The Iowa-class battleships were six battleships ordered by the United States Navy in 1939 and 1940 for use as escorts for the Fast Carrier Task Forces operating in the Pacific Theatre of World War II. Four were completed in the early to mid-1940s; two more were laid down but were canceled prior to completion and ultimately scrapped. They comprised the final class of U.S. battleships.
Built with no restrictions with regard to cost or treaty limitations, the Iowa class was arguably the ultimate in the evolution of the capital ship. The Iowa class topped the Discovery Channel's list of the ten "most fearsome vessels in the history of naval warfare." Yet even as these behemoths entered service, they were being eclipsed by aircraft carriers as the most important naval vessels.
The Iowa-class battleships served in every major U.S. war of the latter half of the 20th century. In World War II, they defended aircraft carriers and shelled Japanese positions before being placed in reserve at the end of the war. Recalled for action during the Korean War, the battleships provided artillery support for UN forces fighting against North Korea. In 1968, New Jersey was recalled for action in the Vietnam War and shelled Communist targets for U.S. forces near the Vietnamese Demilitarized Zone. All four were reactivated and armed with missiles during the Cold War as part of the 600-ship Navy. In 1991, Missouri and Wisconsin fired missiles and 16-inch guns at Iraqi targets during the Gulf War. All four battleships were decommissioned in the early 1990s, and were removed from the Naval Vessel Register in 2006.
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Farhad2000http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Uss_iowa_bb-61_pr.jpg
The primary armament of an Iowa-class battleship is nine 16 inch (406 mm) / 50-caliber Mark 7 naval guns, which are housed in three 3-gun turrets: two forward and one aft in a configuration known as "2-A-1". The guns are 66 feet (20 m) long (50 times their 16 inch bore, or 50 calibers, from breechface to muzzle). About 43 feet (13 m) protrudes from the gun house. Each gun weighs about 239,000 pounds (108 000 kg) without the breech, or 267,900 pounds with the breech. They fire projectiles weighing from 1,900 to 2,700 pounds (850 to 1,200 kg) at a maximum speed of 2,690 ft/s (820 m/s) up to 24 nautical miles (39 km). At maximum range the projectile spends almost 1½ minutes in flight.
Each gun rests within an armored turret, but only the top of the turret protrudes above the main deck. The turret extends either four decks (Turrets 1 and 3) or five decks (Turret 2) down. The lower spaces contain rooms for handling the projectiles and storing the powder bags used to fire them. Each turret required a crew of 94 men to operate. The turrets are not actually attached to the ship, but sit on rollers, which means that if the ship were to capsize the turrets would fall out. Each turret costs US $1.4 million, but this number does not take into account the cost of the guns themselves.
The turrets are "three-gun," not "triple", because each barrel can be elevated independently; they can also be fired independently. The ship could fire any combination of its guns, including a broadside of all nine. Contrary to myth, the ships do not move noticeably sideways when a broadside is fired.
The guns can be elevated from −5° to +45°, moving at up to 12° per second. The turrets can be rotated about 300° at about four degrees per second and can even be fired back beyond the beam, which is sometimes called "over the shoulder." The guns are never fired directly forward (in the 1980s refit, a satellite up-link antenna was mounted at the bow).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iowa_class_battleship#Main_battery
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