This looks like an early experiment in photo-shopping or simply a model. It is in fact a genuine picture of a US battleship circa 1946, painted a garish red in the manner of Cary Grant’s pink submarine in the 1959 comedy Operation Petticoat. The unusual arrangement of the ship’s main armament – twin turrets ‘super-firing’ over triple turrets – is a giveaway to its identity. Only the Nevada Class had this evolutionary mixed configuration, and the name ship was the only one of the class extant after the loss of her sister Oklahoma at Pearl Harbour.
The Nevada Class was arguably as revolutionary in its approach to armour as HMS Dreadnought had been to armament. The Americans were the first to realize the deficiencies of incremental armour schemes in an era when sea battles were being fought at increasingly longer ranges. As early as 1908, the decision was taken by US naval planners to concentrate armour on a ship’s most vital elements; the so-called ‘all or nothing’ approach; in order to provide better protection against plunging shellfire. The logic of ‘all or nothing’ was straightforward; armour should either be heavy enough to resist an incoming shell or light enough to allow it to pass through the vessel without bursting. In addition to optimizing armour, the housing of the Nevadas’ main armament in a reduced number of turrets (previous classes carried a fifth turret amidships) reduced the amount that was necessary to protect turret faces and shell magazines. The result was a ship with an unprecedented 41% of its displacement given over to armour protection.
The Nevada Class incorporated several other firsts. As well as being the first US dreadnoughts equipped with triple turrets, they were also the first oil-fired American battleships. In addition to being cleaner, oil was more fuel-efficient than coal, allowing for a greater steaming radius. This issue of endurance had become pressing for the US Navy after the Spanish-American War, which gifted it colonies up to 6,500 nautical miles away from its West Coast bases. Another benefit of having oil-fired engines was that boiler-room personnel could be significantly reduced. Thus, although the Nevadas were a similar size to the preceding New York Class, their ship complements were actually smaller. Fuel economy was enhanced further by the fitting of ‘geared turbines’; another first.
Authorised in March 1911, Nevada was laid down in January 1912. Her construction at Fore River Shipbuilding Company in Massachusetts took almost three and a half years. Her launch in July 1914 was attended by then Assistant Secretary of the Navy Franklin D. Roosevelt. Her commissioning in March of 1916 came one month after that of the last of the Royal Navy’s Queen Elizabeth Class battleships, HMS Malaya. These contemporaries were on paper quite evenly matched; Malaya having the offensive advantage in speed and, with her eight 15-inch guns, weight of salvo; Nevada having the defensive upper-hand with its innovative protection.[1]
The two Nevada Class battleships were the first units of the US Navy’s ‘standard’ battle fleet. Between 1912 and 1920, 16 more ‘all or nothing’ battleships were laid down, each having a similar super-firing turret arrangement and being more or less equal in terms of speed, endurance, and turning radius.[2] Although five units were cancelled as a result of the Washington Naval Conference in 1922, by this time the US already had a battle fleet to rival that of Britain, and this was reflected in the naval parity agreed to by the two sides during the Treaty negotiations.
The Nevada in the photograph is substantially different in appearance to how she looked after her commissioning in 1916. Like all early dreadnoughts, her secondary armament was originally sited in casemates below the main deck; above, it can be seen arranged in twin box turrets on the main deck. All American dreadnoughts were originally fitted with distinctive lattice masts. However, during her major refit between 1927 and 1930, Nevada’s were replaced by British-style tripod masts. Other changes made at this time were the addition of anti-torpedo bulges, the replacement of her engines with those taken from the cancelled USS South Dakota, and the addition of aircraft catapults at her stern and two Vought O2U Corsair spotter planes. As the vulnerability of surface warships to air attack became increasingly evident, Nevada’s anti-aircraft weaponry rapidly multiplied. By 1942, she bristled with 32 Bofors and 40 Oerlikons in addition to her dual-purpose secondary armament.
Bow Creek to Anatahan 