#US NAVY SHIPS IN SERVICE UPGRADE#

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). 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). These ships were a nearly clean break from previous American design practices. 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). Armament was fairly consistent, starting with ten 14' guns in the Nevadas, twelve in the Pennsylvanias, New Mexicos and Tennessees, and eight 16' guns in the Colorados.ДЄfter the 1930s 'builders holiday,' the USN commissioned ten more battleships of an entirely new style, the so-called fast battleship. The Standards were a group of ships with four turrets, oil fuel, a 21-knot top speed, a 700 yard tactical diameter at top speed, and heavy armor distributed on the 'All or Nothing' principle. Oklahoma (BB-37) was the last American battleship commissioned with triple expansion machinery all the other Standards used either geared steam turbines ( Nevada, the Pennsylvanias, Idaho and Mississippi) or turbo-electric propulsion ( New Mexico, Tennessee through West Virginia). 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), commissioned over the period 1914 to 1920. Next came the twelve Standards, beginning with BB-36 Nevada. One of their number, Texas (BB-35), is the last remaining American battleship of the preвЂ“World War II era and the only remaining dreadnought in the world. 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. The dreadnoughts gave good service, the last two classes surviving through World War II before being scrapped. The ships possessed 8 ( South Carolina class), 10 ( Delaware and Florida) or 12 ( Wyoming class) 12' guns, or 10 ( New York class) 14' guns. Five of the ten ships favored the more mature vertical triple expansion (VTE) propulsion over fuel-inefficient but faster direct-drive turbines. The dreadnoughts, BB-26 South Carolina through BB-35 Texas, commissioned between 19, 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 (19вЂ“21 knots). The final American pre-dreadnought class, the Mississippi-class second-class battleships, were a poorly thought out experiment in increasing numbers regardless of quality, and the USN quickly wished to replace them, doing so in 1914, selling them to Greece to pay for a new super-dreadnought battleship, the new USS Idaho (BB-42). They were good sea boats and heavily armed and armored for their type. The definitive American predreadnought was the penultimate class of the type, the Connecticut class, sporting the usual four-gun array of 12' weapons, a very heavy intermediate and secondary battery, and a moderate tertiary battery. The next group, BB-5 Kearsarge through BB-25 New Hampshire, followed general global pre-dreadnought design characteristics and entered service between 19. They, and BB-1 to BB-4 were authorized as 'coast defense battleships'. Some of these enhancements include the installation of Mark 41 vertical launch systems and upgrades to the ship's sensors and combat systems.Maine and Texas were part of the 'New Navy' program of the 1880s.

#US NAVY SHIPS IN SERVICE UPGRADE#

The tough Oliver Hazard Perry class ships were retired too soon by many accounts-a symptom of their fiscal neglect more than anything else-and were ripe for a major upgrade like many of the second-hand models operated by allied Navies around the globe have received. Primarily this includes the Navy's mothballed logistical ships and especially its Oliver Hazard PerryВ class frigates. Regenerating old ships is all about balancing the cost of bringing them back into service based on what mission sets they could provide, how degraded a capability compared to their modern counterparts is acceptable, and how long they could remain in service once the money has been invested in them.ДЄside from the Kitty Hawk, the best candidates for regeneration are the ships that could take on lower-end tasks, and thus not require the huge amount of technological investment as their more advanced cousins require.

Us navy ships in service