Battleship construction after 1945 depended partly on whether a rival navy kept building them. Had the Soviet Union finished new battleships, the United States, Britain, and possibly France might have answered despite the cost, especially in the 1950s. A mixed carrier-capital group would then combine a proven answer to an enemy battleship with aircraft that could attack it before a gun duel. In this counterfactual, obsolescence depends on adversary forces and acceptable risk rather than technology alone.
Notable Point · 1:07:19-1:09:39
How a rival could revive battleship construction
A postwar counterfactual argues that new Soviet battleships could have drawn American, British, and perhaps French capital-ship answers despite their cost.