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This article is about a battleship as a type of warship. See also Battleship (game). Dreadnought redirects here. See also Workers' Dreadnought.
The battleship USS Iowa firing a barrage to starboard In naval history, battleships were the most heavily
armed and armored warships afloat. In the mid-20th century they were made obsolete by the aircraft
carrier. Although some continued to be used for shore bombardment and as missile
platforms, the last battleships were decommissioned in the late 1990s.
The name "battleship" was initially given to first-, second-, and third-rate ships of the line during the age of sail. These ships were called the "main line of
battle Ships", or battleships for short.
Pre-Dreadnought battleships
The first warships resembling modern battleships were built in the late 19th
century, a few years after the first ironclad warships USS Monitor and CSS
Virginia fought at Hampton Roads, Virginia. Battleships built in the late 19th century
usually had four or so big guns around 12 inches (305 mm) in bore diameter, and an assortment of smaller guns. Turrets, armor
plate, and steam engines were all improved over the years, and torpedo tubes were introduced. It was this type of battleship that made up the "Great White Fleet".
The Dreadnought
Battleship design changed, however, with the launch of HMS Dreadnought in 1906. Dreadnought had ten
identical big guns mounted in turrets, giving it far more firepower than anything else afloat. It was so revolutionary that
battleships built before it were all classed as "pre-Dreadnought battleships", and those after as "post-Dreadnought battleships"
or simply "dreadnoughts". The other great innovation of the Dreadnought was the introduction of steam turbines, enabling it to sustain its maximum speed for longer and with less
maintenance than its triple-expansion engine powered
predecessors and contemporaries were able to do.
World War I
An arms race ensued, especially between Germany and the United Kingdom.
The Royal Navy of the United Kingdom had ruled the seas for most of the
19th century, but Kaiser Wilhelm set out to change that, in part for strategic reasons, but mainly due to a simple desire for
a large navy. The culmination of this race was a stalemate in World War I.
The German High Seas Fleet and the British Grand Fleet were too valuable to throw away in battle and so both fleets spent the
majority of the war in port, waiting to respond should the other go to sea. The only engagement between the fleets was the
abortive Battle of Jutland: a German tactical victory (fourteen
British ships were sunk to eleven German) but a British strategic victory (the High Seas Fleet remained in port for the rest of the war).
After World War I, the Armistice of 1918
required the most of the German High Seas Fleet to be interned in Scapa Flow.
The ships were subsequently scuttled by their German crews.
World War II
With the Washington Naval Treaty, the navies of the world scaled
back on their battleship arms race, with numerous ships on all sides scrapped or repurposed. With an extension, that treaty
lasted until 1936, when the major navies of the world began a new build-up. Famous ships
like Bismarck, Missouri, and the Japanese Yamato were all launched within the next few years in preparation for the coming of
World War II.
In the early stages of the Battle of
the Atlantic, Germany's surface fleet threatened the Atlantic convoys, so the British battle fleet and carriers devoted
themselves to seeking out and trying to destroy it. The German battleships and pocket battleships recorded early successes, such as when Scharnhorst and Gneisenau surprised and sank the carrier HMS Glorious in June 1940. When Bismarck sank the
battlecruiser HMS
Hood, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill sent
every element of the Royal Navy he could to sink it.
As it turned out, however, technology was overtaking the battleship. A battleship's big guns might have a range of twenty
miles, but the aircraft carrier had aircraft with ranges of
hundreds of miles, and radar was making those attacks ever more effective. The
Bismarck was sunk a few days after it destroyed the Hood, after being crippled by torpedo bombers from HMS Victorious and HMS Ark Royal. The Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor sank or damaged most of the U.S. Pacific Fleet's battleships, but the aircraft carriers
were not in port and so escaped damage. Six months later, it was those carriers that were to turn the tide of the Pacific War at
the Battle of Midway. Battleships in the Pacific ended up primarily
providing shore bombardment and anti-aircraft defense for the carriers. The largest battleships ever constructed, Japan's Yamato and Musashi, were destroyed by aircraft. The last German battleship Tirpitz survived until late into the war by hiding in Norwegian fjords, but was eventually also sunk by aircraft.
In the final battleship versus battleship engagement in world history, the United States battleships South Dakota and Washington fought and destroyed the Kirishima at Savo Island.
As a result of the changing technology, plans for even larger battleships, the American Montana class and Japanese Super Yamato class,
were cancelled. At the end of the war, almost all the world's battleships were decommissioned or scrapped.
Post World War II
The United States recommissioned all four Iowa-class battleships for the Korean War
and USS New Jersey for the Vietnam War. These were primarily used for shore bombardment.
All four were recommissioned under the Reagan administration and
converted to carry Tomahawk missiles, with New Jersey
seeing action bombarding Lebanon, while Missouri and Wisconsin fired their 16-inch guns at land targets and launched missiles in the Gulf War.
All four were decommissioned in the early 1990s, the last battleships to see active
service. Missouri, Wisconsin, and New Jersey are now museums; Iowa has been "mothballed."
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