Turkey preventing Iowa class battleship from assisting Ukraine

Question

Now, there is talk of the Iowa class being secretly re-armed with modern shells and sent to Ukraine to prevent losing the war. Legally, under the Montreux Convention, Turkey can stop this. However, would Turkey be physically able to stop an Iowa class battleship from assisting Ukraine?

Answer 1

• The Convention of Montreux governs who can and who cannot send what kind of warships through the Bosporus Straits. As long as the Iowa is an US warship, she cannot pass. Under Ukrainian flag, she might.
• As to your idea of forcing the straits, doing so would give other powers the excuse to break that convention as well. Probably not a good precedent.
  Practically, it would depend on which ASW and AA escorts she gets. Which would mean a major naval battle between NATO members, which is silly.
• The idea of using this ship, which was decommissioned 34 years ago, is just silly. Even if her Phalanx system got upgraded, she would not be survivable in such confined waters without air superiority. And Ukraine does not have air superiority.

What Ukraine needs right now are air defense systems (lots of them, and lots of ammo), artillery (and, again, lots of ammo), cruise missiles or short-range ballistic missiles with the ability to damage bridges and railroads (and, again, plenty of them, not just a handful), and possibly armor and obstacle-breaching equipment.