South Dakota class battleship (1920)
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Model of the South Dakota class battleship |
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Class overview | |
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Name: | South Dakota class battleship |
Operators: | United States Navy |
Preceded by: | Colorado-class battleship |
Succeeded by: | North Carolina-class battleship |
Planned: | 6 |
Cancelled: | 6 |
Preserved: | 0 |
General characteristics | |
Type: | Battleship |
Displacement: | 43,200 tons |
Length: | 684 ft (208 m) |
Beam: | 105 ft (32 m) |
Draft: | 33 ft (10.1 m) |
Speed: | 23 knots (43 km/h) |
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 12,000 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.
[edit] Ships
- USS South Dakota (BB-49)
- USS Indiana (BB-50)
- USS Montana (BB-51)
- USS North Carolina (BB-52)
- USS Iowa (BB-53)
- USS Massachusetts (BB-54)
[edit] External links
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