The second world war is
generally thought to be the demise of the battleship . A battleship is a large
warship with a tonnage of over 30,000. Thus most of the battleships weighed
over 40 thousand tonnes with the heaviest being the Yamato, which displaced over
64,000 tonnes.
The role of the
battleship during the Second World War was extremely limited, with the
pride of operations in the naval battles going to the aircraft carrier. Thus at
the end of the war most of the battleships were scrapped. The US navy however
did not scrap their capital ships, but kept a few in moth balls, ready for use
if the situation so warranted. After the Tonkin gulf incident, the US started a
bombardment of North Vietnam.
This was the time that the Navy decided to use the battleship again. Accordingly the USS Missouri,
which was in moth balls was got ready. The ship was serviced and fitted with
all electronic gadgetry including ECM. The ship sailed for the North Vietnam
coast. The USS Missouri had 16 inch guns with a range of about 30 miles. The
battleship was ordered to move to the Vietnam coast. Its instructions were
clear. It was to bombard the North Vietnam coast with its guns. It was to
target the Vietnamese naval installations and other targets of military value.
One big aim was to demoralize the Vietnamese,
but this did not happen. The long range guns of the battleship went into action,
but after a few weeks the ship was withdrawn. In retrospect the battleships use
was again limited an produced no decisive result. After a few weeks the ship
was recalled and it sailed back to the USA.
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