Alright, here’s a (skill issue) rant on arguably one of the most broken destroyers as of so far besides the Frank Knox and Moffett.
The Erich Steinbrinck is absolutely broken at its current battle rating of 4.0. If it gets uptiered, no problem at all, because it can use its main armament. But that’s not what I have a problem with. What I find most irritating when fighting these destroyers is its absolutely bonkers secondary armament of seven dual 37mm guns that don’t have an overheating time for some reason. If the main guns don’t work, why not use the 37mms to decimate absolutely ANYTHING and EVERYTHING in your path, even other destroyers? (that is, if you have the AP belts for them). That is especially the case in downtiers, where boats at 3.0 and even some reserve destroyers can barely do anything to you while you can vaporise them with a shower of 37mm AP rounds.
I firmly believe that due to how crazy OP its secondary armament is, it should be uptiered to 4.3 to face more competitive enemies and to balance those encounters with boats.
Figure 1: A single downtier on the Erich Steinbrinck. Its assertion over the waters is clear as day.
Yes, uptier a destroyer with 4 single 128mm main guns that fire only HE up to 4.3 so they can face the 5.3 Russian destroyers and 5.3 light/heavy cruisers that they can do NOTHING to. I’m assuming you’ve played Z12 and Z22 which are German destroyers with 1 extra 128mm instead of more 37mm mountings, and they are trash at 4.3 because the 128s aren’t useful for anything and even 4.7 destroyers from other nations that carry SAP can blitz them in one well aimed salvo. That isn’t even talking about the much greater firepower of, say an Atlanta, at 5.3 that wpuld decimate such a defenseless ship.
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It has base fuze HE, which has some adequate penetration but not as much as SAP shells, so I think it would stand some chance against cold war-era Soviet destroyers but indeed not by much.
The main guns are adequate but even with base fuse HE they lack stopping power against larger armoured targets. The ships also lack HE-VT and very much rely on volume of fire from their 20/37mm to make up for it.
At 4.0 the British give them a run for their money thanks to the mix of rounds available.
At 4.3 I would rather take the Japanese HE throwers despite their worse secondaries as they simply feel more reliable for main gun combat. And finally 4.7 brings in the US 5in DDs which can make German lives miserable.
The reason the SAP-less German 4.0-4.7 lineups feel balanced now is because of the useful secondaries on a decent hull with adequate main guns.If you push them up their weaknesses start to show and I don’t think a Z15 would compare so well against the Russian Pr30 Bez/Smelyi with equally dangerous AA but a full range of main gun ammo types that doesn’t need a broadside to get all guns on target.
