I've got the Maryland and just got the Missouri. Just started working on the Missouri
I like the Maryland because of the 4 turrets with triple tubes.
It can throw a lot of lead.
The Missouri only has 3 turrets with triple tubes but can out range the Maryland and perhaps hit a little harder on a per shell basis. BUT, the Maryland with light shells of 1193 damage each can throw a potential 14316 of damage. The Missouri with light shells of 1238 can throw a potential of 11142 damage. The 3 extra tubes of the Maryland make a significant difference.
And this is not considering rate of fire, which is slightly quicker in the Maryland. Over time the Maryland can throw more shells then the Missouri given gunners of equal reload ability.
And in the very rare cases of close combat, the guns in the T slot of the Maryland increase the amount of lead thrown which can mean a quick end for a surfaced SS or a DD that has gotten too close.
The trade off is range.....The missouri has more range then the Maryland so the Missouri can engage the enemy before the Maryland can.
I think gunner lvl for the Missoui has to higher then the Maryland to be really effective. My gunners are in the 90s and I think that around 100 or more would be what the Missouri needs, but I don't know that for sure. Still trying to figure out what makes the Missouri work so time will tell on this point.
I've noted the Maryland is a knot or 2 faster carrying much more armor then
the Missouri, using the same 3 engineers on both.
So far, to get close to the same speed as the Maryland with the Missouri
I have no guns in the T slots. With the Maryland, I can have dual gun tubes
in each turret of the T slots. And that can allow u to use AA if that is your desire.
So far, I like the Maryland better, but that is because I've had it while and figured
out how to make it work.
The down side to both ships is that they are "eye catchers" meaning they attract bombers by the score. Both ships tend to draw fire by enemy ships. You can be in a battle group of 4 or 5 BBs and the enemy will tend to fire at you instead of some of other the ships in the battle group.
You will need at least 3 engineers on the Maryland and Missouri plus crew members with enough SD to get the maximum of 900.
As an aside, in calculating stacked engineers true ability using the formulas floating around, the addition of the 4th engineer with the 49% stacking number drops the speed of the Missouri by 1 knot. The true ability of 4 engineers is slightly greater then 3 engineers with 56% stacking but the speed is still reduced. So, make sure you have good engineers and try to keep them at the same lvl.