unCommissioned /unbuild battleships?

One of the criticisms of modern warships is that they are one hit wonders. Does anyone have any idea how much armor you would need to stop or at least impare a modern anti ship missile?

 

Good question, and one that I'm not certain can be answered with any kind of assurance. I remember back during the Gulf War that one of the American battleship captains stated that it would require numerous hits to put his ship out of action. I was (and am) inclined to agree with his assessment, since modern weapons tend to be designed to counter modern weapons and not the technology of fifty or sixty years ago. When HMS CONQUEROR sank the Argentine cruiser GENERAL BELGRANO during the Falklands War, she did so with a WW2 era toirpedo and not one of the modern Tigerfish torpedoes. According to her captain, this was done because the BELGRANO, being a WW2 ship, was fitted with antitorpedo bulges and armor plate that he feared might defeat a Tigerfish.

 

Just to add to this, it is worth stating as well that HMS Sheffield was quite probably only hit at all because her radar and anti-missile defences had been turned off shortly before the attack.

Personally I don't think we are likely to see any more Battleship type vessels any more, unless another Superpower appears to challenge the United State's dominance on the world stage because for the most part Missile-boats, aircraft carriers and Submarines can accomplish what a Battleship/Monitor type vessel would more cost-effectively than the latter would be likely to achieve. And even then, you would likely need a trigger like each side building progressively bigger ships over a period of time before these vessels appeared.

Ebar commented that 60 years after Force Z planes still haven't replaced Armies and Navies, that may be true, but no modern Western Army or Navy (Surface vessels at least) goes anywhere in times of conflict without the support of airpower, be it Carrier based or Land based, because any force which has a reasonably modern airforce automatically has a huge upper hand against one which does not.

 

Perfectly true. It should be noted, however, that most airforces in the world today have neither the training, the equipment, or the numbers of aircraft necessary to seriously challenge any of the Western air forces.