Key Points and Summary – As U.S. destroyers like USS Carney fend off missile and drone swarms in the Red Sea, critics argue modern surface ships are too fragile for today’s threat environment. The long career of USS Iowa battleship, from WWII to Korea to the 1980s missile age, offers a powerful counterpoint.
Iowa-Class Missile Launchers
-Built to outrun and out-gun enemies, repeatedly modernized, and still afloat as a museum, Iowa embodied resilience through armor, redundancy, and brutal survivability.
-Her tragic 1989 turret explosion underscored the cost of aging ships and lax procedures, but her story still challenges a Navy that has largely traded toughness for technology.
-We toured the USS Iowa recently to get a sense of this battleship and present many photos from that visit here.
USS Iowa’s Hidden Lesson for a Navy Under Missile Siege
As the U.S. Navy grapples with a string of scares in the Red Sea – where destroyers like USS Carney have intercepted waves of Houthi anti-ship missiles and drones under real combat pressure – the debate around modern surface ships and their future rages on.
Surface ships are increasingly seen as too fragile for the threat environment they face today – and while there’s a good case to be made in favor of those claims, the U.S. has a long history of naval excellence thanks to its world-class surface ships.
Iowa-Class Battleship Secondary Guns. Image Credit: Harry J. Kazianis/National Security Journal.
That being said, recent statements from Navy leadership and commentary by industry analysts have increasingly pointed to a significant problem: current defensive systems may no longer be sufficient as saturation attacks become the norm and drones become cheaper, easier, and quicker to deploy.
There is, in a sense, a battle between survivability and lethality. As the conversation continues – and the Navy ponders the future of even its most advanced surface ships – it’s worth revisiting the story of a vessel that has symbolized American naval power for half a century.
The USS Iowa (BB-61), the first of the Iowa-class battleships, remains one of the most astounding examples of American naval excellence and a testament to how sea power has evolved. It’s also representative of what was lost when the battleship era came to an end.
Meet USS Iowa Battleship
Commissioned in February 1943, USS Iowa was designed to outrun, out-gun, and outlast nearly anything at sea.
With a top speed of 33 knots, she was one of the fastest battleships ever built for the U.S. Navy.
The Iowa-class ships were intended not only for surface combat but also for high-speed escort operations, protecting the fast carrier task forces that became the backbone of U.S. naval power in the Pacific.
Iowa-Class 5-Inch Guns. Image by Harry J. Kazianis/National Security Journal.
During World War II, Iowa participated in operations across the Pacific theater.
She served as a flagship for Admiral William F. Halsey during the campaign against the Marshall Islands in early 1944. She later provided anti-aircraft cover for carriers during raids on Okinawa and the Japanese home islands in 1945.
And while Iowa did not fire her main battery during major surface engagements, her presence proved central to the United States’ overwhelming naval power that ultimately pressured Japan in the final months of the war.
Iowa was even present in Tokyo Bay in September 1945 during the formal Japanese surrender.
After the war ended, the battleship era also began to decline as airpower became more central to global military operations, alongside the emergence of missile technologies.
And yet, USS Iowa refused to disappear. She was recommissioned for the Korean War in 1951, providing naval gunfire support for U.S. and UN ground forces along the Korean peninsula.
The Iowa was decommissioned again after the conflict, then returned to service during the Reagan-era naval buildup of the 1980s, which sought to expand the fleet to 600 ships and restore heavy surface firepower as a tool of American deterrence.
16-Inch Iowa-Class Guns. Image Credit: National Security Journal.
It was during this time that the Iowa-class battleships underwent a massive modernizing program, with the ships being equipped with Harpoon anti-ship missiles, Tomahawk land-attack cruise missiles, and Phalanx Close-in Weapon Systems.
After facing an uncertain future, the Iowa-class became perhaps more important than ever.
But once again, in 1989, that renewed era of the battleship came to an abrupt halt after Iowa’s Number Two turret killed 47 sailors.
Specifically, in April of that year, USS Iowa’s Number Two 16-inch gun turret exploded during a gunnery exercise.
The blast originated in the center gun’s powder bags, which detonated prematurely while the turret was being loaded.
The Navy initially blamed sabotage by a turret crewman, but that theory collapsed under scrutiny.
USS Iowa Logo National Security Journal Photo. Taken August 15, 2025.
A later GAO investigation found a combination of friction, overramming, and unsafe procedures – along with unstable propellant – were the most likely causes of the problem.
The turret was never fully repaired, and the incident became a defining symbol of the risks of using aging vessels.
Although Iowa returned to limited service after the incident, the era of heavily armored gun platforms was drawing to a close. By the early 1990s, the Navy retired all four Iowa-class ships, concluding that missiles, not armor or guns, would dominate the future of naval warfare.
In the decades that followed, Iowa finally left frontline service for good. Iowa no longer sails the seas after being officially decommissioned for the final time on 26 October 1990, and struck from the naval register years later.
In 2012, she was moved to Los Angeles, where she now serves as a museum ship under the Pacific Battleship Center – a living monument of a bygone era of naval firepower. In fact, that is where all the pictures in this article come from, as we visited the warship months back.
Iowa-Class 16-Inch Shell Menu. Image Credit: National Security Journal.
As the Navy reassesses fleet survivability and missile/drone threats in the Red Sea and beyond, there are plenty of lessons that can be learned from the Iowa’s journey: notably, the value of armor and resilient ship design.
About the Author:
Jack Buckby is a British author, counter-extremism researcher, and journalist based in New York who writes frequently for National Security Journal. Reporting on the U.K., Europe, and the U.S., he analyzes and understands left-wing and right-wing radicalization and reports on Western governments’ approaches to the pressing issues of today. His books and research papers explore these themes and propose pragmatic solutions to our increasingly polarized society. His latest book is The Truth Teller: RFK Jr. and the Case for a Post-Partisan Presidency.
JOSEY WALES
December 5, 2025 at 3:47 pm
BRING EM BACK BRING ALL OFF THEM BACK.