User blog comment:FlammeumDraco333/Tales From the Not so Blocky Seas/@comment-25373667-20150701020302

I was just in an interesting match which may raise some awareness about Italian cruisers.

My team and I spawn in, and I can already tell this match isn't going to be easy. We're on the map with all the icebergs, and the enemy team consists of an Italian CA, a Zara-class, a Cleveland, two Fletchers, an Akizuki, and a Shimakaze.

My team is composed of a Brooklyn-class, an Agano, a Leningrad, a completely noob Fletcher, and me in my L-class, the NARNS Sovereign.

Immediately, I realize that the two enemy Fletchers and the Akizuki are squaded up, and are working together to go and attack our cruisers. The enemy Shimakaze, Zara, and Cleveland hang back and try to flank us around one of the icebergs to our left. The destroyers and I (noob Fletcher, Leningrad, and I in an L-class) flank the enemy's left side, hoping to catch their cruisers off guard, but the had sailed away by that point.

The enemy destroyers charged our cruisers, and one of the Fletchers went down to gunfire at a fair range. However, the Akizuki and other Fletcher closed in, and managed some gunfire and torpedo hits, heavily damaging both our cruisers, before both succumbed to 6inch gunfire.

The enemy Shimakaze charges our destroyer group, and our noob Fletcher, which has been shooting his teammates the entire game and is out of ammo, charges the Shimakaze and tries to torp it, and gets annihilated by its 6inch guns that you can't mount on IJN destroyers for some reason. As the Shimakaze charges the Leningrad and I, we fill the sea with torps, and manage to score two torp hits on the Shimakaze before it can even attack us, leaving us with a nice target for gunnery practice.

Meanwhile, the enemy cruisers have engaged our wounded and dieing cruisers. The enemy Cleveland is forced to come into close range to attack our cruisers, and takes quite a few hits, but manages to send our Agano to the bottom. However, he didn't escape, as our Brooklyn fired a well aimed broadside at him, sending him to the bottom. However, the Italian cruiser, which hasn't shot once yet, opens fire on our Brooklyn, and murders it with on expertly aimed broadside.

Now things are looking pretty poor. We have a skilled captain, piloting a heavy cruiser with 8inch guns, against two destroyers with half their torp banks gone.

We decide to charge the Zara, and very soon, we are in range of its guns. It quickly lands a few good hits on us, hitting my ally twice, and me three times. I manage to absorb the hits thanks to British destroyer OPness, but my ally is hit hard, and has his speed reduced by a good three knots.

But we still charge on, and pretty soon, we're in gunnery range. We open fire with our little pea shooters, and manage to score a few hits, but not enough to cause significant damage. My ally gets brutally close to the enemy Zara, and manages to dump off two torps before he succumbed to 8inch fire. Both torps hit, wounding the enemy cruiser, and cutting its speed by a few knots at least.

I take the opportunity and charge, firing off a salvo of 8 torps, and continuing to pepper him with my 5.25" guns. My guns really didn't do squat, and I was an easy target for his 8" guns. He landed four brutal hits, putting me near dead in the water. However, just milliseconds after he fired a salvo to finish me off, my eight torps struck home, blowing his ship to pieces, while seconds later his shells hit and killed me, allowing me to just barely pocket the win.

Moral of the story: Italian cruisers with skilled captains are a dangerous threat.