The main downsides to Iowa are her massive turning circle, and weak sides. Her guns are incredibly brutal when firing AP at broadside/poorly angled enemy battleships and cruisers, but the dispersion can still be a bit "American" at times. Using speed flags you can push her up to nearly 35 knots, which is enough to chase down some cruisers. The speed really comes into use mid-late game where you can redeploy as rapidly as a cruiser to any flank to fill a hole or exploit a gap. Iowa is a fantastic flanker and support ship. It also keeps you from getting into trouble all by yourself. This lets you accelerate out of destroyer torpedo spreads fairly well, and can occaisionally foil CV torpedo drops when paired with good usage of the rudder. I usually sail around at 2/3 speed during the opening parts of the match so as to not outrun friendly ships ( and to throw people's aim off, as they will usually assume you are going full tilt at 33 knots ). No other major changes in playstyle, apart from the much longer turning circle, so keep aware of that when dealing with torpedoes. On the other hand, Iowa is basically North Carolina or Alabama +6 knots and 60 meters per second of muzzle velocity. The only limiting factor keeping the secondary build from best in tier is the range topping out at 9.2 km. Popular ones are AA and Stealth, but Montana can do a very nasty secondary build, as the guns fire fast, have great firing arcs, good ballistics, and a wonderful fire chance.
You can do all sorts of builds with it, and get decent utility out of all of them.
Be aggressive, be aware, and don't be afraid to use your speed to flex. While it's survivability has greatly increased following the citadel lowering, its still liable to take cits when caught broadside because it still pokes up above the waterline, and its looooooong. It operates most comfortably between about 12-15 kilometers but can really push if it needs to, while maintaining a good solid attack angle to allow for wiggeling the rear two turrets out and baiting Yamato shells into the belt. It has excellent protection, excellent speed, good guns ( and a lot of them! ), decent maneuverability and good AA. It fills the gap in terms of survivability and gunnery between Yamato and Grosser Kurfurst.
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