[GreyFriar]

And there was the Alaska Class of battle cruisers that were designed and built during WWII. The USS Alaska and Guam were actually launched, while the Guam was never completed

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alaska-class_cruiser

[GreenLanternCorps]

While the Alaska's are nice ships, they took almost as much resources to build as an Iowa, and had almost as large a crew.

I would trade Alaska and Guam for Kentucky and Illinois and get all six of the Iowas in the war.

As far as the Montana's, while my inner Battleship geek always will love them. They just were not practical compared to getting more Essex class carriers in the war.