From a chartless escape to Tier X: Orzeł takes the spotlight in World of Warships

When the Polish submarine ORP Orzeł slipped out of Tallinn in September 1939, her crew had to find a way to Britain without their original navigation charts. More than eight decades later, the latest Armada episode follows that escape and examines how World of Warships has brought the submarine into the game. Orzeł joins at Tier X as the first submarine in the European fleet, with rotating torpedo launchers that give her more ways to attack while surfaced.

How Orzeł made it from Tallinn to Britain

Built in the Netherlands and handed over to the Polish Navy in February 1939, Orzeł was operating in the Baltic when Germany invaded Poland. She entered the port of Tallinn in neutral Estonia, where the authorities interned her, confiscated her charts and removed some of her equipment and weapons. Under Jan Grudziński, the crew escaped during the night of 17–18 September 1939 and returned to the Baltic.

Making it out of port was only the first problem. The crew drew on their memory of the waters and the positions of lighthouses, while navigation officer Marian Tadeusz Mokrsi drew a chart for the passage through Øresund, one of the Danish Straits. His original maps are held by the Polish Institute and Sikorski Museum in London. That detail puts the feat in perspective: the crew lost its charts in Tallinn and had to make replacements on the way to Britain.

Orzeł went on to serve alongside the Royal Navy, carrying out convoy duties and patrols in the North Sea. On 8 April 1940, she sank the German transport Rio de Janeiro, which was carrying troops for the invasion of Norway. Weeks later, Orzeł left on another patrol and never returned. The Polish History Museum places her loss between 24 May and 1 June 1940, but the wreck has not been conclusively identified and the cause remains unknown.

Why Orzeł does her best work on the surface

In World of Warships, Orzeł carries four fixed torpedo tubes at the bow and four at the stern, plus two external rotating twin launchers. Those rotating mounts only work on the surface. They give her more room to line up a shot without pointing the entire submarine directly towards or away from the target. Diving takes that flexibility away, so choosing when to surface is a key part of playing her.

Her unguided torpedoes hit hard but have modest range, making it worth thinking about the exit before committing to an attack. Her high surface speed and Engine Boost help her change position, while the Torpedo Defense System temporarily reduces damage from torpedoes and depth charges. Orzeł still has a small hit point pool and no Hydrophone, so that extra protection is best treated as a short window to get out of trouble.

The trade-off is a useful one to watch for in the Armada episode: surfacing opens up more firing angles, but it also leaves Orzeł exposed. A good attack position gives the rotating launchers room to work and leaves enough space to turn away afterwards. That’s where her speed and unusual torpedo layout complement each other.

How to add Orzeł to your fleet

Orzeł arrived with Update 15.10 and is available through Submarines containers and a series of sequential Armory bundles. The final bundle includes the submarine, her commemorative flag and historical commander Jan Grudziński with 10 skill points. It costs one Credit once unlocked, which requires obtaining the preceding bundles. On the European server, the event runs until 3 December at 03:00 CET.