Some were destroyed in battle,
others weren’t completed.
Some are laid up, and can only dream about battles…
But now they’re getting a new lease of life!
We recreate ships accurately,
according to their historical blueprints,
and send them into battle!
World of Warships: Dry Dock
On December 7, 1941,
after being hit with two torpedoes and an aerial bomb,
the flagship of the U.S. Navy, battleship California,
was engulfed in flames
and slowly slipping under the waters of Pearl Harbor bay.
She was the only U.S. battleship ever built on the West Coast of America.
She was laid down at a naval shipyard
near San Francisco, California, on October 25, 1916,
and in August 1921, the ship was commissioned into service.
The California project embodied the development
of standard-type U.S. battleships—
the ship was improved in many offensive and defensive aspects
compared with the preceding New Mexico class.
Thus, California's 356 mm main guns
received a 30-degree elevation angle,
which was precisely two times more than that of New Mexico
and provided for a firing range of more than 33 kilometers.
The ship's armor layout followed the classic
American "all-or-nothing" paradigm
and remained almost unchanged.
Only the main belt plates were moved
to the internal surface of the ship's plating.
This made room for a new torpedo protection system
that was later approved for all large U.S. ships.
It was precisely this system
that saved California from suffering more severe consequences
caused by Japanese torpedoes exploding in Pearl Harbor.
California was raised from the sea bottom at the end of March 1942
and transferred to a dry dock.
In October of the same year,
the battleship traveled to the Puget Sound Naval Shipyard
in Washington state under her own power.
Over the next 15 months,
the ship underwent repairs that included extensive upgrades.
During that time, the battleship's exterior and armament composition—
except for the main battery— changed entirely.
The horizontal armor was reinforced—
large bulges were installed that gave the ship greater stability
by compensating for the extra weight of her armor and anti-aircraft guns.
The bulges also improved the ship's torpedo protection.
The increased hull width allowed the installation
of eight coupled 127 mm dual-purpose mounts,
ten quadruple 40 mm Bofors guns,
and forty-three 20 mm Oerlikon guns.
An entirely new artillery fire-control system
and a set of radars were also installed on the ship.
In the summer 1944,
battleship California returned to the Pacific Theater
and actively participated in an operation to capture the Mariana Islands.
In fall of the same year,
California joined the fleet tasked with invading the Philippine Islands.
The battleship was involved in the largest naval battle of World War II—
the Battle of Leyte Gulf.
On October 25, in that battle in the Surigao Strait,
California and her sistership marked their appearance
in the last artillery battle between battleships in history.
Together with another victim of the attack on Pearl Harbor—West Virginia—
they sent Japanese flagship Yamashiro to the bottom.
During the landings on Luzon Island in the Philippines
at the beginning of January 1945,
U.S. ships were subjected to mass kamikaze attacks.
On January 6, an airplane managed to pass through dense anti-aircraft fire,
crashed near the main mast on California,
covered the ship's deck with its fragments, and started a fire on board.
The battleship remained in the South China Sea until January 21
and covered the landing zone from possible attacks by the Japanese Navy.
At the beginning of February,
the ship was sent to the Puget Sound Naval Shipyard for repairs.
The battleship returned to the Pacific Ocean
in the middle of summer 1945
to join the operation to capture Okinawa.
After the war ended, California returned home.
The ship traveled through the Indian and Atlantic Oceans
to arrive in Philadelphia on December 7, 1945.
The battleship was laid up there in February 1947.
She was decommissioned and sold for scrap in 1959.
In World of Warships,
California is an American Tier VII Premium battleship