Let’s be honest- by the 1990’s, it was pretty clear that the
Iowa’s were expensive to run, too costly in manpower, and too historically significant to seriously alter (like removing the turrets). As it is, I suspect that the act of scrapping Admiral Halsey’s stateroom and wardroom on the
New Jersey to make room for the electronics suite (which went into the admirals bridge on each ship) probably caused a nasty internal uproar that had the navy thinking about if they could get away with making any more changes.
I for one think that the navy would be seriously looking for a replacement that could fill the role of the
Iowas, and I speculate that such a vessel would have heavy armor, a displacement of just over 25,000 tons, a length of 700-750 feet, and a crew of 1250-1500. It will probably be nuclear powered, fitted with the whole AGEIS combat suite, and possess the following armaments:
2 × 100 cell Mk 41 vertical launch systems
16 × RGM-84 Harpoon missiles
2 × Mk 45 Mod 2 5-in/54-cal lightweight gun (or maybe a bigger custom design

)
6× Phalanx 20mm CIWS Block 1B (4 went on the Iowas and I noticed the last time I was on one that there was a bit of a blind spot straight forward and aft)
And just for the sake of overkill, the removal of the eight Mk 143 Armored Box Launcher mounts for 32 BGM-109 Tomahawk cruise missiles from the Iowas and their reinstallation here!
I imagine this being a class of three vessels, with two on the oceans at any given time, one probably in the Persian Gulf, the other in the Eastern Pacific, accompanying the respective carrier battle groups.
No idea if this is plausible, but if it is... a lot of people in Moscow and Beijing will be investing in brown pants!
