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Northern Dragon is a Tier VII Pan-Asian gunboat destroyer: her damage comes from sustained main battery pressure on caps and open-water trades. Torpedoes are a secondary threat for closing lanes, not her main damage. Standout traits: best AP shell velocity in T7 DDs (1,000) and best flat HE shells in T7 DDs (1,000).
Hold mid-cap distance and lean into gunboat trades from cover where the peer destroyer cannot match your fires-per-minute. Avoid open-water duels with ships running smoke or radar; your damage is mostly gunfire, and gunfire from cover wins more than from blue water. Your guns lose penetration at range, so aim AP at broadsides you can still citadel and put HE into superstructures and upper-hull sections, rather than the bow-in or belt armor your shells bounce and shatter on.
Your damage is sustained main-battery pressure from cover (the torpedoes are a secondary threat), so open-water duels just stack incoming HE on you while you fire back. A second mistake to avoid: these torpedoes ignore the Destroyer class - they pass under DDs and cannot hit them. Aim torpedo drops ONLY at battleships, carriers, and most cruisers; every torp fired at a DD is wasted output.
HE pen at the 1/4 caliber ratio instead of the standard 1/6. HE-spam is a real damage option here, not just a fire-starter; pens roughly 1.5x more armor than a same-caliber peer's HE, shared by 5/34 T7 DDs.
Torps IGNORE the Destroyer class (deep-water mechanic); they pass under DDs and cannot hit them. Aim ONLY at battleships, carriers, and most cruisers; every torp fired at a DD is wasted, shared by 3/34 T7 DDs.
+8% speed, 120 s duration. Engine Boost consumable temporarily raises top speed. Mobility on demand to reposition, chase a kill, or break contact.
124.0 s smoke cloud linger, best of T7 DDs. Each puff stays up longer after you stop laying it, holding the shield.
Northern Dragon is a Premium ship and not available to unlock in the Tech Tree. Acquisition path: Containers. Container chances are shown as the listed odds of receiving this exact ship, dividing grouped ship-pool odds across the resolved ships and including nested container paths when a crate can drop another crate.
Pair with a commander whose unique skill complements her main armament; check the build tool for current recommendations.
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Where Northern Dragon sits among Tier VII DDs (34 ships). Notable standouts are shown first; the rest of the cohort-ranked stats are in the expand below. Acquisition variants (Black Friday, Founders Edition) are counted once with their base ship, not as separate peers.
Not standouts for Northern Dragon -- here's where she sits on every other ranked stat in the cohort. Stats tagged NORM are tied across more than half the cohort, so the value is the cohort default rather than a standout.
Damage Control Party∞ charges · 40 s reload · 5 s active
Smoke Generator2 charges · 240 s reload · 28 s emit / 124 s cloud active
Engine Boost2 charges · 180 s reload · 120 s active · +8% speed bonus
Defensive AA Fire3 charges · 140 s reload · 25 s active · +100% flak burst boost
Torpedo Reload Booster3 charges · 160 s reload · 1 s active · 5 s torpedo launchers reload time All values are ship base stats with modifications and upgrade changes denoted inline.
Numbers the spec table cannot show directly: alpha-strike math, DPM, dispersion, AP penetration. Click the formula chip on any row to reveal how it is calculated.
Horizontal dispersion ellipse width at max range, from the verified WoWS dispersion model: $\sigma_H = \left(\dfrac{R}{30}\cdot\dfrac{\text{idealRadius}-\text{minRadius}}{\text{idealDistance}} + \text{minRadius}\right)\cdot 30$ $= \left(\dfrac{11132}{30}\cdot\dfrac{8-0.5}{1000} + 0.5\right)\cdot 30 = 98.5\,\text{m}$How wide your shells scatter at 10 km, from the same dispersion model as the max-range figure above. Picking a fixed range makes this number directly comparable from ship to ship: max-range dispersion makes a longer-range gun look worse even when it's tighter at any common range. The interactive Dispersion tab on the Charts card plots the full curve from 0 to max range.Vertical dispersion ellipse height at max range: $\sigma_V = \sigma_H \cdot \text{radiusOnMax}$ $= 98.5 \cdot 0.6 = 59.1\,\text{m}$How tall the same scatter ellipse is at 10 km. Comparable from ship to ship for the same reason as the width value above.50%-hit horizontal radius: $\sigma_{H,50} = \sigma_H \cdot \text{GetHalfHitsRatio}(\sigma)$ $= 98.5 \cdot 0.32\;(\sigma = 2) = 31.5\,\text{m}$50%-hit vertical radius: $\sigma_{V,50} = \sigma_V \cdot \text{GetHalfHitsRatio}(\sigma)$ $= 59.1 \cdot 0.32\;(\sigma = 2) = 18.9\,\text{m}$Canonical community AP formula (jcw780/wows_shell), evaluated at muzzle velocity: $P = 10^{-7}\cdot K \cdot m^{0.69} \cdot d^{-1.07} \cdot v_0^{1.38}$ $= 10^{-7}\cdot 2154 \cdot 17.5^{0.69} \cdot 0.1^{-1.07} \cdot 1000^{1.38} = 251.7\,\text{mm}$. Matches the in-game spec card.Same formula at the ship's max firing range (13.9 km), where the shell has slowed to 332.5 m/s: $P = 10^{-7}\cdot 2154 \cdot 17.5^{0.69} \cdot 0.1^{-1.07} \cdot 332.5^{1.38} = 55.1\,\text{mm}$.In-game data: 30 mm = 100 mm caliber / 3.33 (non-standard HE penetration ratio).This ship's HE shells use a 1/4 (~0.25) caliber-to-pen ratio instead of the standard 1/6 (~0.167) - 0.3 in this case. Lets HE pen ~25mm armor instead of ~16mm. Hits every German cruiser (150mm CL, 203mm CA) and BB (350mm+), British heavy cruisers / Lion / Nelson, a handful of other premiums.floor(100 mm caliber / 14.3) = 6 mm (AP auto-penetrates plating this thick or less).AP shell over-penetration splash radius; scales with shell mass. Wickes 102mm = 3, standard 152mm CL ~ 20, Iowa 406mm ~ 270, Yamato 460mm = 400, Incomparable 650mm = 550 (max). Larger value = bigger splash damage area when AP over-pens.All 8 barrels bear on the broadside.180 degrees / 16 deg/s traverse speed = 11.2 s.1,800 HE damage x 8 broadside guns = 14,400.2,200 AP damage x 8 broadside guns = 17,600.14,400 HE full-salvo alpha x 60 / 4.7 s base reload = 183,830.17,600 AP full-salvo alpha x 60 / 4.7 s base reload = 224,681.14,400 HE full-salvo alpha x 60 / 4.2 s installed reload (Main Battery Mod. 3 = -10%) = 205,714.17,600 AP full-salvo alpha x 60 / 4.2 s installed reload (Main Battery Mod. 3 = -10%) = 251,429.8 broadside guns x 60 / 4.7 s base reload = 102.1.8 broadside guns x 60 / 4.2 s installed Artillery reload = 114.3.102.1 shells/min x 8% fire chance = 8.17.114.3 shells/min x 8% fire chance = 9.14.detectability / (speed kt x 2.6 community game-speed factor).range / (speed kt x 2.6 community game-speed factor).1 launchers x 4 tubes.4 (centerline launchers train across - full salvo to either side).All tubes hitting one target: tubes x per-torpedo simulated damage = 4 x 19,567 = 78,268.One side firing, all torpedoes hitting: per-side tubes x per-torpedo simulated damage = 4 x 19,567 = 78,268.Sum across every AA aura on this ship of (aura.continuous_damage x 3.5 x aura.hit_probability). Here: (39×3.5×1) + (32×3.5×1) = 248. Covers AA-only mounts plus dual-purpose secondaries (Bismarck 105mm, USN 5"/38 cruiser secondaries) and dual-purpose main batteries (Sumner-class 5"/38, Akizuki-line 100mm). Formula validated against in-game captures on California, Sumner, Manfred von Richthofen, Dante Alighieri (exact) and within +/-17% on the remaining verified ships.Longest-reaching aura across AA-only + dual-purpose auras.SUM over AA auras of (aura DPS x aura range km). A plane crossing the AA bubble is exposed to each aura for a time proportional to that aura's range, so long-reach DPS is worth more than the same DPS in a short bubble. Units: DPS*km; used to rank overall AA threat across the cohort.Hull HP 19,700, distributed across 5 hull zones, each with its own plate thicknesses, saturation cap, and pen thresholds. HP caps are estimated from the standard WoWs damage-allocation model.
Overmatched by 135+ guns across the bracket. Can’t reliably bow-tank; gets bow-citadelled and overpenned.
Superstructure and extremities take HE pens and AP overpens from nearly any gun: steady chip damage. Fire resistance 37%, fires burn 30s. Range-by-range in the ballistics tool →
| Section | Plates | HP cap | Threats | Tactic |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bow | 19 mm primary (range 19–20 mm) | ≈ 985 (~5% of HP) | Overmatched by 283mm+ (Scharnhorst, Scharnhorst '43)Angle bounces 203mm19 mm: HE pens from 127mm+ | Bow-tank fits behind this exterior plate. Saturation is FAST here; the cap is often only a few thousand HP. |
| Hull (midship) | 19 mm | ≈ 14,775 (~75% of HP) | Overmatched by 283mm+ (Scharnhorst, Scharnhorst '43)Angle bounces 203mm19 mm: HE pens from 127mm+ | Largest HP pool. Citadel sits behind these plates; thinner deck and side plating absorb the rest. |
| Stern | 19 mm primary (range 19–20 mm) | ≈ 985 (~5% of HP) | Overmatched by 283mm+ (Scharnhorst, Scharnhorst '43)Angle bounces 203mm19 mm: HE pens from 127mm+ | Mirror of bow. Same fast saturation. |
| Citadel | 20 mm primary (range 13–20 mm) | no cap | Citadel pen: full damageOver-pen: ×0.10 damage | Effectively no cap; citadel pool sits at ~165k HP on every ship. An AP citadel penetration deals the shell's full damage, the biggest single hit available; only over-penetrations are damped, to ×0.10. |
| Superstructure | 13 mm | no cap | Any HE ≥16 mm pens at full damage | Any HE ≥16 mm pens at full damage. HE-spam target, and the section saturates fast (often only a few thousand HP). |
Saturation cap = HP a section can absorb before further damage to it is reduced (the "bow-tank" effect). Citadel pool is ~165k on every ship (effectively no cap); damage is gated by pen/over-pen multipliers instead. Superstructure saturates fast but HE always pens regardless of the plate thickness. Rudder (and other module HPs) are a separate pool from ship HP: damaging a module doesn't drain ship HP. Incapacitated modules like the rudder and engine are restored by DCP, but secondary and AA mounts destroyed at 0 HP stay out for the rest of the battle.
Balance updates affecting Northern Dragon. Cards are condensed; use each source link for full context.
Every custom exterior Northern Dragon can equip, from in-game data.
Filtered to official World of Warships: Legends pages where this ship is a focus, reward, line member, or high-context variant mention.