Some of the posts in this thread make me scratch my head a bit,
The one about the Paris in particular. While it has no range it does hit like a hammer and it's only drawback is that it runs out of displacement as your crew nears high BB3 lvl's. It is a ton of fun up till then as it has decent speed and maneuverability.
IMHO the Lehavre fills this void as it has enough displacement to be useful through BB4 without the crew putting it overweight if you want.

The Strass is a toilet, plain and simple. Slow, poor turning force, and garbage damage. Lets not even get into the spread. Even with lvl 110 EBVE gunners it is inconstant at best and just useless most of the time. I would avoid this ship at all costs. Its range blows too.
The Richelieu....*sigh*. you go from the toilet to the porta-potty moving from BB3 to BB4 here. The ship is faster than the BB3, with a bit more range and has better damage although it still has random spread issues more than occasionally. Out of ten shots made while moving you would be lucky to land more than 5 of 8 shells on a large target twice, especially firing at odd angles while fully elevated. That being said, the damage is a revelation coming from the Strass.
The sad part is these small (and I mean small) improvements come at the cost of anything approaching durability or survivability. The ship is made of toilet paper and any BB3 or BB4 has a very good chance of 2 shotting you. BB5 forget it, 1 shot and you are dead in the water if not just dead. BB6........POOF!

so for the short attention span crowd or TLDR :

Get the Lehavre and the Mandel, you will be glad you did. Buy the dunk if you really want one (its spread and damage are crap as well but it is tough and maneuverable). You will enjoy the BB grind much more with these ships than without them.
The Mandel with good (say lvl 70-80) reload gunners for AA is very effective, and HH in the R slots makes subs very sad they bothered you while you were whoring creds with the AA.

I picked up a PCL Gamelin for immediate use, as I've got a MN Sub crew that's just hit SS1 on the line and, well, you can get a bit more out of a PCL for levelling than an SS1.

looking at getting a BC Danton on Saturday after I get my coins, my BB Line crew is at level 50 for the Courbet, so it'll come into use there, then again, for my MN Sub crew until they hit SS3 level.

and I should be able to squeak out enough coins for the PCA Mandel for AA use later on.

yes, that plus I wasn't aware that you couldn't use the Danton in blitz to terrorize players with... that's ok, I'll pick a Mandel before the coin event is over.

only reason I'm bothering is to level my sub crew through SS1 & SS2 into the SS3.

*shrugs* c'est la vie

If possible, don't get what you can buy in the store (premium ships). You get the event ships but if you are having difficulty buying the premium ships and you have enough coins to get multiple items this event, get the Le Harve and Mandel.

Le Harve is very easy to use. Once you get in range with a BB4/5/6, those 16 shells bearing down on them is fun to watch when it hits. lol

Mandel is a PCA, and is a better item to get than the Danton (EBB1) imo.

I squeezed out all 3 actually. I didn't know about the EBB1s not being able to be played in Blitz games. I was too busy licking my chops at the thought of the 12" guns + 8" duals on the T slots menacing everything in sight in blitz.

still, worked out all right. and there's always the summer, or next winter's event to get more EBBs or PBBs down the line.