put this is the MN forum...

that said... get the le havre and clemenceau.

always go for the 4 uns in the bb2. u will be sad otherwise 

i would go for normandie, i don't like the dunkerque even if its MN or RN (i just wasted free olives to get a rn dunkerque which i rarely use in the past now still sitting in my harbor)

normandie is kinda fun to play cause of its size they got same range with the lyon but  less fire power but if you have a good cv on your team and make enemy blind you'll get an advantage cause some players think that its just CA in the shadow so they concentrate on other bb that they can see...

i miss playing it since i nation reset my normandie bo to RN nation during an christmas event 2years ago lol

I would (did) go Dunk,  Extra support slot for leveling crew, good range, decent speed.  Enjoyed mine quote a bit.

Moved to MN Section
W1sh 

Just use Normandie.
Contrary to the lyon, the Normandie is not a snail. You have 1 less gun, but are smaller, making you hard to hit. With the Normandie you can have a lot fun, cause of people missing you, while you slap em with 3 quads.

Like you said, mandel gives too much xp penalty from a certain point. The dunk can be fun, but mostly with higher lvl crew imo. With at lvl crew, the normandie is far more fun and capable of doing a lot more in battle:)

Don't get dunk, with at lvl crew it isn't usefull because its fragile and big. With high lvl crew you have access to much better ships.

A side note: If you want to use strass be adviced that currently it need very very good engis to reach speed cap of 45 knots (correct engine is not the BB engine but the CA one (the one with most horse power)). Furthermore the spread sucks really bad. even with capped gunners. Only really high lvl gunner(110+) can get a good spread out of it, though ship tunning may changed that if you got some spare +1acc ones.  (<- IMO with 120 gunners and 2-3 very good engis, strassbourg is a much bettter dunkerque)

thank you all for your oppinions....smile