The key advantage of the Cleveland is that it can pack more armor and can be resonably protected against 6" shells at long range and still pack reasonable belt armor.

With Brookyln class, u can achive the same deck armor levels, but you will pratically have no belt left.

3"/70 not 5" and dont put aa on its a waste of space. when i used my cleve when i had money i had about 2.5 inches of deck on it and 1.5 belt. i got hit for 0's sometimes when i did cl/ca/low bc games. its good practice for when u get baltimore cuz u dont wanna rush in with a balt or alaska(if they ever restock em)

for AA with cleaveland use the (edit) 3''/70's as the have 1.08 sec reload!
sorry for putting 5'' meant 3''

Brooklyn=DD/CL killer
Cleveland= Mini-CA (it weighs 17 for Christs sake. York=9)

Using the Cleveland will get you used to using AA guns too, which become very important when you get into CL, CA or BB games. You start to get guns that outrange your sight and scouts become increasingly important. One advantage you can get is to be able to take out your opponent eyes. Also, you become juicer targets for CVs in All Welcomes so they become even more neccesary.

I would recommend arming it with wither dual 8" Mk11d with 3:2 mix of Light and Heavy. This will allow you to compete in just about any games, be they CL/CA, DD/CL , CL/CA/CB, or even Op Convoys if you want to power-level and screw yourself out of experts since you will level faster than you will gain them. For T Mounts I would recommend using the 5/38 Mk38s to get used to AA. They are a pretty standard and decent AA gun.

as far as i know, neither is a place you want to walk around by yourself late at night.

Brooklyn. It rocks more in Op Con and that's where you'll spend most of your time in the first place. Regular games are meant for CV/BB/Torp Whore. Anyone other than that is going to get much, much more xp/credits in Op Con.

Buy a Cleveland only if you want to use 8 inch guns, if you're happy with the 5"54 or triple 6 stay with the brookyln and save up money for baltimore.