The battleship dominated for more than a century. Colossal hulls, armor-plated, and immense guns with them created an aura of invincibility and an image as the ultimate demonstration of national power. They were sea fortresses designed to dominate oceans and decide wars. But as the decades passed, new technology changed war at sea, and the mighty battleship was displaced by more rapid, more versatile tools of war. What remains today is a great history and enduring fascination.
From Wooden Walls to Steel Behemoths
The development of the battleship dates back centuries. Early warships, from Greek triremes to medieval galleys, were powered by rams and sails, their power resting in boarding parties and rams. All changed in the sixteenth century when European navies began equipping warships with heavy guns. Naval battles shifted from close combat to distant artillery battles.
By the eighteenth century, the “ship-of-the-line” occupied center stage in naval warfare. These behemoth wood-hulled men-o’-war, with guns along long lines, fought in line of battle to deliver withering broadsides. Even the word “battleship” originated in their designation as “line-of-battle ships.”
Next was the Industrial Revolution, which introduced steam power, iron armor, and steel hulls. Navies quickly replaced wood with armor plating, and the confrontation between the USS Monitor and CSS Virginia in the American Civil War established that the era of iron warships had begun. By the late 1800s, actual battleships—steel-hulled, armored, and designed to duel each other—dominated the seas.
The Dreadnought Shockwave
In 1906, the unveiling of HMS Dreadnought transformed naval dominance overnight. With her default battery of ten 12-inch guns and record-breaking speed, she made all past battleships obsolete. Fleets scrambled to build their own “dreadnoughts,” setting off an international arms race.
In World War I, gigantic fleets of these behemoths clashed with one another, most famously at the Battle of Jutland in 1916. Though the result was a tie, it showed the leveling power of the battleship and made it the epitome of naval force.
World War II: The Apogee and the Turning Point
When World War II erupted, battleships were as technically advanced as they would ever be. Japan answered with the Yamato and Musashi, the biggest ever built, mounted with 18.1-inch guns firing shells the length of small cars. The United States replied with the high-performance, high-speed Iowa-class, boasting nine 16-inch guns.
But even as these giants were most powerful, vulnerabilities were unavoidable. The air power was expanding fast. Pearl Harbor demonstrated how vulnerable battleships were to aircraft, and the sinking of Prince of Wales and Repulse by the Japanese bombers made it absolute. Carriers, not battleships, were queens of the sea now, shooting hundreds of miles away.
The Iowa-Class: America’s Ultimate Battleships
The four Iowa-class battleships—Iowa, New Jersey, Missouri, and Wisconsin—were the pinnacle of American battleship engineering. Nearly 900 feet in length, fast for their size, and armed with heavy guns, they were formidable and mobile. Of the four, the Missouri was most famous. On her deck, Japan surrendered in September 1945, officially ending World War II in the Pacific. And that moment cemented her place in history forever.
Cold War Revival
After the war, battleships were bound for the scrapyard. None were built new, and most were retired. But during the Cold War, they found a use again. During the 1980s, the four Iowa-class vessels were equipped with Tomahawk cruise missiles, Harpoon ship-killer missiles, and Phalanx point-defense systems. They served again in conflicts such as the Gulf War, launching missiles and providing heavy gunfire support. For a brief time, the old giants remained relevant to war today.
Farewell to the Battleship
Despite their upgrades, battleships couldn’t ignore reality. They had enormous crews, maintenance was costly, and advanced missiles and subs rendered them increasingly vulnerable. Stealth ships, carrier aircraft, and precision weapons brought an early end to the day of the battleship. By the beginning of the 1990s, the Iowa-class warships had all been decommissioned. They now rest as museums, docked in New Jersey, California, Hawaii, and Virginia.
Legacy of the Giants
Though their day has passed, battleships remain powerful symbols of the past. Their massive guns and steel plates stand as a witness to the period when sea power was measured in steel and weaponry. Today, they exist no longer as weapons of war, but as reminders of what existed—symbols of the peak and limits of human invention in seaborne warfare.