Literally everyone else retires their last battleships by the beginning of the 1970s with most having been scrapped by...

All 4 user. and all they did in the war was escort carriers. they were never in harms way. they never proved any worth and were built too late in the war to do a thing. the only other things they did in the rest of their life was bomb coastlines from a comfy distance and sit back and relax. real ''battleships'' arent they?

Because of bureaucrats' personal fetishes, same reason the Soviets built big gun cruisers after WW2 kept building heavy tanks despite their obsolescence

Every other nation either: didn't have battleships to begin with, had them sunk in combat/nuke testing, or scrapped them after WW2 because the scrap metal (and not having to fuel such large ships) was reducing the debt. The exceptions being the French with the Jean Bart, and the British with the Vanguard.
The US wasn't in debt from WW2. It made money and cemented itself as a superpower. The older standard-type battleships were qucikly scrapped because they were too slow for anything practical but the North Carolinas, South Dakotas, and Iowas were still kept. Eventually the Iowas were all that remained and the cycled in and out of service. They were already paid for and the Navy & Congress kept seeing a need for naval gunfire support, so they kept coming back. Eventually given Tomahawks to extend their firepower and range, but after the Gulf War it was clear they were no longer needed. The Navy was downsizing a bit as the Cold War ended and the amount of people who even knew how to run the Iowas was decreasing. The idea of naval gunfire support was kept alive with the Zumwalt, but that concept has really taken a nosedive in the last two decades.

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>Main threat in the Pacific is enemy carrier and land-based aviation
>The fast battleships were sailing near the carriers and taking the brunt of Japanese air attacks
>" they were never in harms way."
This is almost as silly as the "Iowas are battlecruisers" argument.

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>taking the brunt of Japanese air attacks

Those ships during the war were nothing but glorified AA platforms

That's what almost all non-carrier ships in the US navy are. That's sort of the point.

Because the US Navy was realizing aircraft could be a big threat. It's why before (and if not before, shortly after) Pearl Harbor every American battleship got improved AA. The fast battleships were assigned to protect carriers because they could keep up with the formations. The older battleships were assigned shore bombardment duty or protecting stationary points from IJN incursion. The only ship the Iowas directly engaged, that I know of, was the training cruiser Katori and that was because Japanese surface ships usually didn't make it near American carriers.

>Why do Americans do this?
Because we're the World Police and we serve more naval functions than all the second world countries you're describing. Without our navy patrolling trade routes, you literally couldn't afford your lifestyle. Just another example of based USA subsidizing nanny state inhabitants.

It’s a shitty way of saying it, but basically this. The US navy has way more commitments than any other country’s navy.

>Imagine only being able to hit sitting ducks. Can't imagine having that bad of aim.
>Gets assblasted by 2 nukes and becomes Americas Bitch

They say asians are good at math, but really they are just good at arithmetic. Real math just flies over their head like a bomber plane.

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>any other
every other

It was pretty effective offshore artillery platform during the invasions of Iraq.

They were reactivated as probable counter for Soviet 1144 Orlan Class Heavy Missile Cruisers. You should read more instead of posting at Jow Forums.

Yup. Intimidation purposes only. They couldn't do much more than a Tico with a shit load of tomahawks. Another case of a military asset being bragged about because of "muh gun" 16" is cool, cruise missiles are cooler. Same argument goes for the A-10

>The only ship the Iowas directly engaged, that I know of, was the training cruiser Katori and that was because Japanese surface ships usually didn't make it near American carriers.
Now now, it was two cruisers, two destroyers, and a minesweeper.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Hailstone#Attack

But yes, it was retarded. They almost managed to get torpedoed while doing it. Spruance was an incredible commander, but that was a stupid mistake by him and he was lucky nobody got hurt.

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Because we could
Yeah they were mainly just national prestige icons for the navy. Other than that they were used as big dickwagging tools to spook 3rd world shitholes.

>Why do Americans do this?
Because congress allocates military funding, not the military itself. This means fudd retards like tumor brain

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>DID SOMEBODY SAY IOWA THREAD?

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goddamn World In Conflict is a fun game.

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burgers are notoriously bad at military. procurement is 3rd world tier.

>they were used as big dickwagging tools to spook 3rd world shitholes.
>implying any branch of the US Armed Forces needs to be capable of anything more

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>implying burgers can even do anything more
you would have gotten buttraped in any real war.

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>This is almost as silly as the "Iowas are battlecruisers" argument.

they fit the definition to a T.

Don't start this bullshit again.
Saged.

We have some cheaper variants of ship just sitting mothballed in ports just in case. Some we sold to other nations and others scrapped. They say activating and updating would be a budget issue but they wont sell them, basically saying they are already active but waiting. The issue with our Navy today is not the ships and materials, but there is not enough crew. We are still to be considered a sleeping bear when it comes down to our resources.

>can't sink
Yes that tends to happen when there are 6 of them and only ever used for naval artillery support

Deal with it.

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A few reasons.

The Ohio's were new at the end of world war 2 and had minimal wear on their mechanical systems, new barrels in the guns and the US was pretty wealthy. They had no pressing economical reason to scrap these serviceable battleships.

After that, they mostly remained in reserve save for occasional reactivation for bombardment duties. They also gained quite a symbolic role and were retained as much as anything for that.

The 80's refits were more emotionally driven then functional but weren't without some merit. This led to a little more use, but also reached the point where the miles were catching up to them and they were wearing out. The Navy had to fight for a long time to at last retire them and send them out to act as museums.

Most navies scrapped their battleships for the same reason they scrapped their aircraft carriers: No money. The US never had that problem.

because boom boom baby

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>Why do Americans do this?
Because their nuclear cruisers were such complete pieces of fucking shit that they had to revive their grandpa's museum battleships to respond to Kirov cruisers, and they still couldn't match them anyway.

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"No!"

obsessed

>Why do Americans do this?
Shit wrong timeline again, have to go back to the weird antique shop and fondle 18th century weapons. Hope I get a timeline where OP is not a faggot

For the same reason the US build giant carriers and SSBN's - because the US could easily afford these luxuries and the Yuropoors wanted to but couldn't or could but didn't want to because why go though the expense of defending yourself when the US will do it for free.

The USN had a very good response to Kirovs, and its called aircraft carriers.

Does the USN inself know about this little revelation of yours, no-name imageboard animefag?
>The appearance of the Kirov class played a key role in the recommissioning of the Iowa-class battleships by the United States Navy in the 1980s.[7][8][9]

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Orlan Class is primarily an air defense heavy missile cruiser tasked to guard bastions. Its main armaments are the 2 S-300 systems. Anti ship is secondary, Oscars carry more Granits and main Granit carriers are Backfires. So technically no, carriers aren't a response to Orlans.

Also why are they called Kirovs when only the lead ship was named Kirov while the class is designated Orlan (eagle) and Project 1144.

FPBP.

That mission was cool as fuck

because everyone else names ship classes after the lead boat

the le lo la li lay?

"Laughs hysterically in nuclear powered aircraft carriers"

They're basically kept as museums these days.

wrong classes retard

You just get here yesterday?
>announcing a sage is a bannable offense, read the fucking rules before you post again, newfag
>sage is not a downvote on a post, you fucking twat. It affects the longevity of the thread.

If you don’t like the thread, hide it and keep on browsing. Or you could just go back to whatever social media shithole spawned you, which would be the preferred choice.

We outspent the USSR to death, and you're worried about some fast armored artillery and tomahawk launching platforms?

Cool museums too. The Missouri tour on Oahu is great.

Because f u awesome nigger
youtube.com/watch?v=XKCXgzBDp8w

>ywn defend the shores of America inna foxhole with a pig from hordes of Ivan marines and APCs

Why even live?

The only reason we kept the battleships in operation up until the 90's was because of our good neighbor Cuba. You could park a battleship on either end (north south) of the island and hit any position inland wirh 16" shells with absolute impunity.

is that the guy from Forgotten Weapons?

USS Constitution is still in service.

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have you ever seen Cuba?

>21 ships damaged at Pearl Harbor
>18 returned to service
>6/8 Battleships returned to service

The thickest point of Cuba is roughly 100 miles on the eastern portion of the island (far away from population centers) and the thinnest is roughly 20 miles. The maximum engagement range of the 16" 50 caliber naval guns is roughly 28 miles.

The armed forces deemed this adequate, and I don't have to justify their decision to you.

The battleships were also envisioned as a massive artillery battery which could operate in the fjords of Norway and Denmark in the event of a Russian invasion of Scandinavia. Hidden in the fjords, they'd be impossible to detect.

Fact: Majority of the hit and sunk ships got salvaged and restored into service to finally get their revenge at Surigao strait.

Laugh into a sobbing fit, Weebcunt....

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>Ignorant Slavshit doesn't know about the mighty USS Long Beach.
Unsurprising

youtube.com/watch?v=2piJQYJdYCQ

>The only reason we kept the battleships in operation up until the 90's was because of our good neighbor Cuba
>The armed forces deemed this adequate
source?

>USS Long Beach
>mighty

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