4 Points You Need to Know: The U.S. Navy might have begun World War II with faster battlecruisers had it prioritized building them after World War I, instead of slow, heavily armored battleships.

The 16-inch/50-caliber Mark 7 gun, featured on Iowa-class battleships, became one of the U.S. Navy's most powerful and iconic ...

In the early 1980s, four Iowa-class fast battleships originally built during World War II—Iowa, Missouri, New Jersey and Wisconsin—were taken out of mothballs and returned to active duty.

Work on what was to become the 45,000-ton Iowa-class “fast battleship” began in early 1938 under the direction of Adm. Thomas C. Hart, head of the General Board, which followed the Battleship ...

He provides design histories of each class—some in considerable detail, some rather brief—from the earliest dreadnoughts, then on to the ships not completed or converted to aircraft carriers between ...

Fast battleship. Prior to the Iowa class, the US Navy generally favored heavily armored and gunned ships, with a slight sacrifice of speed. In order to keep up with the new aircraft carriers, ...