Verblonde

For me, it's because she's (kind of) a British Atlanta i.e. what a warship should look like if drawn by a small(ish) child - *lots* of turrets/dakka! (For more sensible folk, there's a lot of history with the class too)

Me too, for broadly similar reasons...

Whilst I suck at BBs, I generally take the DOT reduction mod - whatever that's called. BBs tend to get zapped with HE and torps pretty much regardless, so mitigating that is usually optimal.

Presumably, this is good old pragmatic maximising return from the customer base (insert ye olde traditional joke about beer + ladies-of-negotiable-affection not buying themselves) i.e. there are fewer Brits/Anglophiles playing the game - and buying ships - than other groups...

First place I would start reading is the wiki: https://wiki.wargaming.net/en/World_of_Warships Most ships have a suggested build in there, although there will sometimes not be consensus as to whether the wiki is right - it's a good place to start though. If you're talking about premiums, you can usually find reviews that include a suggested build (LWM for example). There will also be some variation, based on personal play style e.g. I don't smoke camp/island hump much, so if a ship is borderline between the two, I'll usually go with rudder as that will get used more often, with the way I usually play. I wouldn't necessarily get too hung up on this though; both mods will be useful on something eventually - if you mess up, it probably won't be completely disastrous, and you can put the thing on something else the next time there's a free equipment dismount (assuming you don't want to waste doubloons). As an aside: keep an eye out for the periodic cheapnesses (some people will leave a ship in mothballs, or play it unequipped, until the next one comes around) - that'll save you a lot of silver, especially when you start getting into higher tiers (the final slot for a T10 costs 3,000,000 silver, for example).

Personally, mine generally gets split between unlocking modules (to avoid playing ships stock) and boosting captains. The latter use is reducing slowly, as I pick up more 19-point captains though... If I ever build up a decent surplus, I'll buy free xp ships, but that'll take a while (I have a nasty case of collectoritis).

Apparently not: https://www.thoughtco.com/cold-war-uss-saipan-cvl-48-4034651 If that's accurate, they followed on from the converted ships, but were designed as carriers from the start. Doesn't impact the thing in-game, but I thought it was vaguely interesting...

Depends which last battle one is talking about - as my clan will testify, I usually do something stupid most games. Probably creeping senility...

Probably whatever I did in my last battle...!

Thanks everyone for the information from me as well - I reflexively loaded the 12 km torps on mine (as with Shima, everyone knows that the 20 km ones smell and their mother dresses them funny); it appears that the consensus is that the longer range ones are more suitable for Yoshino. That does make sense though, as you usually get rather closer with DDs than with hulking great super-cruisers...

It ought to though: whatever one's view of CVs (old or new), as far as I recall, they're the only class not represented in the freemium collection. Seems a bit unsporting for the CV players...

I'm still surprised at the number of people who *aren't* in a clan; the benefits alone make it a no-brainer IMO...

Zilch, but I have been using most of my tokens thus far on the 'you might get the T5 premium <stifled guffaws>' bundles (because coal etc. are always useful)...

Akagi too: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/oct/21/humbling-wreckage-of-japanese-ships-from-battle-of-midway-found-in-pacific

If anyone is interested, they've found the wreck of the Kaga: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/rv-petrel-battle-midway-kaga-wreck-aircraft-carrier-ww2-paul-allen-a9161481.html

Is there any other way to play an Atlanta?

Several of the missions at the moment are more efficiently done in Coop, so it may just be that some of the more competent players have migrated temporarily to the mode, meaning that it's likely that teams will beat the bots rather faster than sometimes...?

I might give Smol a lash at the lower Ranks, as an introduction to using her against real people (my 19 point Groz captain seems to work reasonably well in her), besides those server stats aren't going to tank themselves y'know... When I need to get serious, I'll switch to DDs, especially Groz and Gearing (assuming we'll be seeing CVs reasonably frequently), with occasional Zedage to break things up a bit (plus, yay for hydro/smoke). No doubt I'll do something entirely different when it becomes apparent that I've wildly misjudged something about the next season though...

She pre-dates DWT in the game, so gets standard ones that'll hit anything.

Just for the sake of variety; if one only has time to do one line of the two, then absolutely the US should be the first choice. I get bored easily, and don't often enjoy playing the same ships over and over (which is just one reason I suck), so even the relatively minor differences in T8-9 have some value; that's just me though.

They're very pretty, but according to a former RCAF pilot at a local museum, they referred to them in service as 'lawn darts' - partly because of the aesthetics, and partly because of their tendency to drive into the ground... Visually though, they're glorious - if you're going to crash a lot, at least look good doing it!

I'm not short of port space, so I have both: the radar/DWT make them interesting enough to take for the occasional run-out, plus the Gleaves-not-Benson thing is nice for historical nerdery. Final reason (for me) is that it sometimes helps to have PA ships around for missions etc. (usually nation-based ones) and a sort-of Benson and a Fletcher are pretty decent, even if they have weird torps (if I'm not after 'interesting' play, I usually take smoke, making them more like their US counterparts)... edit: Final final reason: I like Fletchers in general, so have all of them, but that's probably terribly sad of me...

I might dispute this slightly: the T10 has been undeniably over-beaten with the nerf bat, but the T8 and 9 are quite worthwhile; in my view, the DWT and optional radar build make them interesting enough to be worth having. (I quite like the T8 being a Gleaves, rather than another Benson, too)

One of my favourite animations of all time...

This is a very valid point; I would mention though that it arguably matters rather less these days than it did - with plenty of CVs about, the loss of stealth hit Sims less than many other DDs (basically almost everything balanced around stealth). If you're spotted much of the time by planes, who cares if you're a little tubby? That said, if there are no planes present, Sims is pretty much boned in any spotting contest with other DDs. If CV numbers plummet again, then the 6.6 km concealment will matter a lot more again.