Comments by "Bill Webb" (@billwebb9643) on "Blaming The Victims: The USS Iowa Turret Disaster 1989 | Plainly Difficult Documentary" video.

Reagan just wanted a 600 ship navy - what that navy should consist of was somebody else's idea. Blame them. The main impetus for bringing battleships back was to serve as missile carriers. By the late 80's there were lots of smaller ships coming on line with abundant vertical launch tubes for missiles, which rendered the BBs redundant. At that point the only thing special about the BBs was those huge guns, which is probably why the navy was so keen to run experiments proving how badass those guns could be - to keep the battleships relevant. That said, I would say that bringing back forty-year-old ships, with hundred-year-old technology, and trying to do so on the cheap, turned out to be very, very stupid.
1