Prior to World War II, battleships were the ruler of the seas - but that title was soon passed to the aircraft carrier during the war. In the war the US Navy battleships were still very powerful and necessary but they were rarely used in their intended role - ship-to-ship combat. Most of their time was spent as a carrier escort providing defensive anti-aircraft (AA) fire against Japanese attackers and also for shore bombardment used to soften targets prior to amphibious landings. In these two roles, the battleships performed magnificently, the size and firepower of the main guns devastated enemy shore installations very precisely, and the shear number of AA guns (20mm, 40mm, 3", and 5") on a battleship put a tremendous amount of metal into the air.

When the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor on 7 Dec 41, they believed they put the battleships in Battleship Row out of action. Most of the battleships were indeed heavily damaged and several were even sunk, but most were reconstructed and emerged again later in the war as almost entirely new ships.

The US battleships are separated into two types - 'old' battleships or 'fast' battleships. 'Old' battleships are those that were built prior to the Washington Treaty which placed limits on the size and numbers of warships. While not all of them were present, the battleship classes devastated at Pearl Harbor were the old battleships. These ships were built approximately between 1910 to 1920. The 'fast' battleships are those that were designed after the Washington Treaty and commenced building in the mid 1930's. Only three classes of battleships are designated as the fast battleships - North Carolina, South Dakota, and Iowa classes. During the war, these three classes were fast enough to escort the modern Essex class aircraft carriers. The three fast battleship classes were not designed and built as a result of the attack on Pearl Harbor. In actuality, all ten of the fast battleships in these classes were all authorized before World War II even started in Europe (September 1939.)