On January 7th, 1944, Iowa transited the Panama Canal, ending her wartime service in the Atlantic. She was en route to join the US offensive against Japan in the Central Pacific. Her newly-commissioned sister New Jersey joined her to form Battleship Division 7, with Iowa serving as the flagship. They joined the 5th Fleet on the 22nd, and the next day sailed as carrier-group escorts for the invasion of Kwajalein in the Marshall Islands. This invasion, though eventful on the ground, saw nothing of note for Iowa. Her first combat action came on February 17th, as part of a carrier raid on the Japanese naval base at Truk to cover the landings on Eniwetok Atoll. The raid began at dawn that day, as aircraft from nine carriers pounded airfields and shipping. To catch any escapees, Admiral Spruance, commanding the American fleet, ordered BatDiv 7, with escorting cruisers and destroyers, to make a sweep around Truk to intercept any escaping enemy ships.

Iowa at sea shortly after arriving in the Pacific

To quote Samuel Eliot Morison,¹ “As Spruance’s group steamed in the direction of reported enemy ships, mighty Iowa at 1118 was attacked by a bold ‘Zeke.’² It made a near-miss alongside the wing of the bridge where Admiral Hustvedt³ was eating his lunch. ‘That was my bomb’ said the Admiral, and went on eating. The ‘Zeke’ got away.” Read more...

A couple of things:

1. I was browsing the USNI Holiday Catalog, and ran across a fantastic deal. Probably my favorite naval history books are Samuel Eliot Morison's History of US Naval Operations in WW2. Right now, the USNI has the 14-volume set on sale for $105 while supplies last. I just ordered two as presents. This is a really good deal on books I cannot recommend highly enough. When I need an answer to a question about the USN in WW2 beyond what wiki can provide, they are always the first thing I reach for. I'm pretty sure this doesn't require membership, although if you're into naval stuff, the $40 web membership pays off fairly quickly. (Or it will, if you don't use it as an excuse to buy more naval books. Which is also a valid lifestyle choice.)

2. Iowa just opened the Full Steam Ahead tour, opening up the engine rooms, plots, and CEC. Previously, you had to be family or close friends of a volunteer (or a major donor) to get this. Highly recommended.

The longest-range hit ever by a battleship at sea was approximately 26,400 yards,⁴ made by KMS Scharnhorst on HMS Glorious in the North Sea.⁵ Glorious was making at least 17 knots at the time, and it only took Scharnhorst 3 salvos to make the hit. Iowa’s 16” guns themselves had a normal maximum range of approximately 40,000 yards.⁶ Coincidentally, that is almost exactly the distance from where the ship is moored to Catalina Island, visible on a clear day. What made gun ranges like these practical?

KMS Scharnhorst

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I've discussed in great detail many of Iowa's systems, but never really talked too much about her history, so I thought that would make a good topic to start out with here.

Iowa moored in San Pedro⁷

USS Iowa (BB-61) was the fourth ship of the US Navy to bear the name, although only one of the previous three ships actually saw service.⁸ Read more...

This is the topical index of Naval Gazing posts, both here and at SSC. As I update posts originally made there, I'll update the links to the latest version. This index may not have the absolute latest posts included, because I have to manually update it, but it should do the job.

Table of Contents

• History
• Technical
• Other

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Naval Gazing is my exploration/explanation of naval warfare, from about 1860 to the present. Battleships are my greatest interest, but I've also branched out to cover other topics, even in the broader defense field. I've been a military geek my whole life, and while I was living in Los Angeles, I was a tour guide on the battleship Iowa. Naval Gazing started when someone asked in a Slate Star Codex open thread about hobbies, and I replied with my interest in battleships. Lots of people seemed interested, so I kept talking about battleships in the open threads for the next 8 months or so, and branched out into other aspects of naval warfare. Finally, I got tired of dealing with the limitations of trying to run a blog in wordpress comments, and set up Naval Gazing as an independent blog.

If you're new here, the place to start is A Brief History of the Battleship, followed by Top Posts and maybe things tagged Intro. If you're interested in specific topics, the Topical Index is the place to go.

I post twice times a week, at 7AM Central on Sundays and Wednesdays. On Fridays, we alternate between an Open Thread (talk about anything you like, so long as it's not culture war) and the group Rule the Waves 2 game. I may occasionally take time off, but if I do I'll be sure to let everyone know.

Thanks to Said Achmiz for hosting me.

I can be reached at battleshipbean at gmail.

The name ‘battleship’ comes from ‘line-of-battle ship’, the name given to the large ships of the Napoleonic Wars that fought in a line. It refers to a capital ship (the term for large warships which are responsible for sea control) with big guns as its primary armament and carrying heavy armor. Battleships in various forms dominated the seas from the 1860s (when the first armored warships appeared) until WW2, when aircraft developed enough to dethroned them. There are no battleships in service today, and the only battleships to see active service since 1960 are the Iowa class.

HMS Warrior (preserved at Portsmouth, England)

The lineage of the modern battleship starts with HMS Warrior, launched in 1860, the first iron-hulled armored warship. She was followed by a bewildering array of other ships. Turrets appeared, and improvements in steam engines allowed sails to be discarded.

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Naval Gazing originated as a series of comments in the open threads of a blog called Slate Star Codex. Someone asked about hobbies, and I began to talk about my tour-guiding, followed by a version of my fire-control spiel. I then spent about the next eight months posting stuff there before I moved to Oklahoma and started Naval Gazing as an independent blog. These are links to those original posts. At this point, they're essentially of historical interest only. With a few very minor exceptions, everything discussed there has also been covered here, usually in significantly greater detail. Originally, the asterisks were a system for keeping track of which ones had been revised.

Series Intro*

History:

• General History of Battleships, Part 1*, Part 2*
• The Early Ironclads*
• Pre-Dreadnoughts*
• Pursuit of the Goeben and Breslau*
• The Battle of Jutland Part 1*, Part 2*, Part 3*, Part 4*, Part 5*, Part 6*
• US Battleships in WW2*
• The Battleships of Pearl Harbor Part 1*, Part 2*, Part 3*
• Rest-of-world Battleships in WW2*
• Battlecruisers*
• Battleships after WW2*
• The Destroyer that accidentally attacked a President*
• The loss of HMS Victoria*
• The South American Dreadnought Race*
• Dreadnoughts of the minor powers*
• Life aboard Iowa*
• Network-centric Warfare Part 1*, Part 2*
• History of Naval Aviation (hlynkacg) Part 1
• Warship Types of WWI and WWII*
  
  Technical:
• Fire Control, Part 1*, Part 2* (Old)
• History of Fire Control
• Armor Part 1*, Part 2*
• Propulsion*
• Armament Part 1*, Part 2*
• Turret vs barbette*
• Underwater protection*
• Secondary Armament Part 1*, Part 2*
• Survivability and Damage Control Part 1*, Part 2*
• Mine Warfare Part 1*, Part 2*
  
  Modern Naval:
• Why the carriers are not doomed Part 1*, Part 2*, Part 3*, Part 4*
• AEGIS*
• Strike Warfare*
  
  Misc:
• Naval Bibliography*
• Thoughts on tour guiding*
• Questions I get as a tour guide*
• Thoughts on the Summer 2017 Collisions