Now, in WWII the United States designed the largest battleships ever built by the allies, the massive
Montana Class Battleships. These 70,000+ ton monsters had one problem - they were slower than the Iowas, topping out at 28 knots, which wasn't enough to keep up with the aircraft carriers in use at the time. So, after Pearl Harbor and Midway, the US Navy built over three dozen aircraft carriers and only the four Iowas, and the Montanas never made it beyond models.
Now, in research I noted an interesting fact - they had less power than the Iowas, 152,000 horsepower to the Iowa's 212,000. Now, according the warship design program Springsharp, 212,000 horsepower gets the Montanas up to a surprising 31.85 knots - which IS as fast as Essex and Midway class carriers could manage.
So, perhaps the Montanas, recognizing the Navy's need for firepower and speed, gets built with the Iowas' powerplants, which puts them with the ability to run with the carriers, where their huge number of AA guns (20 5-inch, 40 Bofors 40mm and 56 Oerlikon 20mm) as built (which would almost certainly grow once in combat - it did for virtually every WWII ship design) and 12 16-inch guns would make the Montanas the US' biggest guns.
A 32 knot Montana would almost certainly see them survive the post-WWII era (like Missouri and Wisconsin did), brought back for Korea and the birth of NATO, returning again for Vietnam, and perhaps like the Iowas being extensively refitted and born again in the early 1980s.
So, how about it?
I must admit part of my wish here is to have a reason to work on what Montana and her sisters would look like after the 600-ship Navy rebuild......