Mississippi class battleship
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 USS Mississippi |
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| Class overview | |
|---|---|
| Name: | Mississippi class battleship |
| Operators: |  United States Greece |
| Preceded by: | Connecticut class battleship |
| Succeeded by: | South Carolina class battleship |
| Completed: | 2 |
| Lost: | 2 |
| Preserved: | 0 |
| General characteristics | |
| Type: | Battleship |
| Displacement: | Standard:13,000 tons |
| Length: | 382 ft |
| Beam: | 77 ft |
| Draft: | 24 ft7 in |
| Propulsion: | triple-expansion reciprocating engines two propellers 10,000 horsepower |
| Speed: | 17 knots |
| Complement: | 744 officers and men |
| Armament: |
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The Mississippi-class battleships, USS Mississippi and USS Idaho, served in the US Navy from 1908 to 1914. The ships were built as part of a brief Congressional desire to restrain the ballooning tonnage and expense of new battleships (which had vaulted over 10,000 tons in the span of a decade, and promised to increase further with the new all-big-gun designs then on the boards). Neither ship was satisfactory in US service (they were second-class battleships in a navy which could not afford to tie up tonnage and money in second-tier designs) and both were sold to Greece in 1914 to finance the purchase of the new USS Idaho. USS New Hampshire was then ordered as a repeat Connecticut, and would be the last American pre-dreadnought. The ships were essentially repeat Connecticuts which gave up a knot of speed, four 7" guns, eight 3" guns, two torpedo tubes and some freeboard. They were poor sea boats and instantly obsolete upon commissioning, as they hit the water after HMS Dreadnought.
The were sold to Greece in 1914 and as Limnos and Kilkis, they served the Greek Navy until they were sunk by German aircraft at Salamis early in World War II.
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