Ship Types
World of Warships features various types of ships, each with unique gameplay characteristics and roles. Explore each class to learn about their strengths, weaknesses, and playstyles.
Battleships
Massive warships with powerful guns and heavy armor. They excel at dealing and absorbing tremendous amounts of damage, but lack maneuverability and stealth.
Cruisers
Versatile warships that balance firepower, speed, and protection. They can support teammates with anti-aircraft fire, hunt destroyers, or harass larger ships.
Destroyers
Small, fast, and stealthy ships armed with torpedoes. They excel at scouting, capturing objectives, and launching deadly torpedo attacks against larger vessels.
Aircraft Carriers
Mobile airfields that launch player-controlled squadrons to scout and strike across the map. Their reach is exceptional, but positioning and aircraft reserves still matter.
Submarines
Stealthy underwater vessels capable of diving and launching targeted torpedo attacks. They are difficult to detect but vulnerable when forced to surface.
How to choose a ship class
Choose by the decisions you enjoy making, not only by the largest gun or the highest speed. Battleships manage angles, reload windows, and durable pressure. Cruisers balance damage with cover and escape routes. Destroyers trade health and armour for vision, objectives, and the ability to choose engagements. Carriers manage aircraft reserves and influence distant parts of the map. Submarines depend on approach timing, information, and a safe route back to the surface.
Those are broad roles, not promises about every ship. Nation, line, tier, consumables, and current configuration can change how a particular vessel behaves. Use this page to pick a class to explore, then verify the published values in the ship database and read the relevant survival and positioning guide.
Three questions before a battle
- What information can I create? Consider spotting, last-known positions, aircraft, hydroacoustic search, radar, and what your team will lose if you are sunk early.
- What space can I influence safely? Gun range is not the same as useful range. Look for an angle that supports an objective while keeping cover, concealment, or room to turn away.
- What ends my game fastest? Identify the crossfire, destroyer, aircraft, submarine, or overcommitment that defeats your class's normal defence. Plan the response before it appears.
Improvement is easier when you keep the class constant long enough to recognise repeated situations. Play a short set of battles, review the first avoidable loss of health in each one, and practise a single correction. That produces more useful learning than changing class, build, and strategy after every result.