>>64377031
Or ... battleships again
Modern ships are pathetic at gunfire/armour. Literally any WW1 (let alone WW2) battleship wins by default if it gets in gun range of any modern surface ship.
So: the only problem a battleship needs to solve is getting in range without being blown up by cringe weapons like drones and missiles. Solution: speed, armour, more speed, and active defence.
Modern ships are tiny and high power. i.e. massively inefficient, because all that power is powering a short hull that runs up against its wave limit speed quickly. That's why the Iowa class museums are still faster than modern fleets, if only just. (33 knots) You need your new battleship to be able to catch anything, even big aircraft carriers though, so it has to be longer and faster still.
The length comes with weight, and you need so much structual strength that thick armour over the keel and deck designs itself. With just steel, you proof the ship against anything except hypersonic missiles, shaped charges and nukes. A layer of ceramic (spaced generously) takes care of shaped charges. Active defences help against everything, now with the bonus of massive power (you need it anyway for all the speed) and the ability to focus fire only on the few munitions that the ship can't simply facetank.
It may even be possible to facetank a hypersonic, though this kind of protection (~20 ft of RHA) is practical only over very small spaces, perhaps just the magazines. Nukes ... well a direct hit fucks anything. A near miss however, is quite survivable for old WW1/WW2 ships with armour that looks puny by comparison to what I'm designing.
Note that drones are just shitty, slow missiles and can be shot down with lasers, or just ignored.
If you happen to be a procurement officer at any major navy (except the Chinese, Indian or Indonesian fleets) come hire this schizo off the internet to redeem your very own SS Freudian Nightmare
