I agree. Keep all four on the NVR, but rotate them through refits and commissions so one is always in active service but all are relatively up to date.
Keep the one in service based near Annapolis and USNA as a training ship. Like the Coasties do with Eagle.
The whole “Phase II” thing with the Iowas in the 80s was a pipe dream to get them back into service. There’s no way that the USMC would have allowed anyone to cut those 12 16” barrels (combined) out of them without putting up a huge and messy fight.
What's surprising is that the author omitted the one modification to the BBs that was actually field tested, and would have been very effective.
In the 80's the Navy had developed a rocket boosted shell for the BBs...with a range of 200+ miles. This would have put about 90% of the world's cities within range.
And instead of sending a Tomahawk cruise missile, at $1 million + each..to take out a building and/or a few tents, one shell from one turret could have done the job at about 2% of the cost.
IIRC..the tests were very promising. Ultimately the Navy dropped the program, because it did NOT want to keep the BBs in service..they were viewed as too costly to operate primarily because of the size of the crew..about 2,200. By comparison, the Zumwalt class of DD's has a crew of 140.
Off topic, but that type of "cost saving" may turn out to be very expensive, in money and lives. One of the main advantages of a large crew is in damage control...and the newer ships simply don't have enough bodies to do the job. A modern DD takes a missile hit...maybe 30-40% of the crew is killed or injured..Most left are needed to man and fight the ship...who's gonna do the Dc repairs to save her? Or maybe the Navy's thinking is that with modern surface skimming ship killer missiles..there won't be anything left ?