Seriously, how do you argue these two ships are the same BR? Of course the Gneisenau’s layout is fictional with guns she never had, and as a result completely clowns the Nelson, and the Nelson cannot do it back. Yet they’re both 7.7BR…
The Nelson, bulky as it is, really can’t shrug off a shot from the Gneisenau guns. Every shot is guaranted to wipe out turrets as if they have no armour, and ammo detonations are extremely likely. The Nelson has no good place to attack the Gneisenau, its armour scheme ignores 15" guns like they’re just side armaments. You’re unlikely to ever citadel that BC, and its side armour remains practically impervious to 15" shells even up at 6km.
If you read up on it, the Gneisenau’s only real weakness is trying to make it cook-off through the barbette. Except it barely ever happens. You can set fire to its ammo elevator ten times and it usually just repairs it all. In the five to ten minutes you spend doing this, no matter the angle you take when attacking, the Gneisenau will cause repeated serious flooding, and make multiple compartments black-critical so you’re nearly forced to sink.
One of these ships should be downtiered substantially or uptiered substantially, because it’s guaranteed that there’s no way these ships can be considered equal in WT. Every single encounter between those two ships proves just how much of a pay-to-win the Gneisenau is since Gaijin clearly really needed a non-existent ship layout to justify that $80
Edit: Gaijin randomly moved this thread into Realistic even though this fully applies in arcade just as much.