It is undeniable that any American fleet will have a much stronger defensive screen than a lone cruiser (for comparison, the Slava-class cruiser is equivalent in size to a WW2-era Brooklyn-class cruiser, of which the USS Phoenix/ARA General Belgrano was an example). But by the same token, the Slava-class experienced catastrophic secondary damage from just two missiles, of which the Ukrainian Neptune arsenal could potentially fire 72 near-simultaneously (18 launchers x 4 tubes each, carrying 330lb warheads). So the interesting exercise is to scale the offense to the defense and see how it hashes out, in theory.
Speaking of which,
torpedo drone - that's a new one. Maybe we could procure some from Iran?
Another lesson of the war: China could never concentrate enough ground power in Taiwan to clear the eastern, mountainous, half of irregular resistance with even moderate foreign naval intervention to contend with.
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