- A new video from the USS New Jersey Museum takes a look at what it would take to return the battleship to service.
- The four Iowa-class battleships have been reactivated three times since the end of World War II.
- It’s possible to bring the ships back to fighting condition, but it would take a real emergency.
Could we bring back the Iowa-class battleships? It turns out that the answer is yes, we could. Sort of. According to an official naval historian, a battleship could be (kind of) ready for combat in as little as 60 days. Just remember to temper your expectations of an 80-year-old warship.
60 Days to Combat
In a video posted earlier this year, the lead curator of the Battleship USS New Jersey Museum, Ryan Szimanski, ran through a thought experiment regarding whether or not the Navy—with a budget of $10 million and a 60 day deadline—could get USS New Jersey into fighting shape.
New Jersey is the second of four Iowa-class battleships. The four ships—Iowa, New Jersey, Missouri, and Wisconsin—were the last battleships built by the Navy. Mothballed at the end of World War II, the ships were brought back into service for the Korean War, Vietnam War, and as part of President Ronald Reagan’s vaunted “600 Ship Navy” of the 1980s.
Today, the four ships are floating museums, kept in immaculate condition by museum employees and volunteer docents—some of whom once served on the ships themselves. Although the ships are officially retired from government service, as Szimanski explains, the Navy can legally take them back in the event of a national emergency.
The ships are in excellent mechanical condition, and it would take little to bring many of their systems back to operational status. The battleships were modernized in the early 1980s, and some of the equipment—including the AN/SPS-49 air search radar—is still used today.
Other issues, however—including a non-working fuel system, a lack of gunpowder and explosive charges for shells, and a near complete lack of spare parts—would prove challenging obstacles to overcome. Szimanski concluded that, given the tight deadline and budget, New Jersey probably could be made into a floating gun barge that was once again ready to blast targets with its nine 16-inch Mark 7 guns.
A Real Emergency
USS Missouri launches a Tomahawk cruise missile, 1988.
It would take a grave international crisis to make bringing the battleships back worth the effort. The difficulty of reactivating the ships systems, the sourcing of a 1,600 person crew (more than the combined crew of four destroyers), and the obsolescence of the guns all mean that the Pentagon would have to be desperate for battleship-style firepower.
After the attack on Pearl Harbor—which unseated the battleship as the most powerful ship at sea—bombarding land targets was the battleship’s remaining core competency. The Iowa-class battleships were brought back for their big guns in Korea, Vietnam, and the Cold War. Each time they returned, they were considered the best platforms for naval gunfire support of amphibious landings and interdiction, and were capable of hurling up to eighteen 1,900 pound high explosive projectiles against enemy defenses every minute.
The most likely scenario for a comeback would be one in which the U.S. military had to launch a major amphibious assault against a heavily defended objective—for example, if a major NATO or Asian ally had suffered a catastrophic loss. A Taiwan that had been overrun by a Chinese invasion force, or a North Korea that had once again (like the early days of the Korean War) pushed South Korea into a tiny section of the Korean peninsula.
What Would They Look Like?
In the 1980s, all four battleships were equipped with Tomahawk missiles (shown here, launching) and Harpoon anti-ship missiles, their cylindrical launch tubes here in the background.
Let’s assume the Herculean effort of reactivating a battleship and having it combat ready in one year was judged to be worthwhile despite all the challenges, and that unlimited funds were available to get them back into service. This is a more generous scenario—but also more realistic one—than what was presented in the video.
In the event of an emergency, the Navy would have to split reactivating the Iowa-class battleships into three main efforts: personnel, activation and sustainment, and upgrades. Crewing four battleships would require 6,400 personnel—about two percent of the active duty Navy manpower. The ships would be crewed by a combination of draftees, active duty sailors, and a small cadre of veterans who served on the ships as late as the early 1990s, whose knowledge would be useful bringing the ships back into service.
Getting the ships back into working condition would be next. The ships suffer from a lack of shells, explosives, and gunpowder. While gunpowder and explosives would likely not be much of an issue, the Navy would have to set up tooling to produce new steel 16-inch shells. Spare and missing parts—such as breech blocks for guns, weapons mounts, and spare engine parts—would have to be remanufactured. Old blueprints and other specifications for the ships (if they still exist) would have to be produced from Navy archives, and the parts made quickly.
Sixteen-inch shells aboard the battleship New Jersey, 1944. The shells are no longer produced today. That said, there is nothing complicated about making them.
We can reasonably assume that the ships are being brought back for their 16-inch guns, and that destroyers will provide mostly defensive firepower. The ships would require new satellite communications and GPS navigation. Sensors could remain rudimentary, given the time crunch and the abilities of escorting destroyers. The Navy would fit each battleship with the AN/SLQ-32(V)7 Surface Electronic Warfare Improvement Program (SEWIP)—a one-stop-shop of a system that combines missile detection and warning, anti-missile jamming, electromagnetic signal analysis, and electro-optical and infrared sensors into a single package. Bolting SEWIP onto the battleship’s superstructure would go a long way towards giving it modern capabilities. The battleships could also receive Nulka anti-missile decoys, which hover in the air and lure incoming anti-ship missiles away from their targets.
A modest weapon refit could be accomplished in a year. Each destroyer would receive four new, fully updated versions of the Mk 15 Phalanx Close-In Weapon System that the ships were armed with in the 1980s.
USS Missouri as it departs Long Beach, California, November 1990. The battleships were fitted with four Phalanx close-in weapon systems, one of which is visible here. The twin 5-inch gun mounts could be replaced with something new in a quick refit, possibly the Mark 70 missile launcher.
The Navy could also remove each ship’s remaining 5-inch/38 caliber secondary guns and replace each double mount with the Mk 70 Mod 1 Payload Delivery System—a four-cell missile launcher capable of launching SM-6 anti-air missiles and Tomahawk cruise missiles. Assuming each gun station could be replaced with a, Mk 70, a battleship could carry up to 40 missiles, which would be a useful boost in offensive and defensive firepower. Their launches would be controlled via datalink by a nearby destroyer.
Right now, there is only one weapon in the world that can pummel an enemy with 17 tons of steel and high explosive every minute: an Iowa-class battleship. If the service decided to reactivate Iowa and its sister ships, it could be done. Should it be done? That’s up to the Navy to decide.
Kyle Mizokami
Kyle Mizokami is a writer on defense and security issues and has been at Popular Mechanics since 2015. If it involves explosions or projectiles, he's generally in favor of it. Kyle’s articles have appeared at The Daily Beast, U.S. Naval Institute News, The Diplomat, Foreign Policy, Combat Aircraft Monthly, VICE News, and others. He lives in San Francisco.
