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The United States Navy began the construction of battleships with USS Texas in 1892, although its first ship to be designated as such was USS Indiana. Texas and USS Maine,^[a] commissioned three years later in 1895, were part of the New Navy program of the late 19th century, a proposal by then Secretary of the Navy William H. Hunt to match Europe's navies that ignited a years-long debate that was suddenly settled in Hunt's favor when the Brazilian Empire commissioned the battleship Riachuelo.^[1][2][3][4] In 1890, Alfred Thayer Mahan's book The Influence of Sea Power upon History was published and significantly influenced future naval policy—as an indirect result of its influence on Secretary Benjamin F. Tracy, the Navy Act of June 30, 1890^[5] authorized the construction of "three sea-going, coast-line battle ships" which became the Indiana class. The Navy Act of July 19, 1892 authorized construction of a fourth "sea-going, coast-line battle ship", which became USS Iowa.^[6] Despite much later claims that these were to be purely defensive and were authorized as "coastal defense ships", they were almost immediately used for offensive operations in the Spanish–American War.^[7][8] By the start of the 20th century, the United States Navy had in service or under construction the three Illinois-class and two Kearsarge-class battleships, making the United States the world's fifth strongest power at sea from a nation that had been 12th in 1870.^[9]

Except for Kearsarge, named by an act of Congress, all U.S. Navy battleships have been named for states, and each of the 48 contiguous states has had at least one battleship named for it except Montana; two battleships were authorized to be named Montana but both were cancelled before construction started. Alaska and Hawaii did not become states until 1959, after the end of battleship building, but the battlecruiser, or "Large Cruiser," USS Alaska was built during World War II and her sister, USS Hawaii, was begun but never completed. The pre-dreadnoughts USS Zrinyi (formerly the Austrian SMS Zrínyi), USS Radetzky (formerly the Austrian SMS Radetzky), and the dreadnought USS Ostfriesland (formerly the German SMS Ostfriesland), taken as prizes of war after World War I, were commissioned in the US Navy, but were not assigned hull classification symbols.

No American battleship has ever been lost at sea, though four were sunk during the attack on Pearl Harbor. Of these, only USS Arizona (BB-39) and USS Oklahoma (BB-37) were permanently destroyed as a result of enemy action. Several other battleships have been sunk as targets, and USS Utah, demilitarized and converted into a target and training ship, was permanently destroyed at Pearl Harbor. The hulk of Oklahoma was salvaged and was lost at sea while being towed to the mainland for scrapping. Two American-built pre-dreadnought battleships, USS Mississippi (BB-23) and her sister USS Idaho (BB-24), were sunk in 1941 by German bombers during their World War II invasion of Greece. The ships had been sold to Greece in 1914, becoming Kilkis and Lemnos respectively.

1880s–1910s

Maine and Texas were part of the "New Navy" program of the 1880s. Texas and BB-1 to BB-4 were authorized as "coast defense battleships", but Maine was ordered as an armored cruiser and was only re-rated as a "second class battleship" when she turned out too slow to be a cruiser. The next group, BB-5 Kearsarge through BB-25 New Hampshire, followed general global pre-dreadnought design characteristics and entered service between 1900 and 1909. The definitive American pre-dreadnought was the penultimate class of the type, the Connecticut class, sporting the usual four-gun array of 12-inch (305 mm) weapons, a very heavy intermediate and secondary battery, and a moderate tertiary battery. They were good sea boats and heavily armed and armored for their type. The final American pre-dreadnought class, the Mississippi-class, were an experiment in increasing numbers with slower ships of limited range. The Navy soon rejected the concept and within 6 years of commissioning, sold these to Greece in 1914 to pay for a new super-dreadnought USS Idaho (BB-42).

The dreadnoughts, BB-26 South Carolina through BB-35 Texas, commissioned between 1910 and 1914, uniformly possessed twin turrets, introduced the superimposed turret arrangement that would later become standard on all battleships, and had relatively heavy armor and moderate speed (19–21 knots, 35–39 km/h, 22–24 mph). Five of the ten ships used the established vertical triple expansion (VTE) propulsion rather than faster direct-drive turbines, used by the British which had higher fuel consumption. The ships had 8 (South Carolina class), 10 (Delaware and Florida) or 12 (Wyoming class) 12-inch guns, or 10 (New York class) 14-inch (356 mm) guns. The dreadnoughts gave good service, the last two classes surviving through World War II before being scrapped. However, they had some faults that were never worked out, and the midships turrets in the ten and twelve-gun ships were located near boilers and high-pressure steam lines, a factor that made refrigeration very difficult and problematic in hot climates. One of their number, Texas (BB-35), is the last remaining American battleship of the pre–World War II era and the only remaining dreadnought in the world.

Next came the twelve Standards, beginning with BB-36 Nevada, commissioned over the period 1914 to 1920. The last ship commissioned was BB-48 West Virginia (BB-49 through 54 were also Standards, but were never commissioned, and scrapped under the Washington Naval Treaty). Oklahoma (BB-37) was the last American battleship commissioned with triple expansion machinery; all the other Standards used either geared steam turbines (Nevada, the Pennsylvania class, Idaho and Mississippi) or turbo-electric propulsion (New Mexico, the Tennessee and Colorado classes). The Standards were a group of ships with four turrets, oil fuel, a 21-knot (39 km/h; 24 mph) top speed, a 700-yard (640 m) tactical diameter at top speed, and heavy armor distributed on the "All or Nothing" principle. Armament was fairly consistent, starting with ten 14-inch guns in the Nevada class, twelve in the Pennsylvania, New Mexico and Tennessee classes, and eight 16-inch (406 mm) guns in the Colorado class.

1930s–1940s

After the 1930s "builders holiday," the USN commissioned ten more battleships of an entirely new style, the so-called fast battleship. These ships began with BB-55 North Carolina and the last ship laid down was BB-66 Kentucky (the last completed ship was BB-64 Wisconsin). These ships were a nearly clean break from previous American design practices. All ten ships were built to a Panamax design (technically post-Panamax, as they exceeded normal Panamax beam by two feet, but they were still able to transit the canal). They were fast battleships, and could travel with the aircraft carriers at cruising speed (their speed was not intended for that role, but rather so they could run down and destroy enemy battlecruisers). They possessed almost completely homogeneous main armament (nine 16-inch guns in each ship, the sole difference being an increase in length from 45 to 50 calibers with the Iowa-class vessels), very high speed relative to other American designs (28 knots, 52 km/h, 32 mph in the North Carolina and South Dakota classes, 33 knots, 61 km/h, 38 mph in the Iowa class), and moderate armor. The North Carolina class was of particular concern, as their protection was rated as only "adequate" against the 16-inch super-heavy shells. They had been designed with, and armored against, a battery of three quadruple 14-inch guns, then changed to triple 16-inch guns after the escalator clause in the Second London Naval Treaty had been triggered. Secondary armament in these ships was almost homogeneous as well: Except for South Dakota, configured as a flagship, the other nine ships of this group sported a uniform 20-gun 5-inch (127 mm) secondary battery (South Dakota deleted two 5-inch mounts to make room for flag facilities). Visually, the World War II ships are distinguished by their three-turret arrangement and the massive columnar mast that dominates the superstructure. The last ship, Wisconsin (BB-64), commissioned in 1944 (Wisconsin was approved last; however, Missouri (BB-63) was commissioned three months later, due to delays from additional aircraft carrier construction). Missouri (BB-63), famous for being the ship on which the Japanese instrument of surrender was signed, was the last battleship in the world to be decommissioned on 31 March 1992. Seven of these ten ships are still in existence. South Dakota, Washington and Indiana were scrapped, but the remainder are now museum ships. There was intended to be another class of five of these ships, the Montana class (BB-67 Montana through BB-71 Louisiana), but they were cancelled before being laid down in favor of a greater number of aircraft carriers. The Montana-class ships would have been built to a 60,000-ton post-Panamax design, and carried a greater number of guns (twelve 16-inch guns) and heavier armor than the other ships; otherwise they would have been homogeneous with the rest of the World War II battleships.

In October 2006, the last battleships, (USS Iowa and USS Wisconsin), were stricken from the Naval Registry.

Key

Second-class battleship

USS Texas (1892)

The acquisition of modern, European-built warships by Argentina, Brazil, and Chile had alarmed the United States. The straw that broke the camel's back was Brazil's commissioning of the battleship Riachuelo, which suddenly made the Brazilian Navy the strongest in the Americas. Congressman Hilary A. Herbert, chairman of the House Naval Affairs Committee, said of the situation, "if all this old navy of ours were drawn up in battle array in mid-ocean and confronted by the Riachuelo it is doubtful whether a single vessel bearing the American flag would get into port." Facing the possibility of enemy ironclads operating in American coastal waters, the Naval Consulting Board began planning a pair of ironclads of their own, which would be able to use all major American naval bases and have a minimum speed of 17 knots (31 km/h; 20 mph). The first of these two was USS Texas, 308 feet 10 inches (94.13 m) long, sporting an armor belt 12 inches (305 mm) thick, displacing 6,316 long tons (6,417 t), sailing at a top speed of 17.8 knots (33.0 km/h; 20.5 mph), and armed with two 35-caliber 12 in (305 mm) primary and six 30-caliber 6 in (152 mm) secondary guns.^[10]

Texas was authorized by Congress on 3 August 1886, but construction lagged until she was laid down on 1 June 1889. She was launched in the presence of the granddaughter of Sam Houston on 28 June 1892, and commissioned on 15 August 1895.^[11] Texas's early service revealed a number of structural issues, which was addressed via some reinforcement of various parts of the ship,^[12] and she ran aground near Newport, Rhode Island, in September 1896.^[13]This in turn revealed even more faults with Texas, as massive flooding easily disabled her in the shallow waters where she ran aground.^[14] After repairs, she joined the North Atlantic Squadron, briefly leaving for a Gulf Coast visit to Galveston and New Orleans that saw her beached on a mud bank off Galveston, an event whose aftermath gave Texas her nickname, "Old Hoodoo."^[15][16] After repairs, she returned to the North Atlantic Squadron and her patrols of the Eastern Seaboard. In the Spring of 1898, Texas's near-sister ship USS Maine (ACR-1) (the other of the two original coastal defense ships) was destroyed by an explosion in Havana's harbor, and the United States went to war with the Spanish Empire. An American fleet including Texas was at Key West, and was part of the Flying Squadron in its engagements with Spanish fortifications on the Cuban coast. She saw real surface fleet combat on 3 July at the Battle of Santiago de Cuba alongside USS Iowa, USS Gloucester, and USS Indiana against the fleet of Pascual Cervera y Topete as it tried to escape the American fleet and emerged with only light damage.^[11][17] After the war, Texas was decommissioned and refitted on two occasions before finally be declared obsolete in 1911 and permanently decommissioned and converted into a target ship in the same year.^[18][19] On 15 February 1911, Texas was christened as San Marcos to free the name up for the dreadnought USS Texas (BB-35),^[11] and was then sunk in the waters of Tangier Sound by USS New Hampshire's guns. The remains of the San Marcos continued to be used for gunnery practice after her sinking until January 1959,^[20] when vast quantities of explosives were used to bury her remains.^[21]

Pre-dreadnought battleships

Indiana class

USS Iowa

Kearsarge class

These two ships were authorized under the Act of 2 March 1895, and were both built by the Newport News Shipbuilding Company.