Iowa-Class Battleships in Operation Desert Storm

As part of Navy Secretary John F. Lehman’s effort to build a 600-ship Navy in the 1980s, and in response to the commissioning of Kirov by the Soviet Union, the United States recommissioned all four Iowa-class battleships. On several occasions, battleships were support ships in carrier battle groups, or led their own battleship surface action group. The USS New Jersey saw action bombarding Lebanon in 1983 and 1984, while the USS Missouri and USS Wisconsin fired their 16-inch (406 mm) guns at targets Kuwait