Buck accepting dubious story about battleship (9)
I believe the answer is:
destroyer
'battleship' is the definition.
(thesaurus)
'buck accepting dubious story' is the wordplay.
'buck' becomes 'deer' (buck can mean a male deer).
'accepting' is an insertion indicator (inserted letters are accepted).
'dubious' indicates an anagram.
'story' is an anagram of 'stroy'.
'deer' going around 'stroy' is 'DESTROYER'.
'about' acts as a link.
(Other definitions for destroyer that I've seen before include "One scuppers" , "Red oyster (anag)" , "Vandal" , "killer" , "breaker?" .)