Photo of the Montana class model.
Posted on 06/12/2012 3:51:05 PM PDT by JerseyanExile
The first carriers were battleships WITHOUT their fighting superstructure. No? No big guns, no massive belt and deck armour, would result in a lighter ship with the same power plants. Add planes and support materiel, it probably still results in a lighter OAW. No wonder they were faster.
The Iowa class ships were all the more impressive.
TF34 must have been impressive group.
The first US carrier was the Langley (CV-1) was a converted collier (coal refueling ship). The Lexington (CV-2) and Saratoga (CV-3) were converted from battlecruiser hulls after the naval conferences in the 1920s. Battlecruisers had the same large guns as battleships, but they sacrificed armor protection to gain speed. They couldn't take hits from comparably armed enemy ships.
I found this informative article contrasting the classes and explianing the development. I hadnt realized that the Hood was a refitted battlecruiser, her explosion illustrating her origin.
Heck, the way things are going they might not have to move her at all to do it.
The Naval Limitations Treaty — terms of which were basically drawn up between the United States and United Kingdom — “forced” the United States to do what we planned to do anyway. Several pre-dreadnoughts had been scrapped before the treaty was even negotiated, and the Navy planned to scrap the rest. A few were kept as monuments (notably Oregon), or auxiliaries (notably Kearsarge, converted to a crane ship), and a few demilitarized and kept as barracks ship (Illinois). Some had even been disposed of prior to WWI (Idaho and Mississippi — sold to Greece — among them).
But the Navy wanted them gone, regardless of the treaty. Similarly, all of the dreadnought battleships built prior to WWI were discarded immediately after WWII, with only the 2nd-generation dreadnoughts launched after WWI retained.
There were plans to build the Montana class of battleships that would be protected with enough armor to take hits from 16" guns, and it would have had 4 turrets with 12 guns total, but it would have been too large to transit the Panama canal. The Montana class was put on hold in May 1942 due to the ship yards where they were to be produced being occupied building Iowa class battleships and Essex class aircraft carriers. The entire Montana class was canceled in July 1942 after the battle of Midway demonstrated that the concept was already obsolete.
From the source you linked.
One supposed distinguishing factor between the classifications of battleship and battlecruiser is that the former can resist the effects of guns similar to those it carries, at least in the "citadel" where armor protection is concentrated, so that a duel between battleships becomes a slugging match. This is known as a balanced design. However, the resistance to shells depends more on the state of the delicate balance between offense and defense which exists at the time a ship is designed than it does on overall design philosophy. The Iowa class battleships had excellent armor protection, but would have been considered under-armored against an opponent with guns equivalent to their own. However, the Iowas were true battleships. They just happened to have what were probably the best (though not the biggest) large naval guns ever deployed. Those guns were very accurate, had very good range and the armor piercing shells they fired were very good at their job.
Photo of the Montana class model.
I always found it rather ironic (and appropriate) that the last battleship-on-battleship engagement of the war (Surigao Strait) involved most of the surviving battleships from the Pearl Harbor raid.
Revived this old thread because tomorrow August 31 the Battleship Texas will be moving. She is being moved from San Jacinto to Galveston for repairs. Even if she is just being towed it will be a chance to see a WWI dreadnought moving on the water, don’t get many of those. Event will be live streamed. More info here
https://battleshiptexas.org/departure/
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.
