Panocek

Ship got some buffs along the way, especially turret traverse (initial 45s went down to 36s, 30s if you use C hull now with nice 3x twin turrets)

With fluffy taco you go C hull ASAP. And with that ship becomes sealclubbing material with dem 203 AP. It used to be sorry turd in the line, but now its the opposite. To the point "awesome Aoba" isn't that awesome, it only gives range, rof and (some) AA defenses, while losing torpedo launchers that can launch forward.

Thats one hell of a ride. Busy drenching PC

Well, I'd blame paper IJN planes, Freedom carriers maybe have shitty loadouts, but planes themselves are fine.

That is one dumb CV scrub to keep planes within range for so long...

The same dakkas happen on Benson...

Freedom curriers are so binary in performance... either you deal no damage other than loltorping/bombing random DDs (if any) or go all out carry...

It just refuses to work for me. North Carolina is a blast compared to her.

Every Iowa vs Izumo fight ends with Izumo unscathed, even when broadside. While giant and glass superstructure soaks all the shells. Shells fly just low enough to glance off deck or fail to penetrate (provided you score hit on broadside to start with) armor. Either you need to be <8km to somewhat reliably hit or past 18km for plunging fire. Also lack of mobility is disturbing.

Iowa with extra accuracy still sucks

I guess OP didn't saw WoT Leopard wallpaper... try finding something... fluffy

Carriers (or at least Ranger) have old and new secondaries survivability upgrades

http://wowreplays.com/Replay/10036 Benson is just balanced.

And yet, I prefer Cleveland over Budyonny. Its simply much more fun going close and personal, than being forced sniping due to big size, big citadel and meh manoeuvrability combo.

Guy went hellbent on sniping my stock Ranger... in time it took for him to do two bombing runs on me, I've slightly dent his team

So slot 2 20% accuracy/range remains AND slot 3 upgrade increases range as well?

Yolorado is epic brawler, once she gets below 12km (when deck armor and lack of accuracy stops being an issue) she becomes formidable boat. Obviously, getting that close in 20kn ship is tricky part. North Carolina at first will seems almost intoxicatingly fast. And rushing first combined with her glass armor except head on, is usually bad idea. Being able to close in as tiers go up is another matter

Heretic. NC battleboat best Freedom battleboat Hull will only add extra dakka and rudder time, Freedom ships don't use practice ammo on stock hulls like IJN do. And if you don't like NC guns, you can pretty much quit Freedom battleboats already.

Best guns on terrible hulls, so often you have to employ "kemp bush" tactics to not get roflstomped in first place.

They aren't russian guns to start with. And postwar refit, with Russian 100mm guns... I shudder to play DD barely sailing 33kn armed with mediocre 100mm PewPewKanones and single triple torpedo tubes with hardly impressive torps (53-38 and 53-39 were used, from torps available in game "the best" would be Udaloi torps - 60kn, 8km 15k dmg)

Welcome to free 2 play games, splash the cash or grind your way through.

Yes and no. Russian 130mm certainly have no issues scoring hits even at max range, but past 13km shells tend to hit ships immunity zone - not enough punch to pierce vertical armor, yet shells still glance off decks and at times, even superstructures. Its not as bad as USN DD trying to hit anything in first place past 10km, but nonetheless, the closer you are the more effective shells are. Talking about AP of course, default RU DD ammo.