United States Naval Gunfire Support Debate - Background

Background

Within a few years of the end of World War II, the United States deactivated all of its remaining battleships and placed them in the United States Navy reserve fleets. Most of these ships were eventually scrapped, but the four Iowa-class battleships were not, and on several occasions one or more of these four battleships were reactivated for naval gunfire support. The U.S. Navy has held onto the four Iowa-class battleships long after the upkeep and maintenance of operating and maintaining a battleship and the arrival of aircraft and precision guided munitions led other nations to scrap their big-gun fleets. Congress was largely responsible for keeping the four Iowa-class battleships in the United States Navy reserve fleets and on the Naval Vessel Register as long as they did. The lawmakers argued that the battleships' large-caliber guns had a useful destructive power that is lacking in the smaller, cheaper, and faster guns mounted by U.S. cruisers and destroyers.

In the 1980s, President Ronald Reagan proposed creating a 600-ship navy as part of the overall defense department build-up to counter the threat of the armed forces of the Soviet Union; both the Soviet Army and Navy had grown in the aftermath of the unification of Vietnam in 1975 and the loss of faith that Americans had in their armed services. As part of this, all four Iowa-class battleships were modernized and reactivated. However, when the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, the 600-ship navy was seen as too costly to maintain, and so the navy made plans to return to its traditional 313-ship fleet. This led to the deactivation of many ships in the navy's fleet, including the four reactivated battleships; all were removed from service between 1990 and 1992. Originally, the navy had struck all four ships and made plans to donate them, however Congress intervened in this plan with the passing of the National Defense Authorization Act of 1996. Section 1011 required the United States Navy to reinstate to the Naval Vessel Register two of the Iowa-class battleships that had been struck by the navy in 1995; these ships were to be maintained in the United States Navy Reserve Fleets. The Navy was to ensure that both of the reinstated battleships were in good condition and could be reactivated for use in the marine corps' amphibious operations. Both battleships were to be maintained with the reserve fleet until such a time as the navy could certify that it had within its fleet the operational capacity to meet or exceed the gunfire support that both battleships could provide. To comply with this requirement, the navy selected the battleships New Jersey and Wisconsin for reinstatement to the Naval Vessel Register.

New Jersey remained in the mothball fleet until the Strom Thurmond National Defense Authorization Act of 1999 passed through the United States Congress 18 October 1998. Section 1011 required the United States Secretary of the Navy to list and maintain Iowa and Wisconsin on the Naval Vessel Register, while Section 1012 required the Secretary of the Navy to strike New Jersey from the Naval Vessel Register and transfer the battleship to a non-for-profit entity in accordance with section 7306 of Title 10, United States Code. Section 1012 also required the transferee to locate the battleship in the State of New Jersey. The navy made the switch in January 1999. Iowa and Wisconsin were finally striken from the Naval Vessel Register in 2006.