Originally Posted by RustyBattleship

If I understand the wording of your question correctly, you are asking which UNITED STATES BATTLESHIPS used a REMOTE PILOTED VEHICLE for target spotting.

Therefore, we are not talking about land or air launched recon vehicles such as the Buffalo used in Viet Nam. The DASH (Drone Anti-Submaring Helicopter) was used on ASW ships such as Destroyers and Destroyer Escorts. It carried a Mk-46 torpedo and sonabuoys to locate and attack an enemy submarine at distances greater than a Mk-48 torpedo could travel. I worked on many ships equipped with DASH and heard lots of not-so-nice stories about it. The worst is that during tests, after dropping the torpedo the center of gravity shifted too quickly. I have heard a number of ship officers complaining that as they were guiding the DASH back to their ship, it would be flying upside down. Duhhhh, not being an expert in helicopters, I'll just leave it at that.

But for the true RPV the first American BB's to use them were the Iowa class before and during the Gulf War. During the War in Lebanon against the Syrians, RPV launch and recovery was from a carrier type ship such as the Guam. New Jersey was then provided the recon data for any fire support needed. Later, all four ships were equipped with RPV launch and recovery systems. I was even tasked to design a deckhouse-hangar-maintenance shop-assembly shop to tuck under the gun barrels of turret III. Iowa and New Jersey used them for preliminary recon along any coastline they wanted to peek at. But in actual combat, only the RPVs off the Missouri and Wisconsin were used. Which one used them first is a "so what?" type of trivia.