Should Trump Bring Back WWII-Era Battleships?

Honestly... they really are superfluous at this point. The age of trading broadsides has long since ended. Their long guns do a quarter or less of the distance that anti-ship missiles travel, with the only real benefit that the projectile cannot be effectively intercepted (though I'm sure they'd love to let CIWS give it a go to disprove that). Meanwhile, the boats are still susceptible below the waterline. The only real benefit is the amount of firepower they can carry and deliver down range from one platform, but it's still massively underpowered compared to our carrier groups, and afforded very little of the same protection... unless you're talking about reinstituting the Battle Groups of old. Which doesn't really offer that much of a benefit over sending out a strike group sans the BB.

I think they probably are best serving where they are: as monuments to the final sunset of the nautical era of thundering cannons and plundering. And, as a great man pointed out once, "the cannons don't thunder, there's nothing to plunder, I'm an over-40 victim of fate."

Never happen. As I've said before, DDG's can deliver more chemical and kinetic energy downrange, at a fraction of the manpower and money cost, than the BB's ever could. And I say this as someone that's sailed in a fleet with them, has seen them alongside frequently. Love, love love them. But, their day is done.

I really believe that missiles are great but an EMP no matter how it was deployed drops airborne missiles and wrecks non-launched missiles. Good old 18 inch shells can not be stopped once shot.