Großer Kurfürst
Sharing the name with one of the König's sister ships, Großer Kurfürst (translation: "Great Elector", from the title of Frederick William, Elector of Brandenburg) sits atop the German battleship line at Tier X. She lived up to her name when released, breaking the then long-standing stalemate of Yamato and Montana by simply entering into the fray. Subtlety is not this Großer Kurfürst’s forte because she is detected from quite a fair distance, the largest detection radius of all Tier X battleships. Due to her size she possesses an effective array of secondaries along with two pairs of guns — the same caliber as her predecessor Friedrich der Große — but with triple mounts with the same AB-XY configuration. Even Montana, which shares the same triple mount turret style and layout, will respect her for her heavy broadside, while the responsive turret traverse — among the quickest turret traverse speeds of Tier X battleships — can be made even faster with upgrades. Even more, she can surpass the American battleship through barrel diameter, with her last gun upgrade being 420mm barrels still mounted in four triple turrets while still retaining the excellent traverse speed. In addition, her bustling secondary batteries ensure that any enemy getting close enough for the guns to unload will be constantly whittled down, dealing heavy damage over time or outright destroying low health ships that get too close. Her AA is fairly typical of other German battleships, with an adequate long range punch that sadly does not follow through as planes come closer to the ship itself. Planes that make it past the long range armament will have no trouble hitting her due to her large size and abysmal turning circle. Her armor is also typical of German battleship design, with a turtle-back armor scheme that will make citadeling her at close range near impossible. Her deck armor is also quite substantial at 50mm along the center meaning that long range plunging fire from low caliber guns will have difficulty penetrating her. With her large hit point pool — the largest in the game — she will be able to weather a large amount of armor piercing rounds and keep on fighting. As per standard for German battleships starting from Bismarck, Großer Kurfürst is equipped with the Hydroacoustic Search (While active, detects all enemy ships and torpedoes within the specified radius, regardless of obstacles (such as smoke screens or islands).) consumable to help detect incoming threats such as torpedoes and destroyers attempting to get close or vessels hiding in smoke screens. However, despite her impressive offensive and defensive assets, much of it is a double edged sword, helping and harming depending on the situation. Both of her guns are rather inaccurate at long range, becoming deadly only once they pass the mid range for battleships of ~11km. Her 406mm guns have a better reload rate than those found on Montana, but lack Montana’s super-heavy AP shells which hampers her penetration at range while also reducing her damage per shell. Her 420mm guns are not large enough to overmatch the 32mm bow armor most battleships have at Tier X , and while she can match Montana damage per shell with the 420s, they have a longer reload time than the 406s (32 seconds versus 28 seconds, respectively). Additionally, her armor is not unbreakable as it may seem. At long ranges her deck armor is still not sufficient to stop plunging fire from other battleships from penetrating, meaning her citadel is relatively easy to penetrate at a considerable distance. Also the armor belt is actually among the thinnest at Tier X, topping out at 380mm. While she will almost never take citadel damage, her massive size and armor belt mean she will take higher-than-average normal regular penetration damage; the side benefit to this is that regular penetration damage heals back more than citadel damage when using Repair Party (While active, restores a fixed percentage of a ship's hit points each second.). At close range, the trade off is well worth it when Großer Kurfürst takes a 10k-30k salvo while other battleships are destroyed in a single salvo right into their citadels. Finally, her size also betrays her as she is remarkably easy to hit and has the largest turn radius out of all Tier X battleships at over a kilometer. While her rudder shift time is fairly quick, she is so long that she takes a while to actually begin responding to turns. Even with Hydroacoustic Search (While active, detects all enemy ships and torpedoes within the specified radius, regardless of obstacles (such as smoke screens or islands).) active, captains should expect to sustain heavy damage when torpedoes are inevitably being sent at her if she is not already responding. Fire and flooding are also a concern, since they deal damage based on a percentage of maximum hit points, causing her massive health pool to work against her when volleys of enemy high explosive shells start fires and torpedoes cause flooding. Großer Kurfürst captains should expect to sustain heavy damage from all sources as she is large and easily visible from range, but she will give back better than she gets if allowed to close the range. Play to her strengths: she is not a sniping battleship, and belongs up close and personal where her peers have difficulty countering her armor scheme, large secondary battery, and rapid traverse of her guns.
