US Navy Iowa-Class: Four Battleships, 36 Sixteen-Inch Guns, and Not One Shell Ever Fired at an Enemy Battleship.

US Navy Iowa-Class: Four Battleships, 36 Sixteen-Inch Guns, and Not One Shell Ever Fired at an Enemy Battleship.

The Iowa class was designed for a fight that never arrived. Four ships, 36 sixteen-inch guns, 33 knots to run down Japan's fast capital ships, and not a single shell fired at an enemy battleship. The closest they came was off Truk in February 1944, chasing ships fleeing a carrier strike, and their targets there were a light cruiser and a destroyer. Everything else was killed by other arms first. A submarine sank Kongo. Carrier aircraft sank Musa…