I think many players will argue that Royal Navy warships deserve to have the second highest night fighting values.
That is my opinion also, how much higher, that I dont know.
From a technical point of view, the British Navy was slowly moving towards a condition in which night fighting had lost some of its hazards. It was not, however, till 1930 that Admiral Sir Ernie Chatfield (afterwards Lord Chatfield), then Commander in Chief of the Mediterranean Fleet, began to turn these technical improvements to good account. Chatfield had been Sir David Beatty’s Flag Captain at Jutland and had experienced the cruel disappointment when the German Fleetescaped destruction because the German Admiral, by a series of retreats, had avoided day battle. Furthermore, the British Fleet was relatively no longer so strong in comparison to potential enemies as it had been in previous periods of history, and if efficiency at night battle could be brought to such a pitch that the British Fleet could seek night battle instead of avoiding it, its power to carry out its age-old task of controlling the sea lines of communication would be much enhanced.
There was much work to be done. The Fleet had to become night-fighting-minded. The exercise programs of the Fleet were already congested with the many exercises necessary to keep the fleet efficient for day action, and as the annual allowance of fuel for each fleet was rationed, it was not possible for the fleet to spend much more time at sea. The exercise program soon reflected the new spirit. Night encounter exercises, night firings, and experiments to discover the best night cruising formations became permanent features in the programs. No relaxation in the training of destroyers for night and day attack could be permitted as, though the battleships were now being trained for night battle, the destroyer still remained the most potent night attacker. Every opportunity for training in shadowing at night was also taken.
After two years Chatfield was able to say that it would never again be possible for an enemy fleet to escape destruction under cover of darkness, and that night fighting would be the Royal Navy’s great opportunity in another war. These were prophetic words. Chatfield was succeeded by his Second in Command, Sir William Fisher, who continued the training, and seized an opportunity of demonstrating the efficiency of his fleet during the combined maneuvers of 1934.
Fisher had the reputation of being a brilliant and fearless tactician and frequently exercised his ships at high speed in close order. He also had been a great help to Chatfield in the development of night fighting.
When for the second time in a quarter of a century the lights went out in Europe and the British Fleet was once more on a war footing, the senior officers were as eager to force night action if the conditions demanded as they were to force day action in earlier years. All the hard work and thought of the preceding ten years were put to the acid test on the night of March 30, 1941, when Admiral Sir Andrew Cunningham, in chase of an Italian Fleet, decided to engage in night action and destroyed three enemy cruisers in a few minutes.
https://www.usni.org/magazines/proceedi ... itish-navy
