Model Aircrafts and Ships

January 30 1862 - The first American ironclad warship, the USS Monitor is launched.

USS Monitor: The First Ironclad Warship

The USS Monitor was the first ironclad warship commissioned by the US Navy. It was ordered on the 4^th of October 1861 by the US Navy. It was launched on the 30^th of January 1862 and commissioned on the 25^th of February 1862.

The USS Monitor was most famous for her participation in the first ever naval battle between two ironclad warships on the 9^th of March 1862. It was the first in a long line of Monitor class warships of the United States and the term monitor describes a broad class of European harbor defense craft.

The USS Monitor has a displacement of 987 tons; length of 172 feet; beam of 41 feet and 6 inches; draught of 10 feet and 6 inches; speed of 8 knots; and armed with two 11 inches Dahlgren smoothbores.

The USS Monitor was well suited for river combat and it features made her highly unseaworthy in rough waters which led to its early loss when it encountered a heavy storm. She was swamped by high waves while under tow by Rhode Island. On the 31^st of December 1862 it sank in the Atlantic Ocean and 16 out of its 62 crewmen were lost in the storm.

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January 29 1944 – USS Missouri the last battleship commissioned by the US Navy is launched.

USS Missouri Battleship

The USS Missouri (BB-63) was also known as the Mighty Mo or Big Mo. It was a US Navy battleship and the third ship of the US Navy to be named in honor of the US state of Missouri.

The USS Missouri was the last battleship built by the United States. It was ordered on the 12^th of June 1940 and laid down on the 6^th of January 1941. On the 29^th of January 1944, the Missouri was launched at New York Naval Shipyard in Brooklyn, New York and commissioned on the 11^th of June. It was the third of the Iowa class but the fourth and final battleship commissioned by the US.

The USS Missouri (BB-63) has the length of 887 feet and 2 inches; beam of 108 feet and 2 inches; draft of 28 feet and 9 inches; and displacement of 45,000 tons. It was armed with (1943) nine 16-inch/50 caliber Mark 7 guns; twenty 5-inch/38 caliber Mark 12 guns; eighty 40mm/70 caliber anti-aircraft guns; and forty-nine 20mm/70 calibers anti aircraft guns.

USS Missiouri: US Navy

The USS Missouri was best known as the site where General Douglas MacArthur officially accepted the surrender of Japan which ends the Second World War on the 2^nd of September 1945.

The USS Missouri was decommissioned on the 31^st of March 1992 at Long Beach, California. It remained part of the reserve fleet until January 12, 1995 when it was struck from the Naval Vessel Register. On the 4^th of May 1998 a donation contract was signed and the historic battleship was said to be transferred to the nonprofit USS Missouri Memorial Association (MMA). And on the 23^rd of May she was towed from Bremerton to the Port of Astoria, Oregon for cleaning and then towed across the eastern Pacific and docked at Ford Island, Pearl Harbor on the 22^nd of June. And on the 29^th of January 199, she was opened as a museum operated by the MMA.

Check out USS Missouri Model Ship at http://www.warplanes.com/