That's funny I could only fit around 3" max on my County. Now it's even less due to crew size.

Maybe you need to max out your recruits...

Guess that's my problem, then, i've always been the rushing/close combat/BELT aw
type player in my playing of NF, even arming my sirius with trip 4 Ls so i could fit 9"
belt, 0.6" deck, 20 bulge and still get away with a good crew (somewhat uber at
killing DDs/making creds and even gets plenty of experts), or my anti-CL rushing
setup of 11" belt and 3 dual 6" Ds on the front. highly unusual setups,and they
work, but HAing is somewhat alien to me as a result and i find it hard doing good
damage to others at range

atm I can afford 4-5" deck on my County but have space for about 6" or so (if i
remember correctly), i'm using the CL2 engine as that seems to give the same
amount of speed (roughly) and a nice extra bit of DP

and yes I take my armor off my Sirius before putting it on my County. I've been
AWing since my Tribal and very early realised how damned expensive it can get, so
the only thing i leave on my ships now is the equipment.

2 words: C O U N T Y P W N S !!!!!!!!!!!

Its the best ship I've used soo far. HA guns- OMG awesome. You just need to learn
the angles.

i quite like the county myself but now im just getting sick and tired of it at lvl 53 on
cv line grind is so slow

You don't appreciate the County until you've played a few cl/cas in an Edin with triple 6's.

With the County - all deck - you should find enemy 8 inch shells (the ones you see most
often in cl/ca games) do much reduced damage.

As well, although your hit rate with HA is quite shoddy (I have level 45 10/12 RLD gunners
on mine), each shell that hits deck will usually do 700-1000 damage (both AP and HE Heavy)

If you have a friend with an Edinburgh, borrow it for a few games and play a few rounds of
cl/ca at range instead of up close like a Sirius to better appreciate the County.

Levelling up in Navyfield is quite different from many mulitplayer games in the
respect that when you level up to a new ship, it doesn't mean that you suddenly get
better than all those lower than you.

In most games more powerful weapons make a difference, but in NF, I find that you
only get really good at using a ship when you are the level to move up to the next
class of ship:

At level 12, I pretty much sucked in a DD partly due to the crap guns available and
partly as I was a noobie,

At level 28 I was pretty good in my tribal with the 6" singles and was getting pretty
good attack most games...bought a Dido and it really sucked with the "purple guns"
and no armour"

At level 40 I was owning in my Sirius with the level 33 dual 6" guns and bought a
York and sucked...no armour, low soft defence and crap spread.

At level 52, I was doing good attack most games in my Surrey using the dual 8"
guns and bought a Renown. Out ranged by nearly everything and a poor spread, it
took several levels to get comfortable in a BC.

Now at level 61, I have a better BC, better guns, more Soft Defence and armour and
can now do ok in capped BB games.

Don't be put off, you just need to get used to your new ship and armour the beast
up. The County can be a formidable enemy as you have some good punch with the
High angling dual 8" guns and good range plus you can armour whore.

i had similar problem when i first started i think it takes sometime to get used to the
guns and you do need quite a lot of armour!!

As others have said, the County doesn't suck, but it is tricky jumping from a fully
armed Sirius to it.

Stick as much deck armour on as you can afford and use the level 42 2x8"L guns and
light HE ammo. Max range is at 55 degrees, which you won't be able to sight. Then
learn to high angle and you'll be doing 900 dmg per shell. It takes practise, but stick
with it. The guns are rubbish at low angles though, so don't even think about
rushing, cos you'll get maimed.

At level 48 I'm getting about 1.8k XP on average in a County, over 3k on a good
game. I wouldn't describe that as sucking.

Hope that helps.

County is a great ship you just have to get used to it. Lear to HA and that's a must.
That way u will score 600-1000 dmg. Put all the armour in deck and dont play AW
games. Rather than that join CL/CA and CL/CA/lowBB. And remember....County rocks
big time when in right hands.

Summon one or some of these reasons is why your getting owned

1) You have no armor, little armor, or badly placed armor

2) Low level or bad stat gunners

3) You just suck

4) A 4 bar atlanta is high level player, probably with really good gunners so most of
his shells hit you and the atlanta has lots of gun slots.

5) You don't have good restorers to give you soft defence.