June 26, 2020
Could America Mash Together a Battleship and Aircraft Carrier?
The Iowa class keeps coming back, and still may yet again.
by Kyle Mizokami
Key Point: Reagan reactivated Iowa-class battleships to carry missiles. What if they carried planes, too?
In the early 1980s, the Reagan Administration was looking to fund high visibility defense programs. Reagan had been elected on a platform of rebuilding the armed services after the “hollowing out†of the early 1970s.
One example was the reactivation of four World War II-era Iowa-class battleships, which started in 1982. Each of the four ships, Iowa, Missouri, New Jersey and Wisconsin was refurbished, their sixteen and five-inch guns brought back online. Each battleship was also equipped with sixteen Harpoon anti-ship missiles, thirty two Tomahawk land attack cruise missiles and four Phalanx close-in weapon systems (CIWS) for defense.
https://nationalinterest.org/blog/reboot/could-america-mash-together-battleship-and-aircraft-carrier-163608
