USS Wisconsin (BB-64) is an built for the United States Navy (USN) in the 1940s and is currently a museum ship. Completed in 1944, the ship was assigned to the Pacific Theater during World War II, where she participated in the Philippines campaign and the Battles of Iwo Jima and Okinawa. The battleship shelled the Japanese home islands shortly before the end of the war in September 1945. During the Korean War, Wisconsin shelled North Korean targets in support of United Nations and South Korean ground operations, after which she was decommissioned. She was reactivated in 1986; after a modernization program, she participated in Operation Desert Storm in January – February 1991.
Wisconsin was last decommissioned in September 1991 after a total of 14 years of active service in the fleet, and having earned a total of six battle stars for service in World War II and Korea, as well as a Navy Unit Commendation for service during the January/February 1991 Gulf War. Wisconsin was stricken from the Naval Vessel Register (NVR) 17 March 2006, and was donated for permanent use as a museum ship. She currently functions as a museum ship operated by Nauticus in Norfolk, Virginia. On 15 April 2010, the City of Norfolk officially took over ownership of the ship.
Background and description
The Iowa class of fast battleships was designed in the late 1930s in response to the US Navy's expectations for a future war with the Empire of Japan. The last battleships to be built by the United States, they were also the US Navy's largest and fastest vessels of the type. American officers preferred comparatively slow but heavily armed and armored battleships, but Navy planners determined that such a fleet would have difficulty in bringing the faster Japanese fleet to battle, particularly the s and the aircraft carriers of the 1st Air Fleet. Design studies prepared during the development of the earlier and es demonstrated the difficulty in resolving the desires of fleet officers with those of the planning staff within the displacement limits imposed by the Washington Naval Treaty system, which had governed capital ship construction since 1923. An escalator clause in the Second London Naval Treaty of 1936 allowed an increase from to in the event that any member nation refused to sign the treaty, which Japan refused to do.
Wisconsin is long overall and is long at the waterline. The ship has a beam of and a draft of at her full combat load of . The Iowa-class ships are powered by four General Electric geared steam turbines, each driving one screw propeller using steam provided by eight oil-fired Babcock & Wilcox boilers. Rated at , the turbines were designed to give a top speed of , but were built to handle a 20 percent overload. None of the Iowas ever ran speed trials in deep water, but the Bureau of Ships estimated that they could reach a speed of about from at a light displacement of . The ships had a designed cruising range of at a speed of , although Wisconsins half sister 's fuel consumption figures during her sea trials suggest that her range was at least at that cruising speed. Their designed crew numbered 117 officers and 1,804 enlisted men which had greatly increased by the end of the war in 1945. Wisconsins crew at that time numbered 173 officers and 2,738 sailors.
Armament, fire control, sensors and aircraft
The main battery of the Iowa-class ships consisted of nine /50 caliber Mark 7 guns in three triple-gun turrets on the centerline, two of which were placed in a superfiring pair forward of the superstructure, with the third aft. Going from bow to stern, the turrets were designated I, II, and III. Their secondary battery consisted of twenty /38 caliber dual-purpose guns mounted in twin-gun turrets clustered amidships, five turrets on each broadside. Unlike their half sisters and New Jersey that were the first pair of ships built, and Wisconsin were completed with an anti-aircraft suite of twenty quadruple mounts for Bofors AA guns, nine mounts on each broadside and one each on the roofs of Turrets II and III. Forty-nine Oerlikon light AA auto-cannon in single mounts were distributed almost the length of the ships.