Diorama Subject, USS Iowa On The Move

The 887-foot battleship USS Iowa, a popular scale model subject, and the ship that once carried President Franklin Roosevelt to a World War II summit at Yalta in 1945 will be re-commissioned this summer as an interactive museum.

The USS Iowa has had a life replete with many scenes worthy of a diorama from scrapping her way through the Panama Canel , her 108.2 foot beam just clearing the 110-foot wide Miraflores Lock near Panama City a decade ago, to carrying Franklin D. Roosevelt to the Yalta Conference with Churchill, Stalin and Chiang Kai to settle Hitler's fate.

Battleship Iowa Moving To LA

She will open this July as the centerpiece of a $4 million floating museum in Los Angeles after over 30 years in mothballs near San Francisco.

Even at 1/200th scale, the USS Iowa displays at over four feet in length so if you are looking into planning a diorama of this interactive museum, pick a large area.

This summer, when the Iowa goes public, she will be presented as a “living” ship, According to the Pacific Battleship Center which took over the behemoth from the US Navy in May of this year. The group intends to provide an “at sea” experience.

Auditory and visual backgrounds, interactive exhibits, and commemorative information will help visitors to understand the history and function of the USS IOWA over 50 years of service.

Key exhibits include:

The History of Gunner Ships from the Year 1400 to Present
History of the USS IOWA
History of U.S. Battleships
History of Allied and Axis Battleships
Rotating exhibits of particular interest
Battleship Research Library

The last item, the Battleship Library can mean a mot to battleship modelers around the world. It will contain the most comprehensive library of every battleship built in the world, the library will be useful for students of battleship history as well as research scholars and enthusiasts as well as modelers

USS Iowa (BB-61) fires a full broadside of her nine 16"/50 and six 5"/38 guns during a target exercise near Vieques Island, Puerto Rico on July 1, 1984. Note concussion effects on the water surface, and 16-inch gun barrels in varying degrees of recoil.

This will also be the center of the PBCs Oral History program, capturing the personal experiences of the service personnel who served on these ships.

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