Pan-American tech tree review / Nueve de Julio / World of Warships
By Denis Marasan ☆ 29/Feb/2020In World of Warships (play now!), the Pan-American faction is represented by only one ship – tier VII Light Cruiser Nueve de Julio. Since this article is going to be short, consider it a pleasant bonus.
Nueve de Julio is basically a clone of USN Boise: these two ships are identical. So there’s basically no sense of buying Nueve de Julio instead of Boise unless you’re Argentinian or a collector. Coz if you buy Boise you’ll be able to plant your existing USA commander, whereas in the case of Nueve de Julio you be doomed accumulating commander experience on a new Pan-American commander from scratch, which doesn’t make sense. Though by the time Wargaming will add a new Pan-American tech tree line to explore in World of Warships you may have a fully developed commander at your disposal.
Nueve de Julio is very similar to USN tier VII Light Cruiser Helena, though the premium ship has a Repair Party consumable. In terms of gameplay, Nueve de Julio is very similar to mid-tier British Heavy Cruisers, meaning that she is a glass gun. The hull is very squishy and easy to penetrate, the citadel is positioned rather high and is easy to hit. All in all Nueve de Julio gives up her hit points easily, soaking damage like a sponge, but you may still recover some hit points after a while thanks to her overly effective Repair Party, much like tier VIII – X UK Heavy Cruisers and tier IX-X UK Battleships. Another similarity to mid-tier UK Heavy Cruisers is that Nueve de Julio is rather slow and sluggish.
The only sensible tactic for playing on Nueve de Julio is shooting from behind islands thanks to her high fire or occupying allied or enemy smokescreens to avoid spotting. Playing on open water is of grave danger unless your target is busy fighting your allies and pays no attention to you, e.g. late in the battle when your team has an overwhelming superiority. Nueve de Julio is also great for supporting fire for allied Destroyers at the control areas, though as always with Nueve de Julio it requires extreme caution.
Summarizing the above: tier VII premium Light Cruiser Nueve de Julio is a clone of another premium ship USN Boise. She is slow, sluggish and squishy, which is counterbalanced with overly powered Repair Party and impressive firepower. Thanks to her high fire she is able to fire from behind islands avoiding detection, though this requires knowledge of game maps and positions. Nueve de Julio is definitely not for newbies and she requires exerting every effort to be effective in battles, but experienced WoWS players will most certainly make use of her overpowering features.