It’s these latter two traits which are so important to the performance (and viability) of the Graf Spee. The Graf Spee is an alpha-strike ship, defined by it’s ability to deal front-loaded salvos of heavy damage against targets rather than wear them down over time with volume of fire. You want to hit a target so hard it pulverizes them and makes them think twice about engaging you. Her accuracy deserves special notice. This isn’t caused by a favourable sigma value (though she may have one). The Graf Spee’s raw dispersion values at her maximum range of 16.0km are lower than any other Battleship in the game. Here’s some raw values of similarly ranged ships at this distance.

DE Battleships: Approximately 223m

IJN Battleships: Just shy of 200m

Admiral Graf Spee: 184m

IJN & DE Cruisers: Approximately 144m

So not only is the Graf Spee a cruiser armed with Battleship caliber guns, she’s a cruiser armed with Battleship caliber guns with almost a cruiser’s level of accuracy. The Graf Spee can be a real nightmare for other ships of her type — throwing railcars at their faces and hoovering up 8,400hp citadels with every salvo. Her 283mm rifles can overmatch any 19mm sections of armour or thinner, so even angling may not protect your ship. Be aware of your armour’s thickness before trying to bow tank a Spee. Her firepower is also sufficient to give a Battleship pause, being accurate but also as fast reloading as the Scharnhorst. If you give her your side in your Super Dreadnoughts, you deserve the pain train the Spee will deliver.

Where these guns really lack is in handling destroyers. She has neither the fast reload nor the volume of fire to put off enemy DDs. Like all German ships, her high explosive rounds are lackluster. At a 4.0km range, her secondary compliment is respectable for a ship her size — certainly better than comparable American Battleships — but it’s not likely to give any destroyer pause except for one on very low health.

With all this in mind, is her artillery compliment any good? Well, no… No it isn’t. It’s “interesting” but it’s a far cry from “good”, in my opinion. She’s excellent at biting the faces off of other cruisers (which is historically accurate) but she doesn’t have the firepower to seriously challenge a Battleship and she doesn’t have enough guns or a fast enough reload to put down enterprising destroyers. Like the Belfast, she is over specialized — a perfect fit for one role and awkward to passable in other situations.

Torpedoes

Arguably just as interesting as the Graf Spee’s main battery is her torpedo armament. Like her guns, these things are weird. They’re mounted on the stern of the ship, well behind the second turret. This gives them tremendous fields of fire, both forward and aft. But the launching angle will always seem odd as they come from well behind your field of view in the ship. As for the fish themselves, they’re rather noteworthy.

With 13,700 alpha strike, they’re not bad for their tier (not great, mind you, but at least they’re not American). Where they really stand out is their high speed of 65 knots and their range of 8.0km. Don’t be fooled — you’ll never be able to launch fish from stealth in open water with the Graf Spee, but this is 2km longer than the reach of most other German Warships. They can and will surprise people.

Summary

Though small in number, the Graf Spee’s main battery is accurate and hard hitting.

She relies upon delivering high alpha strikes, not DPM to bring down her opponents. Inaccurate fire or poor target choices will greatly reduce her effectiveness.

Her secondary battery is heavy for a cruiser but light for a battleship

Her torpedoes are surprisingly good for a German Cruiser but their utility is hampered by not being able to fire from stealth.

No, she didn’t dodge those. Her torpedo tubes are mounted on the stern. This gives them excellent firing arcs, especially to the rear. When launching them at targets ahead, they will always appear to come from odd angles. Maneuverability Top Speed: 28.5 knots Turning Radius: 680m Rudder Shift Time: 10.3s The Maneuverability of the Graf Spee is a bit of a mixed bag. I am disappointed with how slow she is. Her 28.5 knot top speed is … well, it’s bad for a cruiser. It would be alright for a Battleship but she’s not a Battleship. The Graf Spee needs to rely on concealment and her agility to stay alive and not being able to outrun ships she cannot outfight is a real weakness. She will face ships like the Scharnhorst-class, the Dunkerque and Bismarck-class which can all easily outrun her. This also limits her flexibility. You don’t have any tricks to extract yourself if you sail into a contested area. Defensively, you will have to maneuver the Graf Spee very much like the Molotov. Keep at range. Give yourself time enough to dodge incoming fire, especially from enemy cruisers (but especially from Battleships). Rivals: Scharnhorst Let me get the first thing out of the way: Graf Spee’s guns are not the same as Scharnhorst’s. The differences are slight, but real. Scharnhorst has longer barrels, and fires a heavier shell, but at a slower muzzle velocity. This means that Spee has even flatter arcs than Scharnhorst and shorter time-to-target, at the expense of losing more energy over distance. Scharnhorst is a brawling opportunist. This is the ship that plays from the first line and actively looks for an opening, then mercilessly pushes in, weathering withering fire and closing in for the brawl. This is something you simply can’t do in Spee, being slower and simply not having the armor to tank the amount of fire that Scharnhorst can without problem. Durability Hit Points: 39,400 Maximum Protection: 100mm + 16mm over her citadel Min Bow & Deck Armour: 19mm (immunity up to 271mm rifles) Torpedo Damage Reduction: 22% For resilience, the Graf Spee has some pretty exceptional qualities for a tier 6 cruiser. The first is pretty obvious; she has a truck load of hit points — more than even the Mogami at tier 8. She has almost Battleship quality steel on her bow, stern and deck at 19mm thick, the same as the tier 5 Dreadnoughts. This is enough to repulse anything up to heavy cruiser armour piercing shells when angled sufficiently. On top of this, the Graf Spee has a Repair Party consumable which can help recover health when things go wrong (and they will). Combine this with her 22% damage reduction from torpedo hits along her flanks and the Spee looks pretty good as far as durability goes.

That is until you look closer at her armour. Her citadel doesn’t sit too much higher than the waterline. But it’s the thickness of armour around it that’s concerning. There are three layers protecting the majority of her citadel from damage. She has 16mm of submersed armour from her anti-torpedo bulge with a 100mm layer of belt armour behind that. The citadel herself has a 40mm wall, giving what appears to be a 156mm of combined protection which seems pretty okay. However sandwiched layers of steel have their downsides. While they may make citadel hits less likely, they’re also more likely to prevent a shell from over penetrating. If you don’t angle properly, you can expect to take some pretty big hits. Do it properly and you should be able to protect your citadel from most other cruisers. This quickly falls apart when facing Battleships though.

Her Repair Party will often feel taxed. It appears to be standard, healing back 0.5% of her health every second for 28s (14% total or 5,516hp). Like all cruiser Repair Parties, this does permit you to heal back more citadel damage than those found on Battleships.

Her citadel is enormous, in truth. It’s not very well submerged and it extends far more to the rear than you might normally expect. With her bow and stern easily overmatched by even the smallest of Battleship guns (including her own), you need to rely on concealment and agility to stay safe. Against smaller targets, maneuver and angling can help carry the day, but it’s still better to avoid damage than trust on your armour to tank it or your Repair Party to heal it.

Rivals: Prinz Eugen Eugen is faster, but doesn’t turn as well. She has eight of the typical German 8″ guns with a 13 second reload, backed up by roughly center mounted torpedoes with a 6km range. In terms of playstyle, she is perhaps closest to Graf Spee out of the three ships in this comparison. I play her from the second line, keeping a sharp eye on the minimap and moving to where support is needed, WASD’ing all the time to throw off incoming enemy fire. I move up when I think I can and slink back to lick my wounds when needed. I drove Spee the same. Where Eugen and Spee differ though is in how I use the guns. Eugen has more, weaker guns, with a higher ROF. I’m constantly looking for viable targets when driving Prinz Eugen, prioritizing cruisers over battleships and close / mid range destroyers over cruisers. I try to keep my guns constantly singing, putting out volume of fire, farming DPS. Spee meanwhile has a very low DPM or volume of fire, but makes up for that with heavy alpha potential. I prioritize broadside battleships over cruisers and try to time my salvoes more to what maneuvers the enemy is making. Spee’s torpedoes are flat-out better, with better range and better arcs – especially vs ships chasing you. It’s rare when I can use Eugen’s torpedoes, but I’m more likely to look for a chance to use Spee’s. I drive Prinz Eugen more like a support ship, constantly putting pressure on anyone within range. I used Spee more like an opportunist, delivering heavy damage to whatever target is most viable.



I found fires to be a continual problem for the Admiral Graf Spee. While she has the armour to bounce AP shells from destroyers and cruisers, they never seem to want to cooperate and shoot armour piercing at me.

Concealment & Camouflage

Surface Detection Range: 13.1 km Air Detection Range: 8.5 km Minimum Surface Detection Range: 11.2km Concealment Penalty while Firing: +8.49km (vs 16.0km gun range)

Well, you’re never going to be able to make the Graf Spee sneaky, that’s for sure. Her guns are too big and so is her surface detection range. This should clearly emphasize the need to keep your distance from dangerous opponents (read: everyone). Use the accuracy and hitting power of your guns along with your agility to dodge reprisals. Be aware of your low speed and that if things turn sour, you will not be able to easily disengage if you let them slip within your surface detection range.

Rivals: Tirpitz Everything I said about Scharnhorst goes doubly so for Tirpitz. This German brute brawls and tanks with the best of them, has significantly heavier firepower and boasts a decent set of torpedoes to boot. This is a ship that lives for the brawl, with an armor scheme that becomes stronger the closer you come, and a very nasty poison dagger in the form of torpedoes. The two ships couldn’t play more differently. In fact the only thing that they have in common is aforementioned poison dagger. The last thing you want to do in a Graf Spee is move in for the brawl, or try to facetank biblical amounts of damage. She can brawl in a pinch, but her low speed means that getting there is an issue in and of itself, and her weak armor means you’re not going to last long when you do. Only push in for a brawl from a position of strength, when you’re confident your health, firepower and torpedoes mean you will win the brawl, after which you can use your heal to recover some of the health you’re inevitably going to lose.

Anti-Aircraft Defense

AA Battery Calibers: 105mm / 37mm / 20mm

AA Umbrella Ranges: 4.5km / 3.5km / 2.0km

AA DPS per Aura: 50 / 10 / 30

I shouldn’t have been surprised to see the Graf Spee suffer from what could be described as “early-war AA power”. It’s an affliction that many premium ships have succumb to, including the Dunkerque, Arizona and Perth. Without the Defensive Fire consumable, the Graf Spee’s AA power isn’t sufficient to keep her safe from enemy carriers. You’ll be lucky to chew through an aircraft or two before they launch their attacks. Without help, you’re never going to do enough damage to wear down their reserves. The consumable will at least make you a less appealing target and you might even bloody the noses of the incoming attack waves. Players should seriously consider arming that over Hydroacoustic Search.

Still, I would never be so bold as to call the Graf Spee’s AA power “good”, even when specialized for it.



While the Graf Spee will never have anything close to formidable AA power, with the Defensive Fire consumable, she can at least protect herself.