tbymrk

I would recommend checking out: warshipstats.com/compare Compare the Baltimore against the Des Moines and you will see for armor they are identical aside from the deck where there is an improvement of 25-65mm to 25-90mm when you upgrade to the Des Moines. So really there is nothing in it. I honestly do think that's bad luck that you have had a better experience in the Baltimore, but Des Moines is superior, so stick with it! You raise the more important point of repair costs in cruisers though. It is insanely high at high levels, we are not rewarded for shooting down planes enough, especially planes that are potentially going to sink allied ships. In T9-10 if you have been sunk and haven't dealt a very very good amount of damage to the enemy team, you will easily see negative coin income. Very sad indeed.

Totally disagree, I am sailing the Baltimore at the moment and have 100k xp to go before I reach Des Moines. Both ships are made of paper, both have near identical armor thickness across the ship, and neither will withstand BB shells. I'm very surprised you never once got one shotted from a BB salvo in your Baltimore. From my experience, the Baltimore can take heavy damage from nearly all angles against a similar tier BB. For me, cruiser gameplay had to change drastically after the New Orleans. You have to play purely as support to assist against a BB, if there is any chance that you could be focused, you have to back out of the fight. I'm sure the Des Moines will require a similar style of play. The difference is, you get a higher ROF and better AA. Describing the Baltimore or nearly any cruiser as tanky is just plain wrong.