The U.S. Navy operated ships from 20 battleship classes during World War I or World War II: Indiana, Kearsarge, Illinois, Maine, Virginia, Connecticut, Mississippi, South Carolina, Delaware, Florida, Wyoming, New York, Nevada, Pennsylvania, New Mexico, Tennessee, Colorado, North Carolina, South Dakota, and Iowa. This is a roster of classes with at least one qualifying ship—not a claim that every ship served in both wars or saw combat.
Which battleship classes qualify?
The class list spans early battleships, dreadnought-era designs, and the Navy’s later battleships. The clearest way to read it is by design generation:
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Early battleships and pre-dreadnought designs
- Indiana
- Kearsarge
- Illinois
- Maine
- Virginia
- Connecticut
- Mississippi
These older designs represent successive stages in the Navy’s battleship development. A class appearing here means at least one ship was in Navy service during one of the conflicts; it does not mean the whole class deployed overseas.
Dreadnought and standard-type battleships
- South Carolina
- Delaware
- Florida
- Wyoming
- New York
- Nevada
- Pennsylvania
- New Mexico
Ships in these classes entered service across the period spanning the world wars. Their wartime assignments varied by ship and date, so a class name alone does not establish that a particular ship fought or served in both conflicts.
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Later classes represented in World War II
- Tennessee
- Colorado
- North Carolina
- South Dakota
- Iowa
USS Missouri, an Iowa-class battleship, was commissioned in 1944 and was the last battleship commissioned by the Navy, according to the Naval History and Heritage Command (NHHC) overview of U.S. Navy battleships.
What did U.S. battleships do in World War I?
Some battleships served overseas, while others performed patrol or training duties in home waters. NHHC’s account of U.S. battleships in World War I describes the Sixth Battle Squadron in European waters: New York, Florida, Wyoming, and Delaware served there, with Texas and Arkansas rotating in. Separately, Division 6 included Utah, Nevada, and Oklahoma. The account also notes that other battleships performed coastal patrol and training roles; it does not support treating the entire Navy battleship fleet as an overseas force. See the NHHC history of the U.S. Navy in World War I.
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Those examples describe ships and assignments, not a complete deployment record for every class. A class roster answers which designs had ships in service during a war; it cannot, by itself, tell you where every member of a class was stationed.
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Yes. USS Nevada is a clear example: NHHC records that it served in World War I, was present at Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, and continued operating during World War II. That history belongs to Nevada, not automatically to every ship of its class. Individual ships had different commissioning dates, duties, and fates.
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Many of the Navy’s older battleship classes had left battleship service by World War II. The class list therefore covers two wars together; it is not a list of classes all active in both. NHHC’s fleet table records 17 active battleships on December 7, 1941, and 23 on August 14, 1945. Those are date-specific counts of active ships, not counts of classes. The figures appear in the NHHC U.S. Navy ship force-levels table.
How should you read the old ship numbers?
Modern references commonly identify battleships with “BB” hull numbers, but that convention was not the official numbering system throughout World War I. NHHC explains that battleships were referred to by “Battleship Number” before July 1920, when the BB series was formally assigned. Use BB numbers as familiar identifiers, but do not project that designation backward as the Navy’s wartime terminology for the entire First World War. The timing and distinction are described in NHHC’s battleship history.
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Which designs are not included?
The roster covers classes the Navy actually operated in at least one of the two wars, not every proposed battleship or battlecruiser design. The Montana battleships were cancelled before their keels were laid, so they did not enter service. The Lexington battlecruisers were cancelled under the Washington Naval Treaty; they were battlecruisers, not a battleship class operated in either war. NHHC discusses the Navy’s battleship construction history and the Lexington-class battlecruiser design.
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For scale, NHHC counts 59 completed battleships across 23 basic designs or classes over the Navy’s construction era, from the start of Maine construction in 1888 through the 1947 suspension of incomplete Kentucky. That broader construction-history total includes designs outside this article’s wartime-service scope; it is not the number of classes in the list above.
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