The last time the US Navy built a battleship was in 1941. It was decommissioned in 1958 - the last of its kind. If you take World War II as the proof that carriers had eclipsed battleships, that doesn't seem like long at all.
The battleships were recomissioned in the '80s by Reagan as a bizarre act of cold war willy-waving. And once you've paid the money to get them working and put some missiles on them, you might as well keep using them until they fall apart.
WW2 was definitely un-ignorable proof that battleships were done. Imo though, given the essentially complete lack of actual success wrought by battleships in ww1, someone should have seen the light in the interwar period.
I guess I shouldn't be too harsh, at least we aren't building much else new that's bigger than a destroyer (except carriers).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Montreux_Convention_Regarding_...
And the Royal Navy had "through-deck cruisers" that were actually (tiny) aircraft carriers, so that they could get them built under a government which wanted to keep defence spending under control:
http://www.godfreydykes.info/THE%20PROMISED%20TWO%20NEW%20AI...
There's no surer way to get a tinpot dictatorship to start dancing to your fiddle than to park a carrier battle group outside their territorial waters.
As Bill Clinton said:
> When word of a crisis breaks out in Washington, it's no accident that the first question that comes to everyone's lips is 'Where's the nearest carrier?'
Most of the time, a submarine or destroyer with Tomahawk cruise missiles will get the job done. But parking a nuclear submarine off the coast doesn't have the same diplomatic effect.
https://warisboring.com/the-u-s-navy-s-big-mistake-building-...
See, for example, MC02.
Yes and no. The Atlantic Conveyor, a makeshift helicopter carrier, was sunk, taking the UK’s Chinooks with it, leading to the famous “yomp” across the island. But you are right that both of the Harrier carriers were OK.
The Argentinians deployed two submarines. The Royal Navy caught the WWII surplus Santa Fe. The more up to date San Luis evaded the RN and it's attacks were only foiled by poor maintenance of it's weapon systems.
The British submarines drove the Argentinian surface ships (including their carrier) into port.
The RN of the time was as good as any at anti-submarine warfare and had quite modern air defences. I think the Falklands war showed how effective air-launched missiles and submarines were (are).
Good luck prying those out of the Navy's cold, dead hands. Just look how long it took to finally get rid of battleships.
You'd think that after the complete shitshow that was mc02 they would have started to see the light. But I think instead they're just burying their heads in the sand a bit farther.