>>512873557
>That tonnage is a liability. Your better off making lighter ships that are just barely large enough to carry a decent supply of anti-ship missiles
That's only true if you're minmaxing like China is, where it's goal is to dominate solely in the waters immediately around China and destroyed another peer navy. If you want your navy to have endurance and multirole capabilities though it needs tonnage. America's goal isn't solely to dominate its regional waters, for better or worse it has positioned itself as the successor of the British Navy and its aim is to protect international shipping and respond to any crisis anywhere in the world.
Much has been made of comparing the aircraft carrier to the 20th century battleship, but this obsession with antiship missiles is doctrinally far closer to the battleship obsession of the past. A ship that is barely large enough to carry antiship missiles can only do one thing, sink other ships large and as counterintuitive as it sounds there's more to naval operations than sinking ships.
