I'm going with New York Class battle ships (BB-35) as they have strong main gun armament, and excellent anti-air protection. It could act as it's own fleet.
I'd also like to implement Flood Control. If you wanna keep the ship after X # of hits or X amount of damage, you gotta lets say........ move a little parachute d00d to find the leak, then fix it. Would be a newer aspect of the game.