USN Ship Types--Mississippi class (Battleships 23 and 24) (original) (raw)

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Photo # NH 74260: USS Idaho off Fort Lee, New York, 1909

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-- U.S. NAVY SHIP TYPES -- BATTLESHIPS --

Mississippi Class (Battleships 23 & 24),

1904 Building Program

The Mississippi class represented the U.S. Navy's final design of what would soon be called "pre-dreadnoughts", battleships with a main battery of two or more different-sized guns. Congressional action limited their displacement, a response to the rising size and cost of battleships that was also justified by the hardy theory that numbers of ships are more important that the quality of individual units. Accordingly, they were smaller, slower and shorter-ranged than their contemporaries, though their armament was similar in power: A pair of 12-inch guns in a turret at each end of the superstructure, 8-inch guns mounted in two twin turrets on each side amidships and four 7-inch guns in casemates on each side of the hull. Operationally, the Navy clearly regarded them as inadequate, a view that undoubtedly encouraged their early disposal.

However, during their early careers, _Mississippi_and her sister, USS Idaho, underwent the same pattern of modernization as other modern U.S. Navy battleships. Commissioned right at the end of the era of "white and buff" paint schemes, both received new "cage" mainmasts and were repainted overall gray before the end of their first year's service. In 1910, they were fitted with "cage" foremasts in place of the original "military"type, giving them a much more balanced appearance.

In addition to the usual east coast and Caribbean service pattern of most their contemporaries, both ships made a cruise or two to Europe. Mississippi ended her American career as an aviation support ship, the Navy's first of the type, and tended her seaplanes in a pioneering combat role during the 1914 Vera Cruz operation. In July 1914, the two ships were sold to Greece, the only U.S. Navy battleships ever to be transferred to a foreign power. Nearly three decades later, in April 1941, after their active service had ended, they were sunk by German dive bombing attacks. They were the first American-built battleships to be lost to hostile air attack.

The Mississippi class numbered two ships, both built at the William Cramp & Sons shipyard, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: