lay out a wall of torps.

It's firepower is decent too.  I have killed several other destroyers with main batteries alone, and even killed cruisers with a combination of torpedoes and main batteries.  Decent ship.

The Shimikaze (on paper anyway) looks to be a MONSTER.  It has a torpedo rating of 60 out of a hundred!!  That is exceptional... since basically 95% of the torpedo boats out there have between 15 and 25 as a torpedo rating.  These torpedoes must be photon torpedoes or something.  :)

Anyway, its main batteries are actually cruiser-level guns...  I mean everything about this "destroyer" really screams light cruiser++.  So I will grind and grind over the next 2 weeks and hope to obtain this Shimi.  I usually sell my previous level ships... I don't know though.  The Yumu is the last "traditional" destroyer as the tier X Shimi is something entirely different.