South Dakota class battleship (1920)

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Model of the South Dakota class battleship
Class overview
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.

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