What an amazing way to start the year… Releasing what is literally the worst tier VIII Premium carrier by a big margin (because yes, even Graf Zeppelin is strong compared to that one). Every person with good knowledge of CVs was saying that the ship was in a terrible state but it was still released this way. The joke is that before all the nerfs and changes, I actually had fun with her back in May.

Ladies and Gentlemen… I give you the Indomitable.

This ship was credited to me by Wargaming to do its promotion for the playerbase. I now have to mention this because of a new law in U.S.A.

Tier VIII British Premium Aircraft Carrier Indomitable: The Abominable Indomitable

Her permanent camouflage gives the standard Tier VIII permanent camouflage bonuses:

The Good and the Bad

The Good

Bombers with the highest Health Pool of the game

Fastest planes in the game with Graf Zeppelin

Relatively small drop pattern for the bombs

Armored deck

21 mm plating on the extremities and belt of the ship

Good ship concealment

The Bad

The planes have a huge turning radius

Small strike groups and squadrons

Very small reserves

Long plane regeneration time

Bombs that can only penetrate 32 mm

No torpedo bombers

Relies heavily on fires to deal damage

Very low carry potential

Unidimensional gameplay that is basically all about spamming carpet-bombing while hoping to get enough fires to have a bit of impact on the game

My Opinion

Aaaah… the Indomitable. I waited 7 months to see this ship again, knowing perfectly that with the changes to AA changes or the CVs changes in general, she would require some rebalancing. Boy, I was not disappointed by the result and made sure to list everything that needed an improvement just to be gladly ignored.

Basically, no change was made since May even with the fact that now, AA focuses on a single plane which is a problem with this ship. Most of your bomber’s strikes will be done with 2 planes to make sure that the reserves don’t completely melt as you will never be able to do 2 run on the same ship. The 2 other planes just won’t last long enough for that. At best, you drop with a single plane that will die right after.

Anyway… let’s review this ship properly at least…

Health Pool

The Health Pool is pretty good with 51 400 HP. Combined with the good protection on British carriers, the ship will be able to take a fair amount of punishment before going down.

The ship is however quite vulnerable against torpedoes with only 28% damage reduction with her torpedo bulge.

Attack Aircraft

Attack Aircraft Consumables de Havilland Sea Hornet Tier VIII Hit points per plane 2 100 Cruise speed 188 kt Maximum speed 228 kt Engine boost time 5 s Engine boost reload time 10 s Engine cooling charges 2 Size of attacking flight 2 Aircraft per squadron 6 Rocket type RP-3 60LB HE NO1 MK.I Rockets in payload 8 Maximum rocket damage 2 100 HE penetration 27 mm Fire chance 10 % Detectability range 10.0 km Aircraft restoration time 115 s Number of aircraft on deck 12 Slot 1 Slot 2 Engine Cooling I Number of charges: 2 Work time: 5 s Cooldown: 80 s Fighter I Number of charges: 4 Work time: 60 s Cooldown: 10 s Patrol Radius: 3.0 km Fighters in the squadron: 5

The Rocket planes of the Indomitable are… at best decent. You will only really use them against destroyers and they are sadly not the most effective. At the very best (and that was me testing them on stationary DDs for the “fun”) you will get around 4 000 damage per drop but that’s really if the guy doesn’t try to dodge at all.

These rocket planes also have the problem of having a terrible turning radius and high speed so if a DD has its AA turned off, it will just be impossible to get the strike on the first spot. The planes will need the fighter planes to spot the destroyer for her or any form of external spotting if you don’t want to just approach the destroyer blind, giving the guy the time to change course.

Except that, you will from time to time use them to strike cruisers but cruisers are from the start not your primary target. Also, you want to pre-drop every time you go with these rocket planes due to the low reserves.

Bombers

Dive Bombers Consumables de Havilland Sea Hornet Tier VIII Hit points per plane 2 590 Cruise speed 182 kt Maximum speed 217 kt Engine boost time 20 s Engine boost reload time 40 s Engine cooling charges 2 Size of attacking flight 2 Aircraft per squadron 4 Bomb type 250LB G.P. BOMB Bombs in payload 6 Maximum bomb damage 4 700 Projectile speed 300 kt Air drag 0.35 Projectile mass 454 HE penetration 32 mm Aircraft restoration time 117 s Number of aircraft on deck 8 Slot 1 Slot 2 Engine Cooling I Number of charges: 2 Work time: 5 s Cooldown: 80 s Fighter I Number of charges: 4 Work time: 60 s Cooldown: 10 s Patrol Radius: 3.0 km Fighters in the squadron: 5

The Bombers of the Indomitable are basically what you will be spamming 90% of the time unless you mess up and end up with none left. You also have to follow a specific rule: ALWAYS go strike with only 2 bombers in the squadron unless you are 100% sure that every plane will survive. The reserves of the Indomitable don’t allow you to make any mistake, especially when it’s about fighters.

Basically, the standard procedure with these bombers will be this:

Take your full squadron towards an enemy battleship with the engine boost going. When the engine boost is about to run out, drop the first strike group so that the effect of Last Gasp kicks in and reloads your Engine Boost. After that, just go strike the battleship, hope for fires or for a Damage Control Party which means that the next drop will give you long-lasting fires.

After that, wash and repeat. Isn’t it a very fun gameplay?

The best part is that since you rely so much fires, you will have a very low impact on the game and as such a low win rate in general.

It’s funny to see that in the end, the ship with the fastest planes and also the most HP per planes turns out to be so bad while these 2 metrics (especially speed) are so important when it comes to carriers.

Secondary batteries

Secondaries 8 x 2 113 mm/45 Mk II BD Maximum Firing Range 4.50 km Reloading Time 5.0 s Sigma 1.00 sigma Shells Type of Projectile HE – 113 mm HE 5crh

Alpha Damage 1 700 HP Damage 470 HP HE penetration 18 mm Explosion Size 0.38 Chance to Cause Fire 8 % Projectile Speed 746 m/s Air Drag 0.329 Projectile Mass 24.95

For a quick look at the secondaries, they have a short range, you only have 4 turrets per side. They will not help you in any sort of way except for shooting down planes.

The anti-air armament

Air Defense 8 x 2 113 mm/45 Mk II BD Sector range 0.1 km – 5.8 km Hit chance 100 % Sector’s damage 25 Sector’s damage frequency 0.29 s Sector’s damage per second 88 Flak clouds number 3 Flak cloud damage 1330 6 x 4 40 mm Vickers 2-pdr. Mk VII

4 x 2 40 mm Bofors Mk I Sector range 0.1 km – 3.5 km Hit chance 100 % Sector’s damage 66 Sector’s damage frequency 0.29 s Sector’s damage per second 228 21 x 2 20 mm Oerlikon Mk V

16 x 1 20 mm Oerlikon Mk IV Sector range 0.1 km – 2.0 km Hit chance 95 % Sector’s damage 110 Sector’s damage frequency 0.29 s Sector’s damage per second 385

The anti-air of the Indomitable is overall strong enough to make the few geniuses that would go for CV hunting pay for it. Its only downside is that it’s focused on the close range with LOTS of 20 mm Oerlikons.

Maneuverability and Concealment

Maneuverability and Concealment Maximum speed 30.5 knots Turning Circle Radius 970 m Rudder Shift Time 13.0 s Surface Detectability 13.5 km Air Detectability 10.58 km

While the Indomitable turns like a brick, like pretty much all CVs in this game, she does have the advantage of being quite stealthy. This will allow her to get closer from the fight to have more strikes per minute. With concealment expert and the camouflage (DO NOT use the concealment module, you need the bigger reserves!) you can reach 11.8 km spotting range by sea and 9.5 km spotting range by air.

I will, by the way, use this review to transmit a message.

Guys! When you are playing carriers, DON’T just go hug the border from the beginning. That is just bad as you will take way more time to go towards your target, by such, have fewer strikes per minute and less impact on the game. If you want to move anywhere with your carrier, move somewhere that will either give you an advantage when it comes to planes travel time or that will give you cover against enemy fire.

The armor

The armor of the Indomitable is similar to the one you can find on Implacable. She has a 21 mm bow, stern and belt which allows her to shatter 127 mm HE shells. The sides are only 19 mm and the citadel, as well as the rest of the main armor belt, is 114 mm thick. This is of course very vulnerable against cruisers, battleships and French 138.6 mm AP shells (Yes it’s the real caliber of the guns for things like Le Fantasque, Mogador, etc.) Finally, the superstructure is 13 mm thick.

Since she is a British carrier, she, of course, has the classic armored flight deck, divided in 3 parts. The extremities are 25 mm thick, the sides and outer-parts of the midsection are 38 mm thick and finally, the center is 76 mm thick.

The citadel is much smaller than you would think. The deck is 76 mm for the outer part and 25 mm for the center part.

The consumables

Consumables Slot 1 Slot 2 Damage Control Party I Work time: 60 s Cooldown: 90 s Fighter I Number of charges: 4 Work time: 600 s Cooldown: 40 s Patrol Radius: 3.0 km Fighters in the squadron: 4

Conclusion

The Indomitable is a low impact, unidimensional and boring ship to play. Pretty much any tier VIII carrier will do a better job at dealing damage and will also have a much better impact since they don’t rely heavily on fire damage.

As an experienced CV player, I simply cannot recommend this ship. If the bombs had a better penetration like on the Audacious or that the strike groups would be bigger, she would be good but here… Graf Zeppelin looks good compared to her.

Recommended build

During the testing of the Indomitable, I used the following captain build and upgrades:

Captain build:

Air Supremacy : Very important skill for CVs, it’s a must-have.

: Very important skill for CVs, it’s a must-have. Improved Engine Boost : Speed is a must on CVs, always try to have more speed.

: Speed is a must on CVs, always try to have more speed. Last Gasp : Especially useful on Indomitable for the technique I covered with the bombers.

: Especially useful on Indomitable for the technique I covered with the bombers. Priority Target : Because it was the last point I had and there was literally nothing else that was at least somewhat useful.

: Because it was the last point I had and there was literally nothing else that was at least somewhat useful. Improved Engines : Once again, Speed is everything on CVs.

: Once again, Speed is everything on CVs. Survivability Expert : You want your planes to survive right? Vital perk.

: You want your planes to survive right? Vital perk. Aircraft Armor : More survivability and also a vital perk.

: More survivability and also a vital perk. Demolition Expert : Since this ship is all about setting fires, make sure that you start as much of them as possible.

: Since this ship is all about setting fires, make sure that you start as much of them as possible. Concealment Expert: It allows you to get closer from the action with your CV and also it’s more useful than Sight Stabilization that is a massive noob trap except for Midway’s torpedo bombers that take ages to aim.

Upgrades:

Air Groups Modification 1 : Faster returning speed is always useful, especially for CVs with low reserves.

: Faster returning speed is always useful, especially for CVs with low reserves. Aircraft Engines Modification 1 : Because you never have enough speed.

: Because you never have enough speed. AA Guns Modification 1 : That one is more because the other options are… basically useless.

: That one is more because the other options are… basically useless. Bombers Modification 2 : Your bombers are your bread and butter so you want to make sure that they survive.

: Your bombers are your bread and butter so you want to make sure that they survive. Flight Control Modification 1: Very useful because of the addition planes in your reserve and faster regeneration time. You should never take the Concealment System Modification 1 as this thing ceased to be useful after they removed Hakuryu’s quad drop.

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