Aoba

Tier VI Aoba is an evolution of her predecessor. In general, she does the same things that Furutaka does, but slightly more. A little bit stealthier, a little bit faster, dealing a little bit more damage. She also emphasizes the weaknesses of Furutaka, weak AA defenses and slow main battery operation.

The Ship

Her top speed of 35 knots makes Aoba one of the faster cruisers at her tier, allowing her to move about the battlefield with relative ease. Although her turning radius of 710 meters is far from the tightest, she has a fast rudder shift time of 6.5 seconds. Aoba will start turning quickly, but she needs space to make her maneuvers which makes operating in confined waters uncomfortable. Her concealment of 11.7 km can be reduced down to 10.5 km with Concealment Expert, which further helps her to safely relocate.

Aoba mounts a standard cruiser Damage Control Party , which is active for 5 seconds with a 60 second cool down. Her second slot has a choice of consumables – a Hydroacoustic Search  or Defensive AA Fire . Hydroacoustic Search is the optimal choice, this will detect torpedoes at 3 km and ships at 4 km for 100 seconds. The Defensive AA Fire will provide a 50% boost to her continuous AA damage, but the weakness of her AA means the benefits are rather limited. In her third slot, Aoba carries a Catapult Fighter  which launches a pair of fighters which patrol around the ship for up to 1 minute. Finally, she mounts a Submarine Surveillance  which will detect submerged submarines at 5 km range for 20 seconds.

Survivability

With 16 mm of plating, Aoba’s bow and stern can bounce heavy cruiser AP if sufficiently angled, although she is vulnerable to all calibers of HE. Her citadel runs for most of the length of the ship with a large raised section between her bridge and rear structure, although the sections below her turrets are submerged and difficult to hit. With 76 mm of armor and a large area to hit, she is vulnerable to taking citadel damage. There is also some extra protection provided by the presence of torpedo bulges along the length of her citadel, which can result in shells detonating before penetrating the main armor belt. Aoba has a rather small health pool for a heavy cruiser, with no way to replenish lost hit points players must be careful not to throw their health away.

Armament

Aoba mounts a small main battery of six 203 mm guns in three twin turrets, with the standard Japanese slow turret traverse time – only Pensacola has slower turrets. With 14.9 km of range and no way of improving it her main battery range can sometimes feel lacking, particularly when she is downtiered. Her guns have a reload of 11 seconds which allows Aoba to remain somewhat competitive with other heavy cruisers but she will not be able to match the DPM of lighter armed ships. To offset this disadvantage, her guns use destroyer dispersion rather than the usual cruiser dispersion. This means that shells will tend to group closer to the aiming point and helps to compensate for her small main battery.

On a per shell basis Aoba has some of the best HE at her tier. The shells hit hard, 3,300 damage is the highest at her tier, and have a good fire chance of 17% as well as the ability to penetrate battleship plating. In ideal conditions, players couldcan expect to set 5-6 fires per minute with sustained firing. Whilst this trails behind the potential of 152 mm armed ships, the direct damage that Aoba can do will help to offset this. Her AP shells

Aoba carries a quad torpedo launcher on each side, with hard hitting and long range torpedoes. With a 10 km range they can be used against targets at a distance. Although they hit hard, the torpedoes travel rather slowly and have a large detection range. Targets will have 9.5 seconds of reaction time to take avoiding action. These are effectively the same weapons that Furutaka mounts, but with a longer reload. Additionally, Aoba introduces players to another key feature of Japanese cruisers – restricted torpedo arcs. Her forward angles are non-existent, although she has very good angles to the rear.

Anti-Air

Aoba has weak AA defenses. She has some long-range AA guns which reach out to 5.2 km, but she only puts out a single flak cloud that is unlikely to pose much threat to enemy aircraft. Much of Aoba’s continuous DPS comes from her short-range weapons, which are limited to 2.5 km range and will not engage enemy aircraft until they are already established on an attack run. The addition of her Patrol Fighter consumable continues this trend. In theory her fighters can provide some additional protection, in reality they are just as likely to watch enemy aircraft fly past without interfering.

Anti-Submarine

Aoba carries an ASW airstrike with a range of 6 km, this drops a single depth charge per attack with 20 seconds between uses. Although it only launches a single aircraft, it does allow Aoba to engage enemy submarines with a degree of safety. Her Submarine Surveillance and Hydroacoustic Search consumables can also be an important asset to her team, allowing players to track enemy submarines for nearby allies to attack.

Battle Performance

Players will need to use effective positioning and ammunition selection in order to compensate for Aoba’s low base damage output. A well-aimed salvo can potentially cripple an enemy cruiser or destroyer, if the right ammunition is selected. For this reason, the Gun Feeder captain skill is recommended as it will allow players to more quickly switch ammunition types.

Aoba is not suited to close range fighting, where her long reload and slow turret traverse will make combat difficult. At medium ranges she will be able to use her concealment to reach good firing positions, which will combine with her improved dispersion to allow some accurate attacks. Against enemy cruisers, remaining bow-in can be a viable tactic, as she can bounce the AP rounds of most same-tier cruisers. With two-thirds of her firepower forward, she will not lose much potential DPM this way. Enemy cruisers that attempt to unmask more guns or launch torpedoes will need to risk showing broadside. Against destroyers or angled targets, HE rounds should be the usual choice.