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Originally Posted by Hack&Lube
I think you are confusing the concept of a battleship with an "ironclad". The first ironclad battles ever took place during the American Civil War. I wouldn't call these modern. They were regular wooden boats with iron plating that steamed down rivers and along coastlines.
Modern era battleships didn't really exist until the British Dreadnaughts at the turn of the century which started a battleship arms race. They did dominate the sea and were the mainstays of Navies of all modern states for half of the 20th century until carriers proved they were obsolete midway through WWII. Battleships were still considered so important in the 30s to early 40s that many military treaties included battleship tonnage requirements and all the major powers built huge battleships like the Bismarck and the Yamato. Carriers saw little service in the European theatre, it was mostly battleships, destroyers, escorts, and submarines fighting a sea battle to blockade England/Europe, but the Ark Royal was a big part of the sinking of the Bismarck. The Pacific campaign saw battleships as part of task forces and fleets that the supported the carriers of both Japan and the United States. These could have played a big part in battles such as midway if Japan had not separated their fleet to elude detection.
The US itself built the largest battleships, the Iowa class which were never completed before the war ended but ended up seeing the longest service as Ronald Reagan pressed them back into service in the Cold War in the 1980s.
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Actually I'm pretty sure the Japanese had the biggest battleships ever built. I'm not 100% sure if the Yamato Class were the largest ever buit, but they were definitely larger than the Iowa Class, and the Iowa Class were definitely in service durring the 2nd world war.
Hell, the Japanese signed their surrender on the deck of the Missouri (an Iowa Class).
Edit: Yup, just checked, and the Yamato Class were the largest ever built.
I think you're thinking of the Montana class, which were planned to be bigger than the Iowas, but never built, and were still going to be slightly smaller than the Yamato Class. And again it was the Iowas that were pressed into service in the Cold War, and The Missouri was involved in the Gulf War, as well as the best Steven Segal movie EVER!