I was reading a paper a few days ago about the Arizona- well, about her generation of battleships, she was a part of it- and what their fates were going to be if WWII hadn't started when it did. The first wave of retirements would have come with the South Dakota-class ships reaching full service in 1942-43, and would have consisted of the Arkansas, New York, Texas, and Oklahoma (this due to her triple-expansion engines making her slower than the turbine-powered ships like her sister). These would have been roughly on a one-for-one basis as the South Dakotas came online.
The Iowas would have had little effect, due to their not operating as part of the battle line anyway, but as Montana-class ships began arriving, another wave of retirements would have seen Nevada, both Pennsylvanias, and all three New Mexicos head to retirement (Arizona included, of course). This likely would have entailed a situation similar to what we actually saw with some retirements in that day- the example given was the training ship Wyoming, which was put to rest at the end of the war- her crew packed up their belongings, walked down the gangplank for the last time, across the pier, and up the gangplank to their new ship, the Mississippi (which had just retired from active service to take over the gunnery school role). The plan, then, would be for Arizona's crew at some point to leave their ship and transfer aboard as the core of the new crew of a Montana.
It made for interesting thinking, as I read about the last Arizona crewmember leaving us, to wonder what might have been if things had gone differently. Would a Montana have survived the kind of hits that sank Arizona, what would the war look like with this different battle line (and of course with Japan also building new toys)... and would we remember the Arizona at all, retired and spending this hypothetical late-1940s war in mothballs or already cut up for steel, as anything other than a historical footnote?
Of course, no musing like that is complete without acknowledging the men who make a ship like that a fighting unit, rather than a collection of steel plates and parts. Condolences to his family, and with the last of them gone may their sould be at peace.
