Mississippi Class Battleship - Purpose

Purpose

In the early twentieth century, the U.S. Navy was growing rapidly. The Navy commissioned its first battleships in 1895, and by the middle of the next decade Jane's Fighting Ships ranked its battle line second only to the Royal Navy. However, this rapid growth was not universally supported either within the government or within the Navy. Compromises between powerful groups were frequently necessary in order to get funding.

The Mississippi class ships were designed to meet Congressional and Navy Department objectives of reducing the escalating cost of new battleships, the quantity, size, and cost of which had increased dramatically over the first two decades of U.S. battleship production. There was a division among U.S. naval planners in the early years of the 20th century over whether to have technically superior ships or many less expensive ones, with President Theodore Roosevelt among those supporting the former and Admiral Thomas Dewey, along with Captain Alfred Thayer Mahan, supporting the latter approach. The 1903 naval budget effected a compromise by calling for five ships: three more ships of the 16,000 ton Connecticut class and two ships of a new less expensive class of approximately 13,000 tons, with the design still to be determined.

The ships that became the Mississippi class were intended to serve as the modern equivalent of 19th-century third-rate ships of the line, offering what was thought to be an efficient compromise between sailing ability (speed, handling), firepower, and cost. This concept had formed the backbone of the sailing battle fleets of the previous century, but trends in early twentieth century naval strategies were making the third-rate concept obsolete. Prevailing strategies called for a consistent battle line of first-rate units. The next U.S. battleship design, the South Carolina class, was a completely different approach returning to the displacement of the Connecticut class and using the all-big-gun format similar in concept to the HMS Dreadnought.