Should the US reactivate battleships?

[Julhelm]

Originally Posted by Sailor Steve

Quite true, though it took Pearl Harbor and the sinking of HMS Prince Of Wales before the lesson set in.

Here I only partly agree. "Mission-kill" is a tricky concept. If the mission is to deliver heavy artillery to a target, then no, the average SSM will not stop that. "Comparatively weak" is the problem. The armor on any battleship is designed to withstand its own shells at prescribed ranges, since the designers don't consider themselves to have adequate access to the other guy's firepower. This requires that the battle be kept to a range that balances the ship's own strengths and weaknesses. No anti-ship missile is what we would consider "armor-piercing". Yes, such a hit on a battleship has a fair chance of knocking out certain electronics, but it's not going to be catastrophic to such a ship.

Only the citadel is armored, but directors and sensor arrays are very vulnerable and if damaged would definitely mission kill a battleship. But something like SS-N-12 or SS-N-19 which were designed to kill US carriers would most likely defeat the Iowa's armor protection.

Bismarck was disabled by dozens of armor-piercing rounds travelling at more than twice the speed of an anti-ship missile, with hardened heads specifically designed to get through that armor. Plus several torpedoes. Plus the scuttling.

That is totally incorrect. Bismarck was effectively mission-killed by a single hit to the bow section which caused major flooding and a fuel leak. By the time the torpedo bombers attacked it, it had already aborted its mission to break out into the Atlantic.