I was playing a few DD/CL games today and there was a gold bar Edin in a few of them,
which got me thinking.

I personally think that the Brit players have to make the biggest change in there playing
style when going from CL to CA compared to the other nations.

The Dido/Sirius/Edinburgh are outranged by nearly all the other CL's of similar levels,
basically turning them into overblown DD killers with a second job of smashing other CL's
that get too close. They all have near enough the same range and reload speed (until the
Edinburgh gets the dual 8"...which is crap until your gunners get into the 50's), and the
only real difference between them is how many guns they carry and how much armour they can
pile on. None of them are very suitable for playing in CL/CA games where you are going up
against ships that can flatten them before you even get into range to fire a single shot.
So basically you have very little incentive to get into CL/CA games.

The County comes along and your pretty much thrown in at the deep end against players from
other nations who were able to compete using a CL (or at least get enough hits in to make
it worth their while to stay) in CL/CA games and have more experience at it.

Let's face it, the reload from the 8" is almost twice that of the 6". And while the same
can be said of the other nations reload rates, we brit drives simply aren't used to it.
All our tactics have to change. No longer can we charge into combat and let our speed,
armour and guns protect us while dealing death to lesser ships...we have to actually sit
back and shoot at the enemy like...well, like gentlemen. It's just not cricket!!

But, once again we're faced with the problem of range. Even with the dual 8", the County
(which as I mentioned before, is still crap until you get into the 50's) is outranged by
every other CA out there. So, what do we do...we beat up on CL's (basically, the County is
to CL's what the Sirus is to DD's...or at least it would be, if the County had just a wee
bit more speed and wasn't size of a pregnant whale!).

But not only that, we get the added bonus of the fact that with such a long reload time on
our guns and the slower speed of our engines and that we're now the size of a pregnant
whale, DD's can actually become a real pain, especially since the introduction of the Z99,
L and DDX. And that doesn't even include the fact that we're now the first target of every
Dive Bomber in All Welcome rooms!

So what do we do about this?
Well the answer is brilliance...think about this for a minute...just stay in your Dido or
Sirius or Edinburgh!

Go on, you remember how much bloody fun it was beating up on those DD's and CL's that got
just that little bit too close! The satisfaction of taking on a flotilla of DD's and
sinking every last one. Cornering that elusive MPRO that had been sniping at you for half
a map and blasting him to itty bitty pieces. Now imagine that but with your gold bar
gunners firing spreads so tight that you'd swear that they were block shots...ahhhh.
But most of all, showing those uppity CL wannabe Z99s just what a real ship can do and not
some figment of a developers imagination.

I've played CL/CA games, and quite frankly they are bloody boring, slow, monotonous slug
fests where half the time you can't even see your opponent if you loose your scouts and
the other half you are hoping that the other team is concentrating on the Hipper your next
too so you can actually get into range and hit something.

But DD/CL games...they're exciting, fast and thrilling. You get up close with the enemy,
look him in the eye and shove a 6" shell right into it (or if you are in a Sirius with
Gold bar gunners, 10 6" shells!)

You're no longer a high priority target for CV's so you can actually have fun again in the
All Welcome rooms without spending 90% of your time hoping you actually hit those DB's
with your flack before they ruin you nice shiny deck.

The British Light Cruiser is the best Light Cruiser in Navyfield. Forget about those big
and slow Heavy ships with reloads that take so long you actually have time to go to the
toilet between shots. Get into a ship that's fun.