This article makes-a-case/discusses bringing back the battleship. It's a fun idea, battleships were cool, cooler than aircraft carriers, so cool that the US Navy was still operating WWII Iowa class battleships as late as the 1980's. The writer stresses the ruggedness, due to foot thick armor plate, of the battleship which would allow it to survive hits that sink aircraft carriers and modern surface combatants.
All that is cool, but the writer apparently does not understand why battleships existed and why they were so big. The purpose of a battle ship was to bring the biggest possible guns into action. The big guns were heavy and needed a big ship simply to float them. The huge caliber guns were extremely lethal, a single hit would sink just about anything. And they had range. By WWII, the battleship guns could reach out 20 miles, and the mechanical analog fire control computers of the 1940's could even get hits at that range.
But, a carrier's aircraft can reach out 200 miles or more, and even in the 1920's biplane bombers could carry bombs heavy enough to penetrate decks and sink battle ships. Ostfresland, Bismark, Prince of Wales, Repulse, Yamato, the US fleet at Pearl Harbor, the Italian fleet at Taranto , all demonstrated the power of carrier aircraft and the vulnerability of battleships.
Since carrier aircraft outclass the heavy gun, if I am going to spend the money for a big warship, I'm going to equip it with aircraft rather than big guns. Plus, I can put missiles on much smaller vessels that have plenty of punch, maybe not as much as 16 inch guns, but enough punch to deal with anything afloat today.
All things being equal, I'd druther have a fleet of smaller cheaper vessels than one big expensive vessel. With a fleet, I'm likely to have some combat power left after taking battle damage. With one big ship, if the enemy gets lucky, I loose the war.
So, I am not ready to build 21st century battleships, even if the idea is cool.
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