The vessels that eventually became the Iowa-class battleships were born from the U.S. Navy's War Plan Orange, … See more

Work on what would eventually become the Iowa-class battleship began on the first studies in early 1938, at the direction of Admiral Thomas C. Hart, head of the General Board, following the planned invocation … See more

The Iowa-class battleships are 860 ft 0 in (262.13 m) long at the waterline and 887 ft 3 in (270.43 m) long overall with a beam of 108 ft 2 in (32.97 m). During World War II, the draft was 37 ft 2 in (11.33 m) at full load displaceme… See more

The Iowa class were the only battleships with the speed required for post-war operations based around fast aircraft carrier task forces. There were several proposals in the early Cold War to convert the class to take into ac… See more

In 1980, Ronald Reagan was elected president on a promise to build up the US military as a response to the increasing military power of the Soviet Union. The Soviet Navy was commissioning the Kirov class of mi… See more

Following the 1991 Gulf War and the subsequent dissolution of the Soviet Union, the United States Navy began to decommission and mothball many of the ships it had brought out of its reserve fleet in the drive … See more