Well fair enough, if everyone else believes its still too powerful right now, I know its the highest level ship i've used so far so I really dont know anything comparitively about its survivability, it just felt to me like it was broken, like most any other ship could take it out unless you run constantly because everything is faster and god forbid you ever try rush cos if you need to turn back youre screwed.

18 turning for may be pretty decent on paper, relatively it is not 'pretty decent'.

Like I said, it feels broken. Sinks others too easy, gets sunk too easy. Im sure that if SDE can break its offensive capability then they can its defensive aswell. I just dislike being sunk with frustrating ease early on by poor decision making, or sometimes just bad luck, and then watching other bbs trying to learn more about how they behave and how I can improve, and watching them take hits and hits and running off... turning better, retreating faster, moving in, dodging. Then, it's my turn again, and just nothing...

Changing both front and rear gun angles independently to land accurate hits while non parallel to my target is something ive recently started doing, which I'm not terribly good at yet, but I have done it a few times just to try not take a full salvo and it just doesnt seem to make any difference. The stalingrad might have superior range but its only MAX range, it does nothing from stopping other ships negating that bonus because it simply isnt maneuverable enough, then it just has its damage IF the player knows their angles.

I dunno, maybe I should just grind my UK crew instead, I was just asking if anyone else felt it was a bit wrong. I'm not saying it should be a tank, just that it seems to have dropped too low in terms of its defense. But like I said, 'seems', I dunno really. If its working as intended defensively I'll just have to make do. It's alot better than the Kronstadt, thats for sure...

TL:DR fair enough, just my thoughts

Speeds are relatively balanced at BB4 level, with a SW L1 really being the outlier.

Vanny - 42 (iirc and this is with fat crew)
L1 - 47 (SW setup)
Iowa - 42 no bulge, 40 normal
H39 - 42 under crazy circumstances, 40 normal
Yammy - 40
Not sure where the Rich falls.

Put simply though 40 knots in a BB4 should not be considered "too slow".

Watching players just taking hits hit hits and then running away, to keep this in line with the stalingrad these are likely the players running Armor. Not many [intelligent] players are going to just take hit hit hit and then run.

Range advantage in the tiers is going to be only at max angle (or in the case of 45 degree gun maybe up to about 5 degrees difference (last 5 degrees is a very minor adjustment). For ANY ship to be sucessfull you need to know your angles. That does not change with the Stalingrad or any specific ship.

I'm really not trying to be harsh, and particularly as you've stated its your highest ship so far it is understandable that you are using what you see in game for comparison. Over time the more crews and ships you play the differences (strengths and weaknesses) become easier to see from playing and experience rather than watching. And to be fair, the Stalingrad is the only bb4 I don't have nor have played.

Do you go north? South?

Don't go south if you aren't ready. That's the bb5/bb6 field.
I don't suggest you to go north either, sometime, you never know some farming bb5 go north just to rape low lvl ship.

My advice, go middle, pay attention to the map.
If it doesn't help, give me a shout. I'll try to figure out how to give you a hand. I might jump on Nebraska.