The discussion separates a capital ship's political status from the battleship type. The Washington Naval Treaty grouped battleships and battlecruisers as capital ships, which encouraged a narrower later usage. The broader definition offered is a national asset used directly for foreign policy and status. First- and second-rate names passed to battleships, carriers, and SSBNs as those vessels inherited that political weight. An SSBN can therefore be a capital ship while lacking the battleship's visible conventional role. A follow-up adds that some US submarines also carry names previously associated with cruisers, so the naming inheritance is mixed.
Notable Point · 3:54:42-3:57:16
Why a capital ship does not have to be a battleship
Capital ship can describe a national asset with direct foreign-policy weight, a category that includes carriers and ballistic-missile submarines as well as battleships.