Battleship Lenin

T7 RU BB Lenin: Review

Battleship Lenin

• Amazing Armor
• Rare Ship
• Forward Guns

Scope:

Battleship Lenin represents a Tier 7 Soviet Battleship Premium that was available during Christmas 2020. She is no longer available. Lenin does not have any related classes in the game. Lenin is a GOOD ship, with a MODERATE skill floor and a HIGH skill ceiling. This review was written during v 3.5 and v 3.6. The timing is just right Comrade, there is so much Red. Lenin was acquired during the Christmas event in 2020.

Rating Matrix

• [BAD, WEAK, AVERAGE, GOOD, GREAT]
• {LOW, MODERATE, HIGH, EXTREME}

History:

Battleship Lenin is a representation of a design and study under the name of Project 21 by the Soviet Union. The design featured a “Nelson Class” examination of a battleship with a forward main battery design consisting of 406mm Main Battery. The design was never built.

Pros:

• All forward Guns
• Excellent penetration
• Excellent ballistics
• Defensive Juggernaut
• Resilient
• Tank

Cons:

• Limited Effective Health
• Limited Damage Control
• Limited Tankiness
• Poor Anti-Air
• Poor Torpedo Protection

The Basics:

Lenin brings a bit of Nelson’s pre-established flavor to Nelson's successive tier, and while Lenin is much stronger than Nelson and generally considered an improvement on the design, the two share a lot of similar strengths and weaknesses. As per the usual, we’re going to cover all the bases and show the strengths, how to build on them; the weaknesses and where to find them, and how to address them. Despite her rarity and how to deal with and build this stubborn lug of a ship.

Lenin’s Main Battery consists of 9-406mm/45 Model 19 OTZ rifles in 3-triple turrets all forward facing, in an A-B-C forward configuration with A-B super firing. Lenin’s Secondary Array consists of 12-100mm/56 MZ-14 in 6-twin turrets with 3 turrets per side and 12-152mm/54 MK-3 in 4-triple turrets with 2 turrets per side. The guns handle like a dream with superb traverse and are adept at staying on target. Lenin's Secondary Array is questionable at best and is not quite even adequate for self-defense.

Lenin is unrelated to any “existing” Soviet Era ship in the game. She is the same tier and class as tech tree counterpart Vladivostok. Though unrelated, the ships undeniably share somewhat similar niches, play-styles, strengths and weaknesses that are archetypal throughout the Russian National Tree. These typically include, a poorly protected, large and exposed above-the-waterline citadel, trollish long range dispersion, wonky horizontal dispersion values, limited damage control capacity, and atrocious torpedo protection.

In short, Captains can expect a familiar playstyle to Nelson, a favorite, resolving much of Nelson's problematic armor with Vladivostok's Trollish (both in a sense of good and bad) Gunnery.

Offense:

• GOOD

Lenin is just good. I know you probably didn’t need me to write this so bluntly to figure this out… Russian Battleships suffer from an interesting conundrum that occupy their main battery; in close, the ships have incredible pen values, ballistics and weight. From afar, things get to be a bit tricky, in the sense that your lateral dispersion curve is far weaker and will result in some just head scratching spreads. In theory, Lenin is one of the more accurate and consistent battleships in the game, and in practice, this is not always the case. Lenin’s ballistics are an absolute dream, aside from her own reliability to troll herself. Captains will learn quickly long range gunnery is simply not Lenin’s forte after watching salvo after salvo fly on a dreamy approach only to spread wide and scatter at range.

There is a certainly a caveat here worth discussing…those AP lasers are certainly meant to conduct closer range operations, where her ballistic qualities are prime and top her compatriots before falling short of them. Lenin's gunnery handles nothing like the Iowa Sisters, the South Dakota Sisters, Tirpitz or Jean Bart where these ships represent somewhat stronger offensive packages on a vaguely weaker defensive front. Lenin is frequently hampered by her ability to land heavy hitting punches, and instead relies on just out-lasting her opponents; particularly with her excellent armor scheme, and penchant for sticking her steel jaw and big fat nose in everyone’s business. Opposing captains will start to feel Lenin’s ability to out trade them as she stalks them down with her well placed and timed push. Keeping your engagements around that precious 10km mark will make all of your shots land and force opposing captains to reconsider their ability to deal damage to you.

Lenin’s main battery is best described as an opportunist. Pot shots on wayward opponents as they try to reposition around your armor is a frequent gain on trades and forces tricky situations for your opponents to navigate. HE is great but seldom used...generally speaking is best for clapping wayward destroyers. AP is heavy and hits like a truck, provided you are close enough to make those shots land. Given Lenin’s overall strategy, AP is typically the go to. Lenin's ballistic arc is quite lovely and she has well above average muzzle velocity. What's more, Lenin has relatively low-drag shells that follow a flat ballistic arc. This makes aiming a breeze over long ranges, despite that your dispersion curve has Lenin start as one of the most accurate battleships, then deteriorating to amongst the worst beyond 15km. Lenin has an average sigma but owes her trollish dispersion to her dispersion curves which start very narrow and end very wide compared to her competition.

It’s an almost ironic balance to when Lenin’s projectiles are seemingly and entirely guided by The Will of the People, hilariously sending your opponent back to port in rapid fashion. In one of my first Lenin matches, one poor soul in a Charles Martel popped out just too far from his 12km hidey-hole eating 3 citadels of the 6 shells I fired. You can say all you want, but it does come together once in a while its just not always as consistent as you like and that can come back to bite you.

Another noteworthy tactic includes aiming for the opposing gunnery, Lenin has formidable caliber and penetration values in close and can easily incapacitate or outright destroy gunnery modules. In another such match a Richelieu lost all of her main battery. I don’t know about you, but I love removing my opponents ability to shoot back.

Good times.

This situation is more the exception than the rule beyond 12km. It’s important to note here, that dispersion builds will help reduce, but cannot mitigate this issue. Lenin is simply not meant to gun from range. Instead of correcting your long range ballistic shortcomings; captains will find themselves in situations where all of their main battery shells will attempt to merge into a single pixel at short ranges. Is that a fault or an advantage? I guess it really depends on how close you get Lenin to the fight. The closer you are, the more incredibly strong your gunnery is…the further, the more incredibly frustrating. It’s not like you lack penetration values, you will just miss.

Lenin’s gun handling is outright phenomenal, and her traverse is excellent. This plays more into her prowess in close quarters rather than at range. Opponents trying to flank your armor and get your broadside will have to contend with your flexibility to get your guns to bear. That being said, Lenin’s forward firing angles are generous, and her aftward firing angles are atrocious. Lenin has a big old blind spot around her butt.

This ideology makes offensive tactics simple. Bow-In, keep your enemies ahead of you, nuzzle your vulnerable side against cover, and just keep firing your main battery. There’s very little reason to expose your cheek for the third turret unless things get spicy. Put all of this together and you equate to a pretty solid GOOD Rating.

Defense:

• GREAT

Lenin has the seemingly perfect combination of ideology; you won’t die if you can’t take damage. Most of Lenin’s armor features are seemingly geared towards negating any ability to do damage to the ship directly. Apart from her glaring and large above the waterline citadel which abuts the belt directly; Lenin is covered in plating with above average thickness.

Starting fore, Lenin features a 100mm icebreaker bow plate that runs from the nose to the citadel belt where she measures 350mm at the belt. Above her main armor belt, Lenin’s freeboard sports a 150mm belt, thinning up to a 50mm freeboard belt plate amidships below the decking. Lenin is covered in 32mm plating around her bow and stern, and features a 45 mm deck plate. Lenin’s Superstructure is also small, and features some armor around the Conning Tower and along the base of the funnel.

But what does it mean?!

This means several things. Bow in, Lenin is proof to anything in her tier or above, and largely resistant even to most 203mm HE. Even larger caliber HE shells will have a difficult time finding their way in to do meaningful damage.. Monarch grins like the Cheshire Cat. Apart from the ships extremities, the vast majority of HE spam will just shatter on your decking. Lenin’s puny 350mm belt is even somewhat of a strong suit when it’s well angled. Apart from Yamato punching out your gunnery, Lenin will reliably avoid any penetrations to the citadel from the bow. However, even most 203mm Cruisers can punch through your belt if they get close enough to your side. Captains, protecting your broadside is imperative and is one of Lenin’s only defensive flaws. Keep in mind, if you are firing all 3 of your main battery, your opponent has the angle to punch through your main armor belt.

Lenin has another defensive trick up her sleeve when it comes to mitigating damage, which is her limited quantity Damage Control Party. Fully upgraded with commander skills, this consumable is of both short duration and short cool-down, about 6s and 35s respectively. This alone will allow you to pull some straight up witchcraft when it comes to damage control. Be forewarned, using this consumable too liberally risks depleting it which ensures captains will suffer the full duration of damage over time. Smart captains with judicious use even during extremely aggressive maneuvers will still struggle to burn through all 5 charges in most matches. That being said, it is not a free pass, as Lenin does not have great base HP, nor EHP and is middle of the pack on both terms. Observe below.

Compared Base HP of T7 BB Premiums:

• Tirpitz: 69,300
• Jean Bart: 69,000
• Kii: 68,200
• Massachusetts: 66,300
• Missouri: 65,000
• Alabama: 63,300
• Lenin: 63,200
• Georgia: 63,000
• Odin: 62,700
• Gascogne: 60,040
• Monarch: 53,900
• Champagne: 52,600

As you can see at 63,2k you are very middle of the pack. Your EHP doesn’t look much better hovering around 100-110k. Lenin does not have great healing percentages, which compounds against her ability to heal back much of the damage after it has been done. Though Lenin can heal, her gameplay is geared towards using proper angles to mitigate damage and aggressive tactics which force opponents to fruitlessly fire into the teeth of Lenin’s armor for no to minimal damage. Frankly, I could go on and on about armor plates, thickness and effectiveness all day…Lenin has a lot of them worth talking about, but there is only so much worth pointing out and after a while the picture becomes clear.

Lenin’s armor scheme is somewhat amazing, in the sense of mitigating damage. Despite some glaring weak spots, Lenin is absolutely a pain in the nuggets to deal with. A well played Lenin is as detrimental to your opponents overall sanity as a rush hour traffic jam**.** You’ve got places to be and things to do but that B****** that just won’t f****** move, and won’t die. A bow in Lenin is a difficult obstacle to overcome, especially when placed correctly. If you ignore the obvious huge floating citadel and manage to tuck that cheek in and cover your vulnerabilities: Lenin becomes a very frustrating experience to deal with. For these reasons, Lenin I’d say fits pretty solidly in the GREAT defensive rating.

Anti-Air Suite:

• WEAK

Lenin’s Anti-Air is somewhat bittersweet. Lenin has above average reach, but below average DPS. Topping out at 279/s from 3km out, Captains have some damage ticking faster and further out than most, but as the strike group close the gap seasoned captains will notice the difference in AA values. Lenin is not so well covered to ward off entire squads, but will take a couple down. Check the chart below, Lenin sits nearer the bottom of the list, but is just slightly below the average of 300 and change.

Stock* Average Damage per Second of Anti-Air at 2km for Tier 7 Battleships:

• Missouri: 646
• Georgia: 646
• Jean Bart: 560
• Alabama: 529
• Massachusetts: 510
• Kii: 446
• Odin: 322
• Monarch: 315
• Roma: 297
• Lenin: 279
• Tirpitz: 239
• Gascogne: 219
• Champagne: 185

Lenin is a far cry from the likes of the Iowa or South Dakota Sisters. She rests on the lower bottom of the pack and your AA is generally unreliable. Lenin’s trollish armor is more apt to save aerial bombardment than captains Anti-Air kits. It should be noted, Lexington’s HE bombs do have enough base penetration to get into Lenin’s main decking to score penetrations and as well A. Parseval has a habit of scoring citadel penetrations. Lenin is not particularly adept at dealing with airborne threats and for this she sits with her WEAK rating.

Maneuverability:

• WEAK

Lenin is a large ship. Just like most of the other battleship competition at the tier, Lenin handles weakly and tops out at a meager 28 knots. Her rudder shift is a strong 13.5s but her turning radius is a paltry 840m. This sets Lenin up to be reasonably mediocre however she is unable to outrun most of her opposition. This isn’t necessarily a weak point, as Lenin’s gunnery certainly prefers closer engagements. Captains should certainly consider that while being close to the fight is Lenin’s forte, she has a number of weaknesses that balance her utility with her maneuverability being one such caveat.

Concealment:

• WEAK

Lenin is a large ship. lol. Just like Lenin’s maneuverability, her concealment is another weak point at 14.7km. Given Lenin has a great armor scheme and is in all due considerations a tank, concealment is not her strength and she will generally and consistently be spotted. Careful consideration should be taken on your position to help negate the effects of destroyers or torpedoes. If Concealment Mod were an option, it would not be a wise one. For these reasons, Lenin holds her WEAK rating.

Consumables:

• WEAK

Lenin has the standard consumables that battleship captains are accustomed to; Damage Control Party, Repair Party and the normal battleship trifecta of Enhanced Secondary Targeting, Spotter Plane and Patrol Fighters.

Slot 1: Damage Control Party consists of up to 5 charges that last for 6s and have a 36.8s reload. This is based off my current build and not stock: the numbers could change here but this is the best one I’ve found. Judicious use of your damage control party will often result in having a charge or two left for end game play. Frankly, I’ve played dozens of matches in this ship just for this review alone, and could count the number of times I’ve actually run out of damage control party on one hand.

Slot 2: Repair Party comes built with up to 4 charges and will heal 500/s over 19s with a 75s reload. I won’t say this is good, it’s certainly average. Lenin’s Effective Health Pool is in the 100k-105k region depending on builds emphasizing healing ability. Lenin’s EHP may not be strong, but it is worth investing in as it will help captains stay afloat.

Slot 3: Slot 3 comes with the standard choice of Spotter Plane, Patrol Fighters, or Enhanced Secondary Targeting. I opted for Spotter Plane which gets 4 charges which buff dispersion by 10% for 30s with a 200s reload. Lenin does not have a secondary battery remotely worth spending energy (or consumables) improving. Patrol Fighters won’t stop CVs from exploiting your aerial weaknesses. The last remaining choice is patrol fighters which are great for forcing your entire salvo onto a single pixel. That’s what I chose too.

Commanders:

• AVERAGE

Lenin is somewhat handcuffed by commanders in the sense that there are just 3 plausible options. Galler, Von Essen, or Kedrov. Galler focuses heavily on range and dispersion, Von Essen on versatility and improving pen angles, and Kedrov geared towards survivability. There are no fancy, premium commanders here; just good old original in game commanders. For me, Kedrov is the clear choice. Lenin represents a mid-close range brawler that has an excellent defensive system handcuffed by her survivability, so doesn’t it make sense to focus one’s effort into improving that very weak point? What’s the point in being a tank that can’t take a hit? Galler is a double edged sword in the sense that Lenin prefers to stay closer to targets (inside 12km) where her dispersion and penetration values are well above par. This means a lot of Galler’s ranged skills just don’t come into play nearly as much as perhaps healing back damage. If you have a limited ability to put out fires—shouldn’t your focus be on putting fires out as fast as possible without using resources and then in turn maximizing your ability to heal all of that damage back. Von Essen perked my interest I won’t lie, but I feel his skills are best used on Stalingrad rather than Lenin.

Here’s my commander build, I tried a few variations but Lenin is very straightforward (perhaps more so than many) on her shortcomings and this made settling on builds much easier. Kedrov with Scharnhorst and Cunningham for inspirations. This is exactly straightforward, and every buff here is directly aimed at your guns. Not one for Nuisance will help with fires. Crisscross to help grease those turrets to silliness. Volunteer to bring the most amount of Damage Control Party charges. Master Mechanic, Will to Rebuild to improve the healing ability of your Repair Party. Everything seems to just plug in beautifully here. Lenin holds this AVERAGE score because there are definitely ships that are both easier and far trickier to build around. Lenin has a couple ways to be built with the maximum efficiency undoubtedly being pushed towards keeping her afloat.

Upgrades:

• None

1. Lenin is a premium ship and does not have any attached or researchable upgrades.

Modifications:

• AVERAGE

Lenin shows more of her simplicity and straightforward builds in her modifications. None of them are truly any surprise.

• Slot 1: Aiming Systems Mod 1

There are the 4 usual choices. Secondary Battery Mod is just a wrong choice: Lenin’s Secondary Battery is a painful lesson in disaster and failure. AA Guns Mod is not worth investing in as Lenin has subpar AA. Main Battery Mod is useless in the sense Lenin has fantastic gun handling and does not need to be buffed. Aiming Systems is the clear choice in the sense it will help cut down on Lenin’s dispersion.

• Slot 2: Damage Control Systems Mod 2

This is another straightforward topic. Neither Steering Gears Mod nor Propulsion Mod will help you save more damage than Damage Control Systems Mod will.

• Slot 3: Target Acquisition Mod 1

Captains only have one choice for this slot and it’s taken by Target Acquisition Mod. Concealment is not part of Lenin’s forte and since you couldn’t get her concealment below 12km it’s a mute point. Take Target Acquisition Mod. This is the only, and correct choice.

• Slot 4: Main Battery Reload Mod 3

Main Battery Reload Mod is some more of the old straight forward. AA Gun Mod 3 wont make your AA so strong it’s worth investing, Secondary Battery Mod 3 is also similarly useless; even for memes. Lenin only has a very small amount of useable secondary battery neither of which are particularly adept at protecting you defensively. Take Main Battery Mod, up your DPM and you still get to keep your guns on Target- yep, Lenin’s traverse is just that good.

Research:

• None

1. Lenin is not currently used in any Research Bureau Projects

​

Summary:

• GOOD

I told myself I wasn't going to blush over Lenin too much. Apart from Massachusetts, Lenin is one of my other all time favorites since her early days on PC. Lenin translated well from her PC counterpart and didn't let me down from the moment I got her on here. Writing this review was a rare treat in the sense that it gave me a reason to put one of my all time favorite toys under the microscope and see how it measures up to the competition. Lenin represents a rare treat on World of Warships Legends in the sense that she can certainly pick a fight with the best of her tier and keep slugging it out. There are ships with more versatility and flexibility sure, but they cant laugh at Yamato point blank and then punch back. Lenin brings a wonderful foray of tactics learned from Nelson on a tougher package that can hit harder too.

I had to be objectively tougher on Lenin in this sense because I knew I would both enjoy reviewing her and putting her up to muster. Bluntly, Lenin's weaknesses are few, large, and quite painful. However, Lenin has alot of strengths too, and particularly in some very important places. Lenin is undeniably a ship that looks questionable at best on paper, but is glorious in practice. Mastering the Art of Peek-A-Boom, Bow-Tanking and Cross-Fire Pot Shots are keys to mastering the Lenin. This ship is fundamentally easy to use and learn, with subtle nuances and trivialities that will allow seasoned captains to flex their knowledge and experience. I honestly had a hard time rating her skill floor as MODERATE, in the sense that it does not take alot to make this ship work for the captain, but there are certainly weaknesses that can be exploited. Conversely, ranking Lenin with just a HIGH skill ceiling was also a tough call; a well played Lenin absolutely has the ability to swing the battle in her favor...yes, she's really that hard to deal with. I had a blast punishing simple mistakes by tanking one ship, then taking pot shots at another who'd assumed me to be distracted. In the right hands, this ship is a monster.

Lenin will average out with a GOOD rating in most players index. She can be quite fun, and most players will learn several good tricks from Lenin that can be applied in various other situations due to her quirky design. In practice, Lenin sits comfortably ahead of more conventional Vladivostok here, just as Nelson does to similarly King George V a tier lower.

Lenin is strong as she is, and does not need to be improved.