Panocek

Well, any DD caught broadside at short ranges is almost guaranteed to be dead before they angle themselves away due to regular pen damage.

German AP also deal above average damage, although penetration leaves something to be desired, especially at longer ranges. Other trait of hightier Germans is turtleback armor, making them quite sturdy at shorter range combat. Hipper/Prinz Eugen additional "gimmick" if their utter uselessness in face of Bismarck/Tirpitz next door

Best gun on paper, in practice barrel life expectancy was little underwhelming But hey, such trivial bits like reliability can be ommited when you're tasked with developing new gun, which is expected to be better than Capitalist counterparts and main reward is NOT getting tickets to gulag holiday resort.

Odinburger is technically an improvement over Fiji (better camo, longer range torps, lolheal and option to mount radar), but she suffers HARD from T10 overabundance. Neptune is first to "enjoy" exposed citadel, but once you get familiar with constant tinnitus, you will notice extra reload as well mean AA package and quite a lot of torpedoes. She is kinda pointless once Minotaur is researched tho

Shell velocity was never changed, but back in the day all ships got massive maneuvreability buff, making WSAD hax actually worthwile.

7.5 is "rounds per minute", which translates to 8s reload. Yes, it can get confusing

Technically, she has already 8s reload, standard value for majority of light cruisers, including T8 ones.

Then "fix" all the islands to prevent firing over them with anything but Freedom low velocity shells

Chapayev, have more range than Mogami, so she is sort of less map dependant. In worst case scenario, you can simply spam at max range, having hopefully enough time to evade incoming shots. Maxed out camo makes her reasonably stealthy, to the point you get 1.5km difference between your detection range and radar range. Her AA suite is rather workable too. One thing you seem to miss is actual hit rate - with slow shell velocity, like Cleveland, all you can somewhat consistently hit at long range are battleships. Mogami/Chapayev are tad more likely to hit evading DD at 10km or more. So much for "hurr durr I is of island kemping, I is of da best"

Secondary Nagato is hilarious in Narai operation - they shred transport ships left right and center, so you can focus main battery on more proper ships. I can imagine Gneisenau/Scharnhorst being even better there. Operations in general are nice way of grinding ships

Atlanta/Cleveland makes island abuse the easiest, but its not like using any other ship is instabannable.

So far all light cruisers of tier 8 have equal rounds per minute = 90. What makes Mogami/155 special is 15 shell salvo of nippon infused HE, so be it initial salvo, shots of opportunity or plain damage farming she is equal, if not better than Chapayev. If Cleve would keep 8s reload, why I would want to use it over Chapayev? Maybe if she would get 30mm plating all across, then yea. And you're still overhyping russian 152mm "railguns". Especially as lots of islands are "conviniently" shaped to lob majority of ordnance over them. Other issue, how WG will balance tier 7 and 10 - Helene will have 15 shell salvo, while Worcester presumably will have 5s reload, giving her merely 144 shells per minute. Her Tea twin packs 188 shells/min, have considerable camo advantage, lolheal, smoke, abundance of torps with good firing angles while being merely AA powerhouse to farm planes without need for Defensive Fire.

Takao/Atago/Mogami203 keeps their speed, low concealment and vicious torps. 203 AP is also good, on par with Indianapolis/Pensacola/Nope Orlean performance sans improved ricochet angles. Though from the trio winner is Mogami/155+IFHE - massive alpha, decent reload, speed and concealment.

If you stop hugging islands and take some space from them, even "russian railguns" can lob shells over. And in case of no cover available, you can't go wrong with all the range and shell velocity you can get or portable smoke and lolheals

And you've come up with gimped Chapayev.

127mm vs 100mm armor matters only against DD and CL sized AP. Heavy cruisers and battleships pretty much ignore difference in armor as long shells don't ricochet. And since removal of split citadel, Cleveland isn't that hard to citadel. Chapa was powercrept before her inception by Kutuzov. Back in the day one redeeming factor for Chapayev was large stealth firing window, IIRC 3 kilometers, since that's gone portable smoke is better option. Not mentioning better maneuvreability and quite better AA package. "Short range firepower" is very tricky to employ in current World of Battleships - Des Moines is brutal when close and personal, but almost helpless in long range standoffs. Unlike Moskva and her railguns, despite "paper" disadvantage in rate of fire. Lack of HE I don't find that bothering in tier 7+ UK cruisers, when they finally get proper volume of fire. Free 4 points I can spend anywhere, like AFT, to complement mean Neptune/Memetaur AA. With upcoming Worcester to keep IFHE, Concealment and max AA range I'd have to sacrifice tier 3 skills, so either I'm out of Demo or Supernintendo.

Chapayev unlike Cleveland have way better shell velocity, thus long range effectiveness. Odinburger have massive survivability advantage (smoke, lolheal, concealment) and UK sAP are superior dmg wise to any 152mm gun AND you are not forced to use IFHE skill. Cruiser having decent-ish protection, above average reload but bad ballistics and concealment... could work. As WG described, "manly Minotaur" branch AA might be not so powerful by tier 8 standards tho - six twin DP guns are nice, but returning to her historical complement of 28 Bofors guns (4x quad, 6x twin mounts) would give her merely 131dps. Hipper by comparison have 100+135dps on long and mid range auras, presumed T8 Baltimore will pack 91+191dps, making her one helluva AA powerhouse.

And what I'm supposed to do with these two?

Sudden supercrate with 1k doubloons

I guess you didn't figured out Russian cruisers are, surprisingly enough, long range spammers and firestarters instead typical Rush B cyka blyat. Torps are last resort tool or for ambushes around islands. If you want to torpedo people, play destroyers Atlanta is old premium ship, coming from Beta times. And she is quite unforgiving to play. Other way around, if you find she is so OP simply due to volume of fire, buy her and bully all the opposition

More intriguing is Musashi. As another T9 premium, alongside her normal sister?

Yes, but for Lolicruiser can trade Expert Marksman for Adrenaline Rush, skill you kinda want on Cleveland, unless you play on stock turrets/guns. AFT, IFHE and CE are fine on both boats and presumably will be on rest of the line.

But also awkward as captain trainer, though 19lvl Des Moines guy (without IFHE) is surprisingly effective on her. If OP have issues with lack of range in Cleveland, then Atlanta, especially without AFT is a no go, even more so as she already clocks 13s time to impact at 13km. On other hand, Russian tier 7 and 8 (Shchors, Chapayev and premium Kutuzov) might just do the trick - same volume of fire as Cleveland, but longer range and noticeably flatter ballistics.

Lolanta is fun ship, but she is quite skill sensitive and she needs kinda dedicated captain, though typical USN cruiser build works decent enough. AFT on her is damned if you do, damned if you don't. Dual Purpose Mortars makes battleships only viable target at 12km+ but at least you can try to bother them at all.

But when RNGesus giveth, rather considerable dents in deutschland stahl can happen