Imperatritsa Mariya
Contents
Description
The Imperatritsa Mariya-class, Imperatritsa Mariya, 1916 is a rank V Soviet battleship with a battle rating of 6.7 (AB/RB/SB). It was introduced in Update "New Power".
General info
Survivability and armour
The Emperatritsa Mariya, the lead ship of her class, is one of the two Soviet dreadnought battleships, along with her sister ship Poltava. The Emperatritsa Mariya class is the successor to the Gangut Class, which was the first class of dreadnoughts built by the Russian Empire.
The aesthetics of the ship are strange, with little to no superstructure on the deck and the unusual mooring boom on the bow, however in terms of effectiveness, the ship certainly has it where it counts. As of August 2021, the Mariya is one of the best dreadnoughts in the game, combining effective armour with devastating firepower in a way that few other ships can match. Like all dreadnoughts though, it moves so slowly you'd think Hermann Göring was on board, and to say that the ship isn't very effective against aircraft would be like saying that a squirt gun isn't very effective against a panzer.
The Mariya is a classical example of a dreadnought, featuring heavy armour and high survivability. With a comprehensive armour scheme including a 262mm main armour belt, as well as nearly 1300 crew, the ship is all but invulnerable to most cruisers at anything other than close range and is fairly capable of protecting against battleship calibre shells at long and medium ranges, especially if angled. The main turrets of the ship are also well protected, with 250mm turret faces and barbettes, and should be lost very rarely
That being said, the ships magazines have a habit of detonating easily if you're on fire for extended periods of time, which is what tends to happen when you're stock and have no FPE.
Although the side protection of the ship is excellent, the magazines are vulnerable to shells fired from directly forwards or to the rear of the ship, due to thin bulkheads.
Mobility
Being an over 23,000t ship powered by inefficient coal fired steam turbines, the Mariya has overall very poor speed, acceleration/deceleration and manoeuvrability, compared to even the heaviest of cruisers, although it's about on par with other dreadnought battleships. Don't expect to be able to cover any decent distance in a reasonable amount of time and good luck trying to dodge any torpedoes.
| Mobility Characteristics | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Game Mode | Upgrade Status | Maximum Speed (km/h) | |
| Forward | Reverse | ||
| AB | |||
| Upgraded | 45 | 17 | |
| RB/SB | |||
| Upgraded | 39 | 14 | |
Modifications and economy
| Seakeeping | Unsinkability | Firepower | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
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Armament
Primary armament
Put simply, the 305mm main guns on this ship are exceptionally strong and are capable of forcing the might of Imperial Russia over any other vessel you might encounter.
You have a total of 12 cannons, placed in 4x triple turrets and arranged on the centreline of the ship. This is an important point as many other dreadnoughts (British and German in particular) have around the the same number of cannons, but they arranged with some turrets on either side of the ship, making it impossible or at least difficult to fire all the main guns on a single target, reducing their actual firepower by a fair amount. Because the Mariya has all her main turrets on the centreline, this isn't a problem for you and you can unleash all 12 cannons at once.
The Mariya also carries a maximum of 1200 shells, more than any other dreadnought, which gives you 100 full salvoes worth of ammunition.
Whilst the cannons themselves have a relatively low muzzle velocity (762 m/s) with average dispersion and reload time, the high quality shells you have access to gives you a decisive advantage over many other dreadnoughts you'll face.
HE
The HE shells which you start off with has just over 47kg of TNT equivalent, which is above average and is the second best HE shell in the game, capable of wrecking even the most heavily armoured cruisers. However, it is fairly ineffective at dealing direct damage against most battleships due to, you know, being a HE shell. Still handy for taking on lighter vessels though.
AP
The armour piercing shells are, overall, above average. They have a sizeable level of filler, at 12.96kg of TNT equivalent, which is roughly equal to or better than most shells of other nations. At 520mm of initial penetration, they're among the top AP shells in the game. Not only that, but they maintain good levels of penetration at long distances, with 341mm at 10km, a level of pen second only to the Graf Spee's super AP shells (365mm at 10km).
SAP
Now the HE and AP were alright, but the SAP on the Mariya really takes the cake. It is one of the most devastating shells in the entire game, with a whopping 55.2kg of explosive filler, which for reference is more than double the filler on the Graf Spee's HE shell, and is over 17kg more than the Ikoma/Settsu's HE shell, and this is on a semi armour piercing shell with 390mm of penetration at 1km. Now I don't want to say that this is the only shell you really need, but it's kinda the only shell you really need. Capable of tearing apart cruisers and dreadnoughts alike, this shell should definitely be one of the first things you aim for after unlocking this ship.
Secondary armament
The Mariya has 20x 130mm cannons, 10 on each side of the ship. They're nothing to write home about. Being early 1900s destroyer calibre guns, the shells don't have much explosive filler and aren't too effective on their own, however you do have a truckload of them. They can be useful in taking out small boats and for providing fire at closer ranges while waiting for the main guns.
Anti-aircraft armament
The most worthless parts of the ship are undoubtedly the AA guns, if you can even call them that. They are pathetic. They use timed shells, which gives you this false sense of hope when you see the explosions around the enemy plane, which is then brutally ripped away from you when you see that the explosions are doing what we experts call jack all to the aircraft. You will experience multiple occasions where a slow plane flying in a straight line makes itself an easy target and yet the guns refuse to do anything other than scratch its paintwork.
The guns fire slowly, the shells are ineffective, the gun mounts traverse at a leisurely pace and there are only 4 of them. There's not much else to say.
Additional armament
Describe the available additional armaments of the ship: depth charges, mines, torpedoes. Talk about their positions, available ammunition and launch features such as dead zones of torpedoes. If there is no additional armament, remove this section.
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:
- Heavy firepower, augmented by torpedoes
- Heavily armoured against most threats
Cons:
- Poor mobility, huge profile
- Poor anti-air defence
- Secondary guns are located on between-deck mounts, cannot be fully traversed to meet threats on both sides
History
Devblog
The first battleships of the "dreadnought" type in the Russian Empire entered service with the Baltic Fleet, they were battleships of the Sevastopol type, laid down back in 1909. The proximity of a world war and information about the serious strengthening of the Turkish fleet forced the Tsarist government to start building three battleships similar to the ones in the Baltic for the Black Sea Fleet. The general architecture, key technical units, three-gun turrets were borrowed from the battleships "Sevastopol". Three battleships for the Black Sea Fleet were laid down in 1911, all new ships were named after the Russian monarchs. Tests of the battleship Imperatritsa Mariya (Russian for "Empress Mariya") ended in 1915, the ship was immediately put into service and began to perform combat missions.
With the advent of Russian dreadnoughts, the situation on the Black Sea changed dramatically in favor of the Russian Empire. Imperatritsa Mariya provided support to the 2nd brigade of battleships near the Turkish coastline in the fall of 1915, at the end of winter it took part in the Trebizond landing operation, and in the summer of 1916 became the flagship of the Russian Black Sea Fleet.On October 20th, a powder storage detonated and a fire occurred on the ship, the subsequent series of explosions caused the destruction of the battleship. More than 200 sailors perished, the ship sank near Sevastopol. With great effort in 1918 the ship was lifted and transferred to dry dock, but restoration work was never completed due to the social and political crisis in post-war Russia. In 1927, the battleship Imperatritsa Mariya was dismantled for its metal.
Media
- Skins
- Images
- Imperatritsa Mariya Devblog Images
- Videos
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
| USSR battleships | |
|---|---|
| Imperial Russia | |
| Sevastopol-class | Marat* · Parizhskaya Kommuna** · Poltava |
| Imperatritsa Mariya-class | Imperatritsa Mariya |
| * Laid down as Petropavlovsk; renamed and remodeled by the USSR ** Laid down as Sevastopol; renamed and remodeled by the USSR | |
| Trophies | Italy |
| Conte di Cavour-class | Novorossiysk* |
| * Laid down as RN Giulio Cesare for the Regia Marina | |
