Panocek

Both T6 and T8 Cleveland are overmatched by most battleships in their tier brackets, in both cases citadel barely peeks out of water. Though at T8 usual engagement distances are longes, thus (BB) shells tend to fall at steeper angle. Kinda the same reason Odinburger feels so weak compared to Fiji, despite the same citadel protection and position.

Shell velocity and weight are historical, so I'm afraid you will have to go back in time to get them buffed or WG needs to give negative drag to these shells. Knowing WG I'd take time travel route

Actually, WG could add Hull (DD 945) in her testbed configuration with 203/55 mk 71 gun. Because why not

On test I've enjoyed her quite a bit, she certainly have dakka department with IFHE, though lack of torps obviously makes close and personal moments bit more tricky.

T6 Cleveland gets replaced with T6 Pensacola, exp, researched/bought upgrades and captain stays on T6 ship. You get T8 Cleveland in stock condition with new captain. If you bought premium paint (not santa event one) on Cleveland, you will get premium paint on both T6 Pepsi and T8 Cleve. The same story with other ships. If you get the same ships twice, you're reimbursed with full credit value. I'm not sure what happens if one bought premium paints for all changing ships, get doubloons for duplicates?

That's right. they WERE fine and balanced, then WG buffed them. Compared to T7 Nope Orlean, you could argue which boat is better. NO have 300m camo advantage, 1.3s faster reload, 2500 more hp and short range AA advantage, while Indy have 700m more gun range and radar to mine salt at tier 7. And then you have T6 Pepsi, which probably will be frustrating ship to play with her severe lack of WD40 on turret bearings, but 10x American Piercing salvo is not to be underestimated.

T8 Cleveland have excellent turret traverse (10 degrees/sec, 18s as in tooltip), so AR is no brainer choice. IFHE is more than mandatory at tier 8, so is CE to capitalize on her lolcamo (9.1km maxed, 9km radar). You could throw in AFT for extra AA as well to freely use the same captain in Atlanta, should you have her. So yeah, 18lvl is kinda needed. 14lvl if you don't own Atlanta and/or don't want to use Cleve captain on her.

You would be disappointed with De Grasse too, as while she is better than silver La Gasoline, she is inferior to Russian Buddyonny in most stats.

Grem is remnant of old times no one bothered to change, because how limited those buggers are. Though its kinda funnysad to see original Gnevny being inferior to ricer twins. And since when Indy have 5th upgrade slot? Unless those sold on discount are 2nd grade premiums

Expert Marksman gives rather limited bonus to turret traverse, but its often enough to keep all turrets on target during hard maneuvers. Only Minotaur, Hindenburger and upcoming Worcester can get away without EM

Thing is, you buy right to use, not ownership. WG main competitor somehow isn't afraid to tinker with premium vehicles, though "minor balancing issues" are usually solving by adjusting battle rating than vehicle itself. In WoWs terms moving ships around tiers can have brutal consequences

Yamato/German BB decks are out of question (41mm HE pen with IFHE), also these long barreled 5inchers IIRC don't have superb ballistics either. Hentaikaze have these guns I think, but in single mounts

5in guns with 1/4 HE pen aren't that special, still need IFHE to dent dem battleboats. And with only 8 guns total you need some serious autoloading to at least try to make that boat work.

Destroyer with hp as main redeeming factor... how exactly you put that into offense?

Flushing down the toilet is one way of dealing with things too

He meant main battery range upgrade.

Personally I'd simply take tour de premiums, though two-three battles in Missouri would do the trick as well. Sigh... you said one million, not one tier 10 ship

So issue is with Shinonome or entire concept of dedicated torpedo boats among multipurpose destroyers?

Until you realize you need to be closer to make these guns work. Also only ship you can attempt to disengage from are USN midtier dreadnoughts.

100mm main belt isn't "best armor in tier". The same plating uses... *drum roll* Leander. Cleveland takes first spot with 127mm, followed by Buddyonny (115mm) and La Gasoline (105mm). Neither of these ships with thicker plating you can call durable, only Cleveland holds its own due to low citadel placement. "Paper armored" Furutaka and Aoba are actually the best protected midtier cruisers due to 25mm amidship and 48mm deck, allowing them to shrug off all but few BB shells. Tradeoff of Graf Spee is lack of firepower combined with lackluster top speed, preventing her to gtfo should need arise, while armor doesn't guarantee you will make use of more than one heal pack under fire. Besides, there is no sister ship to Graf Spee, so KGV-DoY analogy doesn't fit here

Because she is already mediocre ship with all the gimmicks, without heal you could put her at tier 5, if not 4. But then her AA from 105mm secondaries would be tad over overwhelming, even without DFAA Actually, her AA would fit there, I thought she packed more of the peashooters.

Because 433 extra torpedo damage might not be worthy 1mil credits, especially if you're in a pinch.

The same reason that "mini battleship" kept cruiser protection, while "battleship guns" aren't quite battleship guns, unless you count inaccuracy. Besides, 6 guns (3 if you actually want to live longer than 1min) every 20s isn't that powerful as you might think

All 16in BB guns have more than adequate penetration for all but "angled 400mm main belt at range", what they are missing is overmatch of 32mm plating used universally in all hightier battleboats. Trait so far limited to Yamato/Musashi only

Combination of 2nd best concealment at tier 7 with the highest hp pool might be appealing to some people. Also if one really wants Narvik class but don't want to level up new captain, then putting Z-52 captain onto her for occasional reminder why 150mm guns on DD don't work daily is certainly an option.