I decided to make a guide on playing Heavy Cruisers since there is very little information available, and most of this I had to learn on my own.

The CA is unique ship in NF2. It can perform similar to a battleship, but is much less selective in what it will shoot at, and where it will move. Shooting at anything and everything is a good rule of thumb, especially those smaller DD's and SS's that a BB with 15 second reload time may have trouble dispatching.

Depending which line of CA you choose, the end tier boats perform in slightly different ways.
For example an IJN T11 CA, Mogami 1941, has 5 turrets that can either use 10x 8" medium guns, or 15x 6" close range guns. I view this boat as the premier CQC ship in the game, it can unload 15 shells every 4-5 seconds, and go around 36 knots while sporting 110k DP and 9 defense points.

RN T11 is a tanking specialest, highest DP and defense level, as well as being the fastest CA. The London is also only T10 so its much easier and cheaper to get than any other T11, AND performs just as well making RN the easiest CA nation to build.

KM T11 CA is long range anti armor specialest. It has the longest range guns of all CA's, 6x 11" guns. When it comes to supporting friendly BB's by engaging enemy BB's at range, this is that boat.

USN T11 CA in my opinion is the only CA without a specialized role. It uses 9x 8" guns and doesn't excel at any perticular point, It seems to be the "average on all fronts CA", but to me it looks like it needs a buff to compete with the other ships in the same line.

Now that you have a brief understanding of the different CA lines, I can explain some of the tactics I've used to great effect.

Manual Aim Vs. Auto Aim: When it comes to cruiser play, I'm of the oppinion that manual aim is nearly useless. I spend so much time moving and changing positions, making sharp turns to avoid torps, hitbox slimming techniques etc, that using manual aim would be detrimental. So I gladly take the hit to accuracy in exchange for being nimble agile little S***, plus gradual fire on alpha guns remedies this almost entirely at long ranges.

Always shoot at scout planes if your not shooting secondaries at a boat. Sight advantage is literally the most important aspect of playing this game, and winning at it. Every single ship with AA ability that isn't shooting at that scout plane buzzing around, IS DOING IT WRONG. As soon as you see a scout plane approach, a feeling of dread should pass over you, SO SHOOT AT IT!

Protecting other ships should be one of your highest priorities. You have the speed and agility to run down and engage pretty much any target, so anytime one of your team's BB's is being engaged you can come to his aid. Many games I will attach myself to a high tier BB and "protect" him from any 1v1 BB engagements or smaller boats that try to torp run him. This is also benificial since you can finish damaged targets that would otherwise escape from the slower BB's.

Always set your boat to carry around 100 AP rounds, these are very important. Any time you hit a ship with HE shells and notice that you didn't do maximum damage, send a salvo of AP at them next! Armor in NF2 acts as a seperate destructable health pool with loads of HE damage mitigation. Trying to strip away 6k worth of armor with HE will take way more salvos(2-3) then a single AP salvo. This is absolutely huge and leads to auto loss scenarios like CL's trying to trade broadsides 1v1 with CA's. A good rule of thumb, if your target is T7 or above there is an excellent chance hes running armor. Also deck armor mitigates pretty much the entire air strike, so stripping the deck armor can hep alot with a clutch commander ability kill.

Cross the T when it gives advantage, if you don't know what that means google it(historical term).

Always remember, the absolute best position you can be in, is having someone chase you. So many times similar and higher tiered BB's think they gonna range smeck me, and they learn that while chasing not only do they lose range, but I gain it.

The highest damage output of any ship with side mounted secondaries would be bow or stern. If you point your ship directly towards or away from an enemy, you can use both sides secondary salvos inbetween the alpha salvos. Using this technique also slims your hitbox and changes your ships trajectory constantly making you a much harder target to hit. If you incorperate this technique while closing on an enemy or running you will add at least 3 secondary salvos to your alpha's damage. I've also witnessed how unsettling it is for certain enemies to be constantly hit by shells while thinking you must reload sometime.

Maintaining the proper distance from specific enemies is very important. If you are using medium 8" guns you will have shooting range close to that of BB's, So when you actually engage that battleship, shooting at it at maximum range then running away to avoid return fire is the safest bet. Once you have wittled down its enormous DP's a bit you can close and use the secondary gun firing technique to slim your hitbox and get more shots in. Go for the BB's stern or bow depending which boat it is, if it has more bow facing turrets go for the stern, and always cross the T when it gives advantage.

When it's time to face swarms of smaller DD's and CL's using torps, not to worry. You have speed and turning ability to avoid the torps and you will massively out gun and out tank any smaller ship that lines up for a broadside. A good rule of thumb is try to maintain at least one of your boat lengths away from DD's and CL's so you will have enough time to turn INTO the torpedoes. If a CL or DD cannot crutch fight you with torpedoes, YOU WILL WIN. The reason for this is a lack of AP shells on CL and DD, where you shred their armor in one salvo, they have to blow through yours with HE. There isn't a single mogami35(T11) player that I know of willing to line up for 1v1 broadsides with my T9 CA, because they know better.

Quick note about torps, turn into them, if you turn away from them your stern(rear of the boat) will be moving towards them. If you turn into the torpedoes your bow should be ahead of the trajectory and stern will begin moving away from them as the bulk of your ship pivots out of the way.

I have heard a couple differing oppinions about officers, many people build BB lines and CA seems like the next logical step, so they use the same ACC heavy officers as a BB build. I find this to be a mistake personally(opinion), the medium and small guns on CA's don't need accuracy, they need faster reload rates. So with the assumption that every point in RLD skill adds .05% to the actual stat, I now sit at around 16% reduced reload speed. If captain abilities also add to these stats then it will be around 18%. This will reduce my 8.88 second reload time to around 7.5 seconds, enough time to broadside a BB twice before he can reload. Having close to 20% faster reload time also turns 6" gun reload time of 5 seconds into 4 seconds, this is huge. So with my current setup I can alpha broadside twice and secondary broadside 2-3 times depending if I use the forward/rear shooting technique. This gives me a close DPS output to T9 BB's while being faster, almost or more tanky, and a smaller target.

I have also heard similar arguments about the engine stat, "it only adds fractions of a second more boost time" and similar. Just like with RLD stat I prefer engine stat to the mainstream, In my opinion it adds to the strengths of the CA class. If you look at the raw numbers T11 CA will have a 3.4 overheat duration with something like a 11.2 cooldown after. Thats somewhere around 15-18% uptime, or a net increase of around 1 knot. Assuming engine stat adds .1% boost duration per point, I have around 35% increase. This nets me a 4.5 second overheat duration and 35% up time, netting me at least 2 knots average increased speed. This doesn't even factor in how huge an extra second of boost actually is in combat, it will save you from that torp salvo, it will let you close or gain ground just that much quicker. Everything about playing the CA class can be improved with the engine stat, since speed is one of our best weapons.

If anyone has any tips or corrections leave it in the comments : )

Thanks for reading!

LKHERO:

For Overview:
The Mogami has the most turrets with the greatest alpha damage in the game; meaning that it's capable of doing the most damage in single salvo if all of its guns hit the target. However, it does not have the single damage per shell. The Deutschland actually has the highest damage per shell, and this is useful because it has the greast armor piercing damage when using HE. For regular CAs that don't use battleship caliber shells like the Dland, the Admiral Hipper has the highest 8" shell damage at 2601 damage. The highest DPS CA in the game is the Admiral Hipper and the most survivable is the Baltimore/London. The London has more hull and defense, but the Baltimore has a much higher crit factor, making it less likely that enemy shells will crit on it. Sadly, the London also does the least damage of all the CAs. I agree that the USN's Baltimore seems to be jack of all trades. It's probably the most balanced high-end CA.

For Tactics/Placement:
Definitely focus on doing damage more than killing airplanes. While AA is really important, some ships like the Hipper has to choose between swatting flies vs. swatting ships. Ships will always take priority.

AP shells are definitely important, but some ships like the Deutschland only come with 240 primary shells. It doesn't have the luxury to take AP shells because it will run out in prolonged games. This is fine because in most cases, faster firing 8" guns coming from the Hipper/Myoko/Mogami will do more AP damage and they have the shells to spare.

I agree that AP shells are great, and should definitely be used only if you see a full health opponent. If the opponent already has damage, chances are that the armor has been stripped and you should be laying into them with HE.

More on tactics, I want to talk about Salvo vs. Gradual. On Cruisers, I highly suggest the use of Gradual because you will be constantly moving and adjusting aim as the position of your ship and their ship will most likely change. Because 8" shells travel relatively quick, gradual allows you to lead and follow the target to the point where all of your guns should be able to land on target. Let me give a quick overview of how I gradual my guns so all shells find purchase on a given target:

When the target is moving abeam (when you are parallel to the enemy ship, but he is moving in opposite directions of you), you can make a non-adjusted lead and just pull the trigger on all the guns. This is because the ship is already moving, and when combined with your speed, all of the shells will be able to cover the enemy ship.

When the target is moving abreast (when you are parallel to the enemy ship, but he is moving in the same direction of you), you have to make an adjusted lead depending on the position of your turrets. The best example I can give is this: Imagine yourself in a Hipper, a pretty long ship. If you lead the target and then pull the trigger on your guns in a gradual manner, you will see that the aft turrets will not land in the same area as the fore turrets. That's because you did not account for the length of your ship, and the fact that the aft turrets need to travel further. How do you fix this? You fire off 2 gradual shots to fire off the fore turrets first, readjust very quickly to lead even further, than the original firing point, and then fire the aft turrets. It should sound something like lead target, E to focus, bang, bang, lead even further (the lead distance should be the distance of the turrets on your ship), E again, boom, boom. Do this quick enough and all of your shells will land at the same spot.

When the target is closing/away (when you are perpendicular to the enemy ship and vice versa), you will need to make adjusted leads. Shoot off the fore turrets and then adjust again for your aft turrets, using E in between gradual spaces to make your shots more accurate. Salvo is almost completely wasted on a target that's moving closing and away because the majority of your shells will be horizontally placed on a vertical target. For best results, you need to be able to drop shots as close together as possible, as fast as possible. Targets that are moving away will need a lead in front of them away from you, and targets closing in will need a lead closer to your ship.

Most secondaries on cruisers have smaller caliber and higher angle guns. That means that their lead must be greater than that of primary guns.

Almost all of your engagement vs. ships should be in medium range when you're on an angle. This is when you're most dangerous because you will be able to utilize your speed and agility in combination with range and power. Against fast movers like CLs and DDs, you want to be running away from them while pounding their face in. Against BBs, you should be in medium-long range as you're able to dance more against shells with more hang-time. Whenever you're not in medium range engagements, you need to think about why you're not in that situation and be in that situation. The shorter range you are, the less time you have to react to enemy actions. This means torpedos, greater damage from CLs due to better shell spread, and blockshots from BBs instead of shells that you can possibly dance away from.

Officers
I personally use 3 accuracy and 2 reload, 3 maintenance and 2 repair. I primarily drive my Deutscland and Hipper, and engage at medium range of the most part. Shell accuracy is very important to me because I enjoy shells on target over an increase in DPS. If you're not hitting, you're not doing any damage, so I prefer a tighter shell spread.

Durability
For one, the Dland is a very small ship in terms of profile. It's about the size of the earliest small BBs but is slimmer for the most part. It also moves incredibly fast, clocks in at 36/44 knots on average in my setup with 4x Bulkheads and stock boiler. The Hipper, by contrast, is one of the bigger CAs in the game and only comes in at 32/38 knots with the same setup. This means that the Hipper actually takes more damage because enemy shells will find more purchase. Due to the Dland's size, it's also very maneuverable, being able to turn extremely tight surprisingly. It definitely turns much better than the Hipper because the Hipper is relatively long and clumsy on the stick.

One of the bigger standouts here is that the Dland is Def9 with 1163 critical factor and has 110k HP. Compare that to the stock stats of the Hipper which is Def7, 1082 crit and 101k HP, and you can see right off the top, that the Dland is more survivable. From my experiences in game, I can vouch for just how survivable this little ship is. It's raw stats combined with its small profile gives it a definite edge over the Hipper.

Winner: Deutschland

Firepower
This is something that's frequently debated, and with good reason. Let's start it off by saying that the Hipper and the Dland has very similar time on target, meaning that its shells fire and reach the same location at the same time if the range is the same. However, range is not the same for the Dland as it has 200 more range than the Hipper, coming in at 2350, which is similar to BBs in the game. While the alpha damage from the Dland (6 guns, 3338 damage ea, 20028 total) vs. the Hipper (8 guns, 2601, 20808) are similar, the biggest thing to note is that the Hipper has a reload time of 8.88 seconds vs. the Dland's 11.27. When you factor in secondary guns, the Hipper comes out way in front of DPS with a total of 3.5k vs. the Dland's 2.8k. Despite the fact that the Dland has longer range secondaries as well, it's DPS is still less than the Hipper's secondaries, which is 3rd in the game for CAs. This means that the Dland should be used as an opportunist and sniper ship vs. the brawler that is the Hipper. The larger caliber guns on the Dland also means that it has higher AP by default, but the raw number of guns and the reload speed of the Hipper's 8" guns actually makes the Hipper the winner in stripping enemy armor. It should also be said that the Dland's 11" triple turrets also gives you a very tight spread compared to most other BBs. I call the Dland a sniper because it's very possible for all 3 shells from a single turret to all land where the tiny green circle is. That's very good.

However, one thing stands out like a sore thumb. Despite the Dland having greater AP per shell, it should not take AP ammo, or take very little AP ammo. The reason for this is because it only has 240 shells, vs. the Hipper which has almost triple that despite only have 2 more main guns. I can safely load into a game with 20% AP ammo and still have 600 rounds on my Hipper whereas I can scrapping bottom in my Dland in nearly every game. Because of this, I have to be incredibly conservative in my shots, making every single round count, and drastically decreasing the number of blind shots I take, and shots against fast movers. This reminds me, the Dland also has problems finding purchase on subs from shorter ranges than the Hipper, and that's because of the gun depression. German ships in general have a hard time vs. smaller things in close range.

In conclusion, the ships are vastly different in purpose and function. As you can see from the above data, the Dland is a very unique ship in the game compared to almost everything else. The Mogami is basically an upgraded Myoko, the Baltimore an upgraded Northampton, with almost identical gun configs with minor increases in damage here and there. From a firepower point of view, nothing is more different than the Hipper to Deutschland transition. The Dland is a sniper ship who wants to play the exchange fire at long range and have better dancing skills, and the Hipper is a brawler who has the highest DPS of any CA in the game.

Winner: Tied

Application
Let's talk about the metagame. When analyzing a ship's worth on the battlefield, one has to analyze the enemies it has to face and what countermeasures it has to deal with it. Both the Dland and the Hipper have 3 scouts each to offer the battlefield. In terms of AA, the Hipper just destroys the Dland because of its 360 coverage and having a ton more shots with greater damage. However, it must be noted that the Hipper uses its secondary guns to shoot at air whereas the Dland does not. This means that if the Hipper wants to swat at flies during a firefight, it cannot use its secondary guns. Regardless, we will pretend that the main purpose of CAs will be to do damage, and AA will only be a secondary role.

Another standout fact here is what kind of ships we see on the battlefield and how these ships handle them. When facing BBs, the Dland has the advantage because it can match its range while dancing a lot better than the Hipper while having a smaller profile. Against practically all targets, the Dland will be able to dodge a lot better, but that's not the only factor in determining who will win in a fight. For this, you have to factor in the raw damage and reload time that the Hipper has over the Dland. Since the Hipper is the highest damaging CA in the game, it can engage virtually all targets without the vulnerability of having a 11 second reload time on its primary guns. With vetted reload gunners, you can reduce this firing time to roughly 2x salvos per 15s reload on BBs whereas the Dland will NEVER reach the same amount of damage exchange. This means that despite having similar alpha damage, you will literally be doing 2x as much damage to a BB in the time it will take the BB to fire once. This is absolutely huge because you will know what kind of opportunities you will have in a short-medium range fight. Because of this, this also means that against enemy CLs, the Dland will be at a serious disadvantage because of 2 key reasons. The first is that it only has 2 turrets to fire with and because each shell is weighted more, the margin of error is much smaller than that of the Hipper. With the Dland, you aim small and miss small, but if you miss with one turret, you're at a much greater disadvantage than the Hipper. Second, against fast movers that can put out damage like the Brooklyn, higher DPS and more shells will make you much more formidable. A Hipper will be able to land more shots, in less time, and drive off and kill a Brooklyn whereas the DLand will not because of its slower reload and turret config. The turret traverse speed also plays a huge factor when fighting smaller, faster ships because of the frequent change in directions and facing. Because of this, the Hipper is much better than the Dland when engaging virtually all targets at medium-short range. Like I said before, the Dland only truly shines at longer engagements vs. bigger targets.

Seeing how the metagame right now is a lot of little ♥♥♥♥♥ driving Brooklyns, I think the winner is quite obvious.

Winner: Hipper

Conclusion
The two ships couldn't be more different when it comes to battlefield application. It all comes down to playstyle and I wouldn't say that the Dland is a direct buff to the previous tier unlike the other fleets' ships. Both ships have its strengths and weaknesses, with some excelling or failing in certain areas of gameplay. Despite having a ton more games in the Hipper, I've been playing my Dland like crazy trying to truly master its potential. There are some situations where I wish I had my Hipper, and some situations when I wish I was in a Dland. This is a great thing for the game I think as neither the Hipper or Dland are invalidated and discarded because there's simply a better ship in its class.