Battleship
Battleships are the most heavily armed and armored gunships afloat. The name "battleship" was given to the heaviest armed and armored ships that would lead a fleet still using tactics from the age of sail. These ships were called the "Main Line of Battle Ships" -- or battleships for short.
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 in the late 19th century usually had four or so big guns (around 12 inches in diameter), and an assortment of smaller guns. Turrets, armor plate, and steam engines were all improved over the years, and torpedo tubes were introduced.
Battleship design changed, however, with the launch of HMS Dreadnought in 1906. Dreadnought had ten 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 Great Britain. The Royal Navy had ruled the seas for most of the 1800s (see Two Power Status), but Kaiser Wilhelm set out to change that, in part for strategic reasons, but mainly due to a simple desire for a large navy. The culmination of this race 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 or 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 German Bismarck, USS Missouri, and the Japanese 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. Among early successes, the German battleships Scharnhorst and Gneisenau managed to surprise the carrier HMS Glorious and sink it in June 1940. When Bismarck sank the battlecruiser HMS Hood, English Prime Minister Winston Churchill sent every element of the Royal Navy he could to sink it.
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 Bismarck was sunk a few days after it destroyed the Hood, after being crippled by torpedo bombers from HMS Victorious and HMS Ark Royal. 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 those 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 sent out on what were essentially kamikaze missions, but were destroyed by aircraft 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 USS New Jersey for the Vietnam War, and all four were recommissioned under the Reagan administration, with USS New Jersey seeing action in Lebanon and USS Missouri and USS Wisconsin firing 16-inch guns at land targets and launching cruise missiles in the Gulf War. All four were decommissioned in the early 1990s, the last battleships to see active service. USS Missouri and USS Wisconsin are now museums and USS New Jersey is destined to be one; USS Iowa has been "mothballed."
United States Battleships
The first ships of the United States Navy that could be realistically considered battleships were the heavy-armored cruisers USS Maine (ACR-01) and USS Texas. The first ship actually classified as a battleship and given a "BB" hull classification symbol was USS Indiana (BB-01). In total, the United States has commissioned 64 "BB" battleships. They may be grouped as the pre-Dreadnoughts, BB-25 and earlier; the dreadnoughts, BB-26 through BB-54; and the fast battleships, BB-55 and later.
The Indiana-class consisted of USS Indiana (BB-01), USS Massachusetts (BB-02), and USS Oregon (BB-03).
USS Iowa (BB-04) was unique.
The Kearsarge-class consisted of USS Kearsarge (BB-05) and USS Kentucky (BB-06).
The Illinois-class consisted of USS Illinois (BB-07), USS Alabama (BB-08), and USS Wisconsin (BB-09).
The Maine-class consisted of USS Maine (BB-10), USS Missouri (BB-11), and USS Ohio (BB-12).
The Virginia-class consisted of USS Virginia (BB-13), USS Nebraska (BB-14), USS Georgia (BB-15), USS New Jersey (BB-16), and USS Rhode Island (BB-17).
The Connecticut-class consisted of USS Connecticut (BB-18) and USS Louisiana (BB-19).
The Vermont-class consisted of USS Vermont (BB-20), USS Kansas (BB-21), USS Minnesota (BB-22), and USS New Hampshire (BB-25) (note out-of-sequence numbering).
The Mississippi-class consisted of USS Mississippi (BB-23) and USS Idaho (BB-24).
The South Carolina-class consisted of USS South Carolina (BB-26) and USS Michigan (BB-27).
The Delaware-class consisted of USS Delaware (BB-28) and USS North Dakota (BB-29).
The Florida-class consisted of USS Florida (BB-30) and USS Utah (BB-31).
The Wyoming-class consisted of USS Wyoming (BB-32/AG-17) and USS Arkansas (BB-33).
The New York-class consisted of USS New York (BB-34) and USS Texas (BB-35).
The Nevada-class consisted of USS Nevada (BB-36) and USS Oklahoma (BB-37).
The Pennsylvania-class consisted of USS Pennsylvania (BB-38) and USS Arizona (BB-39).
The New Mexico-class consisted of USS New Mexico (BB-40), USS Mississippi (BB-41/AG-128), and USS Idaho (BB-42).
The Tennessee-class consisted of USS Tennessee (BB-43) and USS California (BB-44).
The Colorado-class consisted of USS Colorado (BB-45), USS Maryland (BB-46), USS Washington (BB-47), which was launched but cancelled before commissioning, and USS West Virginia (BB-48).
Keels were laid down for the South Dakota-class -- USS South Dakota (BB-49), USS Indiana (BB-50), USS Montana (BB-51), USS North Carolina (BB-52), USS Iowa (BB-53), and USS Massachusetts (BB-54) -- but the entire class was cancelled before they were launched.
The North Carolina-class consisted of USS North Carolina (BB-55) and USS Washington (BB-56).
The (commissioned) South Dakota-class consisted of USS South Dakota (BB-57), USS Indiana (BB-58), USS Massachusetts (BB-59), and USS Alabama (BB-60).
The Iowa class consisted of USS Iowa (BB-61), USS New Jersey (BB-62), USS Missouri (BB-63), and USS Wisconsin (BB-64); construction was underway on two more ships, USS Illinois (BB-65) and USS Kentucky (SCB-19, ex-BB-66), when they were cancelled before commissioning.
The Montana class was authorized and then cancelled before any of the keels were laid down. They were to have been USS Montana (BB-67), USS Ohio (BB-68), USS Maine (BB-69), USS New Hampshire (BB-70), and USS Louisiana (BB-71).
Every one of the United States has had at least one battleship named for it except Alaska and Hawaii.
The game Battleship is a guessing game played by two people. Although made popular in the USA by a boardgame published by the Milton Bradley Company, it was played as a pencil and paper game before being printed as a board game.