The United States cannot even produce the fifteen and sixteen-inch shells that the battleships of old used to attack. And that capacity is not coming back anytime soon
This is kind of a nothing article. Like, obviously battleships built in the 40s would be pretty worthless in a peer/near-peer war even if they were in perfect working order. Even at the end of WW2 the utility of battleships was limited, and now missiles out-range their guns by 2 orders of magnitude.
Even the US knows it though, they’re all retired museum ships now. They were kept around as long as they were because some politicians had the same fixation on needing them for shore bombardment as they have for keeping low-speed flying bathtubs around for close air support.
telling a naval officer from the 30s we have 100000 ton nuclear powered capital ships and turning away blinking the tears off when they ask how big the main guns are
This is kind of a nothing article. Like, obviously battleships built in the 40s would be pretty worthless in a peer/near-peer war even if they were in perfect working order. Even at the end of WW2 the utility of battleships was limited, and now missiles out-range their guns by 2 orders of magnitude.
Even the US knows it though, they’re all retired museum ships now. They were kept around as long as they were because some politicians had the same fixation on needing them for shore bombardment as they have for keeping low-speed flying bathtubs around for close air support.
telling a naval officer from the 30s we have 100000 ton nuclear powered capital ships and turning away blinking the tears off when they ask how big the main guns are
Nobody resurrect naval officers from the 30s until we have rail guns.