Huanghe

Huanghe mates a British hull with a Commonwealth Crawling Smoke and Russian weapons. She may have low health, low torpedo tube count, and a small main battery, but her stealth and agility make her tricky to pin down. She represents a later version of Tier V Chungking following a hypothetical refit, but her weapons and consumables give the two ships vastly different play styles.

The Ship

Huanghe is the stealthiest of the Tier VI cruisers, with a standard concealment of just 9.26 km. This can be reduced to 8.3 km with the Concealment Expert captain skill. In the absence of aircraft or destroyers, Huanghe can make a capable scout for her team.

Her maneuverability is similarly good. Although a top speed of 33 knots will not break any records, she is still able to move about the battlefield with relative ease. Her exceptionally tight turning circle of 570 meters coupled with a fast rudder shift time of 6.7 seconds allows Huanghe to rapidly change direction. She is able to easily maneuver in confined spaces or react to incoming long-range fire with relative ease.

Huanghe mounts a standard cruiser Damage Control Party  with a 5 second action time and a 60-second cooldown between uses. In her second slot, Huanghe can choose between a Torpedo Reload Booster  or Hydroacoustic Search , both with 3 uses as standard. The Torpedo Reload Booster reduces their reload time to 8 seconds, although it has a lengthy four minute wait between uses. Her Hydroacoustic Search is standard for a Tier VI cruiser; with an action time of 100 seconds, it will detect ships at 4 km and torpedoes at 3 km. Huanghe’s low torpedo count and the fact that she will likely spend a lot of time in smoke and around destroyers make Hydroacoustic Search the optimal choice for most players. In her third consumable slot, Huanghe mounts a Crawling Smoke Generator , a tool more commonly found on Commonwealth ships. This creates a smoke screen that disperses quickly, but it is active for an extended period, allowing Huanghe to maneuver at ¼ speed while remaining inside the smoke. This has 3 uses with an action time of 102 seconds and a wait of 160 seconds between uses.

Survivability

Although her armor layout is based on Chungking, the Soviets have managed to improve her armor in places. With 16 mm of bow and stern plating, she is better protected than most Pan-Asian cruisers, able to bounce heavy cruiser AP rounds if she is angled enough. However, her citadel belt armor is only 70 mm thick, which provides little protection against broadside shots. Given her small size, Huanghe unsurprisingly has one of the lowest health pools of the Tier VI cruisers; only Rahmat and Dido have less. With no way to recover lost health, every hit taken will hurt. Her smoke can provide much-needed protection in an emergency, but the long cooldown means the best protection is planning ahead.

Armament

Huanghe mounts a relatively small main battery of six 152 mm guns in three twin turrets with a short firing range of 13.2 km. These weapons have a fairly fast 7 second reload, but only six guns leaves her with low DPM for a light cruiser. Her shells have a high initial velocity and flat arcs, making gunnery over range considerably easier than many other light cruisers. Her turret traverse can be best described as stately, taking 25.7 seconds to rotate through a full 180°. Her AP rounds retain decent penetration at range; Huanghe can still penetrate the citadel armor of many light cruisers past 10 km. Although her AP shells are possibly better than expected, she lacks the ability to land a single knockout blow on most targets due to the small salvo. Her HE shells share similar ballistics, so players may find it easier to hit destroyers at medium ranges. Otherwise, her HE is unremarkable. With a 12% fire chance per shell, Huanghe can potentially set 6 fires per minute under ideal conditions, although the actual total will likely be lower.

Huanghe mounts a triple torpedo launcher on each side with good firing arcs, particularly to the rear, and narrow spreads. At shorter ranges this can be an advantage as more torpedoes are likely to hit, but it makes them poor area denial weapons at longer ranges. With an 8 km range, they cannot quite be fired from stealth but they can be launched at advancing enemies while Huanghe is sailing away. Huanghe is unlikely to score massive damage with these weapons, but they can provide a deterrent to larger ships or help to knock off decent chunks of health from a target.

Anti-Air

Huanghe has strong AA defenses for a Tier VI cruiser. Her long-range guns reach out to 5.8 km and have the highest DPM at her tier. Her flak is also strong, creating 4 bursts that deal 1,260 damage to any aircraft caught in a cloud. Huanghe can provide good cover to nearby ships if players are able to overlap AA ranges. Her shorter-ranged guns are also rather good, with the majority able to engage targets at 3.5 km from the ship. Huanghe is not impervious to air attack, but she is an unpleasant target, especially for Tier VI carriers, and she makes a good escort for other ships. An unwary carrier player can easily lose several aircraft to Huanghe’s defenses.

Anti-Submarine

Huanghe uses stern-mounted depth charges for her ASW, dropping a set of 7 depth charges in each attack. She can have a maximum of two attacks ready to drop at a time. Her individual depth charges are fairly weak, with low flood and fire chances. Huanghe can use her Hydroacoustic Search to track a submarine if players know where to start looking, which can aid in hunting, but she is not a good ASW platform.

Battle Performance

Huanghe is a master of the stealth game, able to use her concealment to reach advantageous positions with ease. Her concealment allows players to pick the fights they want, and ensure she has support before engaging. Huanghe is a team player and will struggle against same tier enemies without help. Her relative fragility means she is not suited to being the lead ship in a stand-up brawl; she is better suited to supporting friendly ships as they engage their targets. Using the crawling smoke allows Huanghe to constantly cycle her guns from relative safety. Her position is less predictable than a cruiser in a standard smoke screen, but this still requires team mates to spot targets for her. She works well at medium to short ranges, where her accurate guns are suited to engaging destroyers. Fighting destroyers is still not easy, but her maneuverability and Hydroacoustic Search make it safer than in many other cruisers. The flat arcs of her guns are an advantage in open waters, but make firing from behind islands more difficult.