Colorado Class Battleship - Design

Design

The construction of battleships armed with 16-inch guns was envisioned by the United States Navy General Board and Bureau of Construction and Repair (C&R) as early as 1913, as the upgrade in gun caliber promised twice the muzzle velocity of the 12-inch gun then in service and half again as much as the 14-inch gun then being introduced. This weapon dominated the design of battleships between 1913 and 1916, just as the 14-inch gun had dictated designs from 1908 to 1910. However, while the General Board approved the 16-inch gun as early as 1911, the secretary of the navy felt that a move to a new gun caliber might make capital ships still on the drawing board obsolete. For this reason, he restricted the Bureau of Ordnance to proceed no further than blueprints for the new gun as a hedge against foreign developments. He finally approved construction of this gun in October 1912 and the weapon was test fired successfully in August 1914. This success, along with the unofficial news in several naval publications of 15- and 16-inch weapons being adopted by Britain, Italy, Germany and Japan, the Board considered abandoning construction of the Pennsylvania class in favor of an up-gunned design. Such a move meant an increase of 8,000 tons per ship, twice as much as the jump from the Nevadas to the Pennsylvanias. Debate continued for the next three years. Each year, President Woodrow Wilson's secretary of the navy, Josephus Daniels, balked at the potential increase in cost and ordered instead that the design features of Standard Class be upheld. Daniels finally compromised with the 1917 design battleships by allowing their armament to be upgraded. This, however, was to be the only substantial change to be allowed

The design of the Colorado class, therefore, was taken from the preceding Tennessee class; other than the notable improvement of eight 16 in (410 mm)/45 caliber in four dual turrets taking the place of the other class' twelve 14 in (360 mm)/50 caliber guns in four triple gun turrets, there was not a major difference between the two designs. Likewise, the Tennessees were the results of modifications to the New Mexico class, which had been the most modern US capital ships to see service in World War I and had attracted the attention of British constructors both serving with and outside C&R. This similarity would carry over into the Lexington and South Dakota classes as the United States Navy increasingly standardized its capital ship designs. This was partly the result of wartime experience, when over 250 destroyers and more than 450 submarine chasers had to be built quickly for service in the North Atlantic. The U.S. Navy had done this by a process almost akin to the assembly line, sticking to one basic design per class with a maximum amount of standardization and rationalization. Since the Naval Act of 1916 meant the imminent construction of 16 battleships and six battlecruisers, it was necessary to streamline production to save time and labor.

Neverthelss, while US battleships were standardized as much as possible, design improvements were incorporated whenever possible. Most of the changes in the Tennessees were incorporated prior to any of their keels being laid. However, plans for the underwater protection—the ships' main defense against torpedoes and shells that fell short of the ship but traveled through the water to hit underneath the waterline—could not be worked out in time. The problem was that tests in caissons—experiments that would eventually prove that a series of compartments divided between being filled with liquid and being left empty would be a very effective defense against torpedoes—were not yet complete. In order to commence construction of the ships as soon as possible, bids sent out to shipbuilding corporations noted that if they were selected to build the ships, an alteration to the design of the ships three months after their keels were laid must be allowed.