A BatDiv or BATDIV was a standard U.S. Navy abbreviation or acronym for "battleship division."
The Commander of a Battleship Division is known, in official Navy communications, as COMBATDIV (followed by a number), such as COMBATDIV ONE.
One of the Battleship Divisions active during World War I was United States Battleship Division Nine which augmented the striking power of the Royal Navy's Grand Fleet in 1917-1918.
Pre-World War II the U.S. Navy battleship fleet was organized into five Battleship Divisions of three battleships each. Only two of these BATDIVs were composed of three battleships of the same class, but mixing battleships of separate two-ship classes to form three-ship BATDIVs was facilitated by the "Standard type battleship" concept of the US Navy, a design concept developed before 1922 calling for uniform top speed of 21 knots (39 km/h) and a tight tactical radius of 700 yards (640 m) for all battleships of the Nevada, Pennsylvania, New Mexico, Tennessee and Colorado classes.
Stationed at Pearl Harbor as part of the US Pacific Fleet were three BATDIVs: BB-38 Pennsylvania and BB-39 Arizona with BB-36 Nevada (BatDiv 1); BB-43 Tennessee and BB-44 California with BB-37 Oklahoma (BatDiv2); and BB-45 Colorado, BB-46 Maryland and BB-48 West Virginia (BatDiv 4). These nine battleships were intended to counter balance the ten battleships of the Imperial Japanese Navy. At the time of the Pearl Harbor Attack, BB-38 Pennsylvania was in dry dock and BB-45 Colorado was being refitted at Bremerton Navy Yard, Washington State. BB-39 Arizona was mated with BB-36 Nevada and BB-37 Oklahoma at that time.
The US Atlantic Fleet had a BATDIV (BatDiv 3) composed of BB-40 New Mexico, BB-41 Mississippi and BB-42 Idaho and a training division (BatDiv 5) made up of the older battleships BB-34 New York and BB-35 Texas with BB-33 Arkansas.
After the Pearl Harbor attack, the BATDIV was replaced by the Task Group (TG) as the operational wartime unit.[1]
This article incorporates text from the public domain Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships.