On 31 January 1919 she was decommissioned for the final time, and two months later she was renamed "Coast Battleship Number 1" so that the name "Indiana" could be assigned to the newly authorized—but never completed—battleship . The old battleship was brought to shallow waters in the Chesapeake Bay near the wreck of the target ship (ex-Battleship "Texas"). Here she was subjected to aerial bombing tests conducted by the navy. She was hit with dummy bombs from aircraft, and explosive charges were set off at the positions where the bombs hit. The tests were a response to claims from Billy Mitchell—at the time assistant to Chief of Air Service Charles T. Menoher—who stated to Congress that the Air Service could sink any battleship. The conclusions drawn by the navy from the experiments conducted on "Indiana" were very different, as Captain William D. Leahy stated in his report: "The entire experiment pointed to the improbability of a modern battleship being either destroyed or completely put out of action by aerial bombs." The subject remained a matter of dispute between Mitchell and the Navy, and several more bombing tests were conducted with other decommissioned battleships, culminating in the sinking of . "Indiana" sank during the test and settled in the shallow water, where she remained until her wreck was sold for scrap on 19 March 1924.