An individual Alaska was still useful, but the fleet that received it had already shifted into carrier warfare. Multiple carriers in a task group supplied enough aircraft for sustained searches, reducing the chance of a surface surprise. Protecting four, five, or six carriers also made the potential sacrifice of a fast battleship easier to justify than it had been for a single carrier. With heavy cruisers and fast battleships entering service in quantity, the Alaska programme had become an example of industrial inertia. Its armour plate and yard capacity might instead have helped complete an additional Iowa, such as Illinois or Kentucky, though that remains a counterfactual choice. Before the Two-Ocean Navy expansion, the balance looked different because the US fleet had fewer fast capital ships and fewer carriers to risk.
Notable Point · 23:40-27:50
A cruiser made redundant by the 1944 fleet
By the time Alaska and Guam completed, many carriers, heavy cruisers, and fast battleships were already available, leaving the class with less of the gap-filling role envisioned before the war.