[Wombat101]

At the close of WWII, the Navy had built the Alaska class battleship, which was faster, better armored and more stable than the Iowas. They were the Alaska, Guam and Hawaii. None was ever cokpleted because the conventional wisdom was that air power made the battleship obsolete. Had they been built, it's quite possible they would have fired the opening rounds in Desert Storm.

A follow-on to the Iowa class was the Montana class battleships, all of which were scrapped before the war ended. These ships were to have double the AAA capability of the Iowa while still retaining the 16" guns. These ships were believed to have been constructed specifically to take nuclear power plants, if and when they became feasible. The older oil-fired or electric turbine systems (whichever they would have used) would simply have been replaced with a nuc reactor.

Also, the last battle ship built was the Russian Kirov class, in the 1970's, which is regarded as more of a battle cruiser. It used anti-ship missiles in place of a main battery of guns and was nuclear powered.

[Gumlegs]

Alaska and Guam were completed, and both served in WWII. They were CBs, however, battlecruisers, not battleships. They had a 12" main battery. Like the Iowas, their sister ships were never completed. (Illinois and Kentucky were the Iowas laid down but never completed. Hawaii, Philippines, Puerto Rico, and Samoa were the other CBs authorized but never built).

[DarthVader]

Wombat my friend,

The Alaska class large or battle cruisers were completed before the end of WWII. Alaska and Guam saw combat (Okinawa, Iwo Jima). They mounted 9-12" guns , were not as heavily armored as the Iowas and just as fast.

Here is the data:

CLASS - ALASKA
Displacement 27,000 Tons, Dimensions, 808' 6" (oa) x 90' 9" x 31' 9" (Max)
Armament 9 x 12"/50 12 x 5/38AA, 56 x 40mm 34 x 20mm, 4 AC
Armor, 9" Belt, 12 4/5" Turrets, 1 2/5" +4" +5/8" Decks, 10 3/5" Conning Tower.
Machinery, 150,000 SHP; G.E. Geared Turbines, 4 screws
Speed, 33 Knots, Crew 1517.
Operational and Building Data
Layed down by New York Shipbuilding Corporation, Camden, NJ 17 DEC 1941
Launched 15 AUG 1943
Commissioned 17 JUN 1944
Decommissioned 17 FEB 1947
Stricken 01 JUN 1960
Fate: Sold for scrap to Lipsett Division of Luria Brothers, NY, NY on 30 JUN 1960

They were the American equivalent of the Scharnhorst and Gneisnau with the role of commerce raider being one of their intended primary missions. They were considered impractical and unwieldy. The German ships were better protected, suceeded as raiders, but were overmatched versus conventional battleships.

The Montanas were the ultimate US superdreadnoughts. Similar in appearance to the Iowa but much larger and heavily armored. 900 ft long , 127 ft wide, 75,000 tons with 16-19" armor belt. Originally designed to have 18" guns but changed to carry 12 - 16" 50 cal rifles as the Iowas main armament proved very sucessful. Machinery would have similar to Iowa using oil fired boilers and geared turbines producing 270,000 hp and 27-31 knots. It is a shame that we did not build at least two of these monsters (6 in the original build)as they could have been bombarding Iraq during Desert Storm.

The Kirov would actually be a good design to begin with for a heavy surface combatant today.

[Jimmy Valentine]

"At the close of WWII, the Navy had built the Alaska class battleship, which was faster, better armored and more stable than the Iowas"

Nope. They were battlecruisers. The Navy put 16 inch guns on them but they weren't much faster than the Iowas and much less well armored.

They were out of service and scrapped very quickly during the 1950's.

Regards,

[Tribune7]

The Alaskas were battlecruisers w/12-inch guns & lighter armor than the BBs.

The The Alaska &, I think, the Guam were completed.