General The four Iowas were the largest and fastest battleships completed for the US Navy during World War II; in principle they were South Dakotas lengthened for higher speed, the increased displacement being used also to pass from 45 to 50 cal l6 inch guns. In view of the past US preference for protection instead of high speed, 10,000 tons seems a very high price to pay for the jump from 27 to 33 knots. However, the motivation, which parallelled that for the original 30 knot North Carolina design, was the need for ships to form fast carrier task forces. US prewar strategists expected Japan to form such task forces out of her carriers and her large heavy cruisers, for attack upon US lines of communication to the Western Pacific prior to a decisive battle near the home islands; they felt that any fast carriers assigned to action against such task forces would have to be covered by heavy units capable, for example, of defeating the three Japanese Kongo class battlecruisers which might well be detached from the Japanese Battle Force as cover for the carriers - which indeed occurred in 1941.

Careers Design work began in 1938, after rumors of Japanese 46,000-ton battleships led the United States, Britain, and France to agree to invoke the Escalator Clause of the 1936 London Treaty, to raise the limit on displacement from 35,000 to 45,000 tons; in fact the Iowas as built exceeded the latter limit. The existence of three Kongos (the refit of the training ship Hiei was apparently unsuspected as late as 1940) set a lower limit of three Iowas, with a fourth as insurance against the unavailability of anyone of them, and similarly against requirements in the Atlantic. Indeed, in 1940 it was expected that battleship construction would soon revert to the more traditional heavy type, and the first studies of what would become the Montana were made under the designation 'BB65'. However, on 19 July 1940 Congress passed a very large emergency construction program, and the Secretary of the Navy decided that a large part of it would simply duplicate the latest classes already on order, as a means of saving time. Thus two more battleships, BB65 and BB66, were ordered as Iowas rather than as a new class.

Only four out of the six ships were ever completed, and they served in the Fast Carrier Task Force in the latter part of the war. Iowa was built with an enlarged conning tower; to balance its topweight, she was never fitted with a quadruple Bofor guns on No. 2 turret. Ironically, although she was thus designed as a Force Flagship, in fact her sisters also proved quite suitable for that role, New Jersey serving as Fifth Fleet flagship in 1945. Iowa's 20mm and 40mm outfit differed from her sister's: she carried 60 of each. Wartime modifications included some extensions to the bridgework and major additions of light anti-aircraft weapons; surely an unexpected dividend of the great length adopted for high speed was the ease with which light weapons could be added without interfering with the arcs of fire of l6 inch and 5 inch guns. In 1945, Iowa had l9 and her sisters 20 quadruple 40mm mounts. Their 20mm batteries varied: Iowa had 52 single mounts, New Jersey 41 single and 8 twin, Missouri 49 single, and Wisconsin 47 single and 2 twin. The extra mounts in Iowa were atop No 2 turret in place of the 40mm.

Illinois was cancelled in 1945; her engines were later installed in two Fast Replenishment Ships (AOE). Her sister Kentucky was suspended and ultimately launched to clear the building dock at Norfolk Navy; during the 1940s and 1950s she was redesigned several times as a missile-launching battleship (BBG), but ultimately she was scrapped instead. Of the four sisters, all but Missouri (training ship) were laid up before the Korean War; they were then reactivated, and served for a time as fire support ships and Force Flagships before again being consigned to reserve; Iowa 25 August 1951 to 24 February 1958, New Jersey 21 November 1950 to 21 August 1957, Wisconsin 03 March 1951 to 08 March 1958. New Jersey alone was reactivated (and refitted) for fire support duty off Vietnam, 06 April 1968 to 17 December 1969.

Analysis Of Design By all accounts the four Iowas were comfortable, fast ships, capable of making their somewhat extraordinary designed speed and unusually manewverable for their great length, thanks, perhaps, to their twin-rudder design. However, the long, narrow bow adopted for high speed made them somewhat wet, as did their limited freeboard due to large weight increases both during construction and because of wartime additions of anti-aircraft weapons. They were the only US battleships fast enough to keep up with fast carriers and proved useful as specialised flagships in a postwar world in which there were no longer targets suitable for battleship engagement. However, they were expensive to operate and so were soon deactivated in peacetime.

Final Armament To help reach the target of a 600-ship navy in the 1980s,all four were re-commissioned 1982—88 as cruise missile carriers, with secondary battery reduced to 12-5 inch 38, but with 8 x 4 Tomahawk cruise missiles, 4 x 4 Harpoon SSM, as well as 4 Mark 15 20mm Phalanx Close-In Weapon Systems. Further plans for greatly increased missile batteries and facilities for VSTOL aircraft (with removal of No 3 turret) were not realised. The main air search radar was an SPS-49 forwards, with LAMPS data link antennas above it, and satellite antenna and SLQ-32 countermeasures just below the forward main battery director (Mark 13). New Jersey was again reactivated 28 December 1982 to 08 February 1991, Iowa 28 April 1984 to 26 October 1990, while Missouri was recommissioned 10 May 1986 to 31 March 1992 and Wisconsin 22 October 1988 to 30 September 1991, all modernization was done at Avondale Shipyards in Louisiana, under a subcontract from Ingalls.

Present Disposition
Iowa
Berthed at Naval Education and Training Center, Newport, RI, 24 September 1998. Planned to be towed to San Francisco, CA, in 2000, and will serve as a museum at Pier# 35.

New Jersey
At the Naval Inactive Ship Maintenance Facilty, Philadelphia, PA. On donation hold as a museum/memorial 11 November 1999 and planned to be located at Camden, NJ

Missouri
Opened as a museum ship 29 January 1999, and located 1,000 yards from the Arizona Memorial at Pearl Harbor

Wisconsin
Berthed at the Norfolk Naval Shipyard. Planned to be moored adjacent to the Nauticus Museum on the Elizabeth River in downtown Norfolk, VA as a museum ship in December 2000

SOURCE: