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# Battleship

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Battleships are the most heavily armed and armored gunships afloat. The first ships were built a few years after the ironclads? Monitor and CSS Virginia proved their worth in battle at [Hampton Roads]?, Virginia. Battleships built between 1865 and 1905 usually had four or so big guns (around 12 inches in diameter), and an assortment of smaller guns. During that time, turrets, armor plate, and steam engines were all improved, and torpedo tubes were introduced.

Battleship design changed, however, with the launch of [HMS Dreadnought]? in 1905. Dreadnought had 10 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."

An arms race ensued, especially between Germany and England. The Royal Navy had ruled the seas for most of the 1800s, but [Kaiser Wilhelm]? set out to change that. The end result was the [Battle of Jutland]? during World War I, nominally a German victory, but the Kriegsmarine?'s surface fleet remained in port for the rest of the war.

After World War I, the Treaty of Versailles required the scuttling of most of the German fleet. With the Washington Naval Agreement, the navies of the world scaled back on their battleship arms race, with numerous ships on all sides scuttled and repurposed. With an extension, that treaty lasted until 1936, when the major navies of the world began a new build-up. Famous ships like the KM Bismarck, USS Missouri, and the IJN 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 English battle fleet and carriers devoted themselves to seeking out and trying to destroy it. Amoung early successes, the German battleship KM Scharnhorst? managed to surprise the carrier HMS Glorious and sink it in June 1940.

As it turned out, however, technology was overtaking the battleship. A battleship's big guns might have a range of 20 miles, but the aircraft carrier had aircraft with ranges of hundreds of miles, and radar was making those attacks ever more effective. 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 the 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, [Imperial Japan]?'s Yamato and Musashi?, were destroyed during essentially kamikaze missions without ever sighting the American fleet. The last German battleship Tirpitz? survived until late into the war by hiding in Norwegian fjords, but was eventually sunk by aircraft.

As a result of the changing technology, plans for even larger battleships, the American Montana class and Japanese Super Yamato class, were shelved. At the end of the war, almost all the world's battleships were decommissioned or scrapped. The United States recommissioned all four Iowa-class battleships for the Korean War and the [New Jersey]? for the Vietnam war, and all four were recommissioned under the Reagan? administration, seeing action in Lebanon and launching [cruise missiles]? in the Gulf War. All four were decommissioned in the early 90's, by far the last battleships to see active service. The Missouri is now a museum and the New Jersey is destined to be one; the Iowa and Wisconsin have been "mothballed."

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Last edited August 16, 2001 8:45 pm (diff)
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