Premium Ship Review: Tirpitz (2.0)

[LittleWhiteMouse]

This review was originally published on the WGNA Forums on May 20th, 2016.

The following is aimed at new(ish) players looking to find a little more information about various ships from events, for premium currency or for real-world cash.  The goal is to allow players to make an educated decision before parting with their time and money and to find premium vessels that suit their chosen style of play, whether that is competitive, cooperative, or simply for fun.  The idea here is to elabourate on information not commonly available through reading statistics and provide some (heavily) biased anecdotal evidence to encourage or dissuade you from making your purchase.  The usual disclaimers apply:  everyone knows the Matchmaker clearly loves me because I spend money so that's why I occasionally get really good games, not because I have any particular skills of note.

Without further ado:

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The Tier 8 German Bismarck-class Battleship
Tirpitz

Quick Summary:  A massive and surprisingly fast super-dreadnought.  She is under-gunned for both her size and her tier.  This is (partly) compensated with a faster rate of fire, decent secondary battery compliment and being the only battleship (so far) to be armed with deck mounted torpedoes.
Cost:  12,500 Doubloons.

Closest in-Game Contemporary:  Warspite
Degree of Similarity:  Clone / Sister-Ship / Related Class / Similar Role / Unique
Both the Warspite and Tirpitz are brawlers, designed for rather close-range fighting.  No other Battleship comes close to these two in this specialty.  Game play wise, though, they're entirely different in how they approach combat, with the Warspite relying on her incredible durability and Tirpitz attempting to make knock out blows with her fish.

PROs

• Excellent rate of fire for a Battleship at 2.3 RPM.
• Good range on primary guns, up to 21.4km  -- up to 25.7km with her float plane.
• Good ballistic performance with AP rounds with high muzzle velocity.
• Fast turret rotation for a Battleship of 36s for 180' turn.
• Decent secondary batteries with fair range of 4.5km.
• Powerful, short ranged torpedo armament with excellent arcs.
• Top speed of 30.5 knots.
• Good durability with large hit point pool and solid armour layout.

CONs

• Lowest Alpha Strike & DPM of all Tier 8 Battleships
• USN level of (in)accuracy combined with wide spacing of guns in turrets makes dispersion feel exaggerated.
• HE performance is abysmal -- on par with tier 3 Battleships.
• Armour layout isn't quite as good as advertised.
• Poor AA load-out (changing in 0.5.6?)
• Largish turning circle of 850m.

Non standard camouflage, oblique lighting and a rain squall?  Sounds like the perfect formula for a screenshot to me!

Tirpitz has changed subtly since her inception back in September of 2015 and my initial review.  More significantly, when 0.5.3 went live, her anti-aircraft firepower changed along with that on every other ship.  This wasn't enough to warrant an immediate revisit of the review -- particularly when Tirpitz has been largely unavailable on the North American server for as long as she has.  However, with 0.5.6 on the horizon and players getting the ability to buy her for Doubloons, it seemed the perfect time to bring my review up to date.  But I won't be flying solo on this one.  Lert has once again volunteered his services to add a second layer of feedback for this review.

The Lert Box

Once again LWM has gracioucly allowed me some space in her review to post my own thoughts. This time though instead of a new, upcoming premium we're talking about a very notorious yet desired one that has been in the game for a long time already. I've put 314 battles through my own Tirpitz at the time of this writing, and maintain a decent 58% winrate with her, and an average damage caused of just over 60k. Is her notoriety deserved? Is her desirability? Let's find out.

Options

There are no real surprises when it comes to the options for Tirpitz.  Be aware that you do have the choice between a float plane fighter and a spotter aircraft.  In addition, her Damage Control Party is the standard version, with a 15 second active time found on  the Russian Imperator Nikolai I.

Consumables:  Three slots

1. Damage Control Party (15 second active time)
2. Repair Party (9702hp per charge)
3. Spotter Aircraft or Float Plane Fighter

Module Upgrades:  Five slots.  Standard options (does not get access to the USN Artillery Plotting Modification). Interestingly, she is unable to take any modules related to her torpedo armament.
Premium Camouflage:  Tier 6+ standard.  This provides 50% bonus experience gains, 3% reduction in surface detection and 4% reduction in enemy accuracy.

Artillery

Primary Battery:  380mm main guns in 4x2 turrets (A-B-X-Y arrangement, super-firing)
Secondary Battery:  105mm dual purpose rifles in 8x2 turrets, 150mm guns in 6x2 turrets

The Lert Box

Primary firepower:

And this is where things start falling apart for Tirpitz, though not as much as one might expect. With the lowest alpha strike potential and lowest DPM potential of the three tier 8 battlewagons in the game, she comes in dead last in this category. Also, her accuracy isn't very good, to say the least. But it's not all bad news though. While she only has a 'mere' eight 15" rifles in four twin-barrel turrets, they have the best muzzle velocity of the three tier 8 heavyweights, and are thus easiest to aim. The shell trajectory is very flat, and together with a very good turret rotation that can easily keep up regardless how hard you throw the rudder around this pushes her more towards the brawling role than her armor scheme already does. Also, what does dispersion matter, when you are looking your enemy dead in the eyes at close range? Her range is on par with the others, reaching just over 21km base.

Amagi gets the win here, with a set of 10 beautifully performing 16" rifles, with North Carolina taking second spot despite her floaty shells.

Tirpitz: 1 pt
North Carolina: 2 pts
Amagi: 3 pts

I don't like the main guns on Tirpitz.  In the present meta,  Tirpitz is under-gunned for her tier.  This paradigm may shift with the inclusion of the Royal Navy and Kriegsmarine but for now, Tirpitz is sporting a mere eight 380mm rifles when her contemporaries in the American and Japanese tech trees have moved on to nine or ten 410mm guns. This means that Tirpitz can never match the potential alpha strike of the North Carolina or Amagi, having little more firepower than a tier 6 Warspite.  Wargaming has addressed this disparity somewhat by providing Tirpitz with a faster rate of fire -- approximately 2.3rpm.  However, she still lags behind the other tier 8 Battleships in terms of damage per minute even with this increase.

In addition, Tirpitz is utterly lacking a sufficient high explosive shell.  The striking power of her HE shells is worse than that of the Japanese tier 3 Kawachi-class Battleship.  A standard penetrating (non citadel) hit with her high explosive shells will do a maximum of 1452 damage (726 damage to a saturated area) while an over-penetration with her AP rounds will do 1160 damage consistently.  If it weren't for the benefits critical damage to modules and the chance of a fire, it wouldn't be worth reaching for her high explosive shells at all when engaging soft skinned targets like destroyers.

Tirpitz shares a similar (if slightly worse) dispersion to range ratio as the USN Battleships.

Ship Name          Max AP Alpha   AP DPM    Max HE Alpha   HE DPM  

HMS Warspite               91,200       182,400       42,400         84,800  

USS North Carolina        117,900       235,800       51,300        102,600

IJN Amagi                 126,000       252,000       65,000        130,000 

KMS Tirpitz                92,800       213,440       35,200         80,960

It's not all bad news, though -- her guns are perfectly serviceable thanks to some nice perks.  The modest increase to her rate of fire allows her to adjust and catch some ships off guard with the speed of her reload.  Tirpitz also has the highest muzzle velocity of any of the tier 8 Battleships at 820m/s.  This counteracts some of the accuracy problems with using her guns as she has less lead time at all ranges when compared to the Amagi and North Carolina, with almost a 2 second advantage on the North Carolina's AP shells at 20km.  These two elements combined make her a very good cruiser-killer, able to take advantage of momentary opportunities to pick off citadels. Her range is also respectable, being worse than the North Carolina but better than the Amagi at 21.4km.  Lastly, her turrets are rather fast turning for a battleship at 5' per second (36s for 180' rotation), allowing them to easily track most targets even with her rudder put hard over, or to switch to the aforementioned targets of opportunity with a quick traverse.

Tirpitz has a rather formidable secondary battery.  It's not quite up to IJN levels but she definitely has a respectable and more utilitarian load out with a homogeneous high explosive round build and good rates of fire.  Their base range of 4.5km is a bit disappointing, but it's workable -- especially when paired with her other secondary armament.

 

Tirpitz engages an enemy Amagi at over 20km in range.  Though she can easily reach these distances, her guns are best suited for close range firefights.

The Lert Box

Secondary firepower:

Tirpitz comes out of the gate strong with a set of very capable 150's, 6 barrels to a side. These fire HE shells and will do their best to set anything ablaze that wanders within their 4.5km base range. These guns are backed by a set of HE throwing 105mm's, 8 to a side, with the same base range.  Amagi though takes the win here, with 16 AP throwing 140's, 8 per side, and 8 127's per side that fire HE, both to the same 4.5km base range.  Poor North Carolina lags behind with 10 127mm barrels per side, firing HE out to 4.5km. 

And that would be it, if not for the public secret of Tirpitz's nasty poison dagger in the form of a set of Vierling torpedoes per side. These are the ubiquitous German 6km, 13.700 damage torpedoes that help push Tirpitz to the first spot in this category.

Tirpitz: 3 pts
North Carolina: 1 pt
Amagi: 2 pts

Torpedoes

This is the feature of Tirpitz which earns it much of her hype. Tirpitz is (at the time this article was written) the only Battleship in World of Warships with a usable torpedo armament. Armed with two, quadruple deck launchers, Tirpitz's torpedoes have a phenomenal field of fire. She can easily launch from a 1 o'clock to a 5 o'clock aspect to starboard and a similar coverage to port. Her fish have a rather short range of 6.0km, but unlike Destroyers or Cruisers, she's tough enough to wade right into the thick of an engagement and dispense them. At a 64 knot top speed and 13,700 alpha strike per warhead, this allows Tirpitz to deliver knockout blows in close quarters brawling to anything foolish enough to allow her to get close. Her reload is 90s -- so if the battle is protracted, it's not unlikely for her to launch again.

In the practical sense, these torpedoes allow Tirpitz to land the equivalent of an AP citadel hit from her main guns per torpedo. Slamming four into an enemy Battleship may not kill them but it will certainly leave them on very low health and make them easy to finish off. With a launcher off each side, Tirpitz is more than capable of wading into the midst of a pair of rival Dreadnoughts and coming out of it with one heck of a story to tell.

Combined with her rather nice secondary gun batteries, Tirpitz is more than capable of stacking fires and flooding both, making her an absolute nightmare for anyone that lets her in close.

 

Brawling against Tirpitz is never a good idea.  She cheats, as this Colorado is quickly discovering.
At 64 knots, it's very difficult for an enemy battleship to dodge a torpedo strike that's launched on a perpendicular path to their line of travel.  When using your fish, hold off on launching them until you have the broadside of the enemy to ensure maximum damage.

Aircraft

Air Group:  Single deployed float plane fighter or spotter aircraft.

The Lert Box

All three get access to the same options, the choice between a fighter and a spotter. I personally run a fighter. Tirpitz's base range is sufficient and her dispersion is such that you're really not going to hit much at longer ranges anyways. Category a draw.

Tirpitz: 1 pt
North Carolina: 1 pt
Amagi: 1 pt

As a Battleship, Tirpitz has the choice between a float-plane fighter and a spotter aircraft.  Not much to say here.  The float plane fighter is (to me) definitely more interesting, if only because I fan-girled all over seeing a float-plane version of the Bf-109.  Utility wise, your mileage may vary.  Any alert CV or enemy cruiser will quickly shoot down your 109 for a free air kill though it's very handy for helping give you advanced warning of incoming torpedoes with it's long endurance.  The spotter will boost your range up to 25.7km and the faster reload of Tirpitz's main battery will let you take more advantage of the short window of opportunity than other Battleships.

Maneuverability

Top Speed:  30.5 knots.
Turning Radius:  850m
Rudder Shift:  16.0s

It's a close race between the tier 8 Battleships for which one could be considered the most agile.  In this respect, Tirpitz competes very well.  She's faster than either the North Carolina or Amagi.  Her rudder shift is also the best among her peers.  The North Carolina beats her out on turning circles though, with a 90m advantage over the German Super Dreadnought.  While she may be the 'best' in two out of three categories, I wouldn't go so far as to boast that she has "good" agility.  Her best feature is certainly her top speed.  With Steering Gears Modification 2, you can drop her rudder shift time down to a quite respectable level (for a battleship) of 12.8s.  But Tirpitz will never feel truly "agile", not where it counts.  Plan your turns well in advance.  Heed any threats of aircraft or torpedoes long before they're spotted.

She is, after all, a massive Battleship with more power than grace.

The Lert Box

This one is a bit tougher to call. Do I value straight line speed over turn radius, or the other way around? Tirpitz is the fastest out of the three, though only beating Amagi by half a knot. North Carolina has the tightest turn radius of the three with the best rudder shift. Amagi has the largest turn radius, though it's only 20m more than Tirpitz's.

So how do I call this? Of all the categories this is the one that had me most stumped. Tirpitz is fastest, but only slightly. North Carolina is the most agile, but the slowest by a considerable margin. All I know is that with the slowest rudder shift, largest turning circle and second-place speed Amagi does not win.

In the end, I'm giving the win to Tirpitz by the narrowest of margins, simply because of having the fastest speed and best rudder shift. North Carolina is close behind though. Very close.

Tirpitz: 3 pts
North Carolina: 2 pts
Amagi: 1 pt

 

Islands are a mixed blessing for Tirpitz.  Though they provide cover and allow her to engage in close-ranged duels where she excels, they give her little room to maneuver.  Her large turning circle make her feel cumbersome in such enclosed environments.  However, they do give her the opportunity to make excellent use of her secondary batteries, torpedoes and armour.  Her fast-turning turrets are perfect for such close range knife fights.

 

Durability

Hit Points:  69,300
Citadel Protection:  315mm + Turtleback
Anti-Torpedo Bulge:  24% damage reduction

In game, Tirpitz is almost as famous for her Survivability as she is for her torpedoes.  Her armour layout is best described as "odd".  On paper, she appears no better protected than the tier 7 Nagato or the tier 5 New York, but these values are misleading.  Tirpitz has a classic Battleship armour scheme, similar to that found on WWI era vessels like the aforementioned Nagato, New York or ships like the Warspite.  There is armour that covers almost her entire waterline from bow to stern, making her difficult to penetrate when she angles.  But there's more to it than that.

The interior of Tirpitz is heavily compartmentalized, leading to sandwiches of armour beyond the belt which incoming shells need to penetrate to affect a citadel hit.  Most famously, she's equipped with "turtleback" around her citadel -- a series of steel plates, well sloped, and over 100mm thick to help deflect lateral shots that punch through the belt armour at a perpendicular angle.  Effectively, at medium to close ranges, Tirpitz's citadel is protected by as much as 700mm of effective armour around her machine spaces and around 500mm around her magazines.  Do keep the range in mind -- it's important.  At a distance, however, even the slight dip of shells afforded by World of Warship's game engine can neutralize some of this protection.  At ranges in excess of 14km, Battleship caliber guns plunge sufficiently that strikes landing just above the waterline can punch through the weaker armour over-top of the armoured belt.  The increased angle also negates the turtleback armour considerably.

What this means in practical terms is that Tirpitz doesn't take citadel hits very often, especially at medium ranges.  At a distance, she has to worry about plunging fire and up close, some of the ships she'll face will have enough raw power in their shells to brutalize her magazines.  You can expect to take a lot of penetrating hits in Tirpitz but not nearly as many citadel penetrations as other vessels.  In addition, with armour spread out all over the ship, some key areas suffer somewhat -- not having the heavier protection afforded on other vessels.  The decks of Tirpitz, especially over-top of the machine spaces, is rather weak making her vulnerable to lobbed high explosive shells.  In addition, her turrets seem to get knocked out rather often -- not having the raw thickness of armour (or armour angling) found on other nations at this tier.  Overall, though, angling works very well for this ship and players should take full advantage of her decent(ish) rudder-shift time to help dodge incoming fire and mitigate damage.

Her anti-torpedo bulges are modest, having no better defense than that of the HMS Warspite at tier 6.  This is slightly better than the North Carolina, though it's almost half that of the Amagi.

Her defensive consumables are pretty standard fare, with little in the way of surprises.  Her Damage Control Party shares the same Battleship reset timer of 120s.  The active period is shorter than the American 20s but better than the Japanese 10s.  This 15s up-time seems like it may be the new standard, as it's shared with the Russian Imperator Nikolai I.  We'll have to wait to see what happens with the other ships of the Kriegsmarine and Royal Navy when they get included to recognize if this is going to be the new medium-rating.  In game play terms, this means that managing critical damage is important as with any Battleship short of the Warspite, so as to not be caught lit ablaze in multiple locations or flooding (or both) without a way to mitigate these damage over time effects.

For regeneration, Tirpitz's Repair Party is standard.  It heals back 1/200th of your maximum HP per tick for 28s for a total of 9702hp per charge.

The Lert Box

With more hit points and a better armor scheme than North Carolina as well as Amagi, Tirpitz walks away with this category. However, more deserves to be said than just that. While Tirpitz' armor scheme is better, it's designed around a single purpose: to keep enemy shells out of its machinery spaces at medium to close range. This means that to make the most out of her turtleback, you want to close the range as quickly as possible to eliminate the long range fire and protect your relatively vulnerable decks. Also, while the turtleback is very good at keeping shells out of your vitals, the belt is less proficient at keeping shells outside of the ship period, meaning that you'll suffer a lot of 'normal' penetrations that do 33% damage as opposed to 100% damage citadel hits.

Where the armor shines though is at brawling ranges. It's not unheard of to score a citadel against a Tirpitz, but it's a rare occurrence and should not be counted on.

Tirpitz: 3 pts
North Carolina: 2 pts
Amagi: 1 pt

 

Broken in half by sustained Battleship and Cruiser fire, this cross section (though tragic) gives a beautiful interior view of the compartmentalization and different armour layers which makes Tirpitz so tough to citadel.
Photo courtesy of Lert!

 

Concealment & Camouflage

Tirpitz is enormous, but her stealth rating is quite surprising.  Visible from the surface at a range of 16.4km.  This better than the Amagi but slightly worse than the North Carolina.  As a tier 8 vessel, she has access to the Concealment Modification 1 module which can help reduce this down.  When combined with the Concealment Expert Captain skill and her camouflage bonus, you can drop the surface detection range of Tirpitz to 12.3km which is downright insane for a vessel of her size.

Her camouflage itself is the standard variety found on all Premium ships at tier 6+.  This provides a 3% reduction to your detection range, a 4% disruption to enemy accuracy and the standard 50% bonus to experience gained per match.

Anti-Aircraft Defense

AA Battery Calibers:  105mm / 37mm / 20mm
AA Umbrella Ranges:  4.5km / 3.5km / 2.0km

The changes made to anti-aircraft firepower in 0.5.3 were kind to Tirpitz.  In 0.5.6, the AA guns mounted on top of her turrets became functional, giving her a slight increase to her AA defense. The power of individual mounts and their range did not change in the recent patch (unlike some of the Soviet AA guns).

When she was first introduced, Tirpitz was renown for having a weak anti-aircraft armament. The lion's share of her DPS in those days came from the 2.1km range 20mm self-defense guns, meaning that most same-tier or higher-tier aircraft good jump her without losing a single plane when making their attacks. This made Tirpitz a priority target for CV players, particularly when they caught her alone or unawares (heaven help her if both were true). Since 0.5.3, AA power was rebalanced to put more teeth into the larger caliber weapons. In the case of Tirpitz, this was increasing the AA power of her dual-purpose 105mm twin-gun turrets which allowed her to engage aircraft sooner with more front-loaded damage. However, this didn't increase the amount of raw damage she was able to put out.

Pre 0.5.3

• At 5km, 36dps
• At 3.5km, 40dps
• At 2.1km, 184dps

TOTAL:  260dps

Post 0.5.3

• At 4.5km, 134dps
• At 3.5km, 21dps
• At 2.0km, 84dps

TOTAL:  239dps, 53 Rating

While the changes from 0.5.3 makes it more likely that Tirpitz will successfully shoot down an enemy plane or two, it's still unlikely that her anti-aircraft defense would be considered anything near adequate for her tier as it presently stands.  Even her float plane fighter, which can provide some assistance, is barely enough to make her AA-defense feel a sizeable threat to anything but tier 6 carriers.  Until 0.5.6 rolls around, enemy carriers should clap their hands with joy when they see a Tirpitz unprotected by allied cruisers.

The Lert Box

Tirpitz's AA was never her strong suit, and despite recent buffs, that really hasn't changed much. It's part of why I prefer the fighter over the spotter plane, since it helps disrupt incoming torpedo bomber attacks and boosts the AA from 'mediocre' to 'servicable'. But no matter what you do, you're not going to match the hail-of-fire that North Carolina puts up against incoming airplanes.

That leaves Amagi, which on paper has the better AA and the higher rating. Her long range AA is longer range than Tirpitz's and ironically so is Amagi's short range AA. This leaves Tirpitz in third place, despite recent buffs. Even the 5.6 buffs won't really change much about that, as it is Tirpitz's short range AA that will get a buff, and that's exactly the type of AA does doesn't keep airplanes from dropping their ordnance.

Tirpitz: 1 pt
North Carolina: 3 pts
Amagi: 2 pts

 

Tirpitz has never had what could be defined as "adequate" anti-aircraft defense.  When facing same-tier or higher tier aircraft, Tirpitz is incapable of not only defending herself but damaging aircraft squadrons to any significant degree.

Overall Impressions

The Lert Box

Let's tally up, shall we?

Tirpitz accumulated 12 points
North Carolina gathered 11 points
Amagi scrounged 10 points

So this means that Tirpitz is best, North Carolina is mediocre and Amagi is crap?

Well, no. In the primary firepower category the single point difference doesn't begin to show the disparity between the ships, meaning that the difference between the three isn't as small as my generalized, subjective scoring suggests. To put it this way, I sold North Carolina when I was done with her, but Amagi has earned a permanent spot in my port.

But this review is about Tirpitz. And if my flawed scoring methodology shows one thing accurately, it's that Tirpitz isn't just a gimmick, she is a contender. That said, she needs a certain type of captain to make her shine. She demands a certain play style to come into her own. She epitomizes the 'drive me closer, I want to hit them with my sword' mentality. Everything about her is optimized for the close-in, brawling playstyle. The turret traverse, the flat shell trajectory, the torpedoes, the heavy secondary armament, the armor profile, the hitpoints. It all points to a brawling battleship. That's her greatest strength. And, perhaps, her greatest flaw. Because this game does not have a brawling meta - at least, not on the NA server.

Mouse' Summary:

• Under armed in respects to her main battery, compensated only somewhat by good muzzle velocity and higher reload rate.
• Torpedoes make her exceedingly dangerous for all classes of ship to engage her at close range.
• Fast, but not exactly agile.
• Decent survivability, particularly at medium to close ranges, though hampered by poor anti-aircraft firepower.

Tirpitz is arguably one of the most interesting and fun premium warships available in the game.  She stacks novelties -- faster reloading main guns AND torpedoes when either one on it's own would have probably been enough to make people pull the trigger on purchasing her.  Tie in the famous name of the Bismarck-class Battleship and the historical significance of Tirpitz herself and Wargaming has a license to print money.  It certainly doesn't hurt that once you get by all of the fluff, Tirpitz is an excellent ship overall and a real winner.

Of course, many players won't see it that way after taking her out for a spin.

The moniker "Derpitz" is justly deserved, if only as a reflection of her actual performance rather than her potential.  When you combine a short-ranged novelty armament with (almost but not quite) good survivability, you're going to see players trying to plow headlong into the enemy fleet and then wonder why they got their ship blown out from underneath them.  This is especially true when Tirpitz ends up facing higher tiered opponents where torpedo soups and punitive, long range firepower rules the day.  This said, play her intelligently and wait for your opportunity to shine and Tirpitz will not let you down.  The reliability of her armour and torpedoes, when used correctly, is a trump card few ships have an answer for.  As ever, her performance will largely come down to the merits of the individual player.

I, for one, love brawling.  It doesn't hurt that I have a connection to the ship long before World of Warships, having made a model of her when I was little with my father.  She's a fun ship, but she's still not my favourite premium Battleship.  I prefer the endurance of the Warspite to the knockout punching power of Tirpitz's torpedoes.

Would I Recommend?

Let's look at Tirpitz's merits from a few different perspectives rather than just a flat out yes or no.  Keep in mind her specialty -- that of a brawling Battleship.  If you prefer your BBs to stand off at range and pelt people with super accurate fire, this isn't the ship for you.

• For Random Battle Grinding, I thoroughly recommend her.  Tirpitz will earn you a mint of credits and experience in Random Battles.  This makes her an excellent trainer and arguably one of the best credit-earning vessels in the game. 
   
• For Competitive Gaming in the form of Team Battles and Ranked Battles, Tirpitz is a decent choice.  She's durable where the Amagi is hard hitting.  However, she doesn't have the ubiquity of the North Carolina which combines forward firepower with excellent AA.  She's a contender, but not the optimal choice for all scenarios.
   
• For Collectors, she was, up until recently, a must-have.  Historically significant, gorgeously modeled and with unique game play, the only downside to owning a Tirpitz for a collector will be how common she is about to become.  Soon to be available for Doubloons, there will be no amount of exclusivity to owning a Tirpitz.  If you're after rare ships, this won't be one of them.  She'll be as common as a Löwe in World of Tanks.
   
• For Fun Factor, Tirpitz may often feel at the mercies and whims of Matchmaking.  When you're top tier, she's an absolute blast.  When she's facing tier 10 ships, the fun factor falls away considerably as it's very difficult (though not impossible) to make use of her durability and torpedoes.

The Lert Box

Is she worth your hard earned greenbacks?

If yo're a stand-offish player who prefers to sit back and 'support' from range, no. She lacks the firepower and accuracy. However, if you're in the market for a strong brawling battleship that's comfortable to drive, this is the one for you. And her agility, speed, turret traverse and ROF make her very comfortable to drive. If Tirpitz is anything to go by, the German battleship line is going to be my favorite line in the game.

This isn't a ship with which you want to hide in the back.  She performs best up close and in people's faces.  This runs contrary to the present meta in high tier gameplay which can make tTirpitz feel a little out of place.

 

Outfitting your Tirpitz

Recommended Modules

You can go a couple of different routes with modules on Tirpitz.  You can try and increase her survivability or to attempt to make her a better brawler.  Note that she cannot take any modifications which improve her Torpedo Armament.  She also does not have access to the USN
 

• For your first slot, I would recommend Main Battery Modification 1.  Tirpitz gets her main guns knocked out rather often, especially in brawling situations.  Note that she cannot take Torpedo Armament Modification 1 to help increase her torpedo survivability.
• For your second slot, you have a choice.  Gun Fire Control Modification 1 will boost your accuracy if you prefer long range gunnery. Secondary Battery Modification 2 will increase the range of your defensive batteries up to 5.4km and will help you brawl. Alternatively, you could try padding her AA defense with AA Guns Modification 2. This will increase the AA umbrella of all of her guns from 4.5km / 3.5km / 2.0km to a more respectable 5.4km / 4.2km / 2.4km.
• For your third slot, Damage Control System Modification 1 is arguably your best choice, even if it's only a marginal gain.
• For your fourth slot, Steering Gears Modification 2 is the best choice.  This will reduce your rudder shift time to 12.8s.  Alternatively, you could take Damage Control System Modification 2 to help reduce the burn-time of fires but this is a lesser gain.  Steering will help you avoid damage.
• For your fifth slot, you have a choice, though the one that is the most advantageous situationally is Concealment System Modification 1 to reduce her surface detection range.  Note that this is only really usable in later portions of the game when there aren't enemy destroyers lurking about keeping you spotted.  The alternate, Target Acquisition Modification 1 is a more reliable choice, though again situational.  It's best used to provide you with advanced warning of incoming torpedoes, especially when combined with appropriate skills to help increase awareness.

Recommended Consumables

As with most Battleships, I have found that taking the premium version of her Damage Control Party to be invaluable.  This reduces the reset timer from 120s down to 80s which is almost an absolute must to ensure her continued survivability.  I am also a fan of taking the premium version of her Repair Party for the improved reset timer (again from 120s down to 80s) in addition to providing an additional charge.

Finally you have a choice between her Float Plane Fighter and Spotter Aircraft.  I find the former overall better as it helps increase awareness of enemy destroyers and torpedoes with it's long duration and orbiting flight path.  However I don't find it particularly useful for assisting with it's primary purpose, which is disrupting enemy attack squadrons.  Your mileage may vary.

Recommended Captain Skills

Like with modules above, choose a specialization for your Tirpitz before you invest your skill points for your Captain -- survivability or brawling.  The two often overlap with few "either or" choices and more of a question of when you'll spend the points rather than if.

• From the first tier, I recommend Basic Fire Training for your first choice.  This will increase your AA power but also the rate of fire your secondary guns.  This is one of the cases where the two skills overlap nicely.  Basics of Survivability and Situational Awareness are also good choices but can be saved for a second pass.
• From the second tier, Tirpitz doesn't get as much gain from Expert Marksman as other Dreadnoughts, but she still sees an improvement.  This will increase her turret rotation from 36s for 180' turn down to 31.6s.  The alternate is incredibly situaitonal -- Torpedo Armament Expertise drops the reload rate from 90s to 81s and is a poor second choice.
• From the third tier, there are three excellent choices and this is where you'll have to choose down the lines of specialization.  High Alert will help you mitigate critical damage -- particularly fires with a faster reset timer on your Damage Control Party.  Vigilance, particularly when combined with Target Acquisition Modification 1 is superb and will go a long way towards keeping your ship healthy when facing the invariable torpedo soup of high tier matches.  Lastly, Superintendent will provide an extra charge on your Repair Party, amounting to an additional 9000hp if you can survive long enough to make use of it.
• At the fourth tier, Advanced Fire Training is the best choice.  It increases your AA umbrella and also your secondary gun batteries.  When combined with the appropriate module, you can extend the maximum range of either (but not both) of these to 6.5km.
• Finally, at tier 5, Concealment Expert is arguably the best choice, though it's not a requisite of the ship.  Combined with the Concealment Modification 1 and your camouflage, you can drop her surface detection range to 12.3km.  Alternatively, you can select Manual Fire Control for Secondary Armament to really put some fear into opponents when you close for torpedo runs.

It's good that there's a lot of choice for Tirpitz but at the same time, players can find that some of these options run contrary to one another.  I run my Tirpitz with an emphasis on close range brawling, forgoing any premise of concealing her.  My guns will be firing so often that I expect to be lit from the start of the game to the end.  Your mileage will most certainly vary.

And finally, a very special thanks to the generosity of Ultion for gifting me this ship.

A further shout out goes to the generosity of _Tsavo_, Cpt_Ice and Fog_Heavy_Cruiser_Chokai.