The Navy Act of July 19, 1892 authorized construction of a fourth "sea-going, coast-line battle ship", which became USS Iowa.

The final American pre-dreadnought class, the Mississippi-class, were an experiment in increasing numbers with slower ships of limited range.

The Navy soon rejected the concept and within 6 years of commissioning, sold these to Greece in 1914 to pay for a new super-dreadnought USS Idaho (BB-42).

Five of the ten ships used the established vertical triple expansion (VTE) propulsion rather than faster direct-drive turbines, used by the British which had higher fuel consumption.

However, they had some faults that were never worked out, and the midships turrets in the ten and twelve-gun ships were located near boilers and high-pressure steam lines, a factor that made refrigeration very difficult and problematic in hot climates.

They possessed almost completely homogeneous main armament (nine 16-inch guns in each ship, the sole difference being an increase in length from 45 to 50 calibers with the Iowa-class vessels), very high speed relative to other American designs (28 knots, 52 km/h, 32 mph in the North Carolina and South Dakota classes, 33 knots, 61 km/h, 38 mph in the Iowa class), and moderate armor.

Visually, the World War II ships are distinguished by their three-turret arrangement and the massive columnar mast that dominates the superstructure.

Missouri (BB-63), famous for being the ship on which the Japanese instrument of surrender was signed, was the last battleship in the world to be decommissioned on 31 March 1992.

The straw that broke the camel's back was Brazil's commissioning of the battleship Riachuelo, which suddenly made the Brazilian Navy the strongest in the Americas.

Congressman Hilary A. Herbert, chairman of the House Naval Affairs Committee, said of the situation, "if all this old navy of ours were drawn up in battle array in mid-ocean and confronted by the Riachuelo it is doubtful whether a single vessel bearing the American flag would get into port."

[11] Texas's early service revealed a number of structural issues, which was addressed via some reinforcement of various parts of the ship,[12] and she ran aground near Newport, Rhode Island, in September 1896.

[13] This in turn revealed even more faults with Texas, as massive flooding easily disabled her in the shallow waters where she ran aground.

An American fleet including Texas was at Key West, and was part of the Flying Squadron in its engagements with Spanish fortifications on the Cuban coast.

The term "fast battleship" was applied to new designs in the early 1910s incorporating propulsion technology that allowed for higher speeds without sacrificing armour protection.