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Wasn`t Missouri a battleship put back into service by Reagan, for reasons of national pride?
Not really national pride but strategy against the Soviets if they invaded Europe. The Iowa class battleships were brought back as part of the US Navy's plan to have a 600 ship navy. There were several reasons to bring back the Iowa's but a Warsaw Pack invasion was a big reason.
If the Warsaw pack headed west, the US would have to transfer large numbers of men, equipment, and supplies across the Atlantic. Many of the soldiers would be flow over on commercial aircraft, the US had contracts with some US airlines to takeover planes and use them as transports in case of war, but equipment and heavier supplies would still have to go by ship.
The Soviets would want to block the convoys moving across the Atlantic so they would send their very large submarine fleet, as well as their not too shabby surface fleet, west to intercept. But to get to the convoys, the Soviets would have to get passed the GIUK(Greenland Iceland UK) Gap. In turn, NATO would use the GIUK Gap to block the Soviets to protect the convoys.
The battle around the GIUK Gap, hopefully, north east of the gap would be an air and submarine action for the most part but once the sub threat was minimized, the US Navy would move up the coast of Norway to attack the Soviet bases around Murmansk. This would be done with carriers and the Iowa class battleships.
This naval attack, along with USMC landings to help hold Norway, would force the Soviets to move air units from central Europe to defend the Soviet Union, which would in turn, reduce the pressure on NATO on the main front. The Iowa's could take a beating due to their heavy armor and with cruise missiles could attack land targets.
Back in the day when I was reading about all of this, it sounded like the Iowa's would be sent in ahead of the carriers but with air cover. The Soviets would have to attack the Iowa's because of their cruise missile threat to land targets. The battleships would give US air power a chance at destroying the Soviet bomber forces while minimizing the risk to the carriers. The Soviets would have to send fighter units to protect the bombers and if their planes were going after the US Navy in around northern Norway, then they could not be helping the attack in Central Europe. This also kept the bombers away from the convoys streaming across the Atlantic to resupply NATO.
Even though the Iowa's had very effective armor, the Soviets had some very large and fast cruise missiles with heavy warheads. And they still do. Not sure how many of those an Iowa class can take before sinking but it was not going to be pretty that is for sure. Flip side is that the modern ships could likely be sunk with one or maybe two hits by these missiles so the Iowa's were much more survivable but they would also be attracting lots of attention.
Which I think was the point. Let the Soviet forces attack the Iowa's so their bomber fleet could be reduced, if not destroyed, before getting near the carriers. This in turn reduced the Soviet forces attacking in Central Europe while protecting the convoys resupplying NATO.
While all of this was going on, I don't think there would be lot of chatter on channel 16.
Later,
Dan