Through the Spy Glass: Congress

During the development of the Alaska-class large cruisers, there were growing concerns about the overall size of the ship. One idea was to reduce the armament to seven guns, with a mixture of two twin- and one triple-gun turrets. The seven-gun large cruiser design had a different arrangement for her turrets, with the two twin-gun mounts placed at the ship’s fore. The weight saving from this design was around 3,000 tons of standard displacement, reducing the huge cruiser significantly.

Congress is a hard-hitting American cruiser armed with seven 12-inch (305 mm) main battery guns! Her base AP alpha shell damage is 8,900, and our Commander-build suggestion can get this up to a whopping 10,235! Ouch! In addition to this imposing main battery armament, the cruiser comes equipped with a detection-focused consumable set composed of two charges of 96 s duration Sonar with a 3.1 km range, and 35 s duration Radar with a 9.4 km range. You can trade the Sonar for two charges of Defensive AA Fire, and the Radar for Catapult Fighter. Finally, Congress also comes equipped with two Repair Party charges.

Congress can punish unsuspecting battleships and cruisers alike, dealing massive amounts of surprise damage to enemy broadsides. She can also use her detection-focused consumable set to create an area of denial around an objective for enemy destroyers. Our Commander-build suggestion focuses on increasing the punching power of her AP shells.

We recommend the following build: Norman Scott with his Directed Impact base trait, improving the shell grouping of your ship by up to 5%.

• Beyond Range, improving the range of your main battery guns by up to 10%.
• Igniter, improving the chances of your cruiser’s HE shells starting fire by 3%.
• Punch Through, improving the damage of your cruiser’s main battery AP shells by up to 10% and your AP shell penetration multiplier by up to 6%.
• Fixated, improving your cruiser’s main battery shell grouping by up to 5% and your main battery dispersion by up to 5%.
• Fully Packed, giving you an additional consumable charge for all of your consumables (including an additional Radar charge) and improving their cooldown time by up to 5%. If your ship is within proximity of an allied ship, it improves your consumable cooldown time by up to a further 30%.

Regarding Inspirations, you should try:

• Günther Lütjens, increasing the damage of your main battery AP shells by up to 5%.
• Nikolay Kuznetsov, increasing the range of your main battery by up to 6%.

Turn the tide with Congress!