Battleships have always been a force of power and might of a nation. These massive vessels dominated naval warfare and were major intimidation factors in military strategy and highlighted the might of a nation's naval supremacy. These floating fortresses were hundreds of feet long, and many of the largest battleships in naval history were instrumental in major military operations.
The United States developed its first iron-clad battleship, the USS Monitor, which sank in a storm off Cape Hatteras in 1862. It wasn't until 1907 when President Theodore Roosevelt sent a group of 16 battleships, dubbed the Great White Fleet, around the world that the U.S. flexed its maritime muscle. It was the largest and most powerful flotilla to ever circle the globe.
In the aftermath of WWI, the world's most powerful nations tried to limit the size of fleets in a treaty called The Washington Naval Treaty, or the Five-Power Treaty, signed in 1922 that restricted the construction of battleships and battlecruisers. It lasted until 1936 when Japan terminated the treaty, and in WWII, legendary ships like Germany's pair of Bismarck-class vessels and Japan's two titanic 71,659-ton Yamato-class ships became the largest battleships ever constructed by far.
After WWII, the battleship eventually surrendered its naval preeminence to aircraft carriers, submarines, and amphibious warships. The last U.S. battleship to be built was the USS Missouri, commissioned in 1944 and decommissioned in 1992. The last battleship of any nation worldwide to be built was from the United Kingdom, the HMS Vanguard, commissioned in 1946.
Not only were they too costly to maintain, but they were also more susceptible to attack from both aircraft and subs. Many of these WWII-era battleships remain today as museums, like the USS Iowa, currently docked in Los Angeles, and the USS Massachusetts docked at Battleship Cove in Fall River, Massachusetts.
24/7 Tempo consulted sources including Navy General Board, Largest.org, Militaryfactory, PearlHarbor, and others to compile a list of floating fortresses: the largest battleships in naval history, using displacement tonnage as a measure.
Note that with three exceptions, the list is ordered not by individual ship but by battleship class, each including two or more ships with different names. The exceptions are the U.K.'s HMS Agincourt, HMS Hood, and HMS Vanguard. (Don't miss the biggest naval battles of all time.)
