Quote:
Originally posted by M21Sniper
They're not decommisioned.
Iowa and Wisconson are in Category B 180 day reserve status, as mandated by Congress.
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Small clarification on naval terminology:
The Navy lists all battleships as being decommisioned as of 31 March 1992. A decommisioned warship can then be placed in reserve (in the case of the battleships) or disposed of (scrapped, donated, sold etc). If a ship is to be disposed of, it is then stricken (removed) from the Navy Vessel Register (NVR). Currently, only 2 of the Iowa's have been stricken (USS Missouri and USS New Jersey) although a few years ago, ALL of them were stricken until, as you pointed out, Congress stepped in and forced the Navy to reinstate USS Iowa and USS Wisconsin to the NVR as Category B reserve units. However, they remain decommisioned until returned to active duty.
Check out this link to the NVR, there's some neat information here for literally thousands of ships
http://www.nvr.navy.mil/nvrships/s_type.htm