page_title: Armament of the Iowa-class battleship
section_title: Mark 28, Mod 2 mounts
hierarchical_section_title: Armament of the Iowa-class battleship / Secondary battery / Mark 28, Mod 2 mounts
caption_attribution_description: English: Photograph was taken while touring the USS Missouri.
context_page_description: The Iowa-class battleships were the most heavily armed gunships the United States Navy has ever put to sea due to the continual development of their onboard weaponry. The first Iowa-class ship was laid down in June 1940; in their World War II configuration, each of the Iowa-class battleships had a main battery of 16-inch guns that could hit targets nearly 20 statute miles away with a variety of artillery shells designed for anti-ship or bombardment work. The secondary battery of 5-inch guns could hit targets nearly 9 statute miles away with solid projectiles or proximity fuzed shells, and were effective in an anti-aircraft role as well. Each of the four battleships carried a wide array of 20 mm and 40 mm anti-aircraft guns for defense against enemy aircraft.
  When reactivated and modernized in the 1980s each battleship retained the original battery of nine 16-inch guns, but the secondary battery on each battleship was reduced from ten twin-gun mounts and twenty guns to six twin-gun mounts with 12 guns to allow for the installation of two platforms for the Tomahawk missiles.
context_section_description: Each Mk 28 Mod 2 Mount carried two Mark 12, 5in/38cal gun assemblies, electric-hydraulic drives for bearing and elevation, optical sights, automatic fuze setter, automatic sight setter, and an upper handling room. Each armored twin mount weighed 170,635 lb (77,399 kg). The mount had a crew of 13, not including the ammunition movers in the upper handling room and magazines, drawn from the sailors and Marines serving aboard the ship.
caption: 5-inch gun aboard the Iowa-class battleship Missouri
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