Looking for a post nuclear war fiction book about a ship sent on a mission to continue the war

Question

I am looking for a science fiction, post nuclear war, sea going warship based book I read in the late '80s or early '90s.

The book takes place on a stealth warship carrying nuclear missiles and fighter air craft. The ship was one of four American nuclear stereotypes ships and the only one to survive. It has all its weapons under armor that opens and allows them to fire then be retracted to survive attack.

The ship is sent in a mission by government reps but no one is sure if the government is still around, or if the reps really speak for it. There is conflict between crew members in whether to make another nuclear attack or just concentrate on finding somewhere safe to live. Several battles are fought a slowly the ship is more damaged, I believe it ends with the ship being abandoned after being heavily damaged and the crew hoping to have found somewhere to survive.

Answer 1

Possibly The Last Ship by William Brinkley?

The unimaginable has happened. The world has been plunged into all-out nuclear war. Sailing near the Arctic Circle, the U.S.S. Nathan James is relatively unscathed, but the future is grim and Captain Thomas is facing mutiny from the tattered remnants of his crew. With civilization in ruins, he urges those that remain—one-hundred-and-fifty-two men and twenty-six women—to pull together in search of land. Once they reach safety, however, the men and women on board realize that they are earth's last remaining survivors—and they've all been exposed to radiation. When none of the women seems able to conceive, fear sets in. Will this be the end of humankind?

The timing is right as this was published in 1988, though the details don't match exactly. The ship carries cruise missiles but I don't think it carries any aircraft.

Answer 2

Fire Lance by David Mace (1986)

From this review:

Firelance is set in the near future, in the aftermath of a nuclear war between the Soviet Bloc and NATO. 'Nuclear Winter' has descended and most of the planet is in the grip of freezing temperatures, constant gales and storms, and perpetual twilight. Despite the ruined state of civilization, the US military apparatus is intent on eliminating the last vestiges of the USSR and an enormous, high-tech battleship, the 'Vindicator', is sent on a one-way mission across the North Atlantic. Once the ship arrives at a predetermined location it is instructed to launch volleys of cruise missiles - the 'firelances' of the book's title- at what remains of the USSR.

Of course, the few surviving units of the Soviet Navy and Air Force are in no mood to let the Vindicator complete its mission, so the ship is subjected to a variety of attacks en route to its firing point. Will the Vindicator survive to complete its orders ? Will its crew carry out what is essentially a suicide mission ? Will any of the crew have doubts as to the ethics of bombarding eastern Europe with a fresh round of nukes ?

Answer 3

It's definitely Fire Lance. The nuclear-armed cruise missile battleship, the VSTOL fighters, the sensors and weapons with their armoured retraction boxes, the increasingly dubious and authoritarian political controllers... yes, Fire Lance. No doubt at all. It's out of print but used copies turn up quite regularly on Amazon.