South Dakota class battleship (1920)

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Two classes of battleships have been called the South Dakota class; for the one that saw action in World War II, see South Dakota class battleship (1939).

South Dakota class battleship
Class Overview
Class Type	Battleship
Class Name	South Dakota
Preceded By	Colorado-class
Succeeded By	North Carolina-class
Ships of the Class:	South Dakota, Indiana, Montana, North Carolina, Iowa, Massachusetts
General characteristics (as designed)
Displacement:	43,200 tons
Length:	684 ft (208 m)
Beam:	105 ft (32 m)
Draft:	33 ft (10.1 m)
Propulsion:
Speed:	23 knots (43 km/h)
Range:
Complement:
Armament:	Twelve 16 inch (406 mm) 50-caliber guns, 16 six-inch (152 mm) 53 caliber guns, eight three-inch (76 mm) 50-caliber antiaircraft guns, two 21 inch (533 mm) submerged torpedo tubes

The first South Dakota class was authorized 4 March 1917, and keels were laid down in 1920 for six ships. However, the Washington Naval Treaty prohibited their completion, construction was halted 8 February 1922, and the unfinished hulls were sold in 1923. The first South Dakota class was an outgrowth of the Standard type battleships, though a greatly modified form: Displacement would have been 20,000 tons greater than the other Standards, with only a two-knot increase in speed. The class was ordered in the same program that created the Lexington-class battlecruisers; the Lexingtons made better conversion hulls because they were further along in their construction and were designed for a far higher speed. Two Lexington hulls were converted to Lexington-class aircraft carriers, the remaining ten ships of the 1917 shipbuilding program - four battlecruisers and six battleships - were scrapped.