HMS Norfolk
Contents
Description
The County-class, HMS Norfolk (78), 1943 is a rank IV British heavy cruiser with a battle rating of 5.7 (AB/RB/SB). It was introduced in Update "Direct Hit".
The Norfolk is a Dorsetshire-class heavy cruiser, subclass of the County-class cruisers built by the British post-Washington Treaty in the late 1920s for ocean power projection and trade protection. As a "treaty cruiser", the Norfolk sacrificed armour protection in favour of heavy 8-inch gun armament and high speed and endurance.
General info
Survivability and armour
Due to the displacement limitations imposed on the County-class, the Norfolk does not have much in the way of armour. Most of what little armour she has is concentrated around the main 8-inch gun magazines, which are protected inside an armoured box of 102 mm in the sides, 76 mm on the ends and on the deck. These boxes are located below the waterline, and make her quite resistant to ammunition detonations from destroyer or light cruiser main guns at range.
The machinery is protected by only 25 mm of armour on the sides, ends, and deck, and is thus vulnerable to even destroyer main guns. The main gun turrets and barbettes are similarly poorly protected.
The rest of the ship has no armour plating worth mentioning. This means that the ship tends to take a lot of damage from even HE shells. In particular, like most British cruisers, the Norfolk has an open bridge which is highly vulnerable to getting disabled.
The Norfolk has a respectable crew complement of 819 men. However, many of these crew members are located on the exposed anti-aircraft gun positions, which means that she tends to suffer considerable crew attrition from even relatively light HE hits, such as from destroyers.
Mobility
The Norfolk is fairly fast for a heavy cruiser. However, she is still a heavy cruiser, and thus her handling and acceleration/deceleration characteristics are still relatively cumbersome compared to those of lighter ships.
| Mobility Characteristics | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Game Mode | Upgrade Status | Maximum Speed (km/h) | |
| Forward | Reverse | ||
| AB | |||
| Upgraded | 71 | 30 | |
| RB/SB | |||
| Upgraded | 61 | 26 | |
Modifications and economy
| Seakeeping | Unsinkability | Firepower | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
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Armament
Primary armament
The Norfolk's main armament consists of eight 8-inch Mark VIII guns distributed in four twin turrets. These guns have acceptable accuracy, though they will struggle to gain consistent hits at longer ranges. The shortest possible reload time with a fully trained crew is 12 seconds, which is fast for a heavy cruiser. There is no first-stage ammunition stowage, thus the reload is consistent no matter how much ammunition is left in the magazines.
The 8-inch guns have only two types of shell: HE and SAPCBC. The HE shell contains a powerful bursting charge of 10 kg of TNT. The SAPCBC shell combines decent penetration with a respectable 5.2 kg TNT filler.
The main guns have an unusual amount of elevation: this is because they were meant to be able to engage aircraft. However, as there is no time- fused or VT-fused shell available for the British 8-inch gun currently in the game, the Norfolk is unable to take full advantage of this feature.
Secondary armament
Some ships are fitted with weapons of various calibres. Secondary armaments are defined as weapons chosen with the control Select secondary weapon. Evaluate the secondary armaments and give advice on how to use them. Describe the ammunition available for the secondary armament. Provide recommendations on how to use them and which ammunition to choose. Remember that any anti-air armament, even heavy calibre weapons, belong in the next section. If there is no secondary armament, remove this section.
Anti-aircraft armament
An important part of the ship's armament responsible for air defence. Anti-aircraft armament is defined by the weapon chosen with the control Select anti-aircraft weapons. Talk about the ship's anti-air cannons and machine guns, the number of guns and their positions, their effective range, and about their overall effectiveness – including against surface targets. If there are no anti-aircraft armaments, remove this section.
Additional armament
The Norfolk is equipped with two quadruple torpedo tubes, located on each side of the ship.
Usage in battles
The Norfolk is a bit of a glass cannon, having excellent firepower but very poor armour protection for a heavy cruiser. Her armour will protect against magazine detonations from most cruiser shells, but the lack of armour elsewhere, especially on critical parts like her turrets and the bridge, mean that she can take crippling damage from even destroyers if they get within effective range. This means that she excels at providing medium range support and should generally avoid drawing too much attention to herself. She has a good turn of speed for a heavy cruiser, allowing her to get to tactically advantageous positions a little bit faster while the large fillers in her HE and SAPCBC shells can inflict heavy damage on destroyers and cruisers.
The Norfolk is also one of the few 5.7 cruisers equipped with air-search radar, giving crucial early warning of any incoming enemy aircraft. She also has a very strong anti-aircraft armament suite, allowing her to provide effective air cover to teammates when necessary.
As a 5.7, the Norfolk will see battleships quite often. Against these, she lacks a proper AP shell to inflict serious damage, and must resort to attrition damage using HE and fires, or attempt to ambush them with torpedoes.
Pros and cons
Pros:
- High rate-of-fire for a heavy cruiser.
- Large shell explosive fillers.
- Heavy anti-aircraft armament.
- Relatively high top speed for a heavy cruiser.
- Equipped with air-search radar.
- Well-protected main gun ammunition magazines.
Cons:
- Little to no armour protecting the ship outside of the magazines.
- Unarmoured bridge.
- Inadequate main gun turret armour.
- Mediocre main gun accuracy.
- Can be matched against battleships.
- Tends to lose crew quickly due to exposed secondary guns and anti-aircraft mounts and turret/bridge disables.
History
Describe the history of the creation and combat usage of the ship in more detail than in the introduction. If the historical reference turns out to be too long, take it to a separate article, taking a link to the article about the ship and adding a block "/History" (example: https://wiki.warthunder.com/(Ship-name)/History) and add a link to it here using the main template. Be sure to reference text and sources by using <ref></ref>, as well as adding them at the end of the article with <references />. This section may also include the ship's dev blog entry (if applicable) and the in-game encyclopedia description (under === In-game description ===, also if applicable).
Media
Excellent additions to the article would be video guides, screenshots from the game, and photos.
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
Paste links to sources and external resources, such as:
- topic on the official game forum;
- other literature.
| Fairfield Shipbuilding and Engineering Company | |
|---|---|
| Destroyers | |
| G-class | ORP Garland |
| K-class | HMS Kelvin |
| Battle-class | HMS Cadiz |
| Hunt-class | La Combattante* |
| Light Cruisers | |
| Town-class | HMS Liverpool |
| Heavy Cruisers | |
| County-class | HMS Norfolk |
| Battlecruisers | |
| Renown-class | HMS Renown |
| *HMS Haldon in French service | |
| Britain heavy cruisers | |
|---|---|
| Hawkins-class | HMS Hawkins |
| York-class | HMS York |
| County-class | HMS Kent · HMS London · HMS Norfolk |
