As in World War I, the World War II battleship was a colossal, heavily armored, long-range, reasonably fast platform for massed naval artillery fire. In World War I, the battleship was without question the capital ship of the world's great navies, as it had been from about the mid-1860s. The battleship entered World War II enjoying that status, but, in the course of the war, it yielded in importance to aircraft carriers, whose planes could project firepower more deeply, flexibly, and effectively than the artillery fire of the battleship. Indeed, aircraft and submarines rendered battleships increasingly vulnerable, so that they were sometimes combat liabilities, requiring extensive escort protection, rather than assets. By the end of World War II, the battleship was entering obsolescence. This fact aside, battleships remained impressive and formidable presences throughout the war, combining size, mighty guns, and heavy armor. The World War II battleship could hit targets more than 20 miles away, which made them valuable not only against other ships but especially in providing pre-landing and pre-invasion bombardment in amphibious operations.

The World War II battleship traces its lineage directly to the British HMS Dreadnought of 1906. This quantum leap forward in battleship design introduced steam-turbine propulsion and an artillery complement that did away with medium guns altogether and mounted only 10 to 12-inch guns. Although big and heavy, the Dreadnought was immensely seaworthy, capable of making better than 20 knots. As the era of World War II approached, the Dreadnought-class battleship evolved into the even more formidable "superdreadnought," which mounted guns of 16-inch and even 18-inch caliber. A superdreadnought might displace as much as 40,000 tons, but the Washington Naval Treaty of 1922, an international attempt at arms limitation, limited new battleships to 35,000 tons. Designers made the best of this limitation by focusing their efforts on attaining speed without sacrificing the dreadnought-style heavy guns and heavy armor. The post-treaty generation of battleships was capable of making better than 30 knots, easily matching the speed of modern cruisers.

On the eve of World War II, the great powers abrogated the Washington Naval Treaty, and began building ever larger ships. Germany built two Bismarck-class vessels, each displacing 52,600 tons, while the Japanese built the world's largest battleships, the 72,000-ton Yamoto class. The new U.S. battleships, of the Iowa class, displaced 45,000 tons. While the biggun policy still dominated battleship design, these weapons were liberally supplemented with antiaircraft defense in the form of rapid-fire 5-inch guns and myriad automatic guns in the 20-mm to 40-mm category mounted strategically throughout the ship.

During World War II, the British Royal Navy fleet included 20 battleships (including two smaller battleships, often called battle cruisers). France entered the war with two battleships. Germany had two very large battleships, the Bismarck and the Tirpitz, and five smaller battleships, known as pocket battleships. Italy entered the war with six battleships. Japan had a dozen battleships, of which 10 were operational during the war, including the Yamato and Musashi, by far the largest battleships ever built. The United States entered the war with 15 pre-1921 battleships and two built in the 1930s. The Battle of Pearl Harbor resulted in sinking or severely damaging eight of these vessels. During the war, between 1942 and 1944, five ships of the Iowa class were added to the American battleship fleet. The Soviet Union had no battleships. . .

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