Wow. I mean, I love dazzle patterns but this was very much a shock when I clicked on her. The first three things that went through my mind were zebras, the old Weebls Kenya song and a Trojan ad. Colour me interested right from the word go.

Without looking at port stats, it’s evident she’s a nine-gun light cruiser (it would shock me if those were anything bigger than 152mm). She looks light on torpedoes, and light on AA and secondary guns.

Upgrades, Consumables and Captain Build



I’ll take my usual cruiser build for this one. Main Armaments Modification 1, Aiming Systems Modification 1, Damage Control Systems Modification 1 and Steering Gears Modification 2. We’ll see if I learn to regret not bumping up her AA gun range when we get into a match.

For consumables, she looks interesting. There are four slots. Naturally, Damage Control Party is in the first slot. Next comes Defensive Fire which can be swapped out for Hydroacoustic Search — nice to have the choice. I’ll go with Hydro as what few AA guns I can see on deck look to be rather small caliber. Next is Engine Boost. Why was I surprised to see this there? It’s French, Mouse — wake up. Last is a Catapult Fighter. So nothing really out of the ordinary with her consumables.

I’m going to borrow my Dunkerque commander to captain this. He has a modest 10 skill points in Priority Target, Adrenaline Rush, Superintendent and Concealment Expert which shouldn’t be too shabby for this first foray.

Alright, let’s get stuck in!

Positive Perceptions



Negative Perceptions



Her Concealment isn’t good.

Bad gun angles

DPM doesn’t feel particularly spectacular

Only a small torpedo armament

Her durability is also not good. She loses modules in a hurry.

She doesn’t seem to be very fast.

AA power feels “meh”.

Weapon System Feels

The first thing that I noticed when the game loaded in was how quickly de Grasse’s guns rotated. While not quite Atlanta levels, they certainly weren’t sluggish. After having spent so much time in Battleships, this was a warm welcome. Her rate of fire feels about what I would expect for a tier 6 Light Cruiser — in and around the 7.5s to 8s reload rate. Both her AP and HE shells performed as expected with a decent chance to start fires and quite capable of causing citadel hits against exposed cruisers at medium close ranges. She’s also got the range to sit back and snipe.

It didn’t feel like she spat out a massive amount of damage, though. This may be hinged to not having Inertial Fuse for HE Shells on this particular Captain (I really should have one for my French Cruisers). I also felt I was struggling a bit with her firing angles — like her guns couldn’t get as far over as I was expecting them to, though this may have been a consequence of being under manoeuvres all of the time and losing track of where my bow an stern were.

Weapon System Facts and Figures

De Grasse’s guns rotate at 12º per second (15s for 180º) which is hella quick. This explains a lot of the comfort of her gun handling. The only down side is that her rear turret has a 288º firing arc. Her forward gun turrets have even more limited arcs of fire with 284º and 270º. This means you have to expose a lot of side to bring it to bear, especially on the retreat. This explains why I was taking so much damage while trying to return fire with all three gun turrets.

With a 16.2km range on her main battery and a 9km range on her torpedoes de Grasse has decent reach for a light cruiser.

In terms of putting out damage, her shells do 3,300 and 2,200 alpha with a 12% chance of starting fires — this is identical to Budyonny’s shell damage but with Cleveland’s fire chance and reload rate. She so it’s the best of both worlds. This puts her ahead of the Soviet cruiser in terms of DPM and fire chance (though well behind the American cruiser with only nine guns to Cleveland’s twelve). Her guns are not high velocity though. As a tier 6 ship, Inertial Fuse for HE Shells is crucial to getting the most out of these weapons within her matchmaking spread. Without it, you’re more dependent on fires to damage big targets.

is crucial to getting the most out of these weapons within her matchmaking spread. Without it, you’re more dependent on fires to damage big targets. De Grasse only has a single triple launcher on each side of the ship, limiting how much damage she can do with her fish. These hit for 14,833 damage with a 60 knot top speed and a 1.3km detection range. They have a painfully long reload rate of 90s for being such a light armament.

De Grasse has three secondary gun turrets with two guns each mounted rearward. These have good reach (5.0km) and a great rate of fire (15rpm). It’s a shame she doesn’t get many of them.

Her guns will surprise you. They have a higher rate of fire than la Galissonniere with better reach yet the same shell performance. This makes her better than the tier 6 tech-tree counterpart yet it doesn’t make her overpowered on the whole.

Agility Feels

This felt like a bit of a mixed bag. De Grasse has a great rate of turn and she’s very responsive to her rudder. But she doesn’t feel very fast. I only glanced at my top speed a couple of times during game play when I was trying to open up the distance on my pursuers and it felt a struggle to get the engine speed up over 30 knots, especially after turning violently. As ever, the French Engine Boost is nice to have but it didn’t wow me.



Agility Facts and Figures

De Grasse has a top speed of 33.5 knots. This is at least faster than la Galissonniere, but it’s certainly not going to win any prizes in a race, especially not when compared to Molotov, Duca d’Aosta or Budyonny. With her Engine Boost engaged and driving flat out, she can get this up to 38.5 knots which is much more impressive. At least she’s not a slug like la Galissonniere.

engaged and driving flat out, she can get this up to 38.5 knots which is much more impressive. At least she’s not a slug like la Galissonniere. In a turn, de Grasse’s speed drops down to 26.8 knots. Most other cruiser at her tier bleed 20% of their maximum speed while in a turn (except for Leander and Perth), so this value is normal. What is exceptional is how long she holds onto her speed. It takes over 38s for de Grasse to fully decelerate, meaning she preserves her speed for longer than most ships.

While she felt manoeuvrable, de Grasse has a turning circle of 690m and a rudder shift time of 8.8s. This makes her rather average all things considered. Her initial rate of turn is 5.3º per second, accelerating to 6.0º per second once she finishes decelerating. This isn’t bad, but it’s not spectacular, placing her well behind ships like Perth, Leander and Duca d’Aosta. She’s best compared to Cleveland and la Galissonniere.

Other Stuff Feels

She’s huge, fragile and vulnerable. De Grasse feels like a large cruiser. Dimension wise, she feels much larger than some of the other light cruisers I’ve played recently, like Duca d’Aosta. For all of her size, she doesn’t seem to have a lot of hit points (or I was getting killed especially quickly). Citadel penetrations are common, even while angled. She loses her steering gears and engine often, as well as getting her guns or torpedoes knocked out.

The biggest problem, really, is that she has a huge surface detection range. This isn’t a cruiser you want up on the front lines, doing some scouting. She’s definitely more akin to the Soviet Cruisers in that you want to keep back on the second line, let others absorb the attention and pew pew from the rear.

Other Stuff Facts and Figures