Battleship A battleship is a large armored warship with a main battery consisting of heavy caliber gun s . During the late 19th and early 20th centuries the battleship was the most powerful type of warship , and a fleet of battleships was vital for any nation which desired to maintain command of the sea . During World War II , aircraft carrier s overtook battleships in power . Some battleships remained in service during the Cold War and the last were decommissioned in the 1990s . The word " battleship " was coined around 1794 and is a contraction of the phrase " line - of - battle ship , " the dominant wooden warship during the Age of Sail . The term came into formal use in the late 1880s to describe a type of ironclad warship , now referred to by historians as pre - dreadnought battleship s . In 1906 , the commissioning of heralded a revolution in battleship design . Following battleship designs , influenced by HMS " Dreadnought " , were referred to as " dreadnought s " . Battleships were a symbol of naval dominance and national might , and for decades the battleship was a major factor in both diplomacy and military strategy . The global arms race in battleship construction began in Europe , following the 1890 publication of Alfred Thayer Mahan ' s " The Influence of Sea Power upon History , 1660 – 1783 " . This arms race culminated at the decisive Battle of Tsushima in 1905 ; the outcome of which significantly influenced the design of HMS " Dreadnought " . The launch of " Dreadnought " in 1906 commenced a new naval arms race which was widely considered to have been an indirect cause of World War I . The Naval Treaties of the 1920s and 1930s limited the number of battleships , though technical innovation in battleship design continued . Both the Allies and the Axis Powers deployed battleships during World War II . The value of the battleship has been questioned , even during the period of their prominence . In spite of the immense resources spent on battleships , there were few pitched battleship clashes . Even with their enormous firepower and protection , battleships were increasingly vulnerable to much smaller , cheaper ordnance and craft : initially the torpedo and the naval mine , and later aircraft and the guided missile . The growing range of naval engagements led to the aircraft carrier replacing the battleship as the leading capital ship during World War II , with the last battleship to be launched being in 1944 . Battleships were retained by the United States Navy into the Cold War for fire support purposes . The last battleship was finally stricken from the U . S . Naval Vessel Register in 2006 . Ships of the line . A ship of the line was a large , unarmored wooden sailing ship on which was mounted a battery of up to 120 smoothbore gun s and carronade s . The ship of the line was a gradual evolution of a basic design that dates back to the 15th century , and , apart from growing in size , it changed little between the adoption of line of battle tactics in the early 17th century and the end of the sailing battleship ' s heyday in the 1830s . From 1794 , the alternative term ' line of battle ship ' was contracted ( informally at first ) to ' battle ship ' or ' battleship ' . The sheer number of guns fired broadside meant a sail battleship could wreck any wooden enemy , holing her hull , knocking down masts , wrecking her rigging , and killing her crew . However , the effective range of the guns was as little as a few hundred yards , so the battle tactics of sailing ships depended in part on the wind . The first major change to the ship of the line concept was the introduction of steam power as an auxiliary propulsion system . Steam power was gradually introduced to the navy in the first half of the 19th century , initially for small craft and later for frigate s . The French Navy introduced steam to the line of battle with the 90 - gun in 1850 — the first true steam battleship . " Napoléon " was armed as a conventional ship - of - the - line , but her steam engines could give her a speed of , regardless of the wind conditions : a potentially decisive advantage in a naval engagement . The introduction of steam accelerated the growth in size of battleships . France and the United Kingdom were the only countries to develop fleets of wooden steam screw battleships , although several other navies operated small numbers of screw battleships , including Russia ( 9 ) , Turkey ( 3 ) , Sweden ( 2 ) , Naples ( 1 ) , Denmark ( 1 ) and Austria ( 1 ) . Ironclads . The adoption of steam power was only one of a number of technological advances which revolutionized warship design in the 19th century . The ship of the line was overtaken by the ironclad : powered by steam , protected by metal armor , and armed with guns firing high - explosive shells . Explosive shells . Guns which fired explosive or incendiary shells were a major threat to wooden ships , and these weapons quickly became widespread after the introduction of 8 inch shell guns as part of the standard armament of French and American line - of - battle ships in 1841 . In the Crimean War , six line - of - battle ships and two frigates of the Russian Black Sea Fleet destroyed seven Turkish frigates and three corvettes with explosive shells at the Battle of Sinop in 1853 . Later in the war , French ironclad floating batteries used similar weapons against the defenses at the Battle of Kinburn . Nevertheless wooden - hulled ships stood up comparatively well to shells , as shown in the 1866 Battle of Lissa , where the modern Austrian steam two - decker ranged across a confused battlefield , rammed an Italian ironclad and took 80 hits from Italian ironclads , many of which were shells , but including at least one 300 pound shot at point blank range . Despite losing her bowsprit and her foremast , and being set on fire , she was ready for action again the very next day . Iron armor and construction . The development of high - explosive shells made the use of iron armor plate on warships necessary . In 1859 France launched , the first ocean - going ironclad warship . She had the profile of a ship of the line , cut to one deck due to weight considerations . Although made of wood and reliant on sail for most journeys , " Gloire " was fitted with a propeller , and her wooden hull was protected by a layer of thick iron armor . " Gloire " prompted further innovation from the Royal Navy , anxious to prevent France from gaining a technological lead . The superior armored frigate followed " Gloire " by only 14 months , and both nations embarked on a program of building new ironclads and converting existing screw ships of the line to armored frigates . Within two years , Italy , Austria , Spain and Russia had all ordered ironclad warships , and by the time of the famous clash of the and the at the Battle of Hampton Roads at least eight navies possessed ironclad ships . Navies experimented with the positioning of guns , in turrets ( like the USS " Monitor " ) , central - batteries or barbette s , or with the ram as the principal weapon . As steam technology developed , masts were gradually removed from battleship designs . By the mid - 1870s steel was used as a construction material alongside iron and wood . The French Navy ' s , laid down in 1873 and launched in 1876 , was a central battery and barbette warship which became the first battleship in the world to use steel as the principal building material . Pre - dreadnought battleship . The term " battleship " was officially adopted by the Royal Navy in the re - classification of 1892 . By the 1890s , there was an increasing similarity between battleship designs , and the type that later became known as the ' pre - dreadnought battleship ' emerged . These were heavily armored ships , mounting a mixed battery of guns in turrets , and without sails . The typical first - class battleship of the pre - dreadnought era displaced 15 , 000 to 17 , 000 tons , had a speed of , and an armament of four guns in two turrets fore and aft with a mixed - caliber secondary battery amidships around the superstructure . An early design with superficial similarity to the pre - dreadnought is the British of 1871 . The slow - firing main guns were the principal weapons for battleship - to - battleship combat . The intermediate and secondary batteries had two roles . Against major ships , it was thought a ' hail of fire ' from quick - firing secondary weapons could distract enemy gun crews by inflicting damage to the superstructure , and they would be more effective against smaller ships such as cruiser s . Smaller guns ( 12 - pounders and smaller ) were reserved for protecting the battleship against the threat of torpedo attack from destroyer s and torpedo boat s . The beginning of the pre - dreadnought era coincided with Britain reasserting her naval dominance . For many years previously , Britain had taken naval supremacy for granted . Expensive naval projects were criticised by political leaders of all inclinations . However , in 1888 a war scare with France and the build - up of the Russian navy gave added impetus to naval construction , and the British Naval Defence Act of 1889 laid down a new fleet including eight new battleships . The principle that Britain ' s navy should be more powerful than the two next most powerful fleets combined was established . This policy was designed to deter France and Russia from building more battleships , but both nations nevertheless expanded their fleets with more and better pre - dreadnoughts in the 1890s . In the last years of the 19th century and the first years of the 20th , the escalation in the building of battleships became an arms race between Britain and Germany . The German naval laws of 1890 and 1898 authorised a fleet of 38 battleships , a vital threat to the balance of naval power . Britain answered with further shipbuilding , but by the end of the pre - dreadnought era , British supremacy at sea had markedly weakened . In 1883 , the United Kingdom had 38 battleships , twice as many as France and almost as many as the rest of the world put together . By 1897 , Britain ' s lead was far smaller due to competition from France , Germany , and Russia , as well as the development of pre - dreadnought fleets in Italy , the United States and Japan . Turkey , Spain , Sweden , Denmark , Norway , the Netherlands , Chile and Brazil all had second - rate fleets led by armored cruiser s , coastal defence ship s or monitors . Pre - dreadnoughts continued the technical innovations of the ironclad . Turrets , armor plate , and steam engines were all improved over the years , and torpedo tubes were introduced . A small number of designs , including the American and es , experimented with all or part of the 8 - inch intermediate battery superimposed over the 12 - inch primary . Results were poor : recoil factors and blast effects resulted in the 8 - inch battery being completely unusable , and the inability to train the primary and intermediate armaments on different targets led to significant tactical limitations . Even though such innovative designs saved weight ( a key reason for their inception ) , they proved too cumbersome in practice . Dreadnought era . In 1906 , the British Royal Navy launched the revolutionary . Created as a result of pressure from Admiral Sir John ( " Jackie " ) Fisher , HMS " Dreadnought " made existing battleships obsolete . Combining an " all - big - gun " armament of ten 12 - inch ( 305 mm ) guns with unprecedented speed ( from steam turbine engines ) and protection , she prompted navies worldwide to re - evaluate their battleship building programmes . While the Japanese had laid down an all - big - gun battleship , in 1904 , and the concept of an all - big - gun ship had been in circulation for several years , it had yet to be validated in combat . " Dreadnought " sparked a new arms race , principally between Britain and Germany but reflected worldwide , as the new class of warships became a crucial element of national power . Technical development continued rapidly through the dreadnought era , with step changes in armament , armor and propulsion . Ten years after " Dreadnought " s commissioning , much more powerful ships , the super - dreadnoughts , were being built . Origin . In the first years of the 20th century , several navies worldwide experimented with the idea of a new type of battleship with a uniform armament of very heavy guns . Admiral Vittorio Cuniberti , the Italian Navy ' s chief naval architect , articulated the concept of an all - big - gun battleship in 1903 . When the " Regia Marina " did not pursue his ideas , Cuniberti wrote an article in " Janes " proposing an " ideal " future British battleship , a large armored warship of 17 , 000 tons , armed solely with a single calibre main battery ( twelve 12 - inch { 305 mm } guns ) , carrying belt armor , and capable of 24 knots ( 44 km / h ) . The Russo - Japanese War provided operational experience to validate the ' all - big - gun ' concept . At the Yellow Sea and Tsushima , pre - dreadnoughts exchanged volleys at ranges of 7 , 600 – 12 , 000 yd ( 7 to 11 km ) , beyond the range of the secondary batteries . It is often held that these engagements demonstrated the importance of the gun over its smaller counterparts , though some historians take the view that secondary batteries were just as important as the larger weapons . In Japan , the two battleships of the 1903 - 4 Programme were the first to be laid down as all - big - gun designs , with eight 12 - inch guns . However , the design had armor which was considered too thin , demanding a substantial redesign . The financial pressures of the Russo - Japanese War and the short supply of 12 - inch guns which had to be imported from Britain meant these ships were completed with a mixed 10 - and 12 - inch armament . The 1903 - 4 design also retained traditional triple - expansion steam engines . As early as 1904 , Jackie Fisher had been convinced of the need for fast , powerful ships with an all - big - gun armament . If Tsushima influenced his thinking , it was to persuade him of the need to standardise on guns . Fisher ' s concerns were submarine s and destroyer s equipped with torpedoes , then threatening to outrange battleship guns , making speed imperative for capital ship s . Fisher ' s preferred option was his brainchild , the battlecruiser : lightly armored but heavily armed with eight 12 - inch guns and propelled to by steam turbines . It was to prove this revolutionary technology that " Dreadnought " was designed in January 1905 , laid down in October 1905 and sped to completion by 1906 . She carried ten 12 - inch guns , had an 11 - inch armor belt , and was the first large ship powered by turbines . She mounted her guns in five turrets ; three on the centerline ( one forward , two aft ) and two on the wings , giving her at her launch twice the broadside of any other warship . She retained a number of 12 - pound ( 3 - inch , 76 mm ) quick - firing guns for use against destroyers and torpedo - boats . Her armor was heavy enough for her to go head - to - head with any other ship in a gun battle , and conceivably win . " Dreadnought " was to have been followed by three s , their construction delayed to allow lessons from " Dreadnought " to be used in their design . While Fisher may have intended " Dreadnought " to be the last Royal Navy battleship , the design was so successful he found little support for his plan to switch to a battlecruiser navy . Although there were some problems with the ship ( the wing turrets had limited arcs of fire and strained the hull when firing a full broadside , and the top of the thickest armor belt lay below the waterline at full load ) , the Royal Navy promptly commissioned another six ships to a similar design in the and es . An American design , , authorized in 1905 and laid down in December 1906 , was another of the first dreadnoughts , but she and her sister , , were not launched until 1908 . Both used triple - expansion engines and had a superior layout of the main battery , dispensing with " Dreadnought " s wing turrets . They thus retained the same broadside , despite having two fewer guns . Arms race . In 1897 , before the revolution in design brought about by HMS " Dreadnought " , the Royal Navy had 62 battleships in commission or building , a lead of 26 over France and 50 over Germany . In 1906 , the Royal Navy owned the field with " Dreadnought " . The new class of ship prompted an arms race with major strategic consequences . Major naval powers raced to build their own dreadnoughts . Possession of modern battleships was not only vital to naval power , but also , as with nuclear weapons today , represented a nation ' s standing in the world . Germany , France , Japan , Italy , Austria , and the United States all began dreadnought programmes ; and second - rank powers including Turkey , Argentina , Russia , Brazil , and Chile commissioned dreadnoughts to be built in British and American yards . World War I . The First World War was an anticlimax for the great dreadnought fleets . There was no decisive clash of modern battlefleets to compare with the Battle of Tsushima . The role of battleships was marginal to the great land struggle in France and Russia ; and it was equally marginal to the First Battle of the Atlantic , the battle between German submarines and British merchant shipping . By virtue of geography , the Royal Navy could keep the German High Seas Fleet bottled up in the North Sea : only narrow channels led to the Atlantic Ocean and these were guarded by British forces . Both sides were aware that , because of the greater number of British dreadnoughts , a full fleet engagement would be likely to result in a British victory . The German strategy was therefore to try to provoke an engagement on their terms : either to induce a part of the Grand Fleet to enter battle alone , or to fight a pitched battle near the German coastline , where friendly minefields , torpedo - boats and submarines could be used to even the odds . The first two years of war saw conflict in the North Sea limited to skirmishes by battlecruiser s at the Battle of Heligoland Bight and Battle of Dogger Bank and raids on the English coast . On May 31 , 1916 , a further attempt to draw British ships into battle on German terms resulted in a clash of the battlefleets in the Battle of Jutland . The German fleet withdrew to port after two short encounters with the British fleet . This reinforced German determination never to engage in a fleet to fleet battle . In the other naval theatres there were no decisive pitched battles . In the Black Sea , engagement between Russian and Turkish battleships was restricted to skirmishes . In the Baltic , action was largely limited to the raiding of convoys , and the laying of defensive minefields ; the only significant clash of battleship squadrons there was the Battle of Moon Sound at which one Russian pre - dreadnought was lost . The Adriatic was in a sense the mirror of the North Sea : the Austro - Hungarian dreadnought fleet remained bottled up by the British and French blockade . And in the Mediterranean , the most important use of battleships was in support of the amphibious assault on Gallipoli . The war illustrated the vulnerability of battleships to cheaper weapons . In September 1914 , the potential threat posed to capital ship s by German U - boats was confirmed by successful attacks on British cruisers , including the sinking of three British armored cruiser s by the German submarine in less than an hour . Sea mines proved a threat the next month , when the recently commissioned British super - dreadnought struck a mine and sank . By the end of October , the British had changed their strategy and tactics in the North Sea to reduce the risk of U - boat attack . The German plan for the Battle of Jutland relied on U - boat attacks on the British fleet ; and the escape of the German fleet from the superior British firepower at Jutland was effected by the German cruisers and destroyers closing on British battleships , causing them to turn away to avoid the threat of torpedo attack . Further near - misses from submarine attacks on battleships and casualties amongst cruisers led to growing concern in the Royal Navy about the vulnerability of battleships . The German High Seas Fleet , for their part , were determined not to engage the British without the assistance of submarines ; and since the submarines were needed more for raiding commercial traffic , the fleet stayed in port for the remainder of the war . Other theatres equally showed the role of small craft in damaging or destroying dreadnoughts : of the Austro - Hungarian Navy was sunk by Italian motor torpedo boats in June 1918 , while her sister ship , , was sunk by frogmen . The Allied capital ships lost in Gallipoli were sunk by mines and torpedo , while a Turkish pre - dreadnought , , was caught in the Dardanelles by a British submarine . Inter - war period . For many years , Germany simply had no battleships . The Armistice with Germany required that most of the High Seas Fleet be disarmed and interned in a neutral port ; largely because no neutral port could be found , the ships remained in British custody in Scapa Flow , Scotland . The Treaty of Versailles specified that the ships should be handed over to the British . Instead , most of them were scuttled by their German crews on 21 June 1919 just before the signature of the peace treaty . The treaty also limited the German Navy , and prevented Germany from building or possessing any capital ship s . The inter - war period saw the battleship subjected to strict international limitations to prevent a costly arms race breaking out . While the victors were not limited by the Treaty of Versailles , many of the major naval powers were crippled after the war . Faced with the prospect of a naval arms race against the United Kingdom and Japan , which would in turn have led to a possible Pacific war , the United States was keen to conclude the Washington Naval Treaty of 1922 . This treaty limited the number and size of battleships that each major nation could possess , and required Britain to accept parity with the U . S . and to abandon the British alliance with Japan . The Washington treaty was followed by a series of other naval treaties , including the First Geneva Naval Conference ( 1927 ) , the First London Naval Treaty ( 1930 ) , the Second Geneva Naval Conference ( 1932 ) , and finally the Second London Naval Treaty ( 1936 ) , which all set limits on major warships . These treaties became effectively obsolete on 1 September 1939 at the beginning of World War II , but the ship classifications that had been agreed upon still apply . The treaty limitations meant that fewer new battleships were launched from 1919 – 1939 than from 1905 – 1914 . The treaties also inhibited development by putting maximum limits on the weights of ships . Designs like the projected British , the first American , and the Japanese — all of which continued the trend to larger ships with bigger guns and thicker armor — never got off the drawing board . Those designs which were commissioned during this period were referred to as treaty battleship s . Rise of air power . As early as 1914 , the British Admiral Percy Scott predicted that battleships would soon be made irrelevant by aircraft . By the end of World War I , aircraft had successfully adopted the torpedo as a weapon . In 1921 the Italian general and air theorist Giulio Douhet completed a hugely influential treatise on strategic bombing titled " The Command of the Air " , which foresaw the dominance of air power over naval units . In the 1920s , General Billy Mitchell of the United States Army Air Corps , believing that air forces had rendered navies around the world obsolete , testified in front of Congress that " 1 , 000 bombardment airplanes can be built and operated for about the price of one battleship " and that a squadron of these bombers could sink a battleship , making for more efficient use of government funds . This infuriated the U . S . Navy , but Mitchell was nevertheless allowed to conduct a careful series of bombing tests alongside Navy and Marine bombers . In 1921 , he bombed and sank numerous ships , including the " unsinkable " German World War I battleship and the American pre - dreadnought . Although Mitchell had required " war - time conditions " , the ships sunk were obsolete , stationary , defenseless and had no damage control . The sinking of " Ostfriesland " was accomplished by violating an agreement that would have allowed Navy engineers to examine the effects of various munitions : Mitchell ' s airmen disregarded the rules , and sank the ship within minutes in a coordinated attack . The stunt made headlines , and Mitchell declared , " No surface vessels can exist wherever air forces acting from land bases are able to attack them . " While far from conclusive , Mitchell ' s test was significant because it put proponents of the battleship against naval aviation on the back foot . Rear Admiral William A . Moffett used public relations against Mitchell to make headway toward expansion of the U . S . Navy ' s nascent aircraft carrier program . Rearmament . The Royal Navy , United States Navy , and Imperial Japanese Navy extensively upgraded and modernized their World War I – era battleships during the 1930s . Among the new features were an increased tower height and stability for the optical rangefinder equipment ( for gunnery control ) , more armor ( especially around turrets ) to protect against plunging fire and aerial bombing , and additional anti - aircraft weapons . Some British ships received a large block superstructure nicknamed the " Queen Anne ' s castle " , such as in the and , which would be used in the new conning towers of the fast battleship s . External bulges were added to improve both buoyancy to counteract weight increase and provide underwater protection against mines and torpedoes . The Japanese rebuilt all of their battleships , plus their battlecruisers , with distinctive " pagoda " structures , though the received a more modern bridge tower that would influence the new s . Bulges were fitted , including steel tube array to improve both underwater and vertical protection along waterline . The U . S . experimented with cage masts and later tripod masts , though after Pearl Harbor some of the most severely damaged ships such as and were rebuilt to a similar appearance to their contemporaries ( called tower masts ) . Radar , which was effective beyond visual contact and was effective in complete darkness or adverse weather conditions , was introduced to supplement optical fire control . Even when war threatened again in the late 1930s , battleship construction did not regain the level of importance which it had held in the years before World War I . The " building holiday " imposed by the naval treaties meant that the building capacity of dockyards worldwide was relatively reduced , and the strategic position had changed . In Germany , the ambitious Plan Z for naval rearmament was abandoned in favour of a strategy of submarine warfare supplemented by the use of battlecruisers and s as commerce raiders . In Britain , the most pressing need was for air defenses and convoy escorts to safeguard the civilian population from bombing or starvation , and re - armament construction plans consisted of five ships of the . It was in the Mediterranean that navies remained most committed to battleship warfare . France intended to build six battleships of the and es , and the Italians two ships . Neither navy built significant aircraft carriers . The U . S . preferred to spend limited funds on aircraft carriers until the . Japan , also prioritising aircraft carriers , nevertheless began work on three mammoth ships ( although the third , , was later completed as a carrier ) and a planned fourth was cancelled . At the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War , the Spanish navy consisted of only two small dreadnought battleships , and . " España " ( originally named " Alfonso XIII " ) , by then in reserve at the northwestern naval base of El Ferrol , fell into Nationalist hands in July 1936 . The crew aboard " Jaime I " murdered their officers , mutinied , and joined the Republican Navy . Thus each side had one battleship ; however , the Republican Navy generally lacked experienced officers . The Spanish battleships mainly restricted themselves to mutual blockades , convoy escort duties , and shore bombardment , rarely in direct fighting against other surface units . In April 1937 , " España " ran into a mine laid by friendly forces , and sank with little loss of life . In May 1937 , " Jaime I " was damaged by Nationalist air attacks and a grounding incident . The ship was forced to go back to port to be repaired . There she was again hit by several aerial bombs . It was then decided to tow the battleship to a more secure port , but during the transport she suffered an internal explosion that caused 300 deaths and her total loss . Several Italian and German capital ships participated in the non - intervention blockade . On 29 May 1937 , two Republican aircraft managed to bomb the German pocket battleship outside Ibiza , causing severe damage and loss of life . retaliated two days later by bombarding Almería , causing much destruction , and the resulting " Deutschland " incident meant the end of German and Italian support for non - intervention . World War II . The — an obsolete pre - dreadnought — fired the first shots of World War II with the bombardment of the Polish garrison at Westerplatte ; and the final surrender of the Japanese Empire took place aboard a United States Navy battleship , . Between those two events , it had become clear that aircraft carriers were the new principal ships of the fleet and that battleships now performed a secondary role . Battleships played a part in major engagements in Atlantic , Pacific and Mediterranean theatres ; in the Atlantic , the Germans used their battleships as independent commerce raiders . However , clashes between battleships were of little strategic importance . The Battle of the Atlantic was fought between destroyers and submarines , and most of the decisive fleet clashes of the Pacific war were determined by aircraft carrier s . In the first year of the war , armored warships defied predictions that aircraft would dominate naval warfare . and surprised and sank the aircraft carrier off western Norway in June 1940 . This engagement marked the last time a fleet carrier was sunk by surface gunnery . In the attack on Mers - el - Kébir , British battleships opened fire on the French battleships in the harbour near Oran in Algeria with their heavy guns , and later pursued fleeing French ships with planes from aircraft carriers . The subsequent years of the war saw many demonstrations of the maturity of the aircraft carrier as a strategic naval weapon and its potential against battleships . The British air attack on the Italian naval base at Taranto sank one Italian battleship and damaged two more . The same Swordfish torpedo bombers played a crucial role in sinking the German commerce - raider . On 7 December 1941 , the Japanese launched a surprise attack on Pearl Harbor . Within a short time five of eight U . S . battleships were sunk or sinking , with the rest damaged . The American aircraft carriers were out to sea , however , and evaded detection . They in turn would take up the fight , eventually turning the tide of the war in the Pacific . The sinking of the British battleship " Prince of Wales " and her escort , the battlecruiser , demonstrated the vulnerability of a battleship to air attack while at sea without sufficient air cover , finally settling the argument begun by Mitchell in 1921 . Both warships were under way and en route to attack the Japanese amphibious force that had invaded Malaya when they were caught by Japanese land - based bomber s and torpedo bomber s on 10 December 1941 . At many of the early crucial battles of the Pacific , for instance Coral Sea and Midway , battleships were either absent or overshadowed as carriers launched wave after wave of planes into the attack at a range of hundreds of miles . In later battles in the Pacific , battleships primarily performed shore bombardment in support of amphibious landings and provided anti - aircraft defense as escort for the carriers . Even the largest battleships ever constructed , Japan ' s , which carried a main battery of nine 18 - inch ( 46 cm ) guns and were designed as a principal strategic weapon , were never given a chance to show their potential in the decisive battleship action that figured in Japanese pre - war planning . The last battleship confrontation in history was the Battle of Surigao Strait , on October 25 , 1944 , in which a numerically and technically superior American battleship group destroyed a lesser Japanese battleship group by gunfire after it had already been devastated by destroyer torpedo attacks . All but one of the American battleships in this confrontation had previously been sunk by the Attack on Pearl Harbor and subsequently raised and repaired . When fired the last salvo of this battle , the last salvo fired by a battleship against another heavy ship , she was " firing a funeral salute to a finished era of naval warfare . " In April 1945 , during the battle for Okinawa , the world ' s most powerful battleship , the " Yamato " , was sent out against a massive U . S . force on a suicide mission and sunk by overwhelming carrier aircraft with nearly all hands . Cold War . After World War II , several navies retained their existing battleships , but they were no longer strategically dominant military assets . Indeed , it soon became apparent that they were no longer worth the considerable cost of construction and maintenance and only one new battleship was commissioned after the war , . During the war it had been demonstrated that battleship - on - battleship engagements like Leyte Gulf or the sinking of were the exception and not the rule , and with the growing role of aircraft engagement ranges were becoming longer and longer , making heavy gun armament irrelevant . The armor of a battleship was equally irrelevant in the face of a nuclear attack as tactical missiles with a range of or more could be mounted on the Soviet and s . By the end of the 1950s , minor vessel classes which formerly offered no noteworthy opposition now were capable of eliminating battleships at will . The remaining battleships met a variety of ends . and were sunk during the testing of nuclear weapons in Operation Crossroads in 1946 . Both battleships proved resistant to nuclear air burst but vulnerable to underwater nuclear explosions . The was taken by the Soviets as reparations and renamed " Novorossiysk " ; she was sunk by a leftover German mine in the Black Sea on 29 October 1955 . The two ships were scrapped in 1956 . The French was scrapped in 1954 , in 1968 , and in 1970 . The United Kingdom ' s four surviving ships were scrapped in 1957 , and followed in 1960 . All other surviving British battleships had been sold or broken up by 1949 . The Soviet Union ' s was scrapped in 1953 , in 1957 and ( back under her original name , , since 1942 ) in 1956 - 7 . Brazil ' s was scrapped in Genoa in 1953 , and her sister ship sank during a storm in the Atlantic " en route " to the breakers in Italy in 1951 . Argentina kept its two ships until 1956 and Chile kept ( formerly ) until 1959 . The Turkish battlecruiser ( formerly , launched in 1911 ) was scrapped in 1976 after an offer to sell her back to Germany was refused . Sweden had several small coastal - defense battleships , one of which , , survived until 1970 . The Soviets scrapped four large incomplete cruisers in the late 1950s , whilst plans to build a number of new s were abandoned following the death of Joseph Stalin in 1953 . The three old German battleships , , and all met similar ends . " Hessen " was taken over by the Soviet Union and renamed " Tsel " . She was scrapped in 1960 . " Schleswig - Holstein " was renamed " Borodino " , and was used as a target ship until 1960 . " Schlesien " , too , was used as a target ship . She was broken up between 1952 and 1957 . The s gained a new lease of life in the U . S . Navy as fire support ships . Radar and computer - controlled gunfire could be aimed with pinpoint accuracy to target . The U . S . recommissioned all four " Iowa " - class battleships for the Korean War and the for the Vietnam War . These were primarily used for shore bombardment , " New Jersey " firing nearly 6 , 000 rounds of 16 inch shells and over 14 , 000 rounds of 5 inch projectiles during her tour on the gunline , seven times more rounds against shore targets in Vietnam than she had fired in the Second World War . As part of Navy Secretary John F . Lehman ' s effort to build a 600 - ship Navy in the 1980s , and in response to the commissioning of " Kirov " by the Soviet Union , the United States recommissioned all four " Iowa " - class battleships . On several occasions , battleships were support ships in carrier battle group s , or led their own battleship battle group . These were modernized to carry Tomahawk missile s , with " New Jersey " seeing action bombarding Lebanon in 1983 and 1984 , while and fired their 16 inch ( 406 mm ) guns at land targets and launched missiles during Operation Desert Storm in 1991 . " Wisconsin " served as the TLAM strike commander for the Persian Gulf , directing the sequence of launches that marked the opening of " Desert Storm " , firing a total of 24 TLAMs during the first two days of the campaign . The primary threat to the battleships were Iraqi shore based surface - to - surface missiles ; " Missouri " was targeted by two Iraqi Silkworm missile s , with one missing and another being intercepted by the British destroyer . All four " Iowa " s were decommissioned in the early 1990s , making them the last battleships to see active service . USS " Iowa " and USS " Wisconsin " were , until fiscal year 2006 , maintained to a standard where they could be rapidly returned to service as fire support vessels , pending the development of a superior fire support vessel . The U . S . Marine Corps believes that the current naval surface fire support gun and missile programs will not be able to provide adequate fire support for an amphibious assault or onshore operations . Modern times . With the decommissioning of the last " Iowa " - class ships , no battleships remain in service or in reserve with any navy worldwide . A number are preserved as museum ships , either afloat or in drydock . The U . S . has eight battleships on display : , , , , , , and . " Missouri " and " New Jersey " are now museums at Pearl Harbor and Camden , New Jersey , respectively . " Iowa " is now on display as an educational attraction at the Los Angeles Waterfront in San Pedro , California . " Wisconsin " was removed from the Naval Vessel Register in 2006 and now serves as a museum ship in Norfolk , Virginia . " Massachusetts " , which owns the distinction of never having lost a man while in active service , was acquired by the Battleship Cove naval museum in Fall River , Massachusetts in 1965 . " Texas " , the first battleship turned into a museum , is on display at the San Jacinto Battleground State Historic Site , near Houston . " North Carolina " is on display in Wilmington , North Carolina . " Alabama " is on display in Mobile , Alabama . The only other 20th century battleship on display is the Japanese pre - dreadnought . Owing to geography , " Iowa , " " Missouri " and " Wisconsin " are the only museum battleships not enshrined in their namesake states . Strategy and doctrine . Doctrine . 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 1890 ' s " The Influence of Sea Power Upon History , 1660 – 1783 " , 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 cruiser s 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 came to be known as a " fleet in being " . ) 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 a massive international impact , in the end 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 impact . Tactics . While the role of battleships in both World Wars reflected Mahanian doctrine , the details of battleship deployment were more complex . Unlike the ship of the line , the battleships of the late 19th and early 20th Centuries had significant vulnerability to torpedoes and mines , weapons which could be used by relatively small and inexpensive craft . The " Jeune École " school of thought of the 1870s and 1880s recommended placing torpedo boat s alongside battleships ; these would hide behind the battleships until gun - smoke obscured visibility enough for them to dart out and fire their torpedoes . While this tactic was vitiated by the development of smokeless propellant , the threat from more capable torpedo craft ( later including submarines ) remained . By the 1890s the Royal Navy had developed the first destroyer s , which were initially designed to intercept and drive off any attacking torpedo boats . During the First World War and subsequently , battleships were rarely deployed without a protective screen of destroyers . Battleship doctrine emphasised the concentration of the battlegroup . In order for this concentrated force to be able to bring its power to bear on a reluctant opponent ( or to avoid an encounter with a stronger enemy fleet ) , battlefleets needed some means of locating enemy ships beyond horizon range . This was provided by scouting forces ; at various stages battlecruisers , cruisers , destroyers , airship s , submarines and aircraft were all used . ( With the development of radio , direction finding and traffic analysis would come into play , as well , so even shore stations , broadly speaking , joined the battlegroup . ) So for most of their history , battleships operated surrounded by squadrons of destroyers and cruisers . The North Sea campaign of the First World War illustrates how , despite this support , the threat of mine and torpedo attack , and the failure to integrate or appreciate the capabilities of new techniques , seriously inhibited the operations of the Royal Navy Grand Fleet , the greatest battleship fleet of its time . Strategic and diplomatic impact . The presence of battleships had a great psychological and diplomatic impact . Similar to possessing nuclear weapon s today , the ownership of battleships served to enhance a nation ' s force projection . Even during the Cold War , the psychological impact of a battleship was significant . In 1946 , USS " Missouri " was dispatched to deliver the remains of the ambassador from Turkey , and her presence in Turkish and Greek waters staved off a possible Soviet thrust into the Balkan region . In September 1983 , when Druze militia in Lebanon ' s Shouf Mountains fired upon U . S . Marine peacekeepers , the arrival of USS " New Jersey " stopped the firing . Gunfire from " New Jersey " later killed militia leaders . Value for money . Battleships were the largest and most complex , and hence the most expensive warships of their time ; as a result , the value of investment in battleships has always been contested . As the French politician Etienne Lamy wrote in 1879 , " The construction of battleships is so costly , their effectiveness so uncertain and of such short duration , that the enterprise of creating an armored fleet seems to leave fruitless the perseverance of a people " . The " Jeune École " school of thought of the 1870s and 1880s sought alternatives to the crippling expense and debatable utility of a conventional battlefleet . It proposed what would nowadays be termed a sea denial strategy , based on fast , long - ranged cruisers for commerce raiding and torpedo boat flotillas to attack enemy ships attempting to blockade French ports . The ideas of the " Jeune Ecole " were ahead of their time ; it was not until the 20th century that efficient mines , torpedoes , submarines , and aircraft were available that allowed similar ideas to be effectively implemented . The determination of powers such as the German Empire to build battlefleets with which to confront much stronger rivals has been criticised by historians , who emphasise the futility of investment in a battlefleet which has no chance of matching its opponent in an actual battle . According to this view , attempts by a weaker navy to compete head - to - head with a stronger one in battleship construction simply wasted resources which could have been better invested in attacking the enemy ' s points of weakness . In Germany ' s case , the British dependence on massive imports of food and raw materials proved to be a near - fatal weakness , once Germany had accepted the political risk of unrestricted submarine warfare against commercial shipping . Although the U - boat offensive in 1917 – 18 was ultimately defeated , it was successful in causing huge material loss and forcing the Allies to divert vast resources into anti - submarine warfare . This success , though not ultimately decisive , was nevertheless in sharp contrast to the inability of the German battlefleet to challenge the supremacy of Britain ' s far stronger fleet .