Loading...Turned out to be a pretty good first-game for a ship I heard bad things about, and which I dissed at the start of this game as a possible M3 Lee (a terrible terrible WoT tank) equivalent on WoWS. On paper, you get massive downgrades across the board stats-wise after the Cleveland. Even fully upgraded, the Pensacola’s stats are inferior to the Cleveland. But …
1. Play Style – it will not play like a Cleveland. I ended up liking it, even stock. It moves like a Cleveland, has a decent arsenal of guns. The guns do not fire fast like the Cleveland, but they hit significantly harder (8 inch guns vs the Cleveland’s 6 inch guns). I think this ship will work well as part of a small convoy of gun-platform cruisers. In another game where I was not being fired on, I was actually able to do significant damage to a heavily armored tier 10 Yamato battleship. On this ship, I start with a HE salvo for early fires and component damage, and transition to AP rounds for punch.
2. Vulnerabilities – quite unlike the Cleveland, I have learned not to duke it out with other ships. This ship will lose in a gunnery duel against a well-played Cleveland. Against destroyers between 5km to 8km, I do not unleash full salvos on this ship (I normally do on the Cleveland) … the reload time in that type of an engagement. Within 5km, those DDs are asking for a world of hurt if they don’t catch me off-guard 🙂