What might a newly built US battleship carry?

If the United States built a battleship today, how might it arm and protect it?

It would need to rebuild specialist industrial capacity, but could combine heavy armour and likely sixteen-inch guns with extensive automation and a large vertical-launch missile battery.

The answer begins with the cost of rebuilding industrial capabilities such as armour production, but argues that a new hull could be protected against whatever threat designers chose to prioritize. A likely US design would retain sixteen-inch guns as a familiar calibre, perhaps in three triple turrets, while using automation and a very large vertical-launch missile battery. Existing Iowa-class ships would provide the starting reference because their machinery and weapons are known quantities, even though a new design would update them extensively. The proposal is explicitly speculative and connects historical battleship layout with present-day weapons and industrial constraints.