Interwar treaties removed much of the overage tonnage that larger navies had traditionally retained. After 1945, visible technological change and planning for wars expected to turn nuclear within days reinforced the preference for cutting-edge systems. Those assumptions made older ships appear both too dated to fight and too slow to activate. This narrowed the test of usefulness: an old platform need not defeat its newest counterpart if it can still perform fire support or another lower-threat mission. The comparison with old tanks used as mobile fire support shows how a platform can remain valuable without serving at the point of the main attack.
Notable Point · 6:02-12:39
Why modern naval thinking discounts reserve ships
Treaty limits, rapid wartime technological change, and Cold War nuclear timelines weakened the older assumption that navies should retain large reserve fleets.