They probably are, but the Ukraine war has not shown that. The only large ship lost by either side was a Russian ship, the Moskva, which was sunk by a Neptune anti-ship missile. Other smaller craft were sunk by naval drones, not necessarily cheap.

> In a recent attack, the destroyer USS Spruance was “in a fight where they shot down three anti-ship ballistic missiles, three anti-ship cruise missiles and seven one-way (aerial drones) that were coming towards” them, said McLane, who didn’t specify when Spruance was attacked.

> On Nov. 11, Spruance and the destroyer USS Stockdale came under Houthi fire, fending off at least eight drones and eight missiles while transiting the Bab el Mandeb, a strait that connects the Red Sea to the Gulf of Aden.

https://www.stripes.com/branches/navy/2025-01-16/houthis-nav...

How come this doesn’t work on Israel?

Yes but you have to account for the barely-functioning melted brain factor. Reality just can't compete when an old man goes "pew pew! zoom!"

Relevance is obviously not the Fuhrer's concern.

https://backintimetoday.com/hitlers-war-follies-the-10-blund...

If you mean in terms of armament, this ship would have more missiles than any other class in the US fleet by a wide margin.

If you mean as a threat, the USN has ships sitting in the Red Sea as the Houthis and Iranians and whoever else sends off drones and missiles and they've all been fine.

Yes-ish. In a serious fight against a peer-ish level adversary, the RoI on such a ship looks very dubious.

But short of that, a huge warship can have great prestige & intimidation value - assuming that it is competently designed, and built, and outfitted, and operated. Naval history is swarming with only-on-paper designs for big warships. And a fair number of real-steel warships which were cripples, glass cannons, or sitting ducks because of incompetence somewhere in that chain.

(Also, the USN is referring to it as a BBG, not BB - https://www.navy.mil/Press-Office/Press-Releases/display-pre... )

check out My Tank Is Fight! if you haven't

so many weird weapons developed over the years

A new surface vehicle for naval warfare is absolutely bonkers in the modern era. Even in the littoral space where notionally you don't have the depth for a sub-surface launcher, the LCS project was a complete bust. For anything in deep water, a submarine platform is so much more useful for projecting force and not a sitting duck.