[BREAKING NEWS] The Battleship Might Be Back

Firstly, the grade of steel used in 1940's ship construction was free of a lot of the contaminants that are in steel today. In short, its' stronger. Water exerts pressure on the hull of a ship. For that reason, the navies of the world (USN included) limit their operational lives. The four Iowa Class battleships served less than a decade before being decommissioned. Of the four, New Jersey was brought back into commission for a few years of Vietnam. Then back to decommission. All four ships were then relatively "new" when brought back to service in 1983. The ships were decommissioned for a final time in the 1990's. However, we do have USS Texas (WW1 vintage) and other battleships from the same era like USS North Carolina, USS Alabama and USS Mass. who are not having any structural degradation. So if USS Enterprise, using modern steel, can sail for over fifty years, there is no reason why the four Iowa's could not have been kept alive.

Now while the lifespan is okay, the most crucial aspect is the mission. What would a battleship's "mission" be? The final hurrah of the battleship was to serve as a fleet defense vessel with the aircraft carrier being the queen of the ocean. The Cold War's use of the battleship was more of a flag showing endeavor than an actual use. However, their guns proved the viability of artillery and a 16 inch gun is pretty hard to compete with. Not only that, there are only two enemies; those using French weapons and those using Russian weapons. And of the two, French Exocet makes up the majority weapon. Ex's tiny warhead would bounce off of the thick battleship armor. Russia's Kestrel and other similar weapons would also run into difficulty, giving the battleship an air of unsinkability. The final iteration of the BB would have had tons more Tomahawks and anti-air missiles added. Plus drone capability and the new Harrier style aircraft.

In this guise, the battleship could serve as not only a flag showing vessel, but also a sea-control ship, sailing to hotspots too cool for a carrier, but too hot for a cruiser. True, the BB has no ASW gear, but to be fair, carriers don't either and a BB would have a submarine assigned to it for protection. The battleship in the 1980's/1990's was the mother of all recruiting tools. It was the epitome of sailor-ness. Even us sub guys referred to them as battleships as opposed to the more derogatory "target" or "skimmer." Their power plants were pretty robust as well. The Iowa's could easily crank out 33 - 35 knots. And had the Iowa been in port instead of the USS Cole, there would have been just a scratch.

The old steam plants generate a lot of power, but are costly to run and take up a lot of space. Main propulsion should match those of carriers - two nuke plants. Main guns of over 8" only have a gun fire support mission. Main guns will rarely be used against another surface ship. Problem is if the ship is close enough to coastal targets, then it's close enough to get hit by coastal defenses. Dropping dumb bombs from the air can accomplish the same damage. Sadly, there is not a mission for battleships. It makes more sense to more build smaller, faster, frigates/destroyers.

Well if as stated that ship ramming is more prevalent then different options need to be considered. Ram an older ship that has real collision ready skin or pay a lot in repairing the new thin skin designs. Of course they could build new ships just for ramming. LOL