Battleship Iowa, 1943

The battleship Iowa plans are drawn from the original 1:48 scale drawings and show the battleship Iowa as she appeared in November 1943. Period photos and the design plans show many changes to the battleship Iowa from her commissioning date in February to November as the US Navy enhanced the ship based on battle experience in the Pacific. While the Iowa had a somewhat similar layout as the battleship North Carolina class, she obviously had many differences being 12,000 tons heavier and 150 feet longer in length. The crew’s mess and galley are on the 2nd deck located around the 3rd turret barbette and spreading out further aft, while further forward the electrical and general workshops, the blacksmith shop, and the shipfitter and welder shop provide daily repair and maintenance capabilities for the ship. On the 3rd deck the central passage connects the forward compartments with the after compartments, spanning from just aft of the 2nd barbette to the 3rd barbette. Along the central passage, there are exits to the boiler rooms, 5” projectile and magazines, and repair lockers. On the 3rd deck, you can also see the thick inner side armor as it runs along the ship’s torpedo bulkhead. Locating the side armor inboard was a change from the battleship North Carolina which had the side armor attached to the exterior of the ship.

On the lower decks you can explore the Iowa’s 16” powder magazines and see the individual shells stacked vertically in the barbette structure for each turret. Also on the lower decks, you can see the Iowa’s massive boiler and engine rooms which could propel the ship forward at over 30 knots and which enabled the Iowa to keep up with the fast carriers in the Pacific. It was this high-speed and excellent firepower which kept the Iowa class ships around for decades after their service in WWII ended.

Deck Plans

Below is our collection of plans for the Battleship Iowa. Each deck is printed individually and includes an abbreviation and symbol table. The superstructure decks and the bridge decks are each combined onto a single sheet of paper.

Iowa Profile (inner view)

Superstructure and Bridge Decks

Superstructure Decks

Main Deck

Preview

2nd Deck

Splinter Deck

3rd Deck

1st Platform Deck

2nd Platform Deck

3rd Platform Deck

Hold

3rd Bottom

Inner Bottom

Lines Plans

The lines plans include hull dimensions to assist the modeler in accurately recreating the ship's hull. While the sheer and half-breadth plans are scaled to the selected purchase scale (see below), we print the body plan in a slightly larger scale to assist the modeler: for 1:192 scaled plans, the body plan is printed at 1:96, and for 1:300 and 1:250 scaled plans, the body plan is printed at 1:192.

Body plan

The body plan includes the following stations: -16, -12, -8, -4, 0, .25, .5, 1, 2, 3 through 35, 35.5, 36, 36.5, 37, 37.5, 38, 38.5, 39, 39.5, 40, 40+4

Sheer plan

The sheer plan includes the following buttock lines (in feet from ship's centerline): 2, 4, 6, 8, 12, 16, 20, 24, 28, 32, 36, 40, 44, 48, 52.

Half-breadth plan

The half-breadth plan includes the following waterlines: 0, 2, 4, 6, 8, 12, 16, 20, 24, 29, 34-7 1/4, 39-6, 44, 47, 50, 53, 56, 60, 64

Purchasing Plans

All orders include both the deck and lines plans with the file sizes for each scale rounded to the nearest 1/8" shown in the tables below. We offer three separate plan scales, plus an option for any desired plan size. The smallest plan at 1:300 scale may obscure some of the smallest features and requires keen eyesight to view the finest details but is an excellent display size; the largest plan at 1:192 scale really brings the details to life but does require a much larger viewing surface. The 1:250 scale is a nice, medium plan size.

Note that we only sell paper copies of our plans; no pdf files are offered.

Photos

Below are several photos of the Iowa. Select a thumbnail to view the larger photo.