For most of the 20th century, battleships were the hallmark of the navy’s might–gigantic warships that looked like heavily armed and armored castles on water, equipped with massive cannons, heavily armored, and which supposedly ensured complete domination of the oceans. They were losing their supremacy already when the conflict got really heated with the dynamic, quick-moving airplanes and shadowy submarines surpassing their simple firepower. Getting the grasp of the reasons behind the decline of battleships at first glance might seem like nothing more than a trip down memory lane. Still, it actually tells us one thing – the interplay between technology, strategy, and industrial potential determines to what extent a country will remain militarily powerful.
It was never easy to build a battleship. Among other vessels, the US built an enormous number of aircraft carriers and destroyers spanning the U.S. shipbuilding campaign throughout the whole World War II period, with very few limitations due to its industrial strength.
The process of making heavy gun turrets, adding thick armor, and installing complicated parts used to require a specific kind of factory that was mostly found on the East Coast. There were always some major transportation problems going on from the East to the West Coast. Products that were produced in the East and were super big and heavy had to be transported via a train that could only carry a limited number of them at the same time. This created a bottleneck in transportation.
Even if workers and engineers worked day and night, they still would not be able to solve all of these problems. This was taking too long because they were not only installing the radar but also the other equipment needed for the ship, like the fire control network and the anti-aircraft batteries.
The saga of the unfinished battleships tells how the first decision-makers’ preferences changed because of the war. The story goes that ever more ships started being constructed but were never set afloat. The Montana-class ships (the biggest and the most heavily armed ever designed ones) were canceled in the U.S. to give way to aircraft carriers, destroyers, and amphibious ships, which were thought to be of great help for overcoming Japan last.
In addition, the two most recent Illinois and Kentucky never went for their first cruise and were offloaded for scrapping or took parts from their dismantling. Such results were caused by the preoccupation of other countries with the same problem. For example, the H-39 class, designed to take over from Bismarck, was still on the slipway when the project was canceled, and the Kronshtadt and Sovietsky Soyuz programs were discontinued. Such examples show that a battleship only becomes tangible when the three factors of steel, industrial capability, and political commitment unite.
On the contrary, in many cases, such impact was overshadowed by their large sizes in the instances where these ships even made it to the water. Ships like Bismarck, Iowa, and Yamato became famous but yielded little success. The sinking of HMS Hood by Bismarck has gone down in history, but there might have been some luck involved as well. Being the largest battleship ever, only one kill was confirmed for Yamato before aircraft laid waste to it.
Iowa-class vessels, even armed with technological advances, were limited in their functions for most of the period, mainly doing or playing deterrent roles in shore bombardment activities and rarely such fights as naval battles. The power of carriers and submarines had overshadowed the navy by the time the conflict ended.
The decline of battleships was a result of strategic decisions as much as technological advancements. The old Royal Navy that ruled the seas was behind not only in quantity but also in innovation compared to the U.S. Naval agreements, like the 1921 Washington Naval Treaty compelled signatory states to discard ships and keep balance, while competition between branches and the tranquility in budgets further limited growth. The incident in 1941 when Repulse and Prince of Wales were hit and sunk by Japanese airplanes unveiled a harsh truth: the ocean was transformed into a stage where air power and submarines dominated.
Naval theorists like Julian Corbett tried to convince people that British naval power was based on having command over shipping routes and not being involved in costly battles at the front lines. But reality proved that even the most reasonable strategies could fail due to new inventions and the unexpected requirements of total war.
The battleship’s past is a saga of lessons for the present. Modern military officials need to combine their intrigue for neat hardware with the tough realities of manufacturing, transport, and new threats. Battleships are one of the things that tell people not to think that a certain weapon will always be the strongest one. Real naval power is not merely steel and firepower but also the flexibility, innovation, and learning from history.