“The History of the American Battleship, 1883-1903”
“Whatever happens, we have got
the battleship, and they have not.” – American popular song from the Anglo-American War.
The 1885 publication of Captain Stephen Luce’s collected lectures as “Seapower and Its Influence Upon the History of Nations” was intended to be a decisive refutation of the theories of seapower and commerce protection espoused by Robert Russel Horne in his ‘Sons of Neptune’. Luce’s emphasis on the battlefleet as the primary means of force projection and sea control was already familiar to American naval officers, who had been attending his war college lectures for more than a decade . The weight Luce placed upon the capital ship – the ship able to stand in a line of battle – received extra emphasis from Theodore Roosevelt’s landmark ‘The Naval War of 1812’. Roosevelt’s explanation for American naval victories in that war was twofold. The United States Navy at that time put a heavy premium on crew training, especially on fast and accurate gunnery, and the Americans furnished the powder needed for target practice. The Royal Navy, despite a wealth of experience in sea combat, had valued seamanship and cleanliness, and required its captains to purchase their own gunpowder for live-fire gunnery drills. The second area of superiority, Roosevelt believed, was in American ship design and construction. Again and again it was shown that big, fast, heavily-armed ships were able to take on any single smaller adversary, or in the case of Cyane and Levant, any two. The singular failure of American naval power in that war, by Roosevelt’s thesis, was the lack of American capital ships to break the British blockade of American ports.
From these lessons came the first two classes of American battleships, the Alfred Thayer Mahan-designed George Washington and the almost identical James Madison classes. Funding legislation enabled the Navy to build four battleships in 1883 and again in 1884, the sole difference between the two classes being that the first had its main armament firing over the lip of an open barbette and the later four ships had a splinter-proof metal hood over the guns. At a time when naval doctrine abroad centered on large numbers of small ships for commerce raiding and protection, the gigantic American constructions were viewed with skepticism and derision. Combat experience in the Anglo-American War, however, would prove the sea-superiority theories of Luce correct.
A comparison of three designs whose ships entered service in 1883 will be instructive.
HMS‘Avalon’___HMS ‘Diadem’___’George Washington’
Normal displacement (tons):
3500………….....8450…......………..13,600
Length (feet):
300……....……..460........…………...420
Beam:
43……….....……60…........………...…63
Draft:
18……….....……21…….........……..…30
Armament:
2x6”, 6x4.7”….2x9.2”, 8x6”.........4x12”, 16x6”
Armor:
2” deck, ……...3” belt……….........12” belt
4” guns ……....5” guns…….......….10” guns
Speed:
7,000 hp….…..13,700hp……......…13,700 hp
19 kts.…….…..20 kts.………......….18kts
The construction cost of the battleship is approximately four times that of the small cruiser and the crew compliment about three times as large, but it is hard to see three or four of these cruisers defeating this battleship in a stand-up fight. Neither would it be easy for the cruisers to decline combat as they have no margin of speed to run, not enough armor to accept punishment or gun power to cripple their enemy. Were some disaster to befall the battleship, however, the loss of national combat power would be much greater than the loss of one cruiser.
George Washington and James Madison
The first eight battleships were thus designed and built to constitute a Lucian ‘fleet-in-being’ which could control the seas through superior fighting power. In practice, they were not altogether successful ships. The 6.67:1 length-to-beam ratio gave them great stability and a short turning radius, but meant a higher proportion of their tonnage was devoted to propulsion. The 12” main guns were regarded as ‘overkill’ for fighting thin-skinned cruisers, with much debate centering around a the merits of adopting a lighter-weight, faster-firing gun. There was substantial criticism of the vulnerability of the main armament to shell fire, which added fuel to the argument about whether to move to a smaller, lighter-weight gun, so that the weight saving could be used for armored housings. The 6” secondary armament was set into armored casemates in the hull and superstructure, but the lower guns were unusable in more than moderate seas. Despite these defects, the eight ships of the Washington and Madison classes were relatively fast, reliable and, with their 20’ high freeboard and flush deck, were fine, dry seaboats. In combat the 12” main armament proved its worth, as a single high-explosive round was often enough to cripple a cruiser or an old-fashioned ironclad.
Martin Van Buren
The design of the follow-on Martin Van Buren class was an attempt to address the perceived shortcomings of the first two designs. These ships were longer and wider but had finer hull lines, saving almost a thousand tons with lighter propulsion machinery. Their hull form was marked by a long foredeck which dropped to a low aft deck. The savings in weight were considerable, but it made these ships wet aft, especially at speed or in moderate seas. The armor scheme of the previous ships was retained, though heavy armored hoods with as much as 10” of armor were fitted over the main guns. A heavy secondary battery of 8x8” guns in four turrets was mounted, two turrets on each side, and the casemated guns were reduced in caliber to 10x5”. The 8” were regarded as the primary armament for their intended foes – cruisers – and the 12” armament was retained as it was expected the European powers would quickly build battleships of their own. All four of the Van Buren class came into service starting in 1884.
Nathan Hale
With the next design radical departures were made from the previous classes, and as with most revolutions the results were decidedly mixed. First, these ships were all named for heroes of the American Revolution: Nathan Hale, Patrick Henry, Paul Revere and the Marquis de Lafayette. Previously only Benjamin Franklin had been an exception to the use of presidential names. Secondly, they were the product of the ‘big ship as cruiser killer’ school of design, with serious consequences for their habitability and staying power. The length was increased to a stunning 550’, the beam reduced to 64’ and the overall displacement increased to 15,500 tons, producing a slim hull with very fine lines. Their machinery developed 23,000 horsepower, almost double that of the preceeding classes, for a targeted top speed of 21 knots. To reach such a high speed with reciprocating engines, much was sacrificed. After a short raised foredeck, the freeboard dropped to 16’ for the majority of the hull, meaning the ships would usually be wet and uncomfortable. The armament consisted of 4x12” guns as in the previous classes, but the secondary battery mounted 14x6” guns in casemates inset in the superstructure. Belt armor was reduced from 12” to a maximum thickness of 8”, tapering toward the top and ends of the belt. This scheme was vulnerable to 8” and larger guns at close range. To cover the massive boilers and engines the belt was very long and tall; as compensation, the ends of the ship were armored up to 4” instead of 2” as in the previous classes. These ships were generally considered a disappointment; despite being very fast on their trials they were overloaded for their displacement and overstressed because of the extreme length of the hull and heavy weights of the turrets, boilers and engines. Their low freeboard and narrow beam made them wet and prone to roll, and the complex and powerful steam plant was difficult to maintain. Despite their early promise, top speeds fell off as the years passed and stiffening was needed to remedy the effects of stress on the hull. Various proposals to lighten them by replacing the 12” main guns with 10” or even 8” were examined, and at one time it was rumored that they would be reboilered for oil fuel. These modernizations were all rejected because the Navy preferred to devote its funds to newer and better ships rather than convert the Nathan Hale’s into “nothing more than armored cruisers”. The failure of other nations to build battleships reduced the urgency of earlier construction, so only the first two ships saw service in the Ango-American War.
Edmund Randolph
The long completion times of the Nathan Hale class and the combat experience of the Anglo-American War (1887-1888) enabled American naval designers to roll out a large number of proposed designs for the next class of battleships. The selected design for the Edmund Randolph class (1890-91) showed the pendulum had swung decisively back from the fast, cruiser-destroying ship toward a slower but better-armored design featuring a heavy main armament. Despite peacetime budget difficulties, displacement rose again to 16,500 tons, while length and beam returned to a more manageable 480’ and 73’ respectively. The armor belt was restored to a 12” maximum thickness and top speed was set at 18 knots. What made these ships truly unusual was the insertion of a third gun turret amidships, giving a main battery of 6x12” guns but a secondary armament of only 12x5” guns. The ships had no higher freeboard than the preceeding class but they did carry the break of the deck much farther aft. Their long foredeck and wider beam made them drier and more stable. The Randolph’s were derided by some for the emphasis on heavy, slow-firing guns and for their comparatively scanty secondary battery, but in service they were popular ships, considered excellent seaboats and fine gunnery platforms. Their combat record is not stellar, as three of the four were lost in combat during the World War. Studies of the logs and interviews with the surviving officers and crew have revealed that in all three cases the watertight compartmentalization was inadequate (flooding of the large open engine and boiler spaces) or compromised (failure of materials to confine the flooding, allowing it to spread to other compartments).
Abraham Lincoln
An immediate follow-on to the Edmund Randolph class, the Abraham Lincoln class entered service in 1892-93 and were a slightly larger and improved version of the previous ships. Displacement rose to 17,500 tons and the secondary battery was increased to 16x5” guns, half casemeated in the superstructure and the rest in the hull below the main deck. Armor, speed and main armament were unchanged. One decided improvement was the raising of the aft deck; the Lincoln’s returned to the earlier ideal of a high freeboard and a flush deck, and were roomy, dry and comfortable ships as a result. Like the Randolph’s they were excellent seaboats and famously steady gun platforms. Unlike the Randolph’s, they survived serious combat damage in the World War with no units lost, partly because of their superior attention to protection from mines and torpedoes.
Oliver H Perry
As the Randolph and Lincoln classes had met the requirements of the ‘big ship/big gun’ advocates, the Oliver H Perry class marked a return to an emphasis on defeating cruisers. Displacement was held to 17,500 tons and hull length kept to 500 feet as in the previous class, but the beam was extended out to 80’. As with all American battleships except the Nathan Hale class, top speed was 18 knots. The armor belt was reduced to a maximum thickness of 9” but the ends and the hull above the belt were armored up to 4”. This proved effective against guns up to 8” caliber as it detonated the shells on contact and protected against splinters. Main armament was reduced to two twin 12” turrets, one forward and one aft. A secondary battery of 8x8” guns in four twin turrets was disposed with an 8” twin turret superimposed over each 12” turret and a turret set on each beam amidships. Tests had proven the utility of superfiring guns provided sufficient protection was given for blast effects, but this was the first adoption of the method in a warship design. 12x5” guns were mounted in casemates for protection from torpedo boats, inadequate armament for the size of the ships. Despite being roomy, stable and good seaboats, their service record was mixed. Those who favored the light-caliber, faster-firing armament were well pleased with them, while the big-gun advocates adamantly preferred the ships of the two previous classes.
Thomas Truxtun
The culmination of American battleship design was expressed in the Thomas Truxtun class, whose members entered service in 1903. In these ships we see the last intermediate design before the introduction of the all-big-gun-ship. Despite being smaller (17,000 tons as opposed to the 17,500 tons of the two previous classes), these ships attempted to reconcile the big-gun and quick-firing schools of thought by combining elements of both. Forward were two twin 12” turrets, one superimposed above the other. At the stern was another 12” twin turret with a twin 8” turret superfiring over it, and forward of that, facing forward, was an 8” twin turret at deck level, able to train on either broadside. Theoretically this gave the Truxtun’s all of the big-gun and most of the 8” firepower of the previous classes, with thicker belt armor than the Perry class. These ships introduced turbine-powered electrical generators, whose output drove two electric motors directly coupled to the propeller shafts. As American turbine technology was not far advanced, and as direct-drive turbines were inefficient except at high speed, the turbo-electric drive allowed these ships to run their turbines at the most fuel-efficiency settings at all times. The trade-off for fuel efficiency and enhanced subdivision of the engineering spaces was the acceptance of slightly heavier weight for propulsion machinery. In service these ships were held to be the best in the fleet, though the new-model mounts for the 8” guns were never finally free of trouble.
Summary
Looking back with our knowledge of the intrinsic superiority of the all-big-gun-ship mounting at least eight barrels of the same caliber, we can perhaps be forgiven for wondering why the designers appear to have waffled between ships emphasizing heavy guns and those with a large intermediate battery. In the beginning, when the George Washington’s were designed, the worth of battleships was an unproven quantity. In the Anglo-American War the twelve ships of the American battleline not only defeated the enemy but emerged without losing a single ship. Given that battleships would be built, the debate centered around how they would be used.
One school of thought was that heavy guns were the determining factor in combat. Despite their slow loading and training time (about 1 round per gun every two minutes, improved after wartime experience to about 1 round per minute) the heavy smashing power of an 800-pound shell filled with explosive, fired at medium to long range, was thought to be the decisive element of naval combat. Their opponents favored a heavy intermediate battery for engaging targets such as protected cruisers or the lightly-armored ends and upper-works of capital ships. When the Martin Van Buren and Nathan Hale classes were built, no other nation had battleships; hence the emphasis on high speed and numbers of medium guns. Once the other powers began to build battleships of their own, the two schools grew even further apart. Hence we have the all-heavy-gun Randolph and Lincoln classes, and the return to a mixed battery with the Perry and Truxtun designs.
The 8” gun was indeed faster firing than the 12”, by a ratio of about 2:1, but its shell weight was 250 lbs compared to 800 lbs for the bigger gun. A further complication was that it was almost impossible for spotters to differentiate between the splashes made by 12” and 8” shells. Improvements in armor, subdivision and damage control made the 8” gun of dubious worth – too light to penetrate battleship armor, too slow-firing to be useful against torpedo boats, too confusing for spotters trying to correct the fall of shot.
Until the introduction of the all-big-gun ships (the British ‘Admiral’ and the American ‘Vermont’ classes) the American battleships were some of the best warships in the world, as their battle records in the Ango-American War and the World War clearly show. While Britain’s battleships (the Albion and Agamemnon classes in particular) were perhaps better balanced between main and secondary gun power, no-one can deny that American willingness to build bigger ships allowed their ships to have heavy hitting power, superior armor protection and good overall performance. American experience in operating battleships in combat, thousands of miles from home, informed their insistence on high resistance to damage, moderate speed and superior fuel economy.
One often overlooked element of American battleship design was their early adoption of centralized range-finding equipment. Gunnery training included a remarkable pistol that could be fitted to the barrels of the main and secondary guns for target practice. Live ammunition exercises were common, and excellence at gunnery trials was considered the highest award for any ship. This emphasis on fast, accurate gunnery gave the US Navy a decisive edge in the battles of the Anglo-American War, and American practice was soon adopted by all other naval powers. Shells, fuses and armor plates were exhaustively tested at the Washington Navy Yard, and as a result American propellants, explosives, fuses and armor-penetrating shells performed largely as expected. Combat experience did uncover a wide range of quality in the armor plates made by different manufacturers, and quality control was greatly improved after the war as a result. One reason the US retained the 12” rifle as its main weapon for two decades was because its characteristics were very well known and understood, and because its balance of loading time versus explosive payload was considered close to optimal. As other nations developed battleships of their own, the United States preferred to add more barrels instead of increasing the caliber, retaining the 12” gun through its first class of all-big-gun ships. Only when foreign navies showed that larger guns could be served with equal speed did the US Navy abandon its tried-and-true main gun.
Roster by class, showing the date they entered service and with ships lost in combat during the World War marked *:
1) 1883: George Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, James Monroe
2) 1884: James Madison*, John Quincy Adams*, Andrew Jackson, Henry Clay
3) 1886: Martin Van Buren*, George Dallas, Benjamin Franklin, John Hancock
4) 1887: Nathan Hale, Patrick Henry, Paul Revere, Lafayette
5) 1890: Edmund Randolph*, Alexander Hamilton*, Daniel Webster, Frederick von Steuben*
6) 1892: Abraham Lincoln, Nathaniel Greene, Casimir Pulaski, Winfield Scott
7) 1894: Oliver H Perry, David Farragut, John Paul Jones*, Stephen Decatur
8) 1903: Thomas Truxtun, Thomas MacDonough, Isaac Hull, Franklin Buchanan*
