Scenes aboard the Vyerni were filmed on the U.S.S. Iowa (BB-61), with the interior appearance like signage dressed up to look Russian; an Iowa-class battleship also makes an appearance in season 5. The USS Iowa was the first of four Iowa-class battleships built by the U.S. Navy during World War II, the others being the USS New Jersey (BB-62), USS Missouri (BB-63) and USS Wisconsin (BB-64). The Iowa was commissioned in February 1943, during her first tour of duty the Iowa fought in several major battles in the Pacific during World War II including the Battle of the Philippine Sea and the final bombardment of Japan; she was also the flagship for Fleet Admiral Halsey on his trip to Japan for their surrender, she escorted her sister ship Missouri who was the location of the ceremony where Japan officially surrendered to the United States. The Iowa remained in Tokyo harbor as part of the occupation force until she was decommissioned to the reserve fleet in February 1949. The Iowa was reactivated to service in August 1951 to fight in the Korean War, with her guns being mainly used to shell industrial centers and railroads to disrupt enemy supply lines conducting 43 gun strikes firing a total of 16,689 rounds from her massive 16 inch guns. The Iowa was again decommissioned to the reserve fleet in February 1958 where she remained for the next 25 years, along with her three sister ships, until increasing tensions during the Cold War caused President Regan to reactivate all four Iowa-class ships into active service. The Iowa was towed to a shipyard in 1982 to undergo a major refit and modernization with many of her outdated weapons systems removed and replaced, including all of her anti-aircraft guns and removal of eight of the ships 21x 5-inch naval guns. The anti-aircraft guns were replaced with 4x20mm Phalanx CWIS point defense turrets (like the one on the James) and the eight 5-inch guns replaced with four deck-mounted BGM-109 Tomahawk cruise missile launchers and four RGM-84 Harpoon Anti-Ship missile launchers; her sister ships received the same upgrades. The Iowa's refit was finished and she was recommissioned in April 1984, the ship partook in several NATO fleet exercises and was assigned to escort oil tankers in the Persian Gulf during the outbreak of the Iran-Iraq war in 1987; she saw no combat during her final tour but her sister ship Missouri remained in service long enough to fight in the First Gulf War. The collapse of the Soviet Union and the increasing costs of maintaining such an old ship led to the Iowa being decommissioned for the final time in October 1990 and remained in the reserve fleet until she was towed to a port in Los Angeles in 2011 and made a museum ship where she remains to this day.
