Nevada Class Battleship - Design

Design

With these ships the U.S. Navy developed a template that it would use until the end of dreadnought construction in 1922. Its essentials were consistent size and speed, oil fuel instead of coal and a reversion to the raised-end mounting of heavy guns in four turrets that was used in the South Carolina class to keep the citadel compact. The decision to mount triple gun turrets proved controversial. Naval officers and engineers warned of "putting too many eggs in one basket," that a lucky hit could disable more of the main guns than if they were carried in twin turrets and leave a ship at a disadvantage in battle. Shipbuilders warned that triple turrets could affect a ship's stability adversely because of their greater weight, especially when raised in a superfire mounting. However, the Navy's Bureau of Construction and Repair (C&R), which designed the Nevadas, considered triple turrets necessary to save space and weight, keep the citadel at a reasonable size and the armor protection maximized accordingly. It also eliminated the challenges of steam lines running along main gun magazines and ineffective placement of heavy guns. The Navy would use triple turrets in almost all of its subsequent battleship designs.

The Nevadas were also the first U.S. battleships to use the "all or nothing" principle of armor protection, also known as "raft body" armor. Previous battleships had armor of varying thickness—depending on the importance of the area it was protecting. On the Nevadas, armored surfaces were limited to a minimum but were given the maximum thickness possible to give the most protection possible to critical areas such as magazines, engines and command areas and to ensure the maintenance of buoyancy. Heavy deck armor was emphasized to guard against plunging fire. Citadel armor was omitted entirely in the thought that medium-heavy armor could actually be a detriment, since it could no longer afford protection against a direct hit and potentially cause enemy shells to explode and cause further damage. In short, the Nevadas were designed specifically to fight at extreme ranges expected by gunnery experts. In that sense, they were well ahead of their time, as the Battle of Jutland in 1916 would show. While other navies distinguished between their pre- and post-Jutland capital ship designs, the U.S. Navy did not feel so compelled.