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*** Both sides were reluctant to commit battleships to Guadalcanal, because the constricted waters in the Solomons meant cruisers and destroyers hiding amidst the islands could easily get within torpedo range -- as proved to be the case in the first night of the Naval Battle of Guadalcanal. Battleships (''Hiei'' and ''Kirishima'' on the Japanese side, ''South Dakota'' and ''Washington'' on the American side) only came into play when the fierce fighting meant that both sides just straight up ''ran out of aircraft carriers''.
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*** Both sides were reluctant to commit battleships to Guadalcanal, because the constricted waters in the Solomons meant cruisers a) there was a much higher than normal chance of hitting something with your big unwieldy ship, and destroyers hiding amidst the islands b) smaller ships (cruisers, destroyers, maybe particularly audacious PT boats) could easily use the cover of various islands to get within into torpedo range -- range, where they could dish out disproportionate damage- which actually happened multiple times, such as proved to be the case in the first night of the Naval Battle of Guadalcanal.Guadalcanal, wherein several US destroyers were able to get in so close to the battleships that they couldn't be effectively targeted. Battleships (''Hiei'' and ''Kirishima'' on the Japanese side, ''South Dakota'' and ''Washington'' on the American side) only came into play when the fierce fighting meant that both sides just straight up ''ran out of aircraft carriers''.
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** One of the biggest flaws (and the reason for the above) is that the ships were TooAwesomeToUse[[note]]In fact, ''Yamato'' and ''Musashi'' spent most of their careers either docked in naval bases or moving between them[[/note]] and the Allies knew it. This prevented the ships from being used as a threat to shipping (not helped by the fact that the different nature of the Pacific meant there was less merchant shipping for them to target in the first place) and thus the Allies didn't really put any effort into sinking them until they were forced to sortie in desperation. They ended up costing Japan a ''lot'' more money than it took for America to sink them. Contrast the careers of the German battleships ''Scharnhorst'', ''Gneisenau'', and ''Tirpitz''. These were designed for merchant raiding and even when they weren't sailing, the threats they posed required a lot of active planning from the Allies, like using capital ships as escorts. While ''Tirpitz'' had an even less successful career than ''Yamato'' on paper, she cost the Allies more than ''fifteen times'' her total build and maintenance cost to finally sink, and more if you consider the cost of escorting convoys against her. The ''Yamato''s, on the other hand, were sunk without doing much of anything - at best, ''Yamato'' temporarily disabled the USS ''White Plains'' with a near-miss, and is theorized to have contributed to sinking the USS ''Gambier Bay'' - or any real effort expended hunting them. To put it in perspective, SS ''Lawton B. Evans'' and SS ''Stephen Hopkins'', both armed merchant ships, had more successful combat careers than ''Musashi'' did.[[note]]For those curious, the former provided some rather effective shore bombardment and shot down several planes in support of amphibious operations. The latter scored a MutualKill against a German commerce raider.[[/note]]
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** One of the biggest flaws (and the reason for the above) is that the ships were TooAwesomeToUse[[note]]In fact, ''Yamato'' and ''Musashi'' spent most of their careers either docked in naval bases or moving between them[[/note]] and the Allies knew it. This prevented the ships from being used as a threat to shipping (not helped by the fact that the different nature of the Pacific meant there was less merchant shipping for them to target in the first place) and thus the Allies didn't really put any effort into sinking them until they were forced to sortie in desperation. They ended up costing Japan a ''lot'' more money than it took for America to sink them. Contrast the careers of the German battleships ''Scharnhorst'', ''Gneisenau'', and ''Tirpitz''. These were designed for merchant raiding and even when they weren't sailing, the threats they posed required a lot of active planning from the Allies, like using capital ships as escorts. While ''Tirpitz'' had an even less successful career than ''Yamato'' on paper, she cost the Allies more than ''fifteen times'' her total build and maintenance cost to finally sink, and more if you consider the cost of escorting convoys against her. The ''Yamato''s, on the other hand, were sunk without doing much of anything - at best, ''Yamato'' temporarily disabled the USS ''White Plains'' with a near-miss, [[NearMisses near-miss]], and is theorized to have contributed to sinking the USS ''Gambier Bay'' - or any real effort expended hunting them. To put it in perspective, SS ''Lawton B. Evans'' and SS ''Stephen Hopkins'', both armed merchant ships, had more successful combat careers than ''Musashi'' did.[[note]]For those curious, the former provided some rather effective shore bombardment and shot down several planes in support of amphibious operations. The latter scored a MutualKill against a German commerce raider.[[/note]]
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* During the First World War, when trench warfare dominated the battlefields of Europe, one invention that was popular among soldiers was the [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Periscope_rifle Periscope Rifle]] . This kind of weapon, [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin as its name states]], is a rifle attached to a periscope (and a large wooden stock), which enables any soldier using it to fire while still being concealed below cover. In the static trenches of [=WWI=], it makes perfect sense at face value. However, shooting (relatively) safely from cover was about the only real advantage such rifles had. Their large, wooden stocks made them very cumbersome to use, carry, and reload, since the entire assembly has to be pulled down to access the bolt. They were also fairly difficult to aim and rather inaccurate to shoot; and their frames did not handle the actual rifle's recoil very well, with the wooden frames flying upward for every shot and requiring a tedious readjustment for the shooter. Unsurprisingly, most sharpshooters & snipers in the various militaries of the war simply opted for the standard scoped rifle when actually trying to hit enemies.
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** What made the battleship become obsolete isn't so much their increased vulnerability but rather their decreased combat effectiveness compared to other ships. Contrary to popular belief, military technology doesn't become obsolete when it experiences new counters[[note]]As deploying that countered equipment forces the enemy to invest time, resources, and space - both in terms of storage space and space on the ship for whatever system fires the counter - to continue to manufacture, carry, and deploy the counter[[/note]], but rather when something else can perform the same task but better. For battleships, they were viable from the 1870s to 1940s because their combination of firepower and armor was necessary for when a sizable navy needed to stand their ground (ocean?) and fight. However, by the end of [=WW2=], carriers could both attack and defend themselves at much longer ranges, cruisers could be in more places at once, and destroyers were far cheaper and could do disproportionate damage with a lucky torpedo strike, plus do any odd jobs the fleet needed. Some, like the Iowas, stuck around because they had other uses (in the Iowas' case, they were fast enough to operate in a single force with the carriers and made great escorts, and their 16-inch guns were excellent for shore bombardment and cheaper than missiles for that purpose), but the main purpose of the battleship ended as soon as other ships, especially the carriers, really got going. One of the major silver linings in the aftermath of Pearl Harbor was that despite all the tonnage sunk in the attack, the Japanese had focused on destroying American Battleships, and none of her Pacific-based carriers were in the harbor at the time; two were at sea (''Enterprise'' was returning from Wake Island, and ''Lexington'' was delivering planes to Midway) and the ''Saratoga'' was in San Diego.
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** What made the battleship become obsolete isn't so much their increased vulnerability but rather their decreased combat effectiveness compared to other ships. Contrary to popular belief, military technology doesn't become obsolete when it experiences new counters[[note]]As deploying that countered equipment forces the enemy to invest time, resources, and space - both in terms of storage space and space on the ship for whatever system fires the counter - to continue to manufacture, carry, and deploy the counter[[/note]], counter.[[/note]], but rather when something else can perform the same task but better. For battleships, they were viable from the 1870s to 1940s because their combination of firepower and armor was necessary for when a sizable navy needed to stand their ground (ocean?) and fight. However, by the end of [=WW2=], carriers could both attack and defend themselves at much longer ranges, cruisers could be in more places at once, and destroyers were far cheaper and could do disproportionate damage with a lucky torpedo strike, plus do any odd jobs the fleet needed. Some, Some battleships, like the Iowas, ''Iowa''s, stuck around because they had other uses (in the Iowas' their case, they the ''Iowa''s were fast enough to operate in a single force with the carriers and made great escorts, and their 16-inch guns were excellent for shore bombardment and cheaper than missiles for that purpose), but the main purpose of the battleship ended as soon as other ships, especially the carriers, really got going. One of the major silver linings in the aftermath of Pearl Harbor was that despite all the tonnage sunk in the attack, the Japanese had focused on destroying American Battleships, and none of her Pacific-based carriers were in the harbor at the time; two were at sea (''Enterprise'' was returning from Wake Island, and ''Lexington'' was delivering planes to Midway) and the ''Saratoga'' was in San Diego.
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* Laser weapons struggle to find use outside of point defense systems on naval ships and stationary bases. Compared to conventional projectile weapons, lasers have a lower cost per shot, don't require carrying warheads or propellant charges that can cause catastrophic explosions if hit, and can instantaneously hit fast-moving targets because they travel at the speed of light. However, a power plant to supply the necessary amount of electric current is too large and heavy to be carried by a single person or installed in most aircraft or ground vehicles. As a result, such weapons can only be found on either a ship (which are large enough to have the internal volume to justify said large powerplant) or a land base (which doesn't have to worry about powerplant size or weight) . Furthermore, while lasers can easily melt fragile equipment (such as drones, missiles and planes), a laser needs to shoot at one spot continuously for a long time to burn through hardier targets like bunkers and tanks. That requires the user to spend a longer time exposed to attack, and exacerbates the already-high energy consumption. Even worse is that aerial debris like dust, sand and smoke can block laser beams. So while laser weapons may have advantages in point defense against airborne threats, they're not yet powerful or adaptable enough to serve as a primary offensive armament against surface targets.
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* Laser weapons struggle to find use outside of point defense systems on naval ships and stationary bases. Compared to conventional projectile weapons, lasers have a lower cost per shot, don't require carrying warheads or propellant charges that can cause catastrophic explosions if hit, and can instantaneously hit fast-moving targets because they travel at the speed of light. However, a power plant to supply the necessary amount of electric current is too large and heavy to be carried by a single person or installed in most aircraft or ground vehicles. As a result, such weapons can only be found on either a ship (which are large enough to have the internal volume to justify said large powerplant) or a land base (which doesn't have to worry about powerplant size or weight) .weight given their stationary nature). Furthermore, while lasers can easily melt fragile equipment (such as drones, missiles and planes), a laser needs to shoot at one spot continuously for a long time to burn through hardier targets like bunkers and tanks. That requires the user to spend a longer time exposed to attack, and exacerbates the already-high energy consumption. Even worse is that aerial debris like dust, sand and smoke can block laser beams. So while laser weapons may have advantages in point defense against airborne threats, they're not yet powerful or adaptable enough to serve as a primary offensive armament against surface targets.
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* In terms of airstrikes specifically, [[AirstrikeImpossible high risk, highly planned operations]] which use a large amount of aircraft tend not to produce worthwhile results due to the sheer fact that, as advanced and complicated as military aircraft are, the room for errors are ''incredibly'' small; as opposed to ground operations, where at least there is a ''chance'' to pull back and reconsider your options if something unexpected happens, in an air battle there is quite literally nothing between you and the enemy, with nowhere to hide. So, if something goes wrong, such as a premature loss of vital aircraft, unexpectedly heavy defenses, or unforseen changes in the weather the only option you have is to press the attack, follow the plan as best as you can, and ''hope'' things turn out okay. Such was the case of [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Tidal_Wave Operation Tidal Wave]], where the precise, low-level multi-squadron airstrike on the Ploiești oil refineries went to all hell due to a combination of mechanical failures, breakdowns in communication, and unexpected defenses that rendered the high-stakes operation AllForNothing with heavy casualties and no lasting effect on the refineries themselves. Of course if you want something of a more modern area, refer to the abortive [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Package_Q_Strike Package Q]] operation, which, like Tidal Wave, saw several separate failures pike up to ultimately render the entire mission useless, and which was later ''successfully'' completed by a smaller strike. When it comes to massed aircraft attacks, the simpler the operation, the better--for an Airstrike Impossible that ''did'' succeed, look at [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Catechism Operation Catechism,]] one of many operations to sink the German battleship ''Tirpitz''; the entire mission essentially boiled down to "get a shit-ton of [[BigBulkyBomb Tallboy Bombs]], load them onto a squadron of Avro Lancasters, and ''[[ThereIsNoKillLikeOverkill bomb that fucking ship to kingdom come]]''." And hey, it worked! Granted, it took ''three'' operations to finish her off (the failed operations ''Paravane'' and ''Obviate'', followed by the successful ''Catechism'' - and those are just the ones specifically carried out by the RAF's No. 5 Group) and succeeded mainly because ''Tirpitz'' was unable to move on her own power due to her destroyed engines, but it was the first operation ''Paravane'' which left ''Tirpitz'' stranded at Tromsø with damage too heavy to allow her to sail - the Norwegians said "''Tirpitz'' lived a life of a loner and died a death of a cripple" - and the losses compared to the disastrous ''Operation Tidal Wave'' mentioned above were much lower, with a(n eventually) successful outcome.
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* In terms of airstrikes specifically, [[AirstrikeImpossible high risk, highly planned operations]] which use a large amount of aircraft tend not to produce worthwhile results due to the sheer fact that, as advanced and complicated as military aircraft are, the room for errors are ''incredibly'' small; as opposed to ground operations, where at least there is a ''chance'' to pull back and reconsider your options if something unexpected happens, in an air battle there is quite literally nothing between you and the enemy, with nowhere to hide. So, if something goes wrong, such as a premature loss of vital aircraft, unexpectedly heavy defenses, or unforseen changes in the weather the only option you have is to press the attack, follow the plan as best as you can, and ''hope'' things turn out okay. Such was the case of [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Tidal_Wave Operation Tidal Wave]], where the precise, low-level multi-squadron airstrike on the Ploiești oil refineries went to all hell due to a combination of mechanical failures, breakdowns in communication, and unexpected defenses that rendered the high-stakes operation AllForNothing with heavy casualties and no lasting effect on the refineries themselves. Of course if you want something of a more modern area, refer to the abortive [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Package_Q_Strike Package Q]] operation, which, like Tidal Wave, saw several separate failures pike up to ultimately render the entire mission useless, and which was later ''successfully'' completed by a smaller strike. When it comes to massed aircraft attacks, the simpler the operation, the better--for an Airstrike Impossible that ''did'' succeed, look at [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Catechism Operation Catechism,]] one of many operations to sink the German battleship ''Tirpitz''; the entire mission essentially boiled down to "get a shit-ton of [[BigBulkyBomb Tallboy Bombs]], load them onto a squadron of Avro Lancasters, and ''[[ThereIsNoKillLikeOverkill bomb that fucking ship to kingdom come]]''." And hey, it worked! Granted, it took ''three'' operations to finish her off (the failed operations ''Paravane'' and ''Obviate'', followed by the successful ''Catechism'' - and those are just the ones specifically carried out by the RAF's No. 5 Group) Group, which only accounted for about ''half'' the individual operations to sink the ''Tirpitz'') and succeeded mainly because ''Tirpitz'' was unable to move on her own power due to her destroyed engines, but it was the first operation ''Paravane'' which left ''Tirpitz'' stranded at Tromsø with damage too heavy to allow her to sail - the Norwegians said "''Tirpitz'' lived a life of a loner and died a death of a cripple" - and the losses compared to the disastrous ''Operation Tidal Wave'' mentioned above were much lower, with a(n eventually) successful outcome.
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* In terms of airstrikes specifically, [[AirstrikeImpossible high risk, highly planned operations]] which use a large amount of aircraft tend not to produce worthwhile results due to the sheer fact that, as advanced and complicated as military aircraft are, the room for errors are ''incredibly'' small; as opposed to ground operations, where at least there is a ''chance'' to pull back and reconsider your options if something unexpected happens, in an air battle there is quite literally nothing between you and the enemy, with nowhere to hide. So, if something goes wrong, such as a premature loss of vital aircraft, unexpectedly heavy defenses, or unforseen changes in the weather the only option you have is to press the attack, follow the plan as best as you can, and ''hope'' things turn out okay. Such was the case of [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Tidal_Wave Operation Tidal Wave]], where the precise, low-level multi-squadron airstrike on the Ploiești oil refineries went to all hell due to a combination of mechanical failures, breakdowns in communication, and unexpected defenses that rendered the high-stakes operation AllForNothing with heavy casualties and no lasting effect on the refineries themselves. Of course if you want something of a more modern area, refer to the abortive [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Package_Q_Strike Package Q]] operation, which, like Tidal Wave, saw several separate failures pike up to ultimately render the entire mission useless, and which was later ''successfully'' completed by a smaller strike. When it comes to massed aircraft attacks, the simpler the operation, the better--for an Airstrike Impossible that ''did'' succeed, look at [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Catechism Operation Catechism,]] the operation to sink the German battleship ''Tirpitz''; the entire mission essentially boiled down to "get a shit-ton of [[BigBulkyBomb Tallboy]] Bombs, load them onto a squadron of Avro Lancasters (the only plane capable of holding said bomb), and ''[[ThereIsNoKillLikeOverkill bomb that fucking ship to kingdom come]].'' And hey, it worked! Granted, it took three operations to finish her off (the failed operations ''Paravane'' and ''Obviate'', followed by the successful ''Catechism'') and succeeded mainly because ''Tirpitz'' was unable to move on her own power due to her destroyed engines, but it was the first operation ''Paravane'' which left ''Tirpitz'' stranded at Tromsø with damage too heavy to allow her to sail, and the losses compared to the disastrous ''Operation Tidal Wave'' mentioned above were much lower, with a (eventually) successful outcome. The Norwegians said ''Tirpitz lived a life of a loner and died a death of a cripple''.
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* In terms of airstrikes specifically, [[AirstrikeImpossible high risk, highly planned operations]] which use a large amount of aircraft tend not to produce worthwhile results due to the sheer fact that, as advanced and complicated as military aircraft are, the room for errors are ''incredibly'' small; as opposed to ground operations, where at least there is a ''chance'' to pull back and reconsider your options if something unexpected happens, in an air battle there is quite literally nothing between you and the enemy, with nowhere to hide. So, if something goes wrong, such as a premature loss of vital aircraft, unexpectedly heavy defenses, or unforseen changes in the weather the only option you have is to press the attack, follow the plan as best as you can, and ''hope'' things turn out okay. Such was the case of [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Tidal_Wave Operation Tidal Wave]], where the precise, low-level multi-squadron airstrike on the Ploiești oil refineries went to all hell due to a combination of mechanical failures, breakdowns in communication, and unexpected defenses that rendered the high-stakes operation AllForNothing with heavy casualties and no lasting effect on the refineries themselves. Of course if you want something of a more modern area, refer to the abortive [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Package_Q_Strike Package Q]] operation, which, like Tidal Wave, saw several separate failures pike up to ultimately render the entire mission useless, and which was later ''successfully'' completed by a smaller strike. When it comes to massed aircraft attacks, the simpler the operation, the better--for an Airstrike Impossible that ''did'' succeed, look at [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Catechism Operation Catechism,]] the operation one of many operations to sink the German battleship ''Tirpitz''; the entire mission essentially boiled down to "get a shit-ton of [[BigBulkyBomb Tallboy]] Bombs, Tallboy Bombs]], load them onto a squadron of Avro Lancasters (the only plane capable of holding said bomb), Lancasters, and ''[[ThereIsNoKillLikeOverkill bomb that fucking ship to kingdom come]].'' come]]''." And hey, it worked! Granted, it took three ''three'' operations to finish her off (the failed operations ''Paravane'' and ''Obviate'', followed by the successful ''Catechism'') ''Catechism'' - and those are just the ones specifically carried out by the RAF's No. 5 Group) and succeeded mainly because ''Tirpitz'' was unable to move on her own power due to her destroyed engines, but it was the first operation ''Paravane'' which left ''Tirpitz'' stranded at Tromsø with damage too heavy to allow her to sail, sail - the Norwegians said "''Tirpitz'' lived a life of a loner and died a death of a cripple" - and the losses compared to the disastrous ''Operation Tidal Wave'' mentioned above were much lower, with a (eventually) a(n eventually) successful outcome. The Norwegians said ''Tirpitz lived a life of a loner and died a death of a cripple''.outcome.
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*** For that matter, anti-ship missiles took the battleship from obsolescent to full-on obsolete. Now ''any'' ship could provide torpedo-grade anti-ship firepower at a range battleship guns couldn't respond to. Vessels of inferior tonnage had moved from having a reasonable chance of crippling/destroying a battleship to a near certainty, and it also provided far better means for aircraft to destroy them than torpedoes and bombs. It's not a coincidence that the last battleships began to disappear right around when viable anti-ship missiles began to proliferate. At the same time, anti-ship missiles pose a huge threat to any ship, especially aircraft carriers, which don't even have the armor plating of battleships to give them a little more survivability. It's for this reason that [[RedsWithRockets Soviet]] tactics for facing US carrier battle groups was to attack with a combination of submarines and [[MacrossMissileMassacre a crapload of surface and air-launched missiles]], something which the Chinese were happy to adopt and improve on by utilizing their own anti-ship missiles, including ballistic anti-ship missiles.
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*** For that matter, anti-ship missiles took the battleship from obsolescent to full-on obsolete. Now ''any'' ship could provide torpedo-grade anti-ship firepower at a range battleship guns couldn't respond to. Vessels of inferior tonnage had moved from having a reasonable chance of crippling/destroying a battleship to a near certainty, and it also provided far better means for aircraft to destroy them than torpedoes and bombs. It's not a coincidence that the last battleships began to disappear right around when viable anti-ship missiles began to proliferate. At the same time, anti-ship missiles pose a huge threat to any ship, especially aircraft carriers, which don't even have the armor plating of battleships to give them a little more survivability. It's for this reason that [[RedsWithRockets [[UsefulNotes/RedsWithRockets Soviet]] tactics for facing US carrier battle groups was to attack with a combination of submarines and [[MacrossMissileMassacre a crapload of surface and air-launched missiles]], something which the Chinese were happy to adopt and improve on by utilizing their own anti-ship missiles, including ballistic anti-ship missiles.
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** The Royal Navy took the battlecruiser concept to an extreme with the ''Courageous'' class of "large light cruisers", built early in the First World War. They had two twin 15-inch gun turrets, one each forward and aft, a few secondary guns, and very little armor. They were so lightly built that firing the main guns caused damage throughout the ship. They had little success in the war, and in the 1920s all three were converted into aircraft carriers. In that role they were useful, but Admiralty blunders resulted in the loss of ''Courageous'' and ''Glorious'' to German attackers early in the Second World War.
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* The real life USS ''Enterprise'' (specifically the nuclear carrier, not her legendary, but conventionally-powered, UsefulNotes/WorldWarII namesake), which is powered by ''eight'' nuclear reactors. Why eight? Conventional large aircraft carriers had eight boilers, so logically the "Big E" should have eight ''nuclear'' boilers, right? Also, the size of the boilers matched up nicely with the reactors that the Navy had already been building for submarines, meaning it was much simpler to adapt than to create a massive new reactor (which they later did). Fortunately, the USN realized how silly the eight nuclear reactors were after drastic cost overruns nixed the five sister ships she was supposed to have (and resulted in the next two carriers being conventionally-powered), to the point that engineers realized even a ship that big only needed two nuclear reactors (though ''Nimitz''-class reactors are much larger and more powerful).
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* The real life real-life USS ''Enterprise'' (specifically -- specifically the nuclear carrier, carrier (CVN-65), not her legendary, but conventionally-powered, UsefulNotes/WorldWarII namesake), namesake (CV-6) -- which is powered by ''eight'' nuclear reactors. Why eight? Conventional large aircraft carriers had eight boilers, so logically the "Big E" should have eight ''nuclear'' boilers, right? Also, the size of the boilers matched up nicely with the reactors that the Navy had already been building for submarines, meaning it was much simpler to adapt than to create a massive new reactor (which they later did). Fortunately, the USN realized how silly the eight nuclear reactors were after drastic cost overruns nixed the five sister ships she was supposed to have (and resulted in the next two carriers being conventionally-powered), to the point that engineers realized even a ship that big only needed two nuclear reactors (though ''Nimitz''-class reactors are much larger and more powerful).
