C++ after 11 is a very different beast. It's more pleasant to write compared with pre-11. Memory model, move semantics, smart pointers, lots of stuff standardized instead of left to the libraries.
smart pointer template blah, instead of pointer blah, in a very large code base.. hmm not so pleasant.. the debug level function definitions, adding templated parameters, are literally unreadable. I will agree that the mental model is tamer.
IMO (possibly biased by how much I hated C++ in the 90s) it is easier to maintain clean code discipline in a large team with Java than it is with C++.