Le Malin

Le Malin

Le Malin

Description

The Le Fantasque-class, Le Malin, 1943 is a rank French destroyer with a battle rating of (AB), (RB), and (SB). It was introduced in Update "La Royale".

General info

Survivability and armour

The vehicle's survivability is mediocre at best. While the vehicle has a fairly sized crew and lots of empty space to absorb shells, it also has a huge silhouette which makes it easy to get hit. Additionally, the large unarmoured bridge can be taken out with ease, which can negate one of your most powerful advantages- your potent mobility. This can be especially crippling as your turret traverse is extremely poor, which means if you get stuck in a turn with your bridge destroyer, you are highly unlikely to be able to return fire to the enemy.

Mobility

The ship has good manoeuvrability. It is exceptionally fast in a straight line and it is quite agile, with a reasonable rudder shift speed and turn rate. It's reverse speed is average, although it does take quite a while to stop from full speed.

Mobility Characteristics
Game Mode	Upgrade Status	Maximum Speed (km/h)		Turn Time (s)	Turn Radius (m)
		Forward	Reverse
AB	Stock	70	23	~122.55	~265.48
	Upgraded			___	___
RB/SB	Stock	___	___	___	___
	Upgraded			___	___

Armament

Primary armament

The main guns of this ship are generally very potent, but in a few situations they can be near useless. They have a fast reload and high-yield SAP which will deal plenty of damage and will overpen less than pure AP or APCBC rounds. However, they have limited capability against larger ships with more armour, because they have very little pen. The guns also have a slow traverse rate, which can make getting guns on target quite difficult, especially when a target is moving.

Penetration statistics
Ammunition	Type of warhead	Penetration @ 0° Angle of Attack (mm)
		1,000 m	2,500 m	5,000 m	7,500 m	10,000 m	15,000 m
OEA Mle 1928	HE	36	36	36	36	36	36
OPFA Mle 1924	SAPBC	77	67	54	43	36	30

Shell details
Ammunition	Type of warhead	Velocity (m/s)	Projectile mass (kg)	Fuse delay (s)	Fuse sensitivity (mm)	Explosive mass (TNT equivalent) (kg)	Ricochet
							0%	50%	100%
OEA Mle 1928	HE	800	40.2	0	0.1	3.41	79°	80°	81°
OPFA Mle 1924	SAPBC	800	39.9	0.05	6	2.53	48°	63°	71°

Secondary armament

The 40mm Bofors guns are powerful against small coastal vessels, and using AP clips gives them increased potency against more armoured vessels. They can be used with some success against early destroyers, although this should be a last-ditch effort, in case the main armament is unable to fire for some reason.

• Universal: AP-T · HEFI-T
• 40 mm HE clips: HEFI-T · HEFI-T · HEFI-T · AP-T
• 40 mm AP clips: AP-T · AP-T · AP-T · HEFI-T

Penetration statistics
Ammunition	Penetration @ 0° Angle of Attack (mm)
	10 m	100 m	500 m	1,000 m	1,500 m	2,000 m
HEFI-T	3	3	3	3	3	3
AP-T	81	78	68	58	49	41

Shell details
Ammunition	Velocity (m/s)	Projectile mass (kg)	Fuse delay (m)	Fuse sensitivity (mm)	Explosive mass (TNT equivalent) (g)	Ricochet
						0%	50%	100%
HEFI-T	874	0.9	0	0.1	67.13	79°	80°	81°
AP-T	874	0.89	-	-	-	47°	60°	65°

Anti-aircraft armament

The AA suite of this vessel is quite powerful. It consists of the ubiquitous 40mm Bofors and the 20mm Oerlikon guns. The fast-rotation rate of the Oerlikons provides a useful close-defence against small torpedo boats, which is a real weakness of the ship at close range because of the slow rotation speed of the main batteries. The AA is very effective against all sizes of planes, being able to produce a large screen of lead that will take down even the most manoeuvrable fighters at quite impressive ranges.

Additional armament

The ship has a triple torpedo tube on either side of the superstructure amidships near the funnels. These torpedoes are often of limited use as they are quite slow, but can be useful in a pinch at close range or against larger ships which the high-yield SAP of the main armament will struggle to penetrate. The location of these tubes can be somewhat annoying, as unlike on other ships, each set of tubes can only fire to one side. This means only one will be able to bear on a target at a time.

Usage in battles

Describe the technique of using this ship, the characteristics of her use in a team and tips on strategy. Abstain from writing an entire guide – don't try to provide a single point of view, but give the reader food for thought. Talk about the most dangerous opponents for this vehicle and provide recommendations on fighting them. If necessary, note the specifics of playing with this vehicle in various modes (AB, RB, SB).

Pros and cons

Pros:

• Fast
• Average agility
• Potent AA armament
• Fast reloading main guns
• SAP has plenty of explosive fillers.

Cons:

• Large profile
• Unarmoured
• SAP shells have very little pen- will struggle to deal with more armoured vessels
• Very slow turret traverse
• Somewhat awkward position of torpedo tubes.

History

The Le Malin was a member of the Le Fantasque class of contre-torpilleurs that were built in the 1930s. The Le Malin herself entered service in 1935. The class was built to counter the Condottieri-class light cruisers of the Italian Navy. The ships were extremely fast (Le Terrible set a new speed record for a conventionally hulled boat of 45 knots during her trials) and had a powerful armament of five 138.6 mm/50 model 1929 (138.6 mm) guns in single mounts. They had a range of 2,900 miles at 15 knots. The ship was a member of the Force de Raid at the start of WW2, and engaged German units in Norway in April 1940. She escorted convoys evacuating personnel from France to French North Africa, and stayed with Vichy France after the French surrender.

Media

Skins

• Skins and camouflages for the Le Malin from live.warthunder.com.

See also

Links to articles on the War Thunder Wiki that you think will be useful for the reader, for example:

• reference to the series of the ship;
• links to approximate analogues of other nations and research trees.

External links

• [Devblog] Le Malin: the malign destroyer

Société Nouvelle des Forges et Chantiers de la Méditerranée (FCM)
Ships
Destroyers
Aigle-class	Vautour
Le Fantasque-class	Le Malin
Battleships
Courbet-class	Paris
Tanks
Light tank	FCM.36
Heavy tank	2C · 2C bis

France destroyers
Bourrasque-class	Bourrasque · Tornade
Chacal-class	Chacal · Leopard · Panthere
Aigle-class	Aigle · Vautour · Milan
Vauquelin-class	Vauquelin
Le Fantasque-class	Le Malin · Le Triomphant
Mogador-class	Mogador
Hunt-class	La Combattante
Trophies	Germany
Desaix-class¹	Kleber
Type 1936	Marceau
	Italy
Chateaurenault-class²	Guichen
	Modified: ¹Type 1934A-class destroyers · ²Capitani Romani-class cruisers