Manfred von Richthofen

Capping off the German carrier line, Manfred von Richthofen, named for the famous WWI pilot known as the Red Baron, is the epitome of German carrier design, ironically having never been conceived much less built at the time it was supposed in-game to be designed and laid down.

Let's start with the hull first. Unlike other purpose built aircraft carriers, such as Midway, Richthofen is basically an airfield laid down on top off an H-class battleship hull. This, of course, gives her solid durability against both HE and AP shell fire, thanks to a turtleback armor scheme that is unique among her type, although her flight deck is just 50mm thick, compared to the other carriers at this tier that possess decks that easily exceed 70 or 80mm in thickness. This means that supercruisers, heavy cruisers with high HE penetration (e.g. Hindenberg or Henry IV with IFHE), battleships shooting HE, and American Tiny Tim rockets and HE bombs can penetrate the deck and easily rack up damage. Another unique characteristic of the hull is the rather impressive secondary battery. Comprised entirely of 105mm DP guns with Massachusetts-level accuracy and range, they serve as an excellent deterrent against destroyers and other light vessels that make attempts to assault Richthofen at close range.

Next, her aircraft. Richthofen's attack aircraft are unique, as they use armor piercing rockets instead of the high explosive rockets that are found on other carriers at this tier. This makes the Red Baron less effective against destroyers, since the rockets will just over-penetrate or bounce, but they have undeniably excellent performance against broadsiding cruisers and the upper works of the more thinly armored battleships that Richthofen will see. Her show-stealers, however are her dive bombers. Unlike other dive bombers, these start from high altitude and dive straight down towards their target, which, while it makes charging through flak a challenge, allows for a precision drop on larger targets such as supercruisers. Speaking of which, Richthofen's bombers use AP bombs that boast incredible alpha damage and high penetration — enough to surpass even the pre-AP bomb adjusted Hakuryu by some 900 points of damage, should all three bombs dropped hit the citadel of the target. (If they hit the target, that is; the aiming reticle is an ellipsoid, unlike that of Graf Zeppelin and Erich Loewenhardt, which means that bombs can just as easily miss the target as they can hit it.) Finally, we come to the torpedo bombers. These bombers are ridiculously fast, armed with high speed torpedoes that are guaranteed to hit the target with proper lead. Unlike Hakuryu's or Midway's torpedo bombers, these are more of a secondary weapon than a main striking arm, more useful for finishing off low health targets or starting floods than actually inflicting large amounts of damage on a singular target, due to the low alpha damage on each fish. One more thing to note about these aircraft is that they have rather low HP pools compared to the aircraft of other carriers at this tier, yet they are capable of speeds that would shame other carriers, capable of a ridiculous 230 knots with the W key mashed into the board (and with the proper upgrades and commander skills, of course ).