you really need to research(search) each ship to find out its pros and cons.

Washington gives you 1 extra support slot and uses Iowa guns 24/40 speed

Missourri can use a lvl101 Montana clone gunset and only has 7 support slots 23/39 speed

For leveling...use the Washington with 8 support slots. For fun use the MO.

Simply put:

The Washington is an Iowa with an extra support slot - and the wrong sprite.

The Missouri is an Iowa with a cloned version of the Montana guns.

The California is a Montana that has an extra support slot and a viable version of the 110 guns, in addition to the option of the Missouri's ones.

The level 99 EBBs, of which the Missouri is one, are intended for a different purpose than the 96 ones. The 96 ones are leveling ships, while the 99 ones are fun ones. Yes, it's a bit weird that they have less supports than lower level ships, but giving them BB5 supports and BB5 guns would bring into question why one should even bother with BB5s. So, they got shunted on supports to make sure BB5s still had their place.

As for what's best to get, the Missouri isn't particularly recommended. The Washington is a good choice if you're grinding from BB4 to BB5, while the California will give you the most benefit for leveling due to the sheer length of the BB6 grind, but you may have to grind into it.

Hi,

Thank very much for all the advise. It really helps.

Look like the only one worth getting is California. It appears that you need BO and gunner to be at 113 to get into California. I am still along way away (my scout only level 93).  I was looking at the Missouri  but i not really worth for grinding. 

I have not grind to BB6 before so i dont know much about the difficulty to go from BB5 to BB6. Just for information : is the grind from Montana to Nebby is so long that you need something in the middle to breakit up ?

 Also, looking ahead, monty play style is the same as iowa (i.e defensive , line fighting )

Best Regards
 

I'll put it to you this way:

It takes a little over 18.7 million experience to grind from level 1 to level 103.

It takes a hair over 28 million, or about 50% more, to grind from level 103 to level 120. If doing it in a BB5, you start incurring a slight experience penalty from level 113 on. Adding in the extra sailors, and not playing world at war, you can easily spend more time grinding from BB5 to BB6 than the entire grind from FF1 to BB5. World At War games help immensely, potentially cutting the grind by more than half, but only if you can get one to go and only if you can play it well.

Just having a California not only gives you a fresh option into that phenominally long grind, but has two very big boons: You save yourself nearly 350,000 eperience (at least 3-5 normal room battles) by eliminating the penalty that starts kicking in 10 levels above the ship, and you can do the majority of the grind with the full BB6 crew in each battle, getting your supports up faster.

As for the crew needs, you only really need the BO to be 113 for the California. The twin guns are level 115, not 113, but you can still mount the Missouri trips, which are only 101.

Thanks ErwinJA for such good information. 

I didn't realise that going from BB5 to BB6 is such a big effort.

I know that you can get to BB6 with level 120 BO and Gunnery (they recieve 140% exp) while your support still at 115. At that point, you can finish train your support up to level 120 using BB6. Without the California , this should still be an option, right ? Or griding in BB6 is not a good option 

Best Regards
 

Thanks ErwinJA for the valuable information. 

Just to clarify, California  is EBB 5.5 but in many way inferior to Nebby,  unlike Missouri  which can mount BB5 gun but has BB4 support. That is intended behaviour, right ?  

Regards