The USS Michael Monsoor, second of the Zumwalt-class destroyers, recently embarked on trials and will be delivered to the U.S. Navy in the next year. While neither the 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 shows 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 targets were deeply compelling to U.S. planners, as the U.S. Navy generally expected to have command of the sea.