Until 1941, it was still thought that the battleship would be the decisive unit. Aircraft carriers would be able to damage enemy shipping and allow the battlefleet to resolve the matter. But the damage that aircraft had been able to do at Taranto and then at Pearl Harbour put the battleship down to being subordinate units to the aircraft carrier. With the trials of the Yamato - all the Allied nations could do is stare in awe at the Japanese giants and wonder how much they had been sucked in by. This was even worse than the Invincible's being armed with 9.2" guns. Suckers. You either had to build some equivalents or else hope that sheer weight of numbers could defeat them. As it turned out, electronics would have defeated the Yamato type, you can't win if you can't hit your enemy. Aircraft made it certain that the day of the big battleship was over.



Antarctica laid down two ships to be able to defeat a Yamato class vessel. That was their contribution to what needed to be done against the Japanese giants. Both the US and UK laid down ships as well, but cancelled them in favour of building more aircraft carriers. The Captain Cartier was cancelled early in 1942 and the design transferred to a new set of aircraft carriers. Only the Captain Cook proceeded with construction and was finally completed at the end of 1944. By which time there was nothing left for it to fight. All brute strength, the Captain Cook was at the pinnacle of battleship construction. The 18" guns were an advance on the ones fitted to the Captain Scott. They needed spotter aircraft to make use of their 'over the horizon' capability. Capable of 52,000 yards range, targets 30 miles away would get a nasty surprise.



By 1950 only the three Captain Franklin class and the Captain Cook were left as battleships in the fleet. By 1958 the Captain Philips was the fleet Training ship and only the Captain Cook was still in full fleet service. A year later the Captain Cook is taken out of service to be refitted with missiles. The forward part of the ship would keep its battleship functions while the after part would be stripped out to allow for the fitting of the missile launchers and control systems. The Phalanx CIWS system was fitted once it became available. The 18" guns remained in service and were enhanced in the late 1980's with Rocket Assisted Projectiles which made their range much further, 70,000 odd yards. Provision was made for a helicopter to land aft.

 

Displacement	62,500 tons standard, 70,000 tons full load
Length	848 ft
Breadth	126 ft
Draught	32 ft
Machinery	4 shaft, steam turbines, 200,000shp
Speed	30 knots
Range	12000 miles at 14 knots
Armour	15" side, 7" deck, 16" turrets
	As completed 1944	Guns (refit 1960's)	Missile Equipment
Armament	8 x 18" (4x2) 24 x 5" (12x2) 72 x 40mm (18x4)	4 x 18" (2x2) 12 x 5" (6x2) 12 x 40mm (6x2) 3 x Phalanx CIWS	2 x Twin Scorpion Launchers 2 x Quad Supercat launchers
Aircraft	nil
Complement	2400-2500 as Flagship
Notes	Captain Cook - Last BB in service - Museum ship 1994. Captain Cartier - repurposed as CV