In 1936 the United States Navy had a personnel, including Marines, of 17,000 officers and over 110,000 men, a figure well in excess of the British total. The material built and building included fifteen battleships, thirty-eight cruisers, seven aircraft carriers, 266 flotilla leaders and destroyers, and 100 submrirines. American naval construction has always borne the stamp of originality. owing little to foreign influences. It is claimed, apparently, with justice, that the American Navy was the first to adopt the system of mounting all the big-gun turrets of a ship on the centre line, thus enabling the whole main armament to be discharged on either broadside. The American Navy was responsible also for such innovations as oil fuel in place of coal, electric drive for big ships, and the equipment of battleships and cruisers with multiple aircraft. American ships are as a rule more heavily armed than British ships of corresponding size, a practice which has been consistently adhered to from the earliest days of the United States Navy.The principal details of the fifteen American battleships will be found in the following table.

United States Battleships
Name of Ship Completed Displacement Speed, knots Armament Armour over vitals
West Virginia 1923 31,800 21.1 8 16-in. 16
Colorado 1923 32,500 20.6 12 5-in. to
Maryland 1921 31,500 21.0 8 5-in. A.A. 18 in.
Tennessee 1920 32,300 21.0 12 14-in. 14
12 5-in. to
California 1921 32,600 21.4 8 5-in. A.A. 18 in.
Idaho 1919 33,400 21.3 12 14-in. 14
New Mexico 1918 33,400 21.0 12 5-in. to
Mississippi 1917 33,000 21.0 8 5-in. A.A. 18 in.
Arizona 1916 32,600 20.7 12 14-in. 14
12 5-in. to
Pennsylvania 1916 33,100 20.9 8 5-in. A.A. 18 in.
Nevada 1916 29,000 20.2 10 14-in. 13½
12 5-in. to
Oklahoma 1916 29,000 19.7 8 5-in. A.A. 18 in.
Texas 1914 27,000 19.7 10 14-in. 12
16 5-in. to
New York 1914 27,000 20.2 8 5-in. A.A. 14 in.
12 12-in. 11
Arkansas 1912 26,100 21.0 16 5-in. to
8 3-in. A.A. 12 in.

NOTES: Complements vary between 1,300 (Oklahoma) and 1,480 (California). The above figures of tonnage displacement are official, but they do not include the weight of extra armour, torpedo bulges and additional equipment worked in during modernization. This weight may be in some instances as much as 2,000 to 3,000 tons. Two features to be noted are the high average displacement of the above ships and the massive armour protection in all but the three oldest vessels.

In spite of the difference in the calibre of their main armament, the ships from the Colorado to the Arizona (in the table) are almost uniform in design and therefore comprise the most homogeneous and possibly the most formidable group of battleships afloat. A feature that does not appear in the table is the extremely efficient system of underwater protection in the later ships.

The Salt Lake City. A heavy cruiser with a displacement of 9,100 tons, the Salt Lake City is a sister ship to the Pensacola, illustrated below. Built in 1929, the Salt Lake City has a length of 570 feet between perpendiculars a beam of 65 ft. 3 in. and a mean draught of 17 ft 5 in. Four sets of geared turbines, housed in two engine-rooms, give the cruiser a speed of nearly 33 knots.

What these vessels could stand in the way of punishment was indicated by experiments with a sister of the Colorado, the Washington, which had to be discarded by international treaty. This vessel remained afloat after a series of heavy explosive charges, corresponding to the most powerful torpedoes and air bombs, had been detonated against her hull below the water-line. In the end it took several salvos of armour-piercing ahell fired into her at short range to send her to the bottom. As has been explained to the writer by one of the foremost American naval officers of the day these experiments convinced American naval opinion that the modern battleship is less vulnerable to aerial and under-water attack than her critics believe her to be.

“All or Nothing” Principle

Nine of the U.S. battleships have triple mountings for their big guns, a system which the British Navy was slow to adopt but eventually incorporated in the Nelson and the Rodney. It has the advantage of saving weight and simplifying fire control and is likely to be adhered to in future construction.

Despite their age, the OkIahoma and the Nevada are two of tho most interesting ships in the fleet, inaugurating as they did a new departure in battleship design. They were planned on the so-called “all or nothing” principle, meaning that while every vital part was protected by the heaviest armour possible, other sections of the ship, where a hit was not likely to have disastrous reaults, were left bare. Hitherto naval designers had tried to effect a compromise by working heavy armour over vital parts and thinner plating elsewhere. Experiments conducted by the American Navy, however, proved that armour plate below a certain thickness was more dangerous than none at all, since it served merely to detonate shells which otherwise would probably have passed through without exploding. The “all-or-nothing” system was applied to the British vessels Nelson and Rodney. As no ship armoured on this principle has ever yet been tested in action, it is impossible to say whether the new system is superior to the old.

All but three or four of the fifteen U.S. battleships have been thoroughly rebuilt and modernized in recent years at an average coat of £2,000,000 a ship. This process has included the provision of anti-torpedo bulges, extra armouring, increased elevation for the big guns to endow them with longer range, and in some ships an entirely new set of propelling machinery. Further, every vessel has been equipped with eight 5-in. anti-aircraft guns, the heaviest armament of this type mounted in any battleships other than those of the Japanese Navy. Provision is made also for carrying at least three aircraft.

The Pensacola. Seaplanes carried on board the United States cruiser Pensacola are housed between the two funnels The Pensacola carries four seaplanes and is equipped with two catapults. Her armament includes ten 8-in., four 5-in. anti-aircraft and two 3-pounder guns, in addition to six 21-in. torpedo tubes. Identical in dimensions to the Salt Lake City, the Pensacola has an overall length of 585 ft. 6 in.

The American Navy has been the pioneer in adapting air power to naval purposes and in furnishing ships with the most efficient means of defence against air attack. One interesting item of battleship modernization in America has been the fitting of tripod masts of British type in place of the ungainly lattice or cage structures which were for many years a conspicuous feature of United States capital ships. The cage mast was introduced in the belief that it could not be destroyed by shell fire, but experience proved it to be unsuitable for fire-control purposes, as the elastic structure developed a serious degree of “back lash” under the concussion of the ship’s own guns.

Thanks to the excellence of their original design and the completeness with which they have been modernized, the fifteen American ships constitute a battle force inferior to none in existence. On a purely technical comparison the British battle fleet may appear to possess an advantage by reason of the heavier calibre of its guns, but in fact the difference is slight, and fully compensated by the superior volume of fire which the American force, with its more numerous guns in each ship, is able to develop.

Until comparatively lately the building of cruisers had been neglected in America, so that the navy lacked balance. It became, as it were, an inverted pyramid, top-heavy with battleships and having scarcely anything between these mastodons and torpedo craft. So pronounced was the shortage that destroyers had to be used as scouts, a function for which they are ill-suited. This deficiency is now a thing of the past. Since 1928 cruiser construction has been proceeding on a large scale, and when the present programme is completed a few years hence the United States will have a force of cruisers unsurpassed by any other navy’s.