NGFS=Naval Gun Fire Support. Guns are cheaper then missiles for artillery missions.
The fact is they're less then ideal for NGFS, but that is the role they were retained for.
As warships the Dreadnought concept never panned out IMHO. ?
I did know what NGFS stands for.
We do just fine without blowing people up in 16 inch turrets.
You're forgetting that the dreadnought is simply an extension of the centuries old 'ship of the line.' These ships were absolutely essential to any navy projecting power. At the start of WWI, airpower was in its infancy; with no clear successor, why would any admiral want to change a centuries old tradition? Would a line of destroyers or 'destroyer leaders' (Japanese) have the same impact on foreign policy, for example?
The principal difference is that by the time the dreadnought is introduced, several other technologies were coming into their own - namely airpower and the torpedo. There simply weren't many chances for battleships to tangle directly with the enemy -
- but there certainly were near misses. What if the Japanese had continued with their big guns towards Rear Admiral Sprague's force in the Battle of Samar? As it was, they caused considerable damage before being 'fooled' into retreating. Had they continued, the battleships and destroyers would have been powerless to stop them. The fact is, throughout the war, battleships were not needlessly risked because they cost so damned much to the nations that built them.
That being said, they certainly remained priority targets throughout the war because of their recognized and understood potential to devestate the enemy. They had weaknesses, of course. As for vulnerability to torpedos, that varied on which ship is in question. Look how many torps were required to actually sink the
Bismarck, for example - and that's
after she was set ablaze by hundreds of rounds of ammunition.
To the question of vulnerability to air attack, that is a legitimate concern. However, I would point out that not all battleships were equal here, either. American battleships of the Second World War tended to have formidable anti aircraft armament. They frequently downed aircraft headed for the carriers (or themselves) they were assigned to protect. In the above example, imagine a
South Dakota or
North Carolina class battleship in the same situation. I don't think the Swordfish would have been as successful in penetrating that kind of firepower.
Other navies did not have the same emphasis on this protection which lead to disasterous results; i.e. the Royal Navy's Force Z in the Pacific.
You mention the battle of Jutland; what we see there is similar to what we see on land in the First World War. A stalemate, of sorts. Technology was so similar between the fleets, it was difficult to truly obtain a decisive victory - there was no real 'game changer' employed yet. This fault, however, cannot be directly assigned to the vessels themselves. The dreadnought, whether battlecruiser or battleship, was not strategically irrelevant. If Britain hadn't built any, but Germany had, what do you think the balance of power would have been? It sure wouldn't have been decided by destroyers with torpedos - at that point in the war, the big guns were far more effective at range than the destroyers trying to line up for attack runs. Were some successful at Jutland? Of course, but only because they had the protection or the cover from their own BBs. Dreadnoughts only seemed irrelevant due to their inability to achieve a decisive victory.
As warships the Dreadnought concept never panned out IMHO
One argument I will clearly make is that there is no way a Dreadnought era vessel is inferior to a pre-dreadnought battleship in any way, shape, or form. Dreadnoughts were faster, more heavily armored, and far more lethal in battle due to their standard armaments. Half of the guns in pre-dreadnought designs were useless if the sea was the slightest bit rough.
If you want to get specific, I would concede that the concept of the 'battlecruiser' was certainly flawed, or at least the way they were employed was flawed. THAT is why the British losses were so high; Lord Fisher placed so much importance on these vessels (and, lets be honest, they certainly LOOKED the part when floating next to a battleship) that they lead the way during the engagement and suffered the price of cheap armor for speed.
The painful and cliched example which puts an exclamation point on the subject is the fate of the
HMS Hood. Ironically, she was due for a refit and more than likely would have had the time to undergo the modifications had the
Bismarck not sailed when he did.