See, I don't think it would slow it that much, for all the reasons I outlined. Now lets add another one: politics. Remember that firepower/cost spiral I mentioned? That's going to get the attention of the politicians, as will a very important factor that's often overlooked in these debates: carriers cost less to build than battleships*. A politician, who doesn't really understand military matters, looks at the situation, sees the battleships aren't getting bigger guns or more guns, sees carriers are cheaper, and says "Okay, let's cancel these white elephants and build more carriers".And I never said it would stop it. I said, quite explicitly, that it would slow it. Without a war sinking a lot of battleships and showing just how vulnerable battleships were to air power, the arguments of big-gun admirals are going to carry a heavier weight, particularly in admiralties that didn't really buy into carriers. The point is that without the wars battleships are liable to be considered a first-rate weapon into the '50s or '60s, late enough that it's entirely plausible one or more nations commissions a nuclear battleship if for no other reason than to see how it could be integrated into the fleet.
I never said, after all, that it would be practical or lead to widespread adoption of nuclear battleships, only that it could lead to a few getting built.
This assuming someone's nuclear-armed air force doesn't pull a Revolt of the Admirals and gets the surface fleet cut down to size in the same time period.
*Carriers have much higher lifetime costs, but that tends to get buried on the balance sheet.
Okay, 1. only the Yamatos were rated against 16" super-heavy AP rounds and 2. considering the RHA penetration of the freaking RPG-7 around this time I find it hard to believe that the Styx's shaped charge is somehow going to do worse on armor penetration. Limited post-armor effect, sure, but getting through the belt itself? Again, would be very surprised if it actually has any serious trouble. Or it could hit the unarmored portions of the hull and just explode.Well, battleships were designed to take hits from 2,700 pound Armor Piercing warheads traveling between MACH 1.5 & 2.2. The shaped charge in the SS-N-2 was very much NOT designed to deal with a foot or so of Class A and STS armor. The Soviets believed that would take several hits from the much larger P-700 to disable (not sink, mission kill) a CVN.
What missiles DO present are serious fire danger (unexpended solid rocket fuel burns at ~4,800°F)
Look, the point I was arguing against was that a battleship would just shrug these off no problem. We can quibble about how much damage a battleship would take getting hit with a Styx, but I think we can both agree it wouldn't be "dents and scorch marks".
I mean, "heavy aircraft cruiser" is a reasonable description of the Kievs. And that's a case where it's very much political quibbling.No they are battlecrusiers, Russia names things differently, their aircraft carrier is to them a heavy aircraft cruiser. Its not just on tonnage, its firepower as well. However even on tonnage, 28000t does not even make it the smallest battlecrusier, its bigger than some battleships that fought in WW2. The biggest Heavy cruiser built comes in around 17000t ( ignoring the Alaska's which politics got involved with ). As for the armor layout that's pretty much the same an evolution of the all or nothing as used on all the later battleships.
You're missing the point on the tonnage argument. Directly comparing it to WWII gun vessels is disingenuous because every type of ship in every navy has gotten bigger since. Carriers have gotten bigger, destroyers have gotten bigger, frigates, submarines.
No, the armor layout is not the raft body of the fast battleships. I mean, the information we have on the Kirovs' armor protection is inconsistent to begin with, but from what I've seen it's very similar to the machinery box/magazine box system of WWII cruisers.
And as for firepower, quite frankly a Kirov's SSM count is kind of sad for their size. That's what happens when your ship is a rocket cruiser and a large ASW ship, to borrow the Russian terms, mashed together. The Slavas are half the displacement but carry 80% the SSM firepower, and the Bazalt isn't any smaller than the Granit.