For those that have never looked, the Phoenix class cruiser is one of the "paper designs" of WoWs. Like it's sister game, World of Tanks, World of Warships puts vehicles into the game that never actually existed, alongside the historically accurate ones. This is one of Wargaming's (the parent company for WoWs) little quirks that they love to bring to their trilogy of two. Paper designs fill gaps in the historically accurate tech trees, and also serve as cool oddities, giving us an insight into how these non-existant vessels might have theoretically performed against real contemporaries. Think Freddy Vs. Jason Vs. Mad Jack Churchill. The Phoenix existed in paper, and was intended to be a light scout cruiser, the kind of ship that would fill the gap between destroyer and cruiser. They would lead destroyer hunting packs, acting kind of like an alpha DD, and also provide long range scouting to larger ships in the fleet. The Phoenix was never built, instead the design was reworked, and reworked until it was only just barely recognizable. The addition of a built up rear superstructure, additional anti-submarine warfare systems, and most-notably, two turrets mounting twin 6-inch guns, completely reorganized the Phoenix into practically a different ship. The result was the renamed Omaha class light cruiser (in WoWs at T5), which performed a similar role, but mostly dropped the pretenses of being a destroyer lead, or scout, and became fleet screening vessels.
Like me, you've probably looked at the T4 Phoenix, and the T5 Omaha and thought, something along these lines, "Dafuq is the point of this? It's clearly just an outright inferior Omaha, so what you're saying is that I need to grind through a crap Omaha just to get be able to grind out the Omaha." It probably also doesn't help that so many people hear such great things about the St Louis at T3, and the Cleveland at T6, both of which are outstanding gun cruisers, and purer examples of the American cruiser philosophy. All of this belies a simple point, for its tier, the Phoenix is a better ship than the Omaha, and the battles it will face will suit it to a t.
The Phoenix is a pure scout cruiser. It's advantages are its blistering speed and agility. Players of some of the low tier Japanese cruisers will know this play style: juking enemy shells and torpedoes, evading unfavourable engagements with enemy battleships and cruisers, and putting a truly legendary hurt on any destroyer unfortunate enough to be caught in a straight fight. The difference at first glance between the Phoenix and Omaha seems to just be the addition of turret mounted guns, but the Omaha, as a bulked up Phoenix loses a lot of the maneuverability of the Phoenix in the upgrade. The Phoenix can shift direction on a dime, rivaling some destroyers for DDR footwork. Combined with the ship's narrow hull, the Phoenix is nigh-impervious to torpedoes, since it can slip between even a tight spread, and pretty much ignore wide spreads as long as it is either closing or opening the distance with the enemy.
The big problem that new players (like me in the closed-beta) have with the Phoenix is the gun layout. A lot like the St Louis, the Phoenix mounts the majority of its guns in either side of the hull. Without any centreline turrets, the Phoenix appears to never be able to bring the majority of its firepower to bear. This is a similar problem to the St Louis, but most people never notice this issue. The St Louis has more guns per hull, and typically can rely on its toughness to present the broadside and commence the smackdown. Conversely, the Phoenix cannot rely on its armour or health to trade broadsides with anything but destroyers, however, the Phoenix simply doesn't need to.
The two tactics that save the Phoenix, and actually put it above and beyond the St Louis are supporting fire tactics, and my personal favourite, the "slalom shoot". Everything I've said about cruisers up until this point holds true. If you are up against enemies that are tougher than you, wait in the wings until they are firing at someone tougher than you. Battleships and armoured cruisers exist to take a beating, and unless you are facing destroyers, you are probably fighting enemies that are tougher than you. Unless you are without choice, hold your fire until you confirm your enemies guns are facing someone else, or they are simply unable to respond. Holding your fire can be difficult as a new player. It goes against most of your instincts, but believe me, if you draw fire in this game, the enemy will tunnel-vision on you until one of you is dead. Even if they have a better target, the target that they shoot at first is usually the one they will focus on until death. Once your enemy is distracted, start giving broadsides, or better yet, begin the slalom.
Slalom shooting is one of my favourite tactics for low tier ships with off-centre gun mounts. Offering your broadside to the enemy is a good way to fire all of your guns, but it places you in the single most vulnerable position you can put yourself in. If the enemy can see your ship in profile, it is the biggest target to hit, and your armour is the flattest that it will be. Turning your ship to a steeper angle will make it a narrower target, it will make them have to correct for your heading, and it will make your armour more steeply angled, increasing the chances of ricocheting AP shells. As such, you can angle yourself towards the enemy, presenting your full array of guns on one side of the ship. From this safer position, fire your volley. Now shift the ship's rudder so you turn to present the other side of the ship, and its freshly loaded guns. Fire these, and shift back to the original side. You are essentially fishtailing the ship toward the enemy, and in the Phoenix you can do this so quickly that you'll have fired, switched sides, fired, and switched back by the time the original guns have reloaded. This tactic wrecks face. It turns your seemingly minimal broadsides into machineguns of doom. It feels a lot like muskets firing volleys by rank, and it seems to have basically the same effect. Combine this with the Phoenix's superior gun range, and you'll be able to beat up St Louis's beyond their response range. With this slalom tactic, I've killed enemy destroyers within less than 3 seconds. Volley, turn, volley, boom. And all that while constantly closing the distance, thus increasing accuracy, reducing their chance to escape, and bringing me closer to torpedo range.
Oh yeah, and the Phoenix has torpedoes, too. It and the Omaha are the only two ships in the American cruiser line (other than the premium Atlanta) to pack torpedoes, and while they are pretty crap ones, they are still just the ticket for delivering the fear of Santa to enemy battleships that see a scout cruiser and get cocky.
As I said at the beginning, it is easy to overlook the Phoenix as merely the under-gunned prototype for the Omaha. However, as the Omaha geared up with guns, planes, and got its butt implants, it kind of lost sight of what it was originally supposed to be. When we talk about the Omaha, we'll cover what it does well, but shimmying, shaking, and putting the hurt on destroyers just isn't among those things, at least not like it is one tier down. It's amazing what a inversion I felt playing the Phoenix again. Where I had sneered at it, and skipped to the Omaha, I now find myself regretting the "upgrade". Tier for tier, it just feels like the Phoenix is better at what it does. Don't use free experience to skip this one, and don't get disheartened by its initial performance. Master this one, and I might just permit you to play a destroyer... one day. This is a ship that does not belong as a footnote to the Omaha, it should soar on the winds forever.
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