Why Iron Duke was unlikely to return to combat

Could Iron Duke have returned to useful combat service if she had not been bombed at Scapa Flow?

Only through an expensive reconstruction or difficult carrier conversion, neither of which was preferable to building a modern ship.

By the Second World War, Iron Duke had been demilitarized and used for training rather than maintained as a ready battleship. Restoring armor and machinery would have demanded a major reconstruction for limited return. A carrier conversion was theoretically possible if losses created an extreme need, but a new purpose-built carrier would have been easier and more useful. The ship's realistic value therefore remained in secondary and training duties.