USS Pittsburgh was the 5th member of the Baltimore-class heavy cruisers, the first US heavy cruisers to be designed after the ending of the Washington and London naval treaties. Laid down in February 1943, Pittsburgh would be commissioned in October of 1944 and would serve through the rest of World War 2, mostly serving as part of the cover screen for Task Force 58. She would gain the nickname "Longest Ship in the War" after damage from Typhoon Viper caused her bow to snap off, leaving thousands of miles in between her bow and the rest of the ship as she returned to the States for repairs. She would be decommissioned in 1947, but recommissioned in 1951 with the commencement of hostilities in Korea. Though she saw no combat in this conflict, she would patrol the Atlantic and Mediterranean, finishing her last deployment in the Pacific before being decommissioned again in 1956. She would remain in the reserves until being sold for scrap in 1974.

Introduced in Update "Direct Hit", the USS Pittsburgh will be broadly similar to her classmate USS Baltimore, though coming in a later 1953 refit. She has the same primary and secondary armament, but her anti-aircraft battery has been supplanted by 3-inch autocannons firing HE-VT shells, granting greater range at the cost of a slower fire rate. Pittsburgh also notably gains aircraft tracking radar, allowing her to serve well as an escort to larger, less protected ships such as dreadnought battleships.