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The Iowa class was a class of six fast battleships ordered by the United States Navy in 1939 and 1940. They were initially intended to intercept fast capital ships such as the Japanese KongÅ class and serve as the "fast wing" of the U.S. battle line.
USS Iowa (BB-61) is a retired battleship, the lead ship of her class, and the fourth in the United States Navy to be named after the state of Iowa.Owing to the cancellation of the Montana-class battleships, Iowa is the last lead ship of any class of United States battleships and was the only ship of her class to serve in the Atlantic Ocean during World War II.
Maine and Texas were part of the "New Navy" program of the 1880s. Texas and BB-1 to BB-4 were authorized as "coast defense battleships", but Maine was ordered as an armored cruiser and was only re-rated as a "second class battleship" when she turned out too slow to be a cruiser.
The first Iowa-class ship was laid down in June 1940; in their World War II configuration, each of the Iowa-class battleships had a main battery of 16-inch (406 mm) guns that could hit targets nearly 20 statute miles (32 km) away with a variety of artillery shells designed for anti-ship or bombardment work. The secondary battery of 5-inch (127 ...
The Iowa-class battleships’ primary armament consisted of 16-inch/.50 caliber Mark 7 guns, capable of accurately firing 2,700-pound armor-piercing shells across distances up to 23 miles.
This is the only surface engagement that Iowa-class battleships are known to have engaged in. In the action, Iowa sank the Japanese training cruiser Katori, while New Jersey helped to sink destroyer Maikaze, and the auxiliary cruiser Akagi Maru. This surface action was controversial since US Navy carrier aircraft were available and could have ...
New Jersey earned more battle stars for combat actions than the other three completed Iowa-class battleships, and was the only US battleship used to provide gunfire support during the Vietnam War. During World War II, New Jersey shelled targets on Guam and Okinawa, and screened aircraft carriers conducting raids in the Marshall Islands.
The Iowa class of fast battleships was designed in the late 1930s in response to the US Navy's expectations for a future war with the Empire of Japan. The last battleships to be built by the United States, they were also the US Navy's largest and fastest vessels of the type. [2]