South Dakota-class battleship (1920)

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This article is about the canceled 1920s battleship class. For the World War II-era class of battleships, see South Dakota-class battleship (1939).

Artist's concept of the South Dakota class
Class overview
NameSouth Dakota class
Operators United States Navy
Preceded byColorado class
Succeeded byNorth Carolina class
Cost$21,000,000 (cost limit)
Built1920–1923
Planned6
Cancelled6
General characteristics
TypeBattleship
Displacement
  • 43,200 long tons (43,893 t) (normal)
  • 47,000 long tons (47,800 t) (
    full load
    )
Length
  • 684 ft (208.5 m) (
    o/a
    )
  • 660 ft (201.2 m) (waterline)
Beam106 ft (32.3 m)
Draft33 ft (10.1 m)
Installed power
Propulsion4 × propeller shafts; 4 × turbo-electric generators
Speed23 knots (43 km/h; 26 mph)
Range8,000 nmi (15,000 km; 9,200 mi) at 10 knots (19 km/h; 12 mph)
Complement137 officers, 1404 enlisted men, 75 marines
Armament
Armor
  • Belt: 8–13.5 in (203–343 mm)
  • Barbettes: 4.5–13.5 in (114–343 mm)
  • Turrets: 5–18 in (127–457 mm)
  • Conning tower: 8–16 in (203–406 mm)
  • Decks: 3.5–6 in (89–152 mm)
  • Bulkheads: 8–13.5 in (203–343 mm)
  • Uptakes: 9–13.5 in (229–343 mm)

The first South Dakota class was a group of six

U.S. Navy, but were never completed; designed to achieve 23 knots (43 km/h; 26 mph), they represented an attempt to catch up with the increasing fleet speeds of its main rivals, the British Royal Navy and Imperial Japanese Navy
.

The South Dakotas were authorized in 1917, but work was postponed so that the U.S. Navy could incorporate information gained from the

fast battleships
were laid-down.

Background and design history

Before World War I began in August 1914, the Navy was not well funded by the U.S.

Imperial Germany might be able to invade the United States, including a movie that showed victorious Germans executing Civil War veterans, and that the Navy was unprepared to deal with such a threat.[1]

South Dakota under construction

Events abroad like the

Congressmen. They compressed the General Board's program into three years with four ships in FY 1917 and three in each of the following years. The first four ships, which became the Colorado class, were only modest improvements over the preceding Tennessee class, but the changed attitude towards battleships allowed the General Board to propose much more powerful, and expensive, ships for the last two batches.[2] The maximum price was set at $21,000,000.[3]

The General Board's requirements were not thoroughly spelled out at the beginning of the design process and it requested a main armament of a dozen 16-inch (406 mm) guns and higher speed than the existing 21 knots of the earlier ships to counter trends it saw in fast foreign battleships like the British

5-inch (127 mm) secondary armament for several months before compromising on 20 guns in a mixture of single and twin mounts when the General Board approved the design on 24 January 1917. American entry into the war in April caused the suspension of all capital ship construction in favor of smaller ships more immediately useful to the war effort, although this allowed the Navy to modify the design based on experience gained from the British.[4]

By this time the design was restricted by the limitations imposed by the requirement to

draft of 32 feet 6 inches (9.9 m) to easily pass through the canal. In an effort to mitigate the impact on the ship's draft by all of these changes and unable to exceed the canal's width of 106 feet (32.3 m), Taylor revised the design by adding length and took the opportunity to improve its torpedo defenses, which increased its length to 725 feet (221 m) and displacement to 46,000 long tons (46,738 t). The board rejected this more expensive design and held to most of its requirements; Daniels approved these changes on 29 January 1918. Taylor investigated sloping the armor, which promised to save a lot of weight, but ultimately decided not to do so. On 6 July, the board changed its draft specification to 33 feet (10.1 m) at normal load, which meant that the ships would have to off-load weight to pass through the canal and dropped its requirement for a gyrostabilizer for which 600 long tons (610 t) had been reserved. This allowed Taylor to add an aft armored transverse bulkhead and armor for the boiler uptakes.[6]

The design characteristics of the South Dakotas closely followed the standard-type battleship, albeit at a greater scale. Like the Tennessees and Colorados, they were designed with the same bridges,

turbo-electric propulsion system and they used the same torpedo protection system as the latter class. Naval historian Norman Friedman described the South Dakotas as the ultimate development of the series of U.S. battleships that began with the Nevada class, despite the increase in size, speed and intermediate armament from the standard type that characterized the Nevada through Colorado classes.[7]

Description

South Dakota-class profile

The South Dakota design called for an

marines.[11]

Propulsion

Turbo-electric propulsion, which the U.S. Navy had adopted for capital ships with the earlier

electrical polarity of the motors. Other benefits were the ability to operate all four propellers if one of the turbo generators failed, and the possibility of operating only some of the generators at low speed with suitably higher loading and greater efficiency.[12] "[Turbo-electric drive] was efficient, rugged and always reliable. But it was also heavy, intricate, and not easy to maintain and keep tuned up."[13] The machinery also required special ventilation measures to dissipate heat and to keep out any salt air.[Note 1] Even with this and elaborate insulation measures, protection from moisture or from flooding due to battle damage or other causes remained problematic and it posed the danger of high voltage to the crew if damaged.[12]

In the South Dakotas, two turbo generators (General Electric for Indiana and Montana, Westinghouse for the others) were coupled to a pair of AC alternators of 28,000 KVA and 5,000 volts. These fed four electric motors, each driving one propeller shaft, rated at 11,200 kilowatts (15,000 hp) of direct current (DC).[5] A dozen water-tube boilers, each in their own individual compartment outboard of the turbine rooms, provided steam for the generators at a working pressure of 285 psi (1,965 kPa; 20 kgf/cm2). The uptakes from each trio of boilers were grouped together and then all four uptakes were trunked together above the upper deck into the single funnel. The ships were also fitted with eight 500-kilowatt (670 hp) DC turbo generators. With a total of 60,000 shaft horsepower (45,000 kW), their designed top speed was 23 knots. They carried enough fuel oil to give them a designed range of 8,000 nmi (15,000 km; 9,200 mi) at 10 knots (19 km/h; 12 mph).[15]

Armament

A 16-inch/50 gun on display at the Washington Navy Yard

The

16"/50 caliber Mark 7 gun.[16]

The South Dakotas had a secondary armament that consisted of sixteen 53-caliber

six-inch Mark 12 guns in single mounts. A dozen of these were in unarmored casemates on the side of the superstructure and the remaining four guns were positioned abreast the forward superstructure. The guns had a maximum range of 21,000 yd (19,000 m) at an elevation of 20 degrees from their 105-pound (48 kg) projectiles at a velocity of 3,000 feet per second (910 m/s). They were installed in Omaha-class cruisers and several large submarines built during the 1920s after the South Dakotas were canceled.[17]

three in (76 mm) dual-purpose guns in single mounts amidships.[18] Firing their 13-pound (5.9 kg) shells at a velocity of 2,700 ft/s (820 m/s), the guns had a maximum range of 14,590 yards (13,340 m) and could fire at a rate of 12–15 rounds per minute.[19] The ships were also fitted with a pair of 21-inch (533 mm) submerged torpedo tubes, one on each broadside.[18]

Protection

The South Dakotas'

bow, although it now consisted of one layer of five inches of STS and another, 1 inch (25 mm) thick, of NS. Between the main and splinter decks, the boiler uptakes were protected by 9–13.5 inches (230–340 mm) of armor.[20]

Turret faces were 18 inches (457 mm) thick, with 9–10-inch (229–254 mm) thick sides and a roof 5 inches thick. The barbettes were protected by 13.5 inches of armor above the main deck and 4.5 inches (114 mm) below that. The

watertight compartments separated by three torpedo bulkheads 0.75 inches (19 mm) thick that extended from the splinter deck to the ship's bottom and between the transverse bulkheads. The outermost compartment was empty, the three middle ones were used as oil tanks, and the innermost one was also empty.[20]

Ships in class

Name Shipyard Laid down Suspended Canceled % Completed[21] Fate
South Dakota (BB-49)[22]
New York Naval Shipyard
 15 March 1920 8 February 1922 17 August 1922 38.5% Sold for scrap, 25 October 1923
Indiana (BB-50)[23] 1 November 1920 34.7% Scrapped on slipway
Montana (BB-51)[24] Mare Island Naval Shipyard 1 September 1920 27.6% Sold for scrap, 25 October 1923
North Carolina (BB-52)[25] Norfolk Naval Shipyard 12 January 1920 36.7%
Iowa (BB-53)[26] Newport News Shipbuilding 17 May 1920 31.8% Sold for scrap, 8 November 1923
Massachusetts (BB-54)[27] Fore River Shipyard 4 April 1921 11.0%

With the cancellation of the South Dakotas and the

coast-defense guns.[16] Their boilers were used to modernize the six ships of the Florida, Wyoming and New York classes in the mid-1920s; their armor plates were used to reinforce the existing armor of other battleships.[28]

Notes

  1. ^ W. McClelland, quoted in footnote 20[14]

Citations

  1. ^ Friedman (1985b), pp. 155.
  2. ^ Friedman (1985b), pp. 155–156.
  3. ^ Ships' Data (1921), p. 32.
  4. ^ Friedman (1985b), pp. 156–157.
  5. ^ a b Breyer (1973), p. 232.
  6. ^ Friedman (1985b), p. 164.
  7. ^ Friedman (1985b), pp. 156.
  8. ^ Friedman (1985a), p. 118.
  9. ^ Breyer (1973), p. 193.
  10. ^ Friedman (1985b), p. 446.
  11. ^ Ships' Data (1921), p. 31.
  12. ^ a b Breyer (1973), p. 218.
  13. ^ Anderson & Baker (1977), p. 312.
  14. ^ Anderson & Baker (1977), p. 327.
  15. ^ Friedman (1985b), p. 457.
  16. ^ a b Campbell (1985), p. 116.
  17. ^ Campbell (1985), p. 132.
  18. ^ a b Ships' Data (1921), p. 30.
  19. ^ Campbell (1985), pp. 145–146.
  20. ^ a b Friedman (1985b), pp. 162, 446.
  21. ^ Friedman (1985b), pp. 420–421.
  22. ^ Evans, Mark L. (14 September 2015). "South Dakota (Battleship No. 49)". Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships. Navy Department, Naval History and Heritage Command. Retrieved 10 March 2019.
  23. ^ Cressman, Robert J.; Evans, Mark L. (12 September 2016). "Indiana I (Battleship No.1)". Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships. Navy Department, Naval History and Heritage Command. Retrieved 10 March 2019.
  24. ^ Cressman, Robert J. (18 February 2016). "Montana (Battleship No. 51)". Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships. Navy Department, Naval History and Heritage Command. Retrieved 10 March 2019.
  25. ^ "North Carolina II (Armored Cruiser No. 12)". Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships. Navy Department, Naval History and Heritage Command. 18 February 2016. Retrieved 10 March 2019.
  26. ^ Evans, Mark L. (20 April 2016). "Iowa II (Battleship No. 4) 1897–1923". Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships. Navy Department, Naval History and Heritage Command. Retrieved 10 March 2019.
  27. ^ "Massachusetts IV". Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships. Navy Department, Naval History and Heritage Command. 18 February 2016. Retrieved 10 March 2019.
  28. ^ Friedman (1985b), pp. 156, 193.

Bibliography

External links

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