I started playing in Feb. 2015. Like others said, GB isnt fun in the very beggining. You just want to rush in and hit stuff using auto-aim; AA looks impossible and ASW seems un-important when surrounded by huge surface ships. You end up crippled in the second or third 18" broadside near-miss and the torp-wall has just entered your field of view. You only get to run and shoot like crazy in Blitz, which is, based on my experience, what new players are looking for. Saying GBs give more experience to a new player is like saying you can go to a public or a private high-school to a baby; he just wont give a .... because grinding, leveling, etc. are only unknown words to someone new to the game and a bigger exp number wont make up for the lack of fun of being blown-up 30 secs in-to battle.

That said, and this being my first post, I should add my grain of sand. First; blitz needs promotion among "old" players, new ones will join regardless. The way I see it, and given the popularity of events, you have two ways to motivate "old" players: give them extra-experience and/or free stuff. Rule out the extra-exp because its counter-productive to the objective of re-populating Blitz and you are only left with the free stuff giving. Thou EBB coupons would be very nice, I`m pretty sure some extra medals (specially since they reboot monthly when no event) would help. (On the other hand, I`m pretty sure that even thousands of Naval Mines wont). Also extending the Blitz lvl to +/- 70 sounds promising although I like the BB1 to be the ceiling, and maybe pushing it too far could end-up being a mini-gb? Oh and i almost forgot... give out lvl 1 sailors like Halloween. People will need to level them, hopefully some of them will choose Blitz rooms.