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Propeller planes sank the largest warship ever built.

Are you saying Exocet and Harpoon missiles would not sink a WWII era battleship?

Are you saying Exocet and Harpoon missiles would not sink a WWII era battleship?

Both of those missiles have a warhead weighing less than 500lbs.

Might tear up some superstructure and start some fires.

But sink? No.

Propeller planes sank the largest warship ever built.

Yes. But those planes were equipped with weapons no longer in any nation's inventory. When navies moved away from armored ships, nations quit stocking armor-piercing weapons. That's the point, as I mentioned several times.

It's not the delivery system (propeller or jet or warp drive), it's the weapon. There are, for example, no air-delivered heavy torpedoes any more and it's a lot easier to sink ships by letting water in the bottom than by letting air out the top.

In point of fact, the Musashi sank after receiving 13 heavy torpedo hits. The Mk46 (or newer Mk 50) weighs less than a third of what the standard US WWII torpedo weighed, and the warhead is even smaller in proportion.

So, to answer your question directly: If well handled, with reasonable US-standard damage control, then no, an Exocet or Harpoon would not sink an alert US WWII-era battleship. In fact, two Exocets hit the Stark (a frigate with 1/20 of the displacement of a WWII US BB, and no armor) and didn't sink it.

Armored warships, when they were still state-of-the-art, used a 'citadel' design where all the vitals were protected by heavy armor. So Exocets or Harpoons or standard light-case bombs (e.g. Mk 82) or air-launched torpedoes (e.g Mk 50) could damage the ship, but not penetrate enough to cause mortal damage. The most significant risk would be for multiple torpedoes each to take out a shaft and propeller (of which there are four, and separated well enough that one torpedo won't take out more than one). Even then the BB wouldn't sink, but it would be unable to move.

The greatest danger - aside from developing new armor-piercing weapons - would be from submarine launched heavy torpedoes (e.g. Mk 48) . . . and then it would take a lot (Musashi took 13). With reasonable escorts, there aren't many submarines who could stay close to a BB for long enough to get a dozen or more hits.

Any ship can be sunk. The question is whether it would be easier to sink an Iowa-class BB with current inventory weapons than an equivalent cost in other surface ships. I don't advocate building more battleships because new ones would be very expensive, but when they are inventory, it would be much more expensive for adversary nations to develop the weapons to counter them.