Summary
The Iowa-class battleships were a class of fast battleships designed and fielded by the United States Navy in 1939–1940 to escort their Fast Carrier Task Forces operating in the Pacific Theater during World War II. Four were completed, while two more were laid down but were not finished before the war's end and were ultimately scrapped. Like other third-generation American battleships, the Iowa class emphasized speed in addition to secondary and anti-aircraft batteries.
Between the end of the mid-1940s and the early 1990s, the Iowa-class battleships participated in four major wars. During World War II, they defended aircraft carriers and shelled Japanese positions. During the Korean War, the battleships provided maritime artillery support for United Nations forces fighting North Korea, and in 1968, battleship New Jersey bombarded the Viet Cong and Vietnam People's Army forces in the Vietnam War. Furthermore, all four Iowa-class were reactivated and armed with cruise missiles during the 1980s as part of the 600-ship Navy initiative; during Operation Desert Storm in 1991, the Missouri and Wisconsin fired missiles and guns at Iraqi targets. Costly to maintain, the Iowa-class battleships were stricken from the Naval register with the close of the Cold War in 1992.
Description partially lifted from Wikipedia.
Powers and Stats
Tier: 8-C with 16” guns, 9-A with 5” guns, 9-A with 40mm and 20mm guns, 8-A firing all guns for a full minute, 7-C with Mark 23 | Same for 16” and 5” guns, 9-B firing all CIWS for a full second, 8-C with Harpoon missiles, 8-C with Tomahawk missiles (conventional), Low 7-C to High 7-C with Tomahawk missiles (nuclear), 9-B with Stinger missiles
Key: Pre-Refit (World War II/Korean War/Vietnam War-era) | Post-Refit (Persian Gulf War-era)
Name: Iowa-class Battleship
Origin: The Real World
Age: 1940–1969 | 1982–1992
Classification: Fast Battleship, Capital Ship
Length: 270 meters (887 feet)
Beam: 33 meters (108 feet)
Draft: 11 meters (36 feet)
Displacement: 40.8–52.6 kilotonnes (45,000–58,000 tons)
Pilot(s): About 2700 officers and seamen
Needed Prerequisite for Use: Trained crew, fuel, ammunition
In use by: United States Navy
Powered by: Eight Babcock & Wilcox M-Type water-tube boilers delivering 158 megawatts (212,000 shaft horsepower) to four General Electric cross-compound steam turbine engines driving four propeller screws
Operational Timeframe: Almost 36 days
Terrain: Ocean (surface)
Material: The main belt and barbette armor consists of Class A, face-hardened Krupp cemented (KC) armor, while the lower belt, conning tower, and turret faces use Class B, homogeneous KC armor. The magazines and engine rooms were protected by an outer hull plating 1.5 inches (38mm) thick and an armored belt 12.1 inches (310mm) thick, which sloped at 19 degrees to give an effective vertical thickness of 13.5 inches (340mm), laminated onto 0.875 inches (22.2mm) thick hull plate. The turret face armor is 19.7 inches (500mm) inches thick, and the conning tower and the turret barbettes armor is up to 17.3 inches (440mm) thick. Furthermore, Special Treatment Steel (STS), a high-tensile structural steel with armor properties comparable to Class B, is extensively used in the hull plating to increase protection. The deck armor consists of a 1.5 inches (38mm) thick STS weather deck, a combined 6 inches (150mm) thick Class B and STS main armored deck, and a 0.63 inches (16mm) thick STS splinter deck. Over the magazines, the splinter deck is replaced by another 1 inch (25mm) STS armored plate that separates the magazine from the main armored deck. The physical properties of the various armor types can be found on this table by Nathan Okun.
Attack Potency: Building level+ firing all 16”/50 main guns once (Up to 5.22 gigajoules), Small Building level+ firing all 5”/38 secondary guns once (Up to 580 megajoules), Small Building level firing all 40mm and 20mm guns once (Up to 55.7 megajoules), Multi-City Block level firing all guns simultaneously for a full minute (Up to 451 gigajoules), Town level with Nuclear Mark 23 shell (15–20 kilotons) | Roughly equivalent for 16” and 5” guns, Wall level+ firing all Phalanx CIWS for a second (Up to 12.5 megajoules), Building level with RGM-84 Harpoon anti-ship missiles (Most warheads pack a yield of 1.355 gigajoules), Building level with conventional warhead-loaded BGM-109 Tomahawk cruise missile (Up to over 2.5 megajoules), Small Town level+ to Large Town level with nuclear warhead-loaded BGM-109 Tomahawk cruise missile (between 5–150 kilotons), Wall level with FIM-92 Stinger surface-to-air missiles
Speed: Superhuman, 60–65 kilometers per hour (32.5–35.2 knots) max speed
Durability: At least Large Building level, at most Small Town level in terms of total destruction (comprised of up to 52,600,000 kilograms of hardened armor-grade steel with a fragmentation energy of over 5 terajoules),
Range: Operational range of 23,960 kilometers at 28 kilometers per hour (14,890 miles at 15 knots); up to over 38 kilometers with 16” guns, up to 16 kilometers with 5” guns, up to 10 kilometers with 40mm guns, up to 4 kilometers with 20mm guns | Up to over 158 kilometers with Harpoon missiles, up to 2800 kilometers with Tomahawk missiles, up to 5 kilometers with Phalanx CIWS
Weaknesses: Primitive fire control and radar systems limits detection and accuracy, large and slow | Costly to maintain, has mostly outdated hardware, large and slow
Weaponry (Pre-Refit):
- 9× 16”/50 caliber Mark 7 guns in triple-gun turrets
- 20× 5”/38 caliber Mark 12 guns in twin-gun turrets
- 80× 40mm/56 caliber Bofors autocannons in quad-gun mounts
- 49× 20mm/70 caliber Oerlikon autocannons in single-gun mounts
- 3× Vought OS2U Kingfisher observation floatplanes (early World War II-era only)
- 3× Curtiss SC-1 Seahawk observation floatplanes (Late World War II-era only)
- 3× Sikorsky HO3S-1 maritime helicopters (Korean War-era only)
- 3x Maritime helicopters, such as the Sikorsky HO3S-1, UH-1 Iroquois, SH-2 Seasprites, CH-46 Sea Knight, CH-53 Sea Stallion or SH-60B Seahawk (Vietnam War-era only)
Weaponry (Post-Refit):
- 9× 16”/50 caliber Mark 7 guns in triple-gun turrets
- 12× 5”/38 caliber Mark 12 guns in twin-gun turrets
- 4× 20mm M61A1 Vulcan gatling guns in Mark 72 Phalanx Close-in Weapon System turret mounts
- 16× RGM-84 Harpoon Anti-Ship Missiles in quad-missile MK-141 cell launchers
- 32× BGM-109 Tomahawk Cruise Missiles in quad-missile MK-143 Armored Box Launchers
- 5× AAI RQ-2 Pioneer unmanned aerial vehicles
- 3× Various maritime helicopters such as the UH-1 Iroquois, SH-2 Seasprites, CH-46 Sea Knight, CH-53 Sea Stallion or SH-60B Seahawk
- 5× FIM-92 Stinger surface-to-air missile firing positions
- 4× Bushmaster III guns in unknown mounts (Unconfirmed)
- 12× .50 caliber Browning M2 heavy machine guns in unknown single mounts (Unconfirmed)
Note: Similar ships of about the same type and period generally have performance equivalent to this one.
Discussions
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