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In the 1930s, / the sea powers of the world /
were designing / new and pioneering battleships, /
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often in secret /
and ignoring world agreements / on restricting the arms race. /
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German Tirpitz, Japanese Yamato -- / larger, heavier, and more powerful ships. /
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The U.S. government / decided to build / a series of brand-new battleships /
to counteract their potential enemies. /
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The lead ship / was named Iowa. /
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The battleship / had three main armament turrets / with 406 mm guns, /
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capable of sending 11 tons / of deadly metal /
into the air / per salvo. /
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Owing to the special design of her bow, /
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the 57-ton ship / was able to speed up to 33 knots-- /
the speed of a motor boat. /
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Around 140 20-mm and 40-mm AA machine guns /
were mounted / on the ship. /
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Allied aircraft carriers / favored the company / of the battleship /
for the reliable AA "umbrella" / that she provided for them. /
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The battleship Iowa / was commissioned in early 1943. /
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Its first mission on / was to go north. . . /
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Naval intelligence felt / that the Tirpitz, the German battleship, /
may be coming into the North Atlantic. /
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The battleship Iowa / was sent /
on an early mission north / to block the Tirpitz. /
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Suppose / battleships Iowa and Tirpitz / met in battle. /
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Iowa had higher speed, / greater maneuverability, / and longer range of fire. /
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Tirpitz would be trying / to get in close to Iowa, /
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and / Iowa would be looking to keep away, /
maneuvering / and firing at Tirpitz / from a great distance. /
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Iowa would have definitely won / this battle. /
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But / the two naval heavyweight warriors / never met, /
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so / we can only imagine / how their duel would have ended. /
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In early 1944, / battleship Iowa / joined the United States Fifth Fleet, /
which operated / in the Pacific Ocean. /
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By that time, / US forces / were already attacking Japanese positions /
on various islands. /
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The battleship's role / was to provide fire support / to landing troops /
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and escort aircraft carriers / during air raids /
on the Philippines, the Ryukyu Islands, and Taiwan. /
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The ship crisscrossing / across a lot of these small islands /
that are really forgotten now. /
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At one point / they went up to support /
MacArthur's landing in the Philippines / at Leyte Gulf. /
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Unfortunately / they went the wrong way / at Leyte Gulf /
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and chased a Japanese carrier force /
that was really a decoy / for the landing. /
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They came back, / but a little too late to assist /
in the Battle of Leyte Gulf. /
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They missed that one opportunity / to maybe have a contact with the Yamato. /
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The two ships / never met in combat; /
and / both countries / kept their capital battleships at, /
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shall we say, / arm's length, / kept them at distance, /
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because / there was great political risk /
to having either one of the ships / damaged severely / in battle. /
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Japanese industry, in those days, /
simply didn't have the resources / to build ships in large numbers. /
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The solution was simple: / to make huge ships /
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that would exceed / the largest ships of other nations-- /
super battleships. /
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Battleship Yamato / is the biggest battleship in the world. /
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Her shell velocity / was 790 m-s, /
while its weight / could be up to 1.5 tons. /
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Such a large gun / could inflict very serious damage. /
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They beat us. / The Japanese / essentially broke the treaty. /
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The Iowa, [[ I think / (of course, / I would probably say this), ]]
would've taken the day / in a battle against the Yamato. /
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She had very accurate fire control / for a ship of the 1940s. /
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And / I think / that would be an advantage / for her /
if / that ship fights such a battle. /
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It was so accurate /
that in 1984, / when they recommissioned the ship, /
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they kept the existing system in place, /
even though / they had / modern computers. /
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The Iowa could put a round / very, very close / to the target, / so accurate /
that they didn't need to change it. /
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Iowa was the most dangerous enemy / for Yamato. /
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If / they had met / at a range from 20,000 to 30,000 meters, /
especially in a one-on-one fight / and in fine weather, /
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Iowa would have no chance of winning. /
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However, / thanks to better radar /
Iowa could fight / in bad weather and at night. /
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Powerful guns, / high speed, / and precise radar /
made Iowa a formidable adversary. /
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If / these two battleships had fought / each other, /
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the victory would depend / completely on the battle conditions. . . /
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We could get in quick / and fire. /
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But then / there's always the lucky shot. /
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Out of the three super battleships / ---Yamato, Tirpitz, and Iowa --- /
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only the latter / survived World War II. /
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But / she didn't only survive, /
she entered Tokyo Bay / with her sister-ship, Missouri , /
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to put an end to the war / on August 29, 1945. /
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During the post-war decades, / she returned to the U.S.Navy / several times /
to serve her country / before becoming a museum ship. /