All four Iowa class (Iowa, Wisconsin, New Jersey, and Missouri) are all decommissioned permanently. The last one (Wisconsin) was sold in 2012. Now they don't even have to be kept in a state of readiness. They welded the guns on the Wisconsin in place, and her harpoon and tomahawk missile batteries are actually homemade duplicates. Supposedly the navy demanded that sand be run through the engines to make them unusable. However I dont think that happened to any of them. Then in 2016-17 fiscal year, all 16" shells held in armory were to be scrapped.
The USS Little Rock, Texas, North Carolina, Washington, and Alabama were extensively stripped for parts in the early 80s for the recomissioning of the Iowas. So if they were low on parts when they were in their late 40s imagine how hard it would be when they are now pushing into their early 80s. Steel ages too, even if it hasnt been used.
I do feel that it is a shame that big gun platforms and the BBG/BBNG of the 60s did not pan out.
To correct that list, the remaining museum BBs besides the
Iowas are the
Texas (which as a pre-WWI design would be of minimal parts value and the poor old girl is not in the best state of conservation),
North Carolina (one of the turrets was entirely gutted to refurbish the
Iowas),
Massachusetts, and
Alabama.
North Carolina's sister ship
Washington and the two other
South Dakotas (
South Dakota and
Indiana) were not saved for preservation and were scrapped in the early 1960s.
Washington's unceremonious end was a shame, as she was the only US battleship to singlehandedly engage and sink an enemy BB (well, a WWI battlecruiser with just enough armor refitted on to be considered a "fast battleship").
Little Rock was a
Cleveland-class light cruiser refitted as a missile cruiser in the 1950s (which removed three of her four triple 6-inch main battery turrets and all but one of her twin 5-inch mounts).
In reality, the recommissioning of the
Iowas in the 1980s was principally a propaganda move; the Soviets had just come out with the
Kirov-class missile cruiser and we wanted something bigger and more intimidating. The only real value those 16-inch guns had in the modern era was shore bombardment, and while this could be effective it put a large, expensive capital ship and about 1,800 sailors right in the preferred kill zone for mines, antiship missiles, and diesel subs (the first two of which were a serious concern in the Persian Gulf). The
Iowa design in any case was considered to have sacrificed too much protection for speed at the time it was drawn up in the late 1930s; they're still arguably the best battleships the world ever saw but for a battle line unit the Navy was looking to the later
Montana-class design with 33% more firepower and armor. The main reason the
Iowas hung around so long in reserve was ironically enough because they were the only BBs fast enough to keep up with the now carrier-centric fleet; even at 27-28 knots the NCs and SDs were considered too slow.
Much as I do like the big gun platforms, their time came and went. Nowadays, if you park a 60,000-ton warship with minimal antiair and missile defenses (the Navy thought about adding Sea Sparrow missiles in the 1980s, but the blast effects of the 16-inch guns would have wrecked the guidance systems) within gun range of a well-armed opponent, you can expect to take a lot of fire that 12 inches of Class B armor plate might not keep out.
