precision firepower in the form of bombers and torpedo planes equipped with guidance systems known as pilots.
Thirty years ago last Friday the battleship USS
Wisconsin steamed out of Hampton Roads bound for the Persian Gulf. The battlewagon performed a variety of tasks once on station that September, from querying passing merchant ships about contraband goods to refueling vessels with less capacious tanks to receiving mail and supplies by helicopter for onward transfer to the fleet. Diplomatic functions were routine. A congressional delegation flew out to tour the ship and meet the crew. General Colin Powell, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, put in an appearance, as did U.S. and allied dignitaries and military officers of all descriptions. Meanwhile preparations for war proceeded apace. Operation Desert Shield was a busy time.
Today, the massive USS
Iowa (BB-61) calls the Port of Los Angeles home, where she is a museum ship and serves as a testament to the might of the United States Navy from World War II to the end of the Cold War.
The largest and most powerful battleships built for the U.S. Navy, the
Iowa-class were also the final battleships that entered service with the Navy.
Unlike slower battleships of the era, this class was also designed to travel with a carrier force, and even be able to transit the Panama Canal, enabling the mighty warships to respond to threats around the world.
The Mitsubishi A6M Zero (Reisen) and the decline of Japanese airpower,
The Japanese would all most certainly not have opted for war with the US without this excellent fighter aircraft and the stock of outstanding Naval pilots they had to fly it.
The aircraft was highly maneuverable with a fantastic rate of climb and exceptional operational range, and excellent armament for it’s time. It was made to be able to out turn and out climb it’s opponents. Through the first year of the war the Zero was the best fighter aircraft in the world being suited perfectly for it’s purpose and the conditions which it had to operate in and being flown by the most highly trained pilots in the world, bar none.
The USS
Monsoor nor its older sister
Zumwalt are likely to be ready to contribute to a war on the Korean Peninsula in the near future, the crisis show no signs of abating. As tensions between the United States and North Korea grow, it’s worth asking what role the largest, most lethal destroyers in the U.S. arsenal might play in the conflict.
The Last War
In the first Korean War, the United States Navy used all four of its Iowa-class battleships, along with several gun-armed heavy cruisers, to bombard North Korean positions along the coast. This usage built upon the Navy’s experience during World War II, when heavy-gun-armed ships engaged in fire support during amphibious operations, and bombardment against Japanese coastal installations. While the operations against Korea were regarded as successful, they were not decisive; the Iowas could not strike at sufficient depth to disrupt Chinese and North Korean logistics. Still, the concept of attacks from the sea against land ta