In the Gears of War franchise there were battleships, so I guess that counts?
They got utterly annihilated by the Hammer of Dawn though.
They got utterly annihilated by the Hammer of Dawn though.
1) Ethanol can replace hydrocarbons. It's not as energy dense (27MJ/kg v. 40MJ/kg) so range, speed, and payload will suffer. Aircraft designs will be much more specialized and mostly land based because ethanol is miscible with water and saltwater tends to get into everything when you're at sea.A 16-inch naval gun does one thing, and does it well. Aircraft on the other hand can do many things.
If you want a scenario that makes a big mobile armoured artillary platform become the ruler of the seas again... how about this:
1) Serious shortage of hydrocarbon fuels, making the power-projection capability of aircraft a very limited resource.
2) The sun starts doing some fun electro-magnetic stuff, making modern-day electronics no longer reliable. Guided missiles suddenly aren't.
3) Something, I don't know what, to make torpedo-firing submarines no longer viable.
Then you can be back to the era of honking big guns lobbing shells, and people looking through binoculars at the splashes to adjust the range.
Actually, with a fission reactor of sufficient size, you can literally synthesize any hydrocarbon.1) Ethanol can replace hydrocarbons. It's not as energy dense (27MJ/kg v. 40MJ/kg) so range, speed, and payload will suffer. Aircraft designs will be much more specialized and mostly land based because ethanol is miscible with water and saltwater tends to get into everything when you're at sea.
Er, sensor tech is slowly getting to the point that ECM is... not that good unless you deny the spectrum to everyone. IR seekers have been a combination of UV/IR sensors since the Stinger came out back in the '80s.2) AA and ECM rendering anti-ship missiles a waste of resources would also do the trick. This would also make air attacks using unguided munitions an iffy proposition on a good day.
Er, that is a lot harder than it looks. That is unless you want to kill everything in the sea that is. Sonar systems are getting pretty good at sensing if there is a countermeasure out and about.3) Countermeasures capable of reliably confusing a torpedo's guidance system and/or detonator would put things back to unguided ones with a contact detonator which have to run very shallow to hit the target and probably aren't wakeless unless they're battery powered.
For fixed instillations, sure ... but it's a gas with a really low boiling point at 1atm.Due to the availability from sewage, methane powered engines are more likely than alcohol powered engines.
Alchohol as a fuel is literally only exists because corn farmers wanted to raise the price of corn.
You are more likely to see LNG/Propane engines than methane ones due to how hydrocarbons work. Although, to be honest, bio-diesel is just a tad less energetic than regular diesel.Due to the availability from sewage, methane powered engines are more likely than alcohol powered engines.
More like keep the price floor intact. The US is incredibly capable in the corn-growing department and -to be honest- most of it is kind of just sitting there due to how abundant the stuff is. Also, that is all that biofuels are in general.Alchohol as a fuel is literally only exists because corn farmers wanted to raise the price of corn.
Ultimately, the answer is armor. If a ship can stay in a slugging match for hours as in the heyday of battleships, then guns make far mroe sense than missiles.
Active defenses are the new armor if anything. And those are improving rapidly, putting large cannons in the same category as supersonic missiles - counter artillery defenses are a thing now and they were field tested on some occasions, with targets much smaller than battleship sized shells.Ultimately, the answer is armor. If a ship can stay in a slugging match for hours as in the heyday of battleships, then guns make far mroe sense than missiles.