Two legends. Same nine 16-inch guns. Very different stories.
USS Alabama (BB-60) was built for a fight, not a parade. At 680 feet and 35,000 tons, she was compact by battleship standards; a South Dakota-class bruiser designed to hit hard and absorb punishment. Top speed: 27.5 knots. Her war was the Pacific, and she earned it.
USS Iowa (BB-61) was something else entirely. At 887 feet and 45,000 tons, she was longer than three football fields and fast enough (33 knots) to keep pace with the carriers she was built to protect. That combination of size and speed made her not just a battleship, but a bodyguard for the entire fleet.
Alabama punched above her weight. Iowa simply outweighed everyone.
The gap between them isn't just numbers. It's a statement about what the Navy needed at different moments. Alabama was the workhorse of classic fleet engagements. Iowa was a different animal; a ship that outlasted WWII, showed up in Korea, came back from retirement during the Cold War, and was still firing her guns in the Gulf War four decades after her commissioning.
Both carry the same armament. Both are now museum ships. But Iowa's resume is longer, her hull is bigger, and her legacy is harder to summarize in a single war.
Tomorrow night under the lights‼️
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@thematrixb0t For real fuck this guy. I don't want my kids fighting in some stupid revolution promoted by people who have never done an honest days work - let alone ever faced real violence. We need to unify - not divide.
Take your elitest bullshit somewhere else.