I have no idea.
Speed and armament I would assume, time on target for the VB.10-02 is very low, and it can presumably control engagements better thanks to its speed, though I haven’t spent much time in either so that’s just my guess
Just add super hornets w/ LRASM and air launched Harpoons then. And gulf war Iowa class
Thats pretty modern stuff, Iowa modernised would be cool
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Unfortunately the Iowa class doesn’t really help much, it’s role is better suited to land attack, and it’s air defences aren’t great, and one Hornet isn’t quite as potent as a Tico, a solo Nimitz class is pretty defenceless too, the issue is that modern US navy doctrine requires a group to do anything, whereas the Soviet anti capital ship cruisers while not amazing at anything, can do a bit of everything
Now I don’t know a huge deal about naval battles, but I do know that anything that requires teamwork doesn’t work in war thunder
It has some Harpoons and is very well protected, that armor will still help against Soviet missiles
And if you could direct a flight of super hornets with Harpoons and LRASM it’d be pretty effective
A solo Nimitz class still has a fair bit of close range surface protection and medium range air defence coverage with its missiles
I believe the Iowa, like most US Navy surface ships carries 8 Harpoons, like I said the role of destroying surface ships lies with the carriers, and while they do have pretty good point defencec they aren’t on the level of a Tico, and even a Tico would struggle to defend against a salvo of Granit or Bazalt missiles by itself.
If you could control a squadron of fighters that would make a difference, combined with the US’s superior AWACS potentially levels the field, but then it mostly comes down to information, and likely both ships end up sunk xD
The Iowa carries 16 Harpoons and 32 tomahawks. They could also add nuclear tomahawks to make them usable against naval targets.
I think controlling squadrons is the best way to balance it out though
Controlling squadrons would be good, and they aren’t going to add nukes outside of instant match winners.
They could add the TASM but it’s not amazing which is why they scrapped it
TASM would still be an improvement on 16 harpoons
point defence isn’t awful on Iowa class either, it has 3-4 CIWS
I would argue that it’s the J-15D, given that it is employed on a carrier like the Growler.
The J-16D is land-based and operated by the air force.
Both fill same role as the growler. We could get F-35A as the USAF land based EW counterpart, or maybe F-15EX if that’s what your getting at
You need anti air missiles really CIWS is a last ditch defence, when you’ve you up to 20 supersonic, networked, anti ship, cruise missiles coming your way, 4 CIWS is not enough
What about thousands of tons of armor grade steel. It’s still a battleship after all, one of if not the best ever made
against a 7 tonne projectile with a 750kg warhead traveling at Mach 1.6?
That’s 15,400lbs and 1,650lbs
Main armor belt could either take it completely or soften the blow a lot. It’s also just really big which makes it even harder to sink. It should be able to drop a few missiles with CIWS, combined with armor and size it’ll be very survivable
I mean they did add new stuff for mobile so I guess it is a sort of test platform so that they can have an idea of what the balance is. It is pretty much a new field.
But likely dead in the water even if not sunk, and even with TASMs it’s still outranged by about 200km so with no way to strike back.
Yeah, 4 CIWS (2 on each side I think) is not going to stop an Anti-Ship cruise missile. That’s why it (USS Missouri) always had escorts, to intercept Anti-Ship cruise missiles and any planes that show up.
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Same with the Nimitz, at least for the period we’re discussing I believe it only has CIWS and a few RIM-7s for air defense
Like it may shoot down a couple Granit missiles, but not enough to save it
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