U.S. Navy battleship construction began with the keel laying of the Maine in 1888 and ended with the suspension of the incomplete Kentucky in 1947. During this almost 60 years long era, 59 battleships of 23 different basic battleship classes were completed for the US Navy. Another twenty battleships and battle cruisers (three more "classes") were begun or planned, but not completed.
Though the
building rate averaged almost exactly one per year, it
was not a steady process, but was concentrated in two
phases. The first, corresponding to the rise of the
United States to first-class naval rank, began in 1888
and came to an abrupt halt with the signing of the Naval
Limitations Treaty in 1922. The second building phase
began in 1937 and was effectively finished in 1944 with
the commissioning of battleship USS Missouri
(BB-63), the last of ten battleships completed during
this period.
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These battleships can be conveniently divided into four
main groups:
Two experimental second-class battleships, of about 6000
tons, begun in the late 1880s (Maine and Texas);
Twenty-five battleships (eight "classes") with
mixed main batteries of large and medium caliber guns,
ranging in size from about 10,000 tons to 16,000 tons,
begun from 1891 to 1905;
Twenty-nine battleships (eleven "classes") and
six battle cruisers (one "class") with
"all-big-gun" main batteries, begun between
1906 and 1919 and ranging from 16,000 tons to over 42,000
tons (including seven battleships and six battle cruisers
cancelled in 1922);
Seventeen faster big-gun 35,000-60,500 ton battleships
(four "classes") begun in 1937-41 (including
seven 45,000-60,500 ton ships cancelled or suspended in
1943-47).
Gun caliber, as well as ship size, grew steadily, from
ten inches in Maine to sixteen inches in the ships
finished in the 'Twenties and afterwards. Effective
gunnery range also increased, from a few thousand yards
to about twenty miles.
Except for the fast Lexington Class battle cruisers and Iowa Class battleships, these were all relatively slow vessels, as heavily armored as they were armed, intended primarily to steam in formation with their "sisters" and slug it out with similar opponents, using their powerful guns to settle the matter. In their day, they were the "Queens of the Sea", the foundation of national strategic offense and defense. That "day" ended only with the arrival, effectively just before the start of World War II, of aircraft that could not only out-range the big guns, but also deliver blows of equal or greater power. Thereafter, at least in the daylight when the planes could fly, battleships performed as auxiliaries to aircraft carriers.
The Second World War brought another mission, shore-bombardment, in which the fire of heavy guns was precisely directed against enemy facilities ashore, to pave the way for invasion or to simply destroy war-making potential. This justified the retention of the big-gun ships in the post-war era and brought them back to active duty on three different occasions. Even today, some fifty-six years after the last battleship was completed, two are kept on the Naval Vessel Register for possible future employment in that role.
- Two experimental second-class
battleships, of about 6000 tons, begun under the
Fiscal Year 1887 program:
- Texas(Originally classified as a battleship. Reclassified as a second-class battleship about 1894.); and
- Maine (Originally Armored Cruiser #1. Reclassified as a second-class battleship about 1894.)
- Eight classes of
"mixed-caliber" main battery
battleships begun under the Fiscal Year 1891-1904
programs:
(NOTE: These classes will be added gradually during 2001)- Indiana Class (Battleships #s 1 through 3) -- Fiscal Year 1891;
- Iowa(Battleship # 4) -- Fiscal Year 1893;
- Kearsarge Class (Battleships #s 5 & 6) -- Fiscal Year 1896;
- Illinois Class (Battleships #s 7 through 9) -- Fiscal Year 1897;
- Maine Class (Battleships #s 10 through 12) -- Fiscal Year 1899;
- Virginia Class (Battleships #s 13 through 17) -- Fiscal Years 1900 & 1901;
- Connecticut Class (Battleships #s 18 through 22 & 25) -- Fiscal Years 1903, 1904 & 1905;
- Mississippi Class (Battleships #s 23 through 24) -- Fiscal Year 1904; - Eleven classes of
"all-big-gun" battleships begun under
the Fiscal Year 1906-1919 programs:
- - South
Carolina Class (Battleship #s 26 & 27) --
Fiscal Year 1906;
- Delaware Class (Battleship #s 28 & 29) -- Fiscal Years 1907 and 1908;
- Florida Class (Battleship #s 30 & 31) -- Fiscal Year 1909;
- Wyoming Class (Battleship #s 32 & 33) -- Fiscal Year 1910;
- New York Class (Battleship #s 34 & 35) -- Fiscal Year 1911;
- Nevada Class (Battleship #s 36 & 37) -- Fiscal Year 1912;
- Pennsylvania Class (Battleship #s 38 & 39) -- Fiscal Years 1913-14;
- New Mexico Class (Battleship #s 40 through 42) -- Fiscal Year 1915;
- Tennessee Class (BB-43 & BB-44) -- Fiscal Year 1916;
- Colorado Class (BB-45 through BB-48) -- Fiscal Year 1917;
- South Dakota Class (BB-49 through BB-54) -- Fiscal Years 1918
- One class of battle
cruisers:
Lexington Class (CC-1 through CC-6) -- Fiscal Years 1917-19.
- Four classes of battleships
built or planned under the Fiscal Year 1937-41
programs:
- North Carolina Class (BB-55 & BB-56) -- Fiscal Year 1937;
- South Dakota Class (BB-57 through BB-60) -- Fiscal Year 1939;
- Iowa Class (BB-61 through BB-66) -- Fiscal Year 1940-41;
- Montana Class (BB-67 through BB-72) -- Fiscal Year 1941.
Battleship Definition
A battleship is a large, heavily armored warship with a
main battery consisting of the largest calibre of guns..
Battleships were larger, better armed, and better armored
than cruisers and destroyers.
Battleship design continually evolved to incorporate and
adapt technological advances to maintain an edge. The
word battleship was coined around 1794 and is a shortened
form of line-of-battle ship, the dominant wooden warship
during the Age of Sail. The term came into formal use in
the late 1880s to describe a type of ironclad warship,
now referred to as pre-dreadnought battleships. In 1906,
the launch of HMS Dreadnought heralded a revolution in
battleship design. Following battleship designs that were
influenced by the HMS Dreadnought were referred to as
"dreadnoughts".
Battleships were a potent symbol of naval dominance and
national might, and for decades the battleship was a
major factor in both diplomacy and military strategy. The
global arms race in battleship construction in the early
20th century was one of the causes of World War I, which
saw a clash of huge battle fleets at the Battle of
Jutland. The Naval Treaties of the 1920s and 1930s
limited the number of battleships but did not end the
evolution of design. Both the Allies and the Axis Powers
deployed battleships of old construction and new during
World War II.
Nevertheless, some historians and naval theorists
question the value of the battleship. The Battle of
Tsushima (1905) was the only decisive clash between steel
battleship fleets, and apart from the indecisive Battle
of Jutland (1916), there were few great battleship
clashes. Despite their great firepower and protection,
battleships were increasingly vulnerable to much smaller,
cheaper ordnance and craft: initially the torpedo and the
naval mine, and later aircraft and the guided missile.
The growing range of naval engagement led to the aircraft
carrier replacing the battleship as the leading capital
ship during World War II. Battleships were retained by
the United States Navy into the Cold War only for fire
support purposes. The last battleships were removed from
the U.S. Naval Vessel Register in March 2006.
(credits: US Navy History Center)