Naval strategy, naval power: uses & abuses

[carl]

Simple. It was built for deterrence, for looking good in wargames.
The Soviets did not intend to wage WW3.

Nobody intended to wage WWIII. If it had started it would have been a mistake. But if it had started they would have deployed those boats and they would have fought and as such the boats were built to fight. Deterrence doesn't work if you are faking it. Building weapons without the genuine determination to use them if needed isn't deterrence. I'll accept that those boats were built to help deter but that means they were meant to fight.

The RN of the 1880's and 1890's (spit and polish school era)can hardly have built its battleships for peer2peer fights because there was no peer.
The same goes for the USN. There is no fleet that could oppose more than a fraction of it...

The RN and USN that you cite had created a situation whereby they dominated the seas of the world. They did that by fighting. In order to preserve that situation they maintained their dominance by replacing ships, modernizing them and maintaining superiority in naval power. By doing that they kept a peer power from arising. That was the whole point. It worked. But it would not have worked if those ships had not had genuine naval capabilities, i.e. if they had not been able to fight.

Again; it would look very different and not so land-attack-centric if it was about patrols for securing global maritime trade.
It would have many multi-purpose cruisers for independent action, many sea control ships, much less amphibious capacity, less cruise missiles.

And again, I accept the judgment of the USN as to what is needed in preference to yours.

The people who built, manned and paid for these navies said they did so because they might need them in case a fight came up. I think I'll take them at their word and disregard yours.