page_title: Battleship
section_title: Doctrine
hierarchical_section_title: Battleship / Strategy and doctrine / Doctrine
caption_attribution_description: English: USS Iowa (BB-61) fires a full broadside of her nine 16"/50 and six 5"/38 guns during a target exercise near Vieques Island, Puerto Rico (21°N 65°W﻿ / ﻿21°N 65°W). Note concussion effects on the water surface, and 16-inch gun barrels in varying degrees of recoil. Deutsch: USS Iowa (BB-61) feuert eine volle Breitseite während einer Zielübung nahe der Insel Vieques, Puerto Rico, am 1. Juli 1984. Zu beachten sind besonders die Schockwellen auf der Wasseroberfläche. Esperanto: USS Iowa (BB-61) pafas per plena tirbordo per naŭ 16"/50 kaj ses 5"/38 pafilegoj dum ekzerco en celpafado apud Vieques insulo (21°N 65°W﻿ / ﻿21°N 65°W). Rimarku efekton sur akvo kaj pafilegojn kiuj havas diversajn pafstatojn.
context_page_description: A battleship is a large armored warship with a main battery consisting of large caliber guns. During the late 19th and early 20th centuries the battleship was the most powerful type of warship, and a fleet centered around the battleship was part of the command of the sea doctrine for several decades. By the time of World War II, however, the battleship was made obsolete as other ships, primarily the smaller and faster destroyers, the secretive submarines, and the more versatile aircraft carriers came to be far more useful in naval warfare. While a few battleships were repurposed as fire support ships and as platforms for guided missiles, few countries maintained battleships after World War II, with the last battleships being decommissioned at the end of the Cold War.
  The term battleship came into formal use in the late 1880s to describe a type of ironclad warship, now referred to by historians as pre-dreadnought battleships. In 1906, the commissioning of HMS Dreadnought into the United Kingdom's Royal Navy heralded a revolution in battleship design.
context_section_description: Battleships were the embodiment of sea power. For Alfred Thayer Mahan and his followers, a strong navy was vital to the success of a nation, and control of the seas was vital for the projection of force on land and overseas. Mahan's theory, proposed in The Influence of Sea Power Upon History, 1660–1783 of 1890, dictated the role of the battleship was to sweep the enemy from the seas. While the work of escorting, blockading, and raiding might be done by cruisers or smaller vessels, the presence of the battleship was a potential threat to any convoy escorted by any vessels other than capital ships. This concept of "potential threat" can be further generalized to the mere existence (as opposed to presence) of a powerful fleet tying the opposing fleet down. This concept came to be known as a "fleet in being"—an idle yet mighty fleet forcing others to spend time, resource and effort to actively guard against it.
  Mahan went on to say victory could only be achieved by engagements between battleships, which came to be known as the decisive battle doctrine in some navies, while targeting merchant ships (commerce raiding or guerre de course, as posited by the Jeune École) could never succeed.
  Mahan was highly influential in naval and political circles throughout the age of the battleship, calling for a large fleet of the most powerful battleships possible. Mahan's work developed in the late 1880s, and by the end of the 1890s it had acquired much international influence on naval strategy; in the end, it was adopted by many major navies (notably the British, American, German, and Japanese). The strength of Mahanian opinion was important in the development of the battleships arms races, and equally important in the agreement of the Powers to limit battleship numbers in the interwar era.
  The "fleet in being" suggested battleships could simply by their existence tie down superior enemy resources. This in turn was believed to be able to tip the balance of a conflict even without a battle. This suggested even for inferior naval powers a battleship fleet could have important strategic effect.
caption: USS Iowa fires a full broadside of her nine 16″/50 and six 5″/38 guns during a target exercise
exif: {"Image ImageWidth": "5695", "Image ImageLength": "4480", "Image BitsPerSample": "[8, 8, 8]", "Image Compression": "Uncompressed", "Image PhotometricInterpretation": "2", "Image ImageDescription": "USS Iowa (BB-61)  Fires a full broadside of nine 16/50 and six 5/38 guns during a target exercise near Vieques Island, Puerto Rico, 1 July 1984. Photographed by PHAN J. Alan Elliott. Note concussion effects on the water surface, and 16-inch gun barrels in varying degrees of recoil.  Official U.S. Navy Photograph, from the the Department of Defense Still Media Collection.", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image SamplesPerPixel": "3", "Image XResolution": "600", "Image YResolution": "600", "Image PlanarConfiguration": "1", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "Adobe Photoshop CC 2015 (Windows)", "Image DateTime": "2014:01:30 11:38:54", "Image ExifOffset": "644", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "782", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "8041", "EXIF ColorSpace": "Uncalibrated", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "5695", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "4480"}