document_title: Battleship

question_text: when was the last time a battleship was used

question_tokens: when was the last time a battleship was used

text: Battleship

text: Ships of the line[edit]

text: A ship of the line was a large, unarmored wooden sailing ship which mounted a battery of up to 120 smoothbore guns and carronades. The ship of the line developed gradually over centuries and, apart from growing in size, it changed little between the adoption of line of battle tactics in the early 17th century and the end of the sailing battleship's heyday in the 1830s. From 1794, the alternative term 'line of battle ship' was contracted (informally at first) to 'battle ship' or 'battleship'.[1]

text: The sheer number of guns fired broadside meant a sail battleship could wreck any wooden enemy, holing her hull, knocking down masts, wrecking her rigging, and killing her crew. However, the effective range of the guns was as little as a few hundred yards, so the battle tactics of sailing ships depended in part on the wind.

text: The first major change to the ship of the line concept was the introduction of steam power as an auxiliary propulsion system. Steam power was gradually introduced to the navy in the first half of the 19th century, initially for small craft and later for frigates. The French Navy introduced steam to the line of battle with the 90-gun Napoléon in 1850[12]—the first true steam battleship.[13] Napoléon was armed as a conventional ship-of-the-line, but her steam engines could give her a speed of 12 knots (22 km/h), regardless of the wind condition. This was a potentially decisive advantage in a naval engagement. The introduction of steam accelerated the growth in size of battleships. France and the United Kingdom were the only countries to develop fleets of wooden steam screw battleships although several other navies operated small numbers of screw battleships, including Russia (9), Turkey (3), Sweden (2), Naples (1), Denmark (1) and Austria (1).[14][3]

text: Ironclads[edit]

text: The adoption of steam power was only one of a number of technological advances which revolutionized warship design in the 19th century. The ship of the line was overtaken by the ironclad: powered by steam, protected by metal armor, and armed with guns firing high-explosive shells.

text: Explosive shells[edit]

text: Guns that fired explosive or incendiary shells were a major threat to wooden ships, and these weapons quickly became widespread after the introduction of 8-inch shell guns as part of the standard armament of French and American line-of-battle ships in 1841.[15] In the Crimean War, six line-of-battle ships and two frigates of the Russian Black Sea Fleet destroyed seven Turkish frigates and three corvettes with explosive shells at the Battle of Sinop in 1853.[16] Later in the war, French ironclad floating batteries used similar weapons against the defenses at the Battle of Kinburn.[17]

text: Nevertheless, wooden-hulled ships stood up comparatively well to shells, as shown in the 1866 Battle of Lissa, where the modern Austrian steam two-decker SMS Kaiser ranged across a confused battlefield, rammed an Italian ironclad and took 80 hits from Italian ironclads,[18] many of which were shells,[19] but including at least one 300-pound shot at point-blank range. Despite losing her bowsprit and her foremast, and being set on fire, she was ready for action again the very next day.[20]

text: Iron armor and construction[edit]

text: The development of high-explosive shells made the use of iron armor plate on warships necessary. In 1859 France launched Gloire, the first ocean-going ironclad warship. She had the profile of a ship of the line, cut to one deck due to weight considerations. Although made of wood and reliant on sail for most journeys, Gloire was fitted with a propeller, and her wooden hull was protected by a layer of thick iron armor.[21] Gloire prompted further innovation from the Royal Navy, anxious to prevent France from gaining a technological lead.

text: The superior armored frigate Warrior followed Gloire by only 14 months, and both nations embarked on a program of building new ironclads and converting existing screw ships of the line to armored frigates.[22] Within two years, Italy, Austria, Spain and Russia had all ordered ironclad warships, and by the time of the famous clash of the USS Monitor and the CSS Virginia at the Battle of Hampton Roads at least eight navies possessed ironclad ships.[3]

text: Navies experimented with the positioning of guns, in turrets (like the USS Monitor), central-batteries or barbettes, or with the ram as the principal weapon. As steam technology developed, masts were gradually removed from battleship designs. By the mid-1870s steel was used as a construction material alongside iron and wood. The French Navy's Redoutable, laid down in 1873 and launched in 1876, was a central battery and barbette warship which became the first battleship in the world to use steel as the principal building material.[24]

text: Pre-dreadnought battleship[edit]

text: The term "battleship" was officially adopted by the Royal Navy in the re-classification of 1892. By the 1890s, there was an increasing similarity between battleship designs, and the type that later became known as the 'pre-dreadnought battleship' emerged. These were heavily armored ships, mounting a mixed battery of guns in turrets, and without sails. The typical first-class battleship of the pre-dreadnought era displaced 15,000 to 17,000 tons, had a speed of 16 knots (30 km/h), and an armament of four 12-inch (305 mm) guns in two turrets fore and aft with a mixed-caliber secondary battery amidships around the superstructure.[2] An early design with superficial similarity to the pre-dreadnought is the British Devastation class of 1871.[25][26]

text: The slow-firing 12-inch (305 mm) main guns were the principal weapons for battleship-to-battleship combat. The intermediate and secondary batteries had two roles. Against major ships, it was thought a 'hail of fire' from quick-firing secondary weapons could distract enemy gun crews by inflicting damage to the superstructure, and they would be more effective against smaller ships such as cruisers. Smaller guns (12-pounders and smaller) were reserved for protecting the battleship against the threat of torpedo attack from destroyers and torpedo boats.[27]

text: The beginning of the pre-dreadnought era coincided with Britain reasserting her naval dominance. For many years previously, Britain had taken naval supremacy for granted. Expensive naval projects were criticised by political leaders of all inclinations.[3] However, in 1888 a war scare with France and the build-up of the Russian navy gave added impetus to naval construction, and the British Naval Defence Act of 1889 laid down a new fleet including eight new battleships. The principle that Britain's navy should be more powerful than the two next most powerful fleets combined was established. This policy was designed to deter France and Russia from building more battleships, but both nations nevertheless expanded their fleets with more and better pre-dreadnoughts in the 1890s.[3]

text: In the last years of the 19th century and the first years of the 20th, the escalation in the building of battleships became an arms race between Britain and Germany. The German naval laws of 1890 and 1898 authorised a fleet of 38 battleships, a vital threat to the balance of naval power.[3] Britain answered with further shipbuilding, but by the end of the pre-dreadnought era, British supremacy at sea had markedly weakened. In 1883, the United Kingdom had 38 battleships, twice as many as France and almost as many as the rest of the world put together. By 1897, Britain's lead was far smaller due to competition from France, Germany, and Russia, as well as the development of pre-dreadnought fleets in Italy, the United States and Japan.[28] Turkey, Spain, Sweden, Denmark, Norway, the Netherlands, Chile and Brazil all had second-rate fleets led by armored cruisers, coastal defence ships or monitors.[29]

text: Pre-dreadnoughts continued the technical innovations of the ironclad. Turrets, armor plate, and steam engines were all improved over the years, and torpedo tubes were introduced. A small number of designs, including the American Kearsarge and Virginia classes, experimented with all or part of the 8-inch intermediate battery superimposed over the 12-inch primary. Results were poor: recoil factors and blast effects resulted in the 8-inch battery being completely unusable, and the inability to train the primary and intermediate armaments on different targets led to significant tactical limitations. Even though such innovative designs saved weight (a key reason for their inception), they proved too cumbersome in practice.[30]

text: Dreadnought era[edit]

text: In 1906, the British Royal Navy launched the revolutionary HMS Dreadnought. Created as a result of pressure from Admiral Sir John ("Jackie") Fisher, HMS Dreadnought made existing battleships obsolete. Combining an "all-big-gun" armament of ten 12-inch (305 mm) guns with unprecedented speed (from steam turbine engines) and protection, she prompted navies worldwide to re-evaluate their battleship building programs. While the Japanese had laid down an all-big-gun battleship, Satsuma, in 1904[31] and the concept of an all-big-gun ship had been in circulation for several years, it had yet to be validated in combat. Dreadnought sparked a new arms race, principally between Britain and Germany but reflected worldwide, as the new class of warships became a crucial element of national power.[32]

text: Technical development continued rapidly through the dreadnought era, with steep changes in armament, armor and propulsion. Ten years after Dreadnought's commissioning, much more powerful ships, the super-dreadnoughts, were being built.

text: Origin[edit]

text: In the first years of the 20th century, several navies worldwide experimented with the idea of a new type of battleship with a uniform armament of very heavy guns.

text: Admiral Vittorio Cuniberti, the Italian Navy's chief naval architect, articulated the concept of an all-big-gun battleship in 1903. When the Regia Marina did not pursue his ideas, Cuniberti wrote an article in Jane's proposing an "ideal" future British battleship, a large armored warship of 17,000 tons, armed solely with a single calibre main battery (twelve 12-inch [305 mm] guns), carrying 300-millimetre (12 in) belt armor, and capable of 24 knots (44 km/h).[33]

text: The Russo-Japanese War provided operational experience to validate the "all-big-gun" concept. At the Yellow Sea and Tsushima, pre-dreadnoughts exchanged volleys at ranges of 7,600–12,000 yd (7 to 11 km), beyond the range of the secondary batteries. It is often held that these engagements demonstrated the importance of the 12-inch (305 mm) gun over its smaller counterparts, though some historians take the view that secondary batteries were just as important as the larger weapons.[3]

text: In Japan, the two battleships of the 1903-4 Programme were the first to be laid down as all-big-gun designs, with eight 12-inch guns. However, the design had armor which was considered too thin, demanding a substantial redesign.[34] The financial pressures of the Russo-Japanese War and the short supply of 12-inch guns which had to be imported from Britain meant these ships were completed with a mixed 10- and 12-inch armament. The 1903-4 design also retained traditional triple-expansion steam engines.[35]

text: As early as 1904, Jackie Fisher had been convinced of the need for fast, powerful ships with an all-big-gun armament. If Tsushima influenced his thinking, it was to persuade him of the need to standardise on 12-inch (305 mm) guns.[3] Fisher's concerns were submarines and destroyers equipped with torpedoes, then threatening to outrange battleship guns, making speed imperative for capital ships.[3] Fisher's preferred option was his brainchild, the battlecruiser: lightly armored but heavily armed with eight 12-inch guns and propelled to 25 knots (46 km/h) by steam turbines.[36]

text: It was to prove this revolutionary technology that Dreadnought was designed in January 1905, laid down in October 1905 and sped to completion by 1906. She carried ten 12-inch guns, had an 11-inch armor belt, and was the first large ship powered by turbines. She mounted her guns in five turrets; three on the centerline (one forward, two aft) and two on the wings, giving her at her launch twice the broadside of any other warship. She retained a number of 12-pound (3-inch, 76 mm) quick-firing guns for use against destroyers and torpedo-boats. Her armor was heavy enough for her to go head-to-head with any other ship in a gun battle, and conceivably win.[37]

text: Dreadnought was to have been followed by three Invincible-class battlecruisers, their construction delayed to allow lessons from Dreadnought to be used in their design. While Fisher may have intended Dreadnought to be the last Royal Navy battleship,[3] the design was so successful he found little support for his plan to switch to a battlecruiser navy. Although there were some problems with the ship (the wing turrets had limited arcs of fire and strained the hull when firing a full broadside, and the top of the thickest armor belt lay below the waterline at full load), the Royal Navy promptly commissioned another six ships to a similar design in the Bellerophon and St. Vincent classes.

text: An American design, South Carolina, authorized in 1905 and laid down in December 1906, was another of the first dreadnoughts, but she and her sister, Michigan, were not launched until 1908. Both used triple-expansion engines and had a superior layout of the main battery, dispensing with Dreadnought's wing turrets. They thus retained the same broadside, despite having two fewer guns.

text: Arms race[edit]

text: In 1897, before the revolution in design brought about by HMS Dreadnought, the Royal Navy had 62 battleships in commission or building, a lead of 26 over France and 50 over Germany.[28] In 1906, the Royal Navy owned the field with Dreadnought. The new class of ship prompted an arms race with major strategic consequences. Major naval powers raced to build their own dreadnoughts. Possession of modern battleships was not only seen as vital to naval power, but also, as with nuclear weapons after WWII, represented a nation's standing in the world.[3] Germany, France, Japan,[38] Italy, Austria, and the United States all began dreadnought programmes; while Ottoman Turkey, Argentina, Russia,[38] Brazil, and Chile commissioned dreadnoughts to be built in British and American yards.

text: World War I[edit]

text: The battleship, particularly the dreadnought, was the dominant naval weapon of the World War I era. There were few serious challenges at that time. The most significant naval battles of World War I, such as Jutland (May 31, 1916 – June 1, 1916), were fought by battleships and their battlecruiser cousins.[39]

text: By virtue of geography, the Royal Navy was able to use her imposing battleship and battlecruiser fleet to impose a strict and successful naval blockade of Germany and kept Germany's smaller battleship fleet bottled up in the North Sea: only narrow channels led to the Atlantic Ocean and these were guarded by British forces.[40] Both sides were aware that, because of the greater number of British dreadnoughts, a full fleet engagement would be likely to result in a British victory. The German strategy was therefore to try to provoke an engagement on their terms: either to induce a part of the Grand Fleet to enter battle alone, or to fight a pitched battle near the German coastline, where friendly minefields, torpedo-boats and submarines could be used to even the odds.[41] Germany's submarines were able to break out and raid commerce, but even though they sank many merchant ships, they could not successfully blockade Great Britain – in contrast to Britain's successful battleship blockade of Germany, which was a major cause of Germany's economic collapse in 1918. The Royal Navy on the other hand, successfully adopted convoy tactics to combat Germany's submarine blockade and eventually defeated it.[39]

text: The first two years of war saw the Royal Navy's battleships and battlecruisers regularly "sweep" the North Sea making sure that no German ships could get in or out. Only a few German surface ships that were already at sea, such as the famous light cruiser SMS Emden, were able to raid commerce. Even some of those that did manage to get out were hunted down by battlecruisers, as in the Battle of the Falklands, December 7, 1914. The results of sweeping actions in the North Sea were battles such as the Heligoland Bight and Dogger Bank and German raids on the English coast, all of which were attempts by the Germans to lure out portions of the Grand Fleet in an attempt to defeat the Royal Navy in detail. On May 31, 1916, a further attempt to draw British ships into battle on German terms resulted in a clash of the battlefleets in the Battle of Jutland.[42] The German fleet withdrew to port after two short encounters with the British fleet. Less than two months later, the Germans once again attempted to draw portions of the Grand Fleet into battle. The resulting Action of 19 August 1916 proved inconclusive. This reinforced German determination not to engage in a fleet to fleet battle.[43]

text: In the other naval theatres there were no decisive pitched battles. In the Black Sea, engagement between Russian and Turkish battleships was restricted to skirmishes. In the Baltic Sea, action was largely limited to the raiding of convoys, and the laying of defensive minefields; the only significant clash of battleship squadrons there was the Battle of Moon Sound at which one Russian pre-dreadnought was lost. The Adriatic was in a sense the mirror of the North Sea: the Austro-Hungarian dreadnought fleet remained bottled up by the British and French blockade. And in the Mediterranean, the most important use of battleships was in support of the amphibious assault on Gallipoli.[44]

text: In September 1914, the threat posed to surface ships by German U-boats was confirmed by successful attacks on British cruisers, including the sinking of three British armored cruisers by the German submarine SM U-9 in less than an hour. The British Super-dreadnought HMS Audacious soon followed suit as she struck a mine laid by a German U-boat in October 1914 and sank. The threat that German U-boats posed to British dreadnoughts was enough to cause the Royal Navy to change their strategy and tactics in the North Sea to reduce the risk of U-boat attack.[45] Further near-misses from submarine attacks on battleships and casualties amongst cruisers led to growing concern in the Royal Navy about the vulnerability of battleships.

text: As the war wore on however, it turned out that whilst submarines did prove to be an incredibly dangerous threat to older pre-dreadnought battleships, as shown by examples such as the sinking of the Mesûdiye, which was caught in the Dardanelles by a British submarine[46] and the HMS Majestic and HMS Triumph were torpedoed by U-21 as well as HMS Formidable, HMS Cornwallis, HMS Britannia etc., the threat posed to dreadnought battleships proved to have been largely a false alarm. HMS Audacious turned out to have been the only dreadnought sunk by a submarine in World War I.[39] While battleships were never intended for anti-submarine warfare, there was one instance of a submarine being sunk by a dreadnought battleship. HMS Dreadnought rammed and sank the German U-29 on March 18, 1915 off Moray Firth.[39]

text: Whilst the escape of the German fleet from the superior British firepower at Jutland was effected by the German cruisers and destroyers successfully turning away the British battleships, the German attempt to rely on U-boat attacks on the British fleet failed.[47]

text: Torpedo boats did have some successes against battleships in World War I, as demonstrated by the sinking of the British pre-dreadnought HMS Goliath by Muâvenet-i Millîye during the Dardanelles Campaign and the destruction of the Austro-Hungarian dreadnought SMS Szent István by Italian motor torpedo boats in June 1918. In large fleet actions, however, destroyers and torpedo boats were usually unable to get close enough to the battleships to damage them. The only battleship sunk in a fleet action by either torpedo boats or destroyers was the obsolescent German pre-dreadnought SMS Pommern. She was sunk by destroyers during the night phase of the Battle of Jutland.

text: The German High Seas Fleet, for their part, were determined not to engage the British without the assistance of submarines; and since the submarines were needed more for raiding commercial traffic, the fleet stayed in port for much of the war.[48]

text: Inter-war period[edit]

text: For many years, Germany simply had no battleships. The Armistice with Germany required that most of the High Seas Fleet be disarmed and interned in a neutral port; largely because no neutral port could be found, the ships remained in British custody in Scapa Flow, Scotland. The Treaty of Versailles specified that the ships should be handed over to the British. Instead, most of them were scuttled by their German crews on June 21, 1919 just before the signature of the peace treaty. The treaty also limited the German Navy, and prevented Germany from building or possessing any capital ships.[49]

text: The inter-war period saw the battleship subjected to strict international limitations to prevent a costly arms race breaking out.[50]

text: While the victors were not limited by the Treaty of Versailles, many of the major naval powers were crippled after the war. Faced with the prospect of a naval arms race against the United Kingdom and Japan, which would in turn have led to a possible Pacific war, the United States was keen to conclude the Washington Naval Treaty of 1922. This treaty limited the number and size of battleships that each major nation could possess, and required Britain to accept parity with the U.S. and to abandon the British alliance with Japan.[51] The Washington treaty was followed by a series of other naval treaties, including the First Geneva Naval Conference (1927), the First London Naval Treaty (1930), the Second Geneva Naval Conference (1932), and finally the Second London Naval Treaty (1936), which all set limits on major warships. These treaties became effectively obsolete on September 1, 1939 at the beginning of World War II, but the ship classifications that had been agreed upon still apply.[52] The treaty limitations meant that fewer new battleships were launched in 1919–39 than in 1905–14. The treaties also inhibited development by putting maximum limits on the weights of ships. Designs like the projected British N3-class battleship, the first American South Dakota class, and the Japanese Kii class—all of which continued the trend to larger ships with bigger guns and thicker armor—never got off the drawing board. Those designs which were commissioned during this period were referred to as treaty battleships.[53]

text: Rise of air power[edit]

text: As early as 1914, the British Admiral Percy Scott predicted that battleships would soon be made irrelevant by aircraft.[54] By the end of World War I, aircraft had successfully adopted the torpedo as a weapon.[55] In 1921 the Italian general and air theorist Giulio Douhet completed a hugely influential treatise on strategic bombing titled The Command of the Air, which foresaw the dominance of air power over naval units.

text: In the 1920s, General Billy Mitchell of the United States Army Air Corps, believing that air forces had rendered navies around the world obsolete, testified in front of Congress that "1,000 bombardment airplanes can be built and operated for about the price of one battleship" and that a squadron of these bombers could sink a battleship, making for more efficient use of government funds.[56] This infuriated the U.S. Navy, but Mitchell was nevertheless allowed to conduct a careful series of bombing tests alongside Navy and Marine bombers. In 1921, he bombed and sank numerous ships, including the "unsinkable" German World War I battleship SMS Ostfriesland and the American pre-dreadnought Alabama.[57]

text: Although Mitchell had required "war-time conditions", the ships sunk were obsolete, stationary, defenseless and had no damage control. The sinking of Ostfriesland was accomplished by violating an agreement that would have allowed Navy engineers to examine the effects of various munitions: Mitchell's airmen disregarded the rules, and sank the ship within minutes in a coordinated attack. The stunt made headlines, and Mitchell declared, "No surface vessels can exist wherever air forces acting from land bases are able to attack them." While far from conclusive, Mitchell's test was significant because it put proponents of the battleship against naval aviation on the back foot.[3] Rear Admiral William A. Moffett used public relations against Mitchell to make headway toward expansion of the U.S. Navy's nascent aircraft carrier program.[58]

text: Rearmament[edit]

text: The Royal Navy, United States Navy, and Imperial Japanese Navy extensively upgraded and modernized their World War I–era battleships during the 1930s. Among the new features were an increased tower height and stability for the optical rangefinder equipment (for gunnery control), more armor (especially around turrets) to protect against plunging fire and aerial bombing, and additional anti-aircraft weapons. Some British ships received a large block superstructure nicknamed the "Queen Anne's castle", such as in the Queen Elizabeth and Warspite, which would be used in the new conning towers of the King George V-class fast battleships. External bulges were added to improve both buoyancy to counteract weight increase and provide underwater protection against mines and torpedoes. The Japanese rebuilt all of their battleships, plus their battlecruisers, with distinctive "pagoda" structures, though the Hiei received a more modern bridge tower that would influence the new Yamato class. Bulges were fitted, including steel tube arrays to improve both underwater and vertical protection along the waterline. The U.S. experimented with cage masts and later tripod masts, though after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor some of the most severely damaged ships (such as West Virginia and California) were rebuilt with tower masts, for an appearance similar to their Iowa-class contemporaries. Radar, which was effective beyond visual range and effective in complete darkness or adverse weather, was introduced to supplement optical fire control.[59]

text: Even when war threatened again in the late 1930s, battleship construction did not regain the level of importance it had held in the years before World War I. The "building holiday" imposed by the naval treaties meant the capacity of dockyards worldwide had shrunk, and the strategic position had changed.[60]

text: In Germany, the ambitious Plan Z for naval rearmament was abandoned in favor of a strategy of submarine warfare supplemented by the use of battlecruisers and commerce raiding (in particular by Bismarck-class battleships). In Britain, the most pressing need was for air defenses and convoy escorts to safeguard the civilian population from bombing or starvation, and re-armament construction plans consisted of five ships of the King George V class. It was in the Mediterranean that navies remained most committed to battleship warfare. France intended to build six battleships of the Dunkerque and Richelieu classes, and the Italians four Littorio-class ships. Neither navy built significant aircraft carriers. The U.S. preferred to spend limited funds on aircraft carriers until the South Dakota class. Japan, also prioritising aircraft carriers, nevertheless began work on three mammoth Yamatos (although the third, Shinano, was later completed as a carrier) and a planned fourth was cancelled.[11]

text: At the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War, the Spanish navy consisted of only two small dreadnought battleships, España and Jaime I. España (originally named Alfonso XIII), by then in reserve at the northwestern naval base of El Ferrol, fell into Nationalist hands in July 1936. The crew aboard Jaime I remained loyal to the Republic, killed their officers, who apparently supported Franco's attempted coup, and joined the Republican Navy. Thus each side had one battleship; however, the Republican Navy generally lacked experienced officers. The Spanish battleships mainly restricted themselves to mutual blockades, convoy escort duties, and shore bombardment, rarely in direct fighting against other surface units.[61] In April 1937, España ran into a mine laid by friendly forces, and sank with little loss of life. In May 1937, Jaime I was damaged by Nationalist air attacks and a grounding incident. The ship was forced to go back to port to be repaired. There she was again hit by several aerial bombs. It was then decided to tow the battleship to a more secure port, but during the transport she suffered an internal explosion that caused 300 deaths and her total loss. Several Italian and German capital ships participated in the non-intervention blockade. On May 29, 1937, two Republican aircraft managed to bomb the German pocket battleship Deutschland outside Ibiza, causing severe damage and loss of life. Admiral Scheer retaliated two days later by bombarding Almería, causing much destruction, and the resulting Deutschland incident meant the end of German and Italian support for non-intervention.[62]

text: World War II[edit]

text: The German battleship Schleswig-Holstein—an obsolete pre-dreadnought—fired the first shots of World War II with the bombardment of the Polish garrison at Westerplatte;[63] and the final surrender of the Japanese Empire took place aboard a United States Navy battleship, USS Missouri. Between those two events, it had become clear that aircraft carriers were the new principal ships of the fleet and that battleships now performed a secondary role.

text: Battleships played a part in major engagements in Atlantic, Pacific and Mediterranean theaters; in the Atlantic, the Germans used their battleships as independent commerce raiders. However, clashes between battleships were of little strategic importance. The Battle of the Atlantic was fought between destroyers and submarines, and most of the decisive fleet clashes of the Pacific war were determined by aircraft carriers.

text: In the first year of the war, armored warships defied predictions that aircraft would dominate naval warfare. Scharnhorst and Gneisenau surprised and sank the aircraft carrier Glorious off western Norway in June 1940.[64] This engagement marked the last time a fleet carrier was sunk by surface gunnery. In the attack on Mers-el-Kébir, British battleships opened fire on the French battleships in the harbor near Oran in Algeria with their heavy guns, and later pursued fleeing French ships with planes from aircraft carriers.

text: The subsequent years of the war saw many demonstrations of the maturity of the aircraft carrier as a strategic naval weapon and its potential against battleships. The British air attack on the Italian naval base at Taranto sank one Italian battleship and damaged two more. The same Swordfish torpedo bombers played a crucial role in sinking the German commerce-raider Bismarck.

text: On December 7, 1941, the Japanese launched a surprise attack on Pearl Harbor. Within a short time five of eight U.S. battleships were sunk or sinking, with the rest damaged. The American aircraft carriers were out to sea, however, and evaded detection. They took up the fight, and eventually turned the tide of the war in the Pacific. The sinking of the British battleship Prince of Wales and her escort, the battlecruiser Repulse, demonstrated the vulnerability of a battleship to air attack while at sea without sufficient air cover, settling the argument begun by Mitchell in 1921. Both warships were under way and en route to attack the Japanese amphibious force that had invaded Malaya when they were caught by Japanese land-based bombers and torpedo bombers on December 10, 1941.[65]

text: At many of the early crucial battles of the Pacific, for instance Coral Sea and Midway, battleships were either absent or overshadowed as carriers launched wave after wave of planes into the attack at a range of hundreds of miles. In later battles in the Pacific, battleships primarily performed shore bombardment in support of amphibious landings and provided anti-aircraft defense as escort for the carriers. Even the largest battleships ever constructed, Japan's Yamato class, which carried a main battery of nine 18-inch (46 cm) guns and were designed as a principal strategic weapon, were never given a chance to show their potential in the decisive battleship action that figured in Japanese pre-war planning.[66]

text: The last battleship confrontation in history was the Battle of Surigao Strait, on October 25, 1944, in which a numerically and technically superior American battleship group destroyed a lesser Japanese battleship group by gunfire after it had already been devastated by destroyer torpedo attacks. All but one of the American battleships in this confrontation had previously been sunk during the attack on Pearl Harbor and subsequently raised and repaired. When Mississippi fired the last salvo of this battle, the last salvo fired by a battleship against another heavy ship, she was "firing a funeral salute to a finished era of naval warfare."[67] In April 1945, during the battle for Okinawa, the world's most powerful battleship,[68] the Yamato, was sent out on a suicide mission against a massive U.S. force and sunk by overwhelming pressure from carrier aircraft with nearly all hands lost.

text: Cold War[edit]

text: After World War II, several navies retained their existing battleships, but they were no longer strategically dominant military assets. Indeed, it soon became apparent that they were no longer worth the considerable cost of construction and maintenance and only one new battleship was commissioned after the war, HMS Vanguard. During the war it had been demonstrated that battleship-on-battleship engagements like Leyte Gulf or the sinking of HMS Hood were the exception and not the rule, and with the growing role of aircraft engagement ranges were becoming longer and longer, making heavy gun armament irrelevant. The armor of a battleship was equally irrelevant in the face of a nuclear attack as tactical missiles with a range of 100 kilometres (60 mi) or more could be mounted on the Soviet Kildin-class destroyer and Whiskey-class submarines. By the end of the 1950s, smaller vessel classes such as destroyers, which formerly offered no noteworthy opposition to battleships, now were capable of eliminating battleships from outside the range of the ship's heavy guns.

text: The remaining battleships met a variety of ends. USS Arkansas and Nagato were sunk during the testing of nuclear weapons in Operation Crossroads in 1946. Both battleships proved resistant to nuclear air burst but vulnerable to underwater nuclear explosions.[69] The Italian battleship Giulio Cesare was taken by the Soviets as reparations and renamed Novorossiysk; she was sunk by a leftover German mine in the Black Sea on October 29, 1955. The two Andrea Doria-class ships were scrapped in 1956.[70] The French Lorraine was scrapped in 1954, Richelieu in 1968,[71] and Jean Bart in 1970.[72]

text: The United Kingdom's four surviving King George V-class ships were scrapped in 1957,[73] and Vanguard followed in 1960.[74] All other surviving British battleships had been sold or broken up by 1949.[75] The Soviet Union's Marat was scrapped in 1953, Parizhskaya Kommuna in 1957 and Oktyabrskaya Revolutsiya (back under her original name, Gangut, since 1942)[76] in 1956-7.[76] Brazil's Minas Geraes was scrapped in Genoa in 1953,[77] and her sister ship São Paulo sank during a storm in the Atlantic en route to the breakers in Italy in 1951.[77]

text: Argentina kept its two Rivadavia-class ships until 1956 and Chile kept Almirante Latorre (formerly HMS Canada) until 1959.[78] The Turkish battlecruiser Yavûz (formerly SMS Goeben, launched in 1911) was scrapped in 1976 after an offer to sell her back to Germany was refused. Sweden had several small coastal-defense battleships, one of which, HSwMS Gustav V, survived until 1970.[79] The Soviets scrapped four large incomplete cruisers in the late 1950s, whilst plans to build a number of new Stalingrad-class battlecruisers were abandoned following the death of Joseph Stalin in 1953.[80] The three old German battleships Schleswig-Holstein, Schlesien, and Hessen all met similar ends. Hessen was taken over by the Soviet Union and renamed Tsel. She was scrapped in 1960. Schleswig-Holstein was renamed Borodino, and was used as a target ship until 1960. Schlesien, too, was used as a target ship. She was broken up between 1952 and 1957.[81]

text: The Iowa-class battleships gained a new lease of life in the U.S. Navy as fire support ships. Radar and computer-controlled gunfire could be aimed with pinpoint accuracy to target. The U.S. recommissioned all four Iowa-class battleships for the Korean War and the New Jersey for the Vietnam War. These were primarily used for shore bombardment, New Jersey firing nearly 6,000 rounds of 16 inch shells and over 14,000 rounds of 5 inch projectiles during her tour on the gunline,[82] seven times more rounds against shore targets in Vietnam than she had fired in the Second World War.[83]

text: As part of Navy Secretary John F. Lehman's effort to build a 600-ship Navy in the 1980s, and in response to the commissioning of Kirov by the Soviet Union, the United States recommissioned all four Iowa-class battleships. On several occasions, battleships were support ships in carrier battle groups, or led their own battleship battle group. These were modernized to carry Tomahawk missiles, with New Jersey seeing action bombarding Lebanon in 1983 and 1984, while Missouri and Wisconsin fired their 16-inch (406 mm) guns at land targets and launched missiles during Operation Desert Storm in 1991. Wisconsin served as the TLAM strike commander for the Persian Gulf, directing the sequence of launches that marked the opening of Desert Storm, firing a total of 24 TLAMs during the first two days of the campaign. The primary threat to the battleships were Iraqi shore based surface-to-surface missiles; Missouri was targeted by two Iraqi Silkworm missiles, with one missing and another being intercepted by the British destroyer HMS Gloucester.[84]

text: End of the battleship era[edit]

text: All four Iowa ships were decommissioned in the early 1990s, making them the last battleships to see active service. USS Iowa and USS Wisconsin were maintained to a standard where they could be rapidly returned to service as fire support vessels, pending the development of a superior fire support vessel. These last two battleships were finally stricken from the U.S. Naval Vessel Register in 2006.[85][86][87] The Military Balance and Russian Foreign Military Review states the U.S. Navy listed one battleship in the reserve (Naval Inactive Fleet/Reserve 2nd Turn) in 2010.[88][89] The Military Balance states the U.S. Navy listed no battleships in the reserve in 2014.[90] The U.S. Marine Corps believes that the current naval surface fire support gun and missile programs will not be able to provide adequate fire support for an amphibious assault or onshore operations.[91][92]

text: With the decommissioning of the last Iowa-class ships, no battleships remain in service or in reserve with any navy worldwide. A number are preserved as museum ships, either afloat or in drydock. The U.S. has eight battleships on display: Massachusetts, North Carolina, Alabama, Iowa, New Jersey, Missouri, Wisconsin, and Texas. Missouri and New Jersey are museums at Pearl Harbor and Camden, New Jersey, respectively. Iowa is on display as an educational attraction at the Los Angeles Waterfront in San Pedro, California. Wisconsin now serves as a museum ship in Norfolk, Virginia.[93] Massachusetts, which has the distinction of never having lost a man during service, is on display at the Battleship Cove naval museum in Fall River, Massachusetts.[94] Texas, the first battleship turned into a museum, is on display at the San Jacinto Battleground State Historic Site, near Houston. North Carolina is on display in Wilmington, North Carolina. Alabama is on display in Mobile, Alabama. The wreck of the Arizona, sunk during the Pearl Harbor attack in 1941, is designated a historical landmark and national gravesite.

text: The only other 20th-century battleship on display is the Japanese pre-dreadnought Mikasa. A replica of the Chinese ironclad Dingyuan was built by the Weihai Port Bureau in 2003 and is on display in Weihai, China.

text: Strategy and doctrine[edit]

text: Doctrine[edit]

text: Battleships were the embodiment of sea power. For Alfred Thayer Mahan and his followers, a strong navy was vital to the success of a nation, and control of the seas was vital for the projection of force on land and overseas. Mahan's theory, proposed in The Influence of Sea Power Upon History, 1660–1783 of 1890, dictated the role of the battleship was to sweep the enemy from the seas.[95] While the work of escorting, blockading, and raiding might be done by cruisers or smaller vessels, the presence of the battleship was a potential threat to any convoy escorted by any vessels other than capital ships. This concept of "potential threat" can be further generalized to the mere existence (as opposed to presence) of a powerful fleet tying the opposing fleet down. This concept came to be known as a "fleet in being" – an idle yet mighty fleet forcing others to spend time, resource and effort to actively guard against it.

text: Mahan went on to say victory could only be achieved by engagements between battleships, which came to be known as the decisive battle doctrine in some navies, while targeting merchant ships (commerce raiding or guerre de course, as posited by the Jeune École) could never succeed.[96]

text: Mahan was highly influential in naval and political circles throughout the age of the battleship,[3][97] calling for a large fleet of the most powerful battleships possible. Mahan's work developed in the late 1880s, and by the end of the 1890s it had a massive[clarification needed] international influence,[3] in the end adopted by many major navies (notably the British, American, German, and Japanese). The strength of Mahanian opinion was important in the development of the battleships arms races, and equally important in the agreement of the Powers to limit battleship numbers in the interwar era.

text: The "fleet in being" suggested battleships could simply by their existence tie down superior enemy resources. This in turn was believed to be able to tip the balance of a conflict even without a battle. This suggested even for inferior naval powers a battleship fleet could have important strategic effect.[98]

text: Tactics[edit]

text: While the role of battleships in both World Wars reflected Mahanian doctrine, the details of battleship deployment were more complex. Unlike ships of the line, the battleships of the late 19th and early 20th centuries had significant vulnerability to torpedoes and mines —because efficient mines & torpedoes didn't exist before that[99]— which could be used by relatively small and inexpensive craft. The Jeune École doctrine of the 1870s and 1880s recommended placing torpedo boats alongside battleships; these would hide behind the larger ships until gun-smoke obscured visibility enough for them to dart out and fire their torpedoes.[3] While this tactic was vitiated by the development of smokeless propellant, the threat from more capable torpedo craft (later including submarines) remained. By the 1890s, the Royal Navy had developed the first destroyers, which were initially designed to intercept and drive off any attacking torpedo boats. During the First World War and subsequently, battleships were rarely deployed without a protective screen of destroyers.[100]

text: Battleship doctrine emphasised the concentration of the battlegroup. In order for this concentrated force to be able to bring its power to bear on a reluctant opponent (or to avoid an encounter with a stronger enemy fleet), battlefleets needed some means of locating enemy ships beyond horizon range. This was provided by scouting forces; at various stages battlecruisers, cruisers, destroyers, airships, submarines and aircraft were all used. (With the development of radio, direction finding and traffic analysis would come into play, as well, so even shore stations, broadly speaking, joined the battlegroup.[101]) So for most of their history, battleships operated surrounded by squadrons of destroyers and cruisers. The North Sea campaign of the First World War illustrates how, despite this support, the threat of mine and torpedo attack, and the failure to integrate or appreciate the capabilities of new techniques,[102] seriously inhibited the operations of the Royal Navy Grand Fleet, the greatest battleship fleet of its time.

text: Strategic and diplomatic impact[edit]

text: The presence of battleships had a great psychological and diplomatic impact. Similar to possessing nuclear weapons today, the ownership of battleships served to enhance a nation's force projection.[3]

text: Even during the Cold War, the psychological impact of a battleship was significant. In 1946, USS Missouri was dispatched to deliver the remains of the ambassador from Turkey, and her presence in Turkish and Greek waters staved off a possible Soviet thrust into the Balkan region.[103] In September 1983, when Druze militia in Lebanon's Shouf Mountains fired upon U.S. Marine peacekeepers, the arrival of USS New Jersey stopped the firing. Gunfire from New Jersey later killed militia leaders.[104]

text: Value for money[edit]

text: Battleships were the largest and most complex, and hence the most expensive warships of their time; as a result, the value of investment in battleships has always been contested. As the French politician Etienne Lamy wrote in 1879, "The construction of battleships is so costly, their effectiveness so uncertain and of such short duration, that the enterprise of creating an armored fleet seems to leave fruitless the perseverance of a people".[99] The Jeune École school of thought of the 1870s and 1880s sought alternatives to the crippling expense and debatable utility of a conventional battlefleet. It proposed what would nowadays be termed a sea denial strategy, based on fast, long-ranged cruisers for commerce raiding and torpedo boat flotillas to attack enemy ships attempting to blockade French ports. The ideas of the Jeune École were ahead of their time; it was not until the 20th century that efficient mines, torpedoes, submarines, and aircraft were available that allowed similar ideas to be effectively implemented.[99] The determination of powers such as Germany to build battlefleets with which to confront much stronger rivals has been criticised by historians, who emphasise the futility of investment in a battlefleet that has no chance of matching its opponent in an actual battle.[3]


document_title: Absolute hot

question_text: what is the hottest temperature in the universe

root

text: Absolute hot

text: Absolute hot is a concept of temperature that postulates the existence of a highest attainable temperature of matter. The concept has been popularized by the television series Nova.[1][2] In this presentation, absolute hot is assumed to be the high end of a temperature scale starting at absolute zero, which is the temperature at which entropy is minimal and classical thermal energy is zero.

tag: p

text: Contemporary models of physical cosmology postulate that the highest possible temperature is the Planck temperature, which has the value 7032141678500000000♠1.416785(71)×1032 kelvins, or 142 nonillion kelvins (142 quintillion on the long scale).[3] Above about 1032K, particle energies become so large that gravitational forces between them would become as strong as other fundamental forces according to current theories. There is no existing scientific theory for the behavior of matter at these energies. A quantum theory of gravity would be required.[4] The models of the origin of the universe based on the Big Bang theory assume that the universe passed through this temperature about 10−42 seconds after the Big Bang as a result of enormous entropy expansion.[3]

text: Another theory of absolute hot is based on the Hagedorn temperature,[2] where the thermal energies of the particles exceed the mass-energy of a hadron particle-antiparticle pair. Instead of temperature rising, at the Hagedorn temperature more and heavier particles are produced by pair production, thus preventing effective further heating, given that only hadrons are produced. However, further heating is possible (with pressure) if the matter undergoes a phase change into a quark–gluon plasma.[citation needed] Therefore, this temperature is more akin to a boiling point rather than an insurmountable barrier. For hadrons, the Hagedorn temperature is 2 × 1012 K, which has been reached and exceeded in LHC and RHIC experiments. However, in string theory, a separate Hagedorn temperature can be defined, where strings similarly provide the extra degrees of freedom. However, it is so high (1030 K) that no current or foreseeable experiment can reach it.[5]

text: Considering only certain degrees of freedom in matter, such as nuclear spins, systems with a negative temperature can be produced. They occur because equipartitioning is too slow to allow communication between the degrees of freedom where thermal energy is stored, such as the vibrational, rotational and nuclear spin states of molecules. These systems are familiar from e.g. lasers. For these, theory predicts a mathematical singularity in temperature. When a spin system is excited with electromagnetic radiation and undergoes population inversion into an excited state, quantum physics formally assumes that its temperature function goes through a singularity. The spin temperature tends to positive infinity, before discontinuously switching to negative infinity.[6] However, this applies only to specific degrees of freedom (the spin temperature in this case) in the system, while others would have normal temperature dependency. Thus, this singularity cannot be observed as ordinary sensible heat. If equipartitioning is possible, the system undergoes relaxation into a thermally uniform state with release of a finite quantity of heat. Before a physical infinite temperature could be reached, realistic ordinary matter would undergo phase transitions, such evaporation, and never actually reach the infinite temperature.


document_title: The Flash (season 4)

question_text: when does the flash season 4 ep 14 air

question_tokens: when does the flash season 4 ep 14 air

text: The Flash (season 4)

text: Episodes[edit]

text:
No.
overall
No. in
season
Title
Directed by
Written by
Original air date
Prod.
code
U.S. viewers
(millions)

70
1
"The Flash Reborn"
Glen Winter
Story by : Andrew Kreisberg
Teleplay by : Todd Helbing & Eric Wallace
October 10, 2017 (2017-10-10)
T27.13401
2.84[2]

Iris has been aiding Team Flash in Central City for six months, but refuses to grieve Barry. A flying samurai with superpowers appears in Central City, threatening to destroy the city if the real Flash does not face him. Cisco reveals he has formulated a way to bring back Barry without destabilizing the Speed Force and tracks down Caitlin for help, but is forbidden by Iris to bring Barry back. Against Iris' orders, Team Flash successfully returns Barry, who rambles random statements and continually writes symbols on the walls. Wally engages the samurai, but is defeated. Cisco deciphers Barry's writings and finds an apparently meaningless sentence. In an attempt to recover Barry's memories, Iris gives herself up to the samurai. The plan works and Barry speeds away, rescuing Iris and defeating the samurai, who is revealed to be an android. Caitlin rejoins Team Flash, but is revealed to have been working for a mobster called Amunet, while also continuing to prevent the Killer Frost personality from emerging. The "Samuroid" is revealed to have been controlled by the Thinker, whose plan was to draw out the Flash for his next schemes.

71
2
"Mixed Signals"
Alexandra La Roche
Jonathan Butler & Gabriel Garza
October 17, 2017 (2017-10-17)
T27.13402
2.54[3]

When Barry, Joe, and Cisco report to a crime scene, they discover remnants of a mysterious code. Cisco presents Barry with a technologically advanced suit, intended to facilitate his activities. He tests it out, trying to save someone from a haywire car controlled by metahuman Ramsey Deacon. Gypsy arrives on Earth-1 for a date with Cisco, who is forced to cancel it so as to focus on Deacon. Acting on a suggestion from Caitlin, Iris signs her and Barry up for couples therapy to sort out their relationship. Deacon kidnaps a witness, a former member of a tech team that stole his idea for profit. Barry and Wally go to save him, but Deacon uses his abilities to send Barry's suit haywire. On Iris' instruction, Barry throws lightning at himself, shorting out his suit. He then incapacitates Deacon, who is locked up in the meta wing of Iron Heights, revealed to be part of the Thinker's plan. Cisco finally goes out with Gypsy. Wondering how Deacon gained his powers being absent during the particle accelerator incident, Barry and Joe learn from Deacon that there are "others."

72
3
"Luck Be a Lady"
Armen V. Kevorkian
Sam Chalsen & Judalina Neira
October 24, 2017 (2017-10-24)
T27.13403
2.62[4]

In flashbacks, the Thinker observes Becky Sharpe, a woman with seemingly unending bad luck, and determines that she will be easily manipulated. In the present, Becky robs a bank, and gets away when Barry slips on marbles. Harry arrives from Earth-2, and tells Wally that Jesse has decided to break up in order to focus on her vigilantism. Cisco deduces that Becky is a metahuman with the power of favorable luck while inducing misfortune to others. Barry realizes that the portal he used to escape the Speed Force exposed an entire busload of people, including Becky and Deacon, to transformative dark matter. Harry informs Cisco that Jesse has expelled him from her crime-fighting team due to his attitude. Becky's powers expand out of control, reactivating the particle accelerator, which Harry deliberately allows, nullifying Becky's powers and leading to her incarceration. Cisco and Harry identify twelve new metahumans created on the bus, and the latter suspects that an unknown party has manipulated events surrounding Barry's return. Wally decides to leave on a journey to find himself. The Thinker is revealed to be spying on S.T.A.R. Labs through the "Samuroid" helmet. Joe learns Cecile is pregnant.

73
4
"Elongated Journey Into Night"
Tom Cavanagh
Sterling Gates & Thomas Pound
October 31, 2017 (2017-10-31)
T27.13404
1.99[5]

Gypsy's father, Breacher, attacks Cisco, vowing to hunt and kill him in 24 hours, allowing the romance should he survive. Team Flash learns that the bus driver was murdered and tracks down another passenger, Ralph Dibny, former corrupt CCPD detective exposed by Barry and currently an infamous private investigator. As two thugs attack Dibny, he is revealed to have the power to stretch. Caitlin stabilizes his powers with a serum. The team learns that Ralph has been blackmailing Mayor Bellows for adultery, with the latter revealed to have hired the thugs. Barry confronts Ralph for his actions while the latter scolds him, claiming to have been a "good cop". He later stops blackmailing Bellows, who still attempts to kill him while Breacher mistakes the former for a Plastoid, the species that invaded Earth-19 previously, and attacks him. Cisco intervenes and saves Ralph, whom Barry, having revealed his alter-ego, convinces to help arrest an escaping Bellows. Admiring Cisco's gallantry, Breacher allows the relationship. Barry recruits Ralph for Team Flash and learns that someone named DeVoe instructed Ralph to watch Bellows. Barry remembers that Abra Kadabra and Savitar both mentioned DeVoe. Meanwhile, Caitlin finds a message on her apartment door.

74
5
"Girls Night Out"
Laura Belsey
Lauren Certo & Kristen Kim
November 7, 2017 (2017-11-07)
T27.13405
2.38[6]

While failing to track DeVoe, Team Flash is visited by Felicity, who joins Iris's bachelorette party. Mocking Cisco's plans for Barry's bachelor party, Ralph takes the men to a strip club, where they learn that Cecile's daughter, Joanie, is working. Joe confronts her, who states she is only doing feminist research. Ralph incites a brawl, leading to the men's arrest until Harry posts bail. Meanwhile, Amunet's enforcer, Norvock, demands Caitlin's return and attacks the women when she refuses. Killer Frost emerges and repels him, later telling Iris that Caitlin accepted Amunet's employment in exchange for the means to control Frost. Learning that Amunet is holding a metahuman she calls "the Weeper", whose tears are a strong narcotic, prisoner and intends to sell him, Iris's party decides to stop her. Though Caitlin refuses to join, she attacks Amunet when seeing her friends in danger. Using a strong magnet, the team robs Amunet's metal shards, leaving her powerless. Iris dissuades Frost from killing Amunet, who promises revenge. Both parties refuse to tell each other about their adventures. Iris asks Caitlin to be her maid of honor while Joe convinces Joanie to tell Cecile about her research. DeVoe captures the Weeper.

75
6
"When Harry Met Harry..."
Brent Crowell
Jonathan Butler & Gabriel Garza
November 14, 2017 (2017-11-14)
T27.13406
2.46[7]

Barry trains Ralph to use his abilities, with Cisco making a stretchable suit for him. Another bus metahuman, a Lakota Sioux Native named Mina Chayton, who can animate statues, starts attacking Central City & stealing pieces of a Black Bison necklace, which she claims belongs to her tribe. When Barry and Ralph catch up to her, she attacks Barry with a caveman statue and attempts a getaway. Ralph chooses to stop her, but a little girl is injured in the process. Ralph regrets his actions, but is comforted by Barry. Chayton escapes CCPD, going after the last necklace piece held at the museum. When Barry and Ralph confront her, she brings a dinosaur skeleton to life. Barry arrests Chayton while Ralph saves a security guard from the skeleton. Later, Ralph reveals he mailed the necklace back to Chayton's tribe, before visiting the little girl in the hospital, using his abilities to entertain her. Meanwhile, Harry, trying to make friends, works with his doppelgangers of alternate Earths, The Council of Wells. They figure out that DeVoe is a man named Clifford DeVoe. Barry and Joe head to DeVoe's house, to find out that he is a middle-aged man in a wheelchair.

76
7
"Therefore I Am"
David McWhirter
Eric Wallace & Thomas Pound
November 21, 2017 (2017-11-21)
T27.13407
2.20[8]

Barry and Joe interrogate DeVoe and his wife to try and get more information. In flashbacks, DeVoe and his wife build a thinking cap to improve his brain capacity, powering it through the particle accelerator explosion. DeVoe's increased brain power accelerates his amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, forcing his wife to build him a special chair to keep him alive. Barry discovers the camera in the Samuroid head and goes to DeVoe's house, narrowly avoiding being caught by DeVoe's wife. Barry later confronts DeVoe, who reveals his true identity, leading to Cisco dubbing him "The Thinker". Wally returns to Team Flash from Blue Valley.

77
8
"Crisis on Earth-X, Part 3"
Dermott Downs
Story by : Andrew Kreisberg & Marc Guggenheim
Teleplay by : Todd Helbing
November 28, 2017 (2017-11-28)
T27.13408
2.82[9]

Barry, Oliver, Sara, Alex, Martin and Jax wake up in a Nazi concentration camp on Earth-X wearing power dampeners. The arriving SS Sturmbannführer is revealed to be the Earth-X doppelgänger of Quentin Lance, who plans to execute them, but they are saved by Citizen Cold (the Earth-X doppelgänger of Leonard Snart) and Ray Terrill. Snart and Terrill take them to the headquarters of the Freedom Fighters, where the team meets the resistance movement's leader, General Schott (Winn Schott's Earth-X doppelgänger). They learn that the only way back to Earth-1 is through a temporal gateway in a research facility, which Schott plans to blow up to strand Dark Arrow (Oliver's Earth-X doppelgänger) on Earth-1. Oliver disguises himself as Dark Arrow to infiltrate the facility and discovers the Nazi doomsday device against parallel Earths is a militarized timeship called Wellenreiter. Barry and Ray battle the Freedom Fighters' Red Tornado to stop it from destroying the gateway while the rest of the team enters the facility to reactivate its portal, during which Stein is shot and gravely wounded. On Earth-1, Thawne prepares to perform surgery on Kara to save Overgirl. Felicity and Iris try to stop him, but are captured.

This episode continues a crossover event that begins on Supergirl season 3 episode 8 and Arrow season 6 episode 8, and concludes on Legends of Tomorrow season 3 episode 8.

78
9
"Don't Run"
Stefan Pleszczynski
Sam Chalsen & Judalina Neira
December 5, 2017 (2017-12-05)
T27.13409
2.22[10]

While out Christmas shopping, Barry is ambushed and kidnapped by DeVoe while Caitlin is kidnapped from Jitters by Amunet. Iris claims they have to look for both of them, despite Harry's claim that they have insufficient time and resources and that they can only afford to search for one. Barry is held in DeVoe's lair. Caitlin is forced by Amunet to perform surgery on a metahuman named Dominic Lanse, who can read minds. They try to escape, but Amunet blocks their exit. Caitlin manages to briefly incapacitate Amunet, and she and Dominic flee the building they are being held in. Once outside, they are rescued by Cisco and Ralph, as Iris has chosen to focus on finding Caitlin. Barry manages to escape from DeVoe. Team Flash celebrates Christmas at the West house and Dominic joins them. Barry gets a security alert from his apartment. When he arrives, he receives a phone call from Dominic, who reveals that Amunet re-kidnapped Dominic and DeVoe has transferred his consciousness into Dominic's body. Barry discovers DeVoe's original body dead on his apartment floor and he realizes DeVoe has framed him for his "murder"; the police arrive, and Barry lets himself get arrested, not wanting to leave Iris again.

79
10
"The Trial of The Flash"
Philip Chipera
Lauren Certo & Kristen Kim
January 16, 2018 (2018-01-16)
T27.13410
2.51[11]

Barry stands trial for the murder of Clifford DeVoe, with Cecile representing him. Cisco and Joe have to leave during the trial for a meta investigation, in which a meta caused people to collapse. Singh reveals to Joe he is appearing as a witness for the prosecution against Barry. The meta is eventually discovered as Neil Borman, who is a meta who produces radiation, which is causing the illness and collapsing. Barry takes him on, but is ill equipped to deal with the situation. Cisco and Killer Frost travel to the scene where Caitlin tries to freeze Borman, who quickly defrosts and incapacitates Caitlin. Barry creates a vacuum seal around Borman to contain the radiation, with Cisco transporting the radiation to the dead Earth-15, draining the meta and defeating him. Barry is eventually found guilty by the jury and is sentenced to life in prison.

80
11
"The Elongated Knight Rises"
Alexandra La Roche
Sterling Gates & Thomas Pound
January 23, 2018 (2018-01-23)
T27.13411
2.12[12]

Barry uses his speed to secretly help the guards contain the other inmates during a prison riot. He also befriends Dave Ratchet, his father's former cellmate. The next day, Barry meets Axel Walker who was later broken out of prison by his mother Zoey Clark, his father's one-time partner Prank. Axel challenges Ralph by threatening to cause chaos in the city. Ralph attempts to stop him but is wounded by Axel and is evacuated by Cisco. Ralph sneaks into the prison to talk to Barry about how scared he is. Barry reassures him that being a hero isn't about not being scared, but about having the ability to rise above your fear. Cisco and Caitlin go to rescue the hostages, but get captured by Axel and Zoey, who intend to kill them. Ralph arrives, and attempts to shield the two from an acid shower, until Wells manages to hack into the shower system to neutralize its acidity. Iris visits Barry in prison, where they reaffirm their love for each other. Ralph and Cisco go to get coffee, where they meet the excitable girl from the wedding. The girl writes in her journal, where she appears to be writing in the language Barry was using when he came out of the Speed Force.

81
12
"Honey, I Shrunk Team Flash"
Chris Peppe
Sam Chalsen & Judalina Neira
January 30, 2018 (2018-01-30)
T27.13412
2.60[13]

Cecile develops telepathic abilities as a result of her pregnancy, combined with dormant dark matter in her cells, which Caitlin assures her should be temporary. In prison, Barry learns that Ratchet is innocent of a robbery-homicide that was actually committed by Sylbert Rundine fifteen years prior. Barry asks the team to look into the case. Rundine turns out to be a bus meta with the ability to shrink and enlarge objects, and he shrinks Cisco and Ralph while escaping. Harry's attempted cure backfires, and Caitlin determines that if they are not re-enlarged within a certain period of time, their bodies will explode. The team confronts Rundine at a warehouse, where Harry tricks him into re-enlarging Ralph and Cisco. Rundine is arrested, but refuses to confess to the earlier crime. Barry gathers that even if Ratchet went free, he would be as unhappy in the city as he is in prison; he wishes to live in a secluded Chinese village called Jiaju, but fears he will never get there. After Joe assures him that he will always do his best, Barry uses his speed to take Ratchet to Jiaju, where he can live out his dream. After discovering Barry is the Flash, the prison's warden, Gregory Wolfe, locks Barry in his private metahuman wing, intending to sell him to Amunet.

82
13
"True Colors"
Tara Nicole Weyr
Jonathan Butler & Gabriel Garza
February 6, 2018 (2018-02-06)
T27.13413
2.28[14]

Wolfe plans to sell Barry and the imprisoned bus metas (Ramsey Deacon, Becky Sharpe, Mina Chaytan, and Sylbert Rundine) to Amunet, so they plan to escape. Cecile discovers Wolfe's plans after reading his mind. Ralph encounters a former colleague and his negative interaction with him prompts the discovery that he can shapeshift. His lack of mastery of the new ability prevents his attempt to foil Amunet's deal with Wolfe. Barry helps the metas escape the power dampeners, but they are cornered by Wolfe and Amunet. DeVoe arrives and again uses his chair to extract the metas' abilities, before transferring his mind into Sharpe's body. He then crushes Wolfe's skull as Marlize looks on in horror; Amunet flees. Ralph uses his shapeshifting ability to appear as the original DeVoe at Barry's appeal, claiming that he was unconscious at Barry's loft but not dead, which clears Barry's name. Team Flash realizes that DeVoe is only stealing powers from metahumans who were on the bus when the dark matter wave was unleashed, which means he will likely target Ralph as well. Back at the DeVoes' house, their marriage continues to deteriorate, and DeVoe drugs his wife with the Weeper's tears to maintain her devotion towards him.

83
14
"Subject 9"
Ralph Hemecker
Mike Alber & Gabe Snyder
February 27, 2018 (2018-02-27)
T27.13414
2.12[15]

Barry is put on indefinite leave at the CCPD due to his connection with the DeVoe case. The team encounter another bus metahuman named Izzy with sound wave abilities, amplified by her violin. She manages to use her abilities when DeVoe (inside Sharpe's body) comes to claim her. Barry and Ralph help to train Izzy to refine her abilities, which proves difficult when she gets hurt. Eventually DeVoe shows up once again, using Dominic's and Becky's abilities to make Barry experience a brain aneurysm, while using his original abilities to incapacitate Ralph. DeVoe then once again uses the chair to transfer his mind into Izzy's body and escapes. Both Ralph and Barry comfort each other over their respective losses: Barry being let go from the police force and Ralph losing Izzy to DeVoe. These losses enforce both Barry's and Ralph's determination to bring Devoe down and save the three remaining metas.

84
15
"Enter Flashtime"
Gregory Smith
Todd Helbing & Sterling Gates
March 6, 2018 (2018-03-06)
T27.13415
2.04[16]

Jesse comes to Earth-1 to have a talk with her dad. Eco-terrorist Veronica Dale sets off a nuclear bomb, which Barry tries to stop, entering a form of superspeed known as Flashtime, where everything is frozen. However, the bomb has already detonated, and he and Jesse cannot stop it or save everyone with superspeed. Jay Garrick comes from Earth-3 to help, but they are still unable to stop it. Barry remains in Flashtime for hours, bringing each of his friends into it, in an attempt to find a solution; they discuss options such as freezing it or sending it to another Earth, but none of those solutions prove to be viable. Eventually, Iris gives him the idea to retrieve the Quark Sphere from the Speed Force to send a blast lightning through the bomb, enough to disable it. Barry does so, and throws the Sphere back into the Speed Force, saving Central City. Jay admits he is retiring and going to train a new "female" speedster. Jesse and Jay return to their Earths, and Caitlin and Wells go for a coffee, where they encounter the mysterious girl.

85
16
"Run, Iris, Run"
Harry Jierjian
Eric Wallace
March 13, 2018 (2018-03-13)
T27.13416
2.09[17]

A metahuman with fire powers tries to rob Central City bank. Another bus meta named Matthew Kim touches the metahuman, which causes his powers to transfer to another individual. When Joe, Iris and Barry turn up to ask Kim a few questions, Barry and Iris come into contact with Kim, causing Barry to lose his speed and Iris to gain superspeed. Inspired by Thawne, Harry plans to build his own thinking cap to outwit DeVoe. With their roles reversed, Iris becomes Central City's hero speedster, while Barry must learn to act as team leader. The new metahuman demands money and terrorizes the city with his fire powers. Using Wells' thinking cap, the Team comes up with the idea for Iris to create a tidal wave, negating the flames and defeating the meta. Back at S.T.A.R. Labs, Kim touches Iris and Barry again, restoring the Flash's speed. At home, Iris admits that while she did enjoy having superspeed, Central City needs the light that Barry was, and she is happy being team leader. Wells uses his thinking cap once more, determining the final two bus metas are Janet Petty and Edwin Gauss.

86
17
"Null and Annoyed"[18]
Kevin Smith
Lauren Certo & Kristen Kim
April 10, 2018 (2018-04-10)
TBA
TBD

87
18
TBA
Hanelle Culpepper[19]
Jonathan Butler & Gabriel Garza[19]
April 17, 2018 (2018-04-17)[20]
TBA
TBD

tag: table

text: Cast and characters[edit]

text: Main[edit]

text:
Grant Gustin as Barry Allen / Flash[21]
Candice Patton as Iris West[21]
Danielle Panabaker as Caitlin Snow / Killer Frost[22]
Carlos Valdes as Cisco Ramon / Vibe[21]
Keiynan Lonsdale as Wally West / Kid Flash[21]
Neil Sandilands as Clifford DeVoe / Thinker[23]
Tom Cavanagh as Harrison "Harry" Wells[21]
Jesse L. Martin as Joe West[21]

tag: ul

text: Recurring[edit]

text:
Danielle Nicolet as Cecile Horton[24]
Kim Engelbrecht as Marlize DeVoe / Mechanic[23]
Jessica Camacho as Cynthia / Gypsy[25][26]
Patrick Sabongui as David Singh[27]
Richard Brooks as Gregory Wolfe[28]
Hartley Sawyer as Ralph Dibny / Elongated Man[29]
Katee Sackhoff as Amunet Black / Blacksmith[30]
Sugar Lyn Beard as Rebecca Sharpe / Hazard[31] and Clifford DeVoe / Thinker
Kendrick Sampson as Dominic Lanse / Brainstorm[32] and Clifford DeVoe / Thinker

text: Guest[edit]

text:
Britne Oldford as Shawna Baez / Peek-a-Boo[33]
Mark Sweatman as Norvok[34]
Dominic Burgess as Ramsey Deacon / Kilg%re[35]
Donna Pescow as Sharon Finkle
Chelsea Kurtz as Mina Chayton / Black Bison[36]
Violett Beane as Jesse Chambers Wells / Jesse Quick[37]
Danny Trejo as Josh / Breacher[23][26]
Vito D'Ambrosio as Anthony Bellows
Emily Bett Rickards as Felicity Smoak[30]
Riley Jade Berglund as Joanie[38]
Matt Afonso as Weeper[39]
Stephen Amell as Oliver Queen / Green Arrow and Dark Arrow[40]
Victor Garber as Martin Stein / Firestorm[40]
Caity Lotz as Sara Lance / White Canary[40]
Chyler Leigh as Alex Danvers[40]
Franz Drameh as Jefferson Jackson / Firestorm[40]
Paul Blackthorne as Quentin Lance / Sturmbannführer
Jeremy Jordan as General Schott[40]
Juliana Harkavy as Dinah Drake / Black Canary
Melissa Benoist as Kara Zor-El / Kara Danvers / Supergirl and Overgirl[40]
Wentworth Miller as Leonard Snart / Citizen Cold[41]
Russell Tovey as Ray Terrill / The Ray[40]
Frederick Schmidt voices Metallo-X
Mark Valley as Anton Slater[42]
Devon Graye as Axel Walker / Trickster[43]
Corinne Bohrer as Zoey Clark / Prank[43]
Bill Goldberg as Dave Ratchet / Big Sir[43]
Derek Mears as Sylbert Rundine / Dwarfstar[44]
Miranda MacDougall as Izzy Bowin / Fiddler[45] and Clifford DeVoe / Thinker
John Wesley Shipp as Jay Garrick[46]
Leonardo Nam as Matthew Kim / Melting Point[47]
Max Adler as Jaco Birch / Pyro[48]
Anne Dudek as Tracy Brand[49]

text: Production[edit]

text: Development[edit]

text: The series was renewed for a fourth season on January 8, 2017,[50] earlier than usual for the series. Executive producer Andrew Kreisberg said on this, "The great thing about our dear friends at The CW and Mark Pedowitz picking the shows up as early as they did has allowed us to start building the schedules for next season."[51] In May 2017, it was announced that Aaron Helbing would not return as an executive producer for season four, with only Greg Berlanti, Andrew Kreisberg, Sarah Schechter, and Todd Helbing returning from previous seasons.[52] Todd Helbing and Kreisberg were slated to serve as the season's showrunners.[53][54] In November 2017, Kreisberg was suspended from his role as executive producer and showrunner on The Flash over allegations of sexual harassment.[55][56] By the end of the month, he had been fired, with his name eventually being removed from the credits from all shows he worked on. In addition, Berlanti would take additional responsibilities working with Helbing to co-showrun the season.[57]

text: Writing[edit]

text:
The way I see it is, time is non-linear and everything is happening at once in the Speed Force. In some ways he's had an awakening and he's had a rebirth. Our first episode is called 'Reborn,' and it is a rebirth for Barry, but he's kind of scrambled, too, because he's experienced so much so quick over the course of six months, even though for him it was an eternity. He's not Barry when we see him for the first time.

—Grant Gustin on the rebirth of Barry in season four.[58]

tag: div

text: In March 2017, Kreisberg confirmed that the main villain for the fourth season would not be a speedster, like the previous three seasons.[59] Executive producers Aaron and Todd Helbing also mentioned that there would be less time travel in the season, with Aaron saying, "We like playing with the timelines and the different time periods and future and past. For now, I think we're going to focus on the present."[60] In June 2017, Clifford DeVoe / Thinker was reported to be the main antagonist of the season. He was first hinted in the third season episode "Abra Kadabra" when the titular villain mentions him among the Flash's greatest enemies, and again in the season finale "Finish Line" when Savitar mentions facing DeVoe but states that the Flash has not dealt with him yet.[61] At the series' San Diego Comic-Con panel, the speculation was confirmed, with Todd Helbing saying, "With three Speedsters in a row, this year it's the fastest man alive against the fastest mind alive."[24] He added that the writers were "making a conscious effort this year to get the fun quotient back up".[62]

text: Regarding the possibility of Wally West taking on the mantle of the Flash in Barry's absence, Keiynan Lonsdale said that "It's not something that's on my radar. I feel as though there is so much story to tell and Wally has so much growing to do... We need to see how these character realistically get to where they are headed for."[63] With the action picking up six months after season three, Kid Flash and Vibe are left to protect Central City, with Carlos Valdes saying "the team is sort of clutching at straws to keep the city together,... there is a unanimous feeling amongst the remaining members that it's just not the same without Barry... So in light of that, Cisco does whatever it takes to get his friends back."[64] Valdes also confirmed the return of Cisco's more lighthearted joking manner.[64] Candice Patton explained Iris West's larger role within Team Flash as "a way of distracting herself,"[64] adding that "[Iris] is forced to deal with that anger and resentment and abandonment by kind of focusing on protecting Central City... We're seeing a very different Iris, almost a very hardened Iris."[65] Kreisberg also hinted at some major growth for Iris this season, and noted that "the season premiere is all about Iris and Cisco, not Barry".[66]

text: In July 2017, Sterling Gates, DC Comics comic book writer, joined as a member of the fourth season's writing staff.[67] At the Television Critics Association press tour in August 2017, Pedowitz stated that the fourth season of The Flash is "going to try to find the lightness... of the Barry Allen of the first two seasons,"[68] and said that the show was likely "done with Speedster villains".[69] Later in the month, Kreisberg confirmed the return of Harry Wells from Earth-2, saying that "season 4 for Harry is really realizing what he's missing in his life and what it is he needs to become a better, more complete person, and so he's going to be going on a fairly epic emotional journey this season that is tied to the Thinker's plan," in addition to confirming the introduction of a new version of the Wells character.[70]

text: In September 2017, Helbing noted "There's a lot of love in the air this season," and compared Barry and Iris' reunion to "somebody going off to war for six months and coming back. There's a lot that Iris experienced that Barry didn't when he was gone, and it's really [about] the fun and the emotional component of making up that time when they weren't together." Helbing also explained that the Speed Force "let [Barry] deal with all of the baggage [from the past three seasons]. When he comes out, he's sort of left that all behind."[71] That month, Kreisberg also confirmed that Barry and Iris will be getting married this season,[72] while also revealing that the pair will be going to couples therapy since "[they] keep comically clashing inadvertently because [both are] used to being in charge, and so they wind up going... to work through it." He added, "The two of them with the therapist is some of the funniest stuff we have ever done on this show, but it also leads to a deepening of their relationship."[73]

text: Casting[edit]

text: Main cast members Grant Gustin, Candice Patton, Danielle Panabaker, Carlos Valdes, Keiynan Lonsdale, Tom Cavanagh, and Jesse L. Martin return from previous seasons as Barry Allen / The Flash, Iris West, Caitlin Snow / Killer Frost, Cisco Ramon / Vibe, Wally West / Kid Flash, Harrison Wells, and Joe West, respectively.[21] Cavanagh will portray Harry Wells from Earth-2 at the start of the season, without ruling out the possibility of introducing another incarnation of the Wells character later on.[64] Teasing the arrival of a new Harrison Wells, Cavanagh said, "We're going to start with Harry and then find a way, I think, to try and get a different version of Wells in there, be it some version of Harry or whatnot as the season's gaps present themselves."[74] Also returning from earlier in the series are Jessica Camacho as Gypsy,[25] and Anne Dudek as Tracy Brand.[49] It was revealed that Tom Felton, who joined the cast as Julian Albert in the third season, would not be a series regular in the fourth season, and that there were no plans for him to appear.[75] Julian's absence will be addressed "pretty quickly — there's a reason why he's no longer with the team," said Helbing.[76] In the season premiere, it is revealed that Julian has returned to London.[77] Kreisberg also confirmed that he had put on hold the planned return of Violett Beane as Jesse Quick due to the high number of speedsters on the show, but did not rule out a possible return in the future.[78] Beane eventually appeared as Jesse on the episode "Luck Be a Lady".[37] Britne Oldford, who previously appeared as Shawna Baez / Peek-a-Boo in the first season and the web series The Chronicles of Cisco, reprised her role in the season premiere.[33]

text: In July 2017, Neil Sandilands was announced to be cast as Clifford DeVoe, a metahuman genius who embarks on a seasonlong battle with the Flash in order to fix all that he deems wrong with humanity; while Kim Engelbrecht was announced as The Mechanic, Devoe's right hand and a highly intelligent engineer who designs devices for him; and Danny Trejo as Breacher, a bounty hunter from Earth-19 and the father of Gypsy.[23] Also in June, the series was looking to cast a role that "should put the visual effects department to the test",[79] with the role later revealed to be Ralph Dibny / Elongated Man, a metahuman with the ability to stretch his body to superhuman lengths and sizes.[80] Hartley Sawyer was cast in the recurring role that July as the fast-talking private investigator who after discovering his abilities will help Team Flash solve one of Central City's greatest mysteries.[29] The character was previously mentioned in the first season, as one of the fourteen people who seemingly died as a result of the particle accelerator explosion.[81] The next month, Katee Sackhoff was announced in the recurring role of Amunet Black / Blacksmith, who operates an underground black market of metahuman supervillains.[30]

text: Filming[edit]

text: Filming for the season began on July 4, 2017,[82] in Vancouver, British Columbia, and is set to conclude on April 21, 2018.[83] Kevin Smith will return to direct an episode in January 2018.[84]

text: Music[edit]

text: In August 2017, series composer Blake Neely and Nathaniel Blume began to compose the music for the fourth season.[85]

text: Arrowverse tie-ins[edit]

text: In May 2017, The CW president Mark Pedowitz officially announced plans for a four-show Arrowverse crossover event, crossing over episodes of the television series Supergirl, The Flash, Legends of Tomorrow, and Arrow.[86] The crossover will begin with Supergirl and a special airing of Arrow on November 27, 2017, and conclude on The Flash and Legends of Tomorrow on November 28.[87] In August 2017, Berlanti noted that it would be "a big life event for a few different people" that would bring them all together for the crossover, adding "There are many life events that happen."[88] Arrow actress Emily Bett Rickards appears as Felicity Smoak in the fifth episode of the season.[30]

text: Release[edit]

text: Broadcast[edit]

text: The season began airing on October 10, 2017, on The CW in the United States,[89] and on CTV in Canada.[90]

text: Marketing[edit]

text: In July 2017, cast from the series appeared at San Diego Comic-Con International to promote the season, where exclusive footage was shown.[91] During the panel, a trailer for the season was shown, with James Whitbrook at io9 feeling that despite the "grim" tone, there was "some fun signs of the team coming together to protect the city without [Barry],... Sprinkle in a few wacky things, like, say a goddamn Samuroid ripped straight from the comics, and ladies and gents, you've got a good season of The Flash lined up."[92] Ben Pearson with /Film felt seeing Iris West deal with the absence of Barry was "a nice change of pace for that character", but anticipated that "Barry [would] be back two or three episodes in at the latest."[93] Collider.com's Allison Keene also noted Iris "getting an actual storyline" with Barry gone, and similarly presumed that he "[would] be back in the fold by the end of the first episode" alike to Flashpoint in the third season. She added, "There are some new foes, lots of action, plenty of tech — it's great!"[94]

text: Reception[edit]

text: Ratings[edit]

text:
No.
Title
Air date
Rating/share
(18–49)
Viewers
(millions)
DVR
(18–49)
DVR viewers
(millions)
Total
(18–49)
Total viewers
(millions)

1
"The Flash Reborn"
October 10, 2017
1.1/4
2.84[2]
0.7
1.92
1.8
4.77[95]

2
"Mixed Signals"
October 17, 2017
0.9/4
2.54[3]
0.8
1.82
1.7
4.36[96]

3
"Luck Be a Lady"
October 24, 2017
1.0/4
2.62[4]
0.8
1.84
1.8
4.46[97]

4
"Elongated Journey Into Night"
October 31, 2017
0.7/3
1.99[5]
0.7
1.79
1.4
3.79[98]

5
"Girls Night Out"
November 7, 2017
0.9/4
2.38[6]
0.8
1.84
1.7
4.22[99]

6
"When Harry Met Harry..."
November 14, 2017
1.0/4
2.46[7]
0.7
1.83
1.7
4.29[100]

7
"Therefore I Am"
November 21, 2017
0.8/3
2.20[8]
0.8
2.08
1.6
4.28[101]

8
"Crisis on Earth-X, Part 3"
November 28, 2017
1.0/4
2.82[9]
0.7
1.83
1.7
4.64[102]

9
"Don't Run"
December 5, 2017
0.8/3
2.22[10]
0.6
1.45
1.4
3.67[103]

10
"The Trial of The Flash"
January 16, 2018
0.8/3
2.51[11]
0.7
1.55
1.5
4.06[104]

11
"The Elongated Knight Rises"
January 23, 2018
0.7/3
2.12[12]
0.7
1.69
1.4
3.81[105]

12
"Honey, I Shrunk Team Flash"
January 30, 2018
0.9/3
2.60[13]
0.8
1.84
1.7
4.43[106]

13
"True Colors"
February 6, 2018
0.8/3
2.28[14]
0.9
2.00
1.7
4.28[107]

14
"Subject 9"
February 27, 2018
0.7/3
2.12[15]
0.8
1.86
1.5
3.98[108]

15
"Enter Flashtime"
March 6, 2018
0.7/3
2.04[16]
0.8
1.83
1.5
3.87[109]

16
"Run Iris, Run"
March 13, 2018
0.7/3
2.09[17]
TBD
TBD
TBD
TBD

text: Critical response[edit]

text: The review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes reported a 100% approval rating with an average rating of 7.36/10 based on 14 reviews. The website's consensus reads, "After an unsteady turn in season three, The Flash returns to its roots with a fourth season packed with humor, spectacle, and a whole lot of heart."[110]

text: Reviewing the first two episodes of the season, Allison Keene writing for Collider.com, felt the premiere "wipes the slate clean, fixing a lot of the issues that plagued the end of the last season, and setting up a much more toned-down storyline. Most importantly, it's brought back some fun." She added that with a "streamlined team," the core characters now have time to interact and have meaningful plot lines. On the second episode, Keene described it as "truly a delight" with the show taking "the time to focus on character relationships, and not just romantic relationships" and each character "feeling like a refreshed version of themselves, with new narrative purpose". She also highlighted the setup of the Thinker "as an Alchemy-like villain who manipulates evil metas into the Flash's path as part of some kind of masterplan", saying "The Flash is a series that truly works best as a procedural, with the team finding creative ways to bring down Villains of the Week."[111]

text: Accolades[edit]

text:
Year
Award
Category
Nominee(s)
Result
Ref.

2018
Kids' Choice Awards
Favorite TV Actor
Grant Gustin
Nominated
[112]

Favorite TV Show
The Flash
Nominated

Saturn Awards
Best Guest-Starring Performance on Television
Hartley Sawyer
Pending
[113]

Best Superhero Television Series
The Flash
Pending

Best Supporting Actress on a Television Series
Candice Patton
Pending


document_title: USMLE Step 1

question_text: what is a good score on the medical boards

text: USMLE Step 1

text: History[edit]

text: Prior to 1992, the NBME Part I examination served as the staple basic science examination for medical students at the end of their second year. Upon the launch of the three-part United States Medical Licensing Examination, NBME Part I exam was carried forward in its new format, the USMLE Step 1 examination, which has since evolved to become an increasingly clinically-applied examination of the foundational sciences. The exam became computer based several years later. In May 2015, the USMLE began emphasizing of concepts regarding patient safety and quality improvement across all parts of the USMLE exam series, including Step 1.[3]

text: In recent years and in part resulting from the American Medical Association's "Accelerating Change in Education" (ACE) Initiative, a number of U.S. allopathic and osteopathic medical schools have begun to consolidate the amount of time allocated in the 4-year curriculum for dedicated preclinical/classroom-based education in order to provide more time for clinical training and direct application of the foundational sciences to clinical medicine. As a result of this paradigm shift away from the 20th century "2+2" curriculum, students at many of these medical schools are now instructed to take the Step 1 exam following the core clerkship year, rather than at the conclusion of the preclinical curriculum, at which time students are also prepared to sit for the Step 2 CK exam. Those schools which have adopted this scheduling have seen a statistically significant large increase in Step 1 scores as a result. Institutions that have implemented such a policy include Yale, NYU, Columbia, Baylor, Duke, and University of Pennsylvania ("Penn"), amongst others. Johns Hopkins offers this as an optional scheduling configuration, left to individual student discretion.[4][5][6]

text: Format[edit]

text: The exam is currently an eight-hour computer-based test taken in a single-day, composed of seven 40-question sections with a maximum 280 multiple-choice questions.[7] On May 9, 2016, the NBME shortened the test to seven 40-question sections.[8] One hour is provided for each section, allotting an average of a minute and thirty seconds to answer each question.[9] Between test sections, the test taker is allotted a cumulative 45 minutes (during the test day) for personal breaks. (There is a 15-minute tutorial at the beginning of the exam, which the test-taker can choose to skip and have that time added to break time.) If the taker finishes any section before the allotted one hour time limit, the unused time is added to the break time total.[10] The test is administered at any of several Prometric computer testing sites.

text: Subjects[edit]

text: Step 1 is designed to test the knowledge learned during the basic science years of medical school as applied in the form of clinical vignettes. This includes anatomy, behavioral sciences, biochemistry, microbiology, pathology, pharmacology, and physiology, as well as to interdisciplinary areas including genetics, aging, immunology, nutrition, and molecular and cell biology.[11] Epidemiology, medical ethics and questions on empathy are also emphasized. Each exam is dynamically generated for each test taker; while the general proportion of questions derived from a particular subject is the same, some test takers report that certain subjects are either emphasized or deemphasized.

text: Scoring[edit]

text: Currently, students receive a three-digit score following sitting for the Step 1 examination. In 1999, the USMLE phased out the use of a percentile-based system in favor of a three-digit and two-digit scaled scoring system. In October 2011, two-digit scaled scores were no longer reported to any parties besides the examinees. In April 2013, the two-digit score was eliminated completely from the score report.

text: While the USMLE program does not disclose how the three-digit score is calculated, Step 1 scores theoretically range from 1 to 300, most examinees score in the range of 140 to 260, the passing score is 192, and the national mean and standard deviation are approximately 229 and 20, respectively.[12][13] Inflation in the national mean Step 1 score has been observed with time, as shown in the table below.[14] According to the National Resident Matching Program, the mean score for U.S. allopathic seniors who matched to residency programs in 2016 was 233.2 (sd = 17.4).[15]

text:
National Step 1 means among US and Canadian first time test-takers by year

Year
Mean Score
Standard Deviation

2016
228[16]
21

2015
229
20

2014
229
20

2013
226
21

2012
224
21

2011
224
22

2010
222
24

2009
221
24

2008
221
23

text: Effect on residency matching[edit]

text: The USMLE score is one of many factors considered by residency programs in selecting applicants. However, at present, this test is the only standardized measure of all applicants. The median USMLE Step 1 scores for graduates of U.S. Medical Schools for various residencies are charted in Chart 6 on page 9 of "Charting Outcomes in the Match" available through NRMP Website

text: Many residency programs use a "cutoff" score for Step 1, below which applicants are unlikely to be considered, although in some cases individuals with significantly higher Step 2 CK scores may still receive further consideration. The NRMP Residency Program Director survey contains more information, both overall and by specialty, regarding "cutoff" scores (i.e., scores below which programs generally do not grant interviews).[17]