Operators United States Succeeded by Tennessee class | Preceded by Pennsylvania class Built 1915-1919 | |
Name New Mexico-class battleship Builders New York Naval Shipyard
Newport News Shipbuilding
New York Shipbuilding Corporation | ||
The New Mexico-class battleships of the United States Navy, all three of whose construction began in 1915, were improvements on the design introduced three years earlier with the Nevada class.
Contents
The twelve-gun main battery of the preceding Pennsylvania class was retained, but with longer 14-inch (356 mm)/50 caliber guns in improved triple turrets. Hull design was also upgraded with a 'clipper' bow for better seakeeping and a sleeker look. One ship, New Mexico, was fitted with turbo-electric propulsion.
Though eight secondary battery guns were located in extremely wet bow and stern positions and were soon removed, the rest of the ships' 5-inch (127 mm)/51 caliber guns were mounted in the superstructure, a great improvement over earlier U.S. Navy battleships' arrangements.
Class history
Completed during and soon after World War I, the New Mexicos were active members of the Battle Fleet during the decades between the World Wars. All were rebuilt between 1931 and 1934, receiving entirely new superstructures, modern controls for their guns, new engines and improved protection against air and surface attack. Anti-torpedo bulges increased their width to 106 feet 3 inches (32.39 m) and displacement went up by a thousand tons or more.
The New Mexico class was part of the standard-type battleship concept of the U.S. Navy, a design concept which gave the Navy a homogeneous line of battle (it allowed planning maneuvers for the whole line of battle rather than detaching "fast" and "slow" wings). The standard-type battleship concept included long-range gunnery, moderate speed of 21 knots (39 km/h; 24 mph), a tight tactical radius of 700 yards (640 m) and improved damage control. The other standard-type battleships were the Nevada, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, and Colorado classes.
In order to counter the German threat, these ships—operating together as Battleship Division 3—were transferred from the Pacific to the Atlantic in 1941, leaving the U.S. Pacific Fleet inferior in battleship strength to the Japanese Navy. Sent back to the Pacific after the Pearl Harbor raid devastated the Pacific Fleet's powerful battle line, they were active in the war with Japan until final victory was achieved in August 1945. They provided naval gunfire support for many of the amphibious invasions that marked the Pacific conflict, and Mississippi took part in the Battle of Surigao Strait, the last time in history that battleships fought each other. New Mexico and Idaho were disposed of soon after the war ended, but Mississippi was converted to a training and weapons trials ship and served for another decade. The U.S. Navy's first generation of ship-launched guided missiles went to sea aboard this old former battleship.
Design history
Designated as Battleship 1916, the design history is marked by the incipient test firing of the 16-inch (406 mm)/45 caliber U.S. naval gun. The gun promised to deliver twice the energy of a 12-inch (305 mm)/50 caliber Mark 7 gun and 1.5 times the energy of a 14-inch (356 mm)/45 caliber gun. The problem was that the 16-inch gun was not tested. If the gun failed then the design would have to wait for new 14-inch turrets to be fabricated. The first design offered to C&R was no less than 10 16-inch guns and 8 torpedoes. The design also included upgrading the armor as well as extending it. A secondary battery of 6-inch (152 mm) guns was incorporated into the design. The General Board arguing that the increasing range of torpedoes required the increase of caliber. In August 1914 the 16-inch gun was successfully test fired silencing that question but that would happen after the design was in front of SecNav. The rise in displacement and the rise in the cost of the new design presented issues. The General board pushed for the advancement with C&R wanting to repeat the Pennsylvania class. Both the Secretary of the Navy Josephus Daniels and the House of Representatives rose up against the cost.
The General Board was convinced that the major sea powers would jump to 15-inch (381 mm) or 16-inch naval guns as a main armament and asked for designs based on the 16-inch gun. A series of designs was laid out with the last being a design with 8 16-inch guns on the 31,000 long tons (31,497 t) design of the earlier Pennsylvania design. No one reviewing the design was at all happy with it. Strangely enough, this would except in small details, become the blueprint of the Colorado-class battleships. On July 30, the Secretary of the Navy ordered that, except for the inclusion of individual slides for the main guns, clipper bows for improved seakeeping and, in New Mexico, an experimental turbo-electric propulsion system, the New Mexico class would be a reproduction of the preceding Pennsylvania class. A third ship, Idaho, was added with funding from the proceeds of the sale of the obsolescent pre-dreadnoughts Mississippi and Idaho to Greece.