The decision of the United States Navy to reinstate two of its legendary Iowa-class battleships onto the Naval Vessel Register, that is, the USS Iowa-BB61 and the USS Wisconsin-BB64, very nearly resembled any chapter from naval history. The final stamp on this decision under strong lobbying came about after an important vote in the Senate Armed Services Committee on 29 June 1995, finally washing into shore on 30 December 1997, leading to discussions on their effectiveness and the large expense that would be incurred.
The Iowa-class battleships sport 16-inch guns capable of lobbing a shell 27 miles, formidable pride of yesteryear’s U.S. fleet. These guns, in today’s modern naval warfare, are quickly becoming relics. Present doctrine looks toward over-the-horizon assaults via MV-22 Ospreys and helicopters from distances upward of 25 miles from shore, drastically lessening the battleships’ firepower relevance.
Not surprisingly, modern counterparts to the battleships’ big guns already exist. The USS Winston Churchill DDG-81) is about to get a 5-inch/62-caliber gun that can reach targets 63 nautical miles distant. By 2008, the vertical gun for advanced ships, VGAS, will extend that even further. Missile systems such as the Army Tactical Missile System and Tomahawk variants will provide increased range and payload options from cruisers and destroyers.
Despite these developments, the commitment to bring back these naval giants never wavers, although with huge fiscal implications. Reactivation of these ships will cost more than $1 billion, which is an amount above the price for a brand new Aegis destroyer equipped with 90 missiles. Besides the financial cost are added the logistical burdens of retrofitting with modern systems, manned by the competent crew due to their obsolete weapons, and extensive training requirements that further aggravate the problems.
Questions range from the limited numbers of 16-inch barrel liners in stock to the industrial costs of manufacturing more, not to mention the high-value risk of putting these ships close to shore in conflict zones. Every battleship requires a crew of 1,600, sufficient to man about ten of the far more technologically advanced Arleigh Burke-class (DDG-51) destroyers.
The Iowa-class battleships have a distinguished history. First decommissioned right after World War II, with the central stage taken by aircraft carriers, they were pressed back into service in the 1980s with the heightening of the Cold War tensions and a huge Soviet military buildup. These battleships underwent significant modernizations under President Reagan’s initiative to increase the Navy to 600 ships, notably with Tomahawk and Harpoon missile systems, advanced radar and fire control systems, and Phalanx Close-In Weapons Systems installed for defense against modern threats.
Although they had been refitted, even paraded with power in Desert Storm, final decommissioning came by 1992 because the Soviet Union collapsed, and new technologies of the navy made them obsolete. Arguments over the battleship’s obsolescence, the reactivation cost, and the impracticability of old weaponry in a modern context saw all four Iowa-class battleships become museum ships by 2006.
The reactivations of Iowa and Wisconsin in 1997 resulted from lobbying efforts and congressional mandates, which illustrate that battleships’ role in modern naval warfare is always a matter of debate. On the one hand, one finds it hard to deny the historical and firepower value that these ships possess; on the other, there are the costs and problems associated with including these ships in a modern navy.