Maine Class Battleship
The three Maine class battleships: Maine, Missouri, and Ohio were launched in the first several years of the 20th century. These were the first US capital ships to use smokeless powder for their main batteries, and the last to use Harvey armor. Smokeless powder allowed a decrease in gun size, with an increase in power and efficiency. Harvey armor, though only in use for a decade, was already obsolete. This was also the first US battleship class to use submerged torpedo tubes; this became possible because the hulls were at least 20 feet longer than previous US battleships.
The design was influenced by the Russian battleship Retvizan which was also built by William Cramp and Sons in Philadelphia.
Read more about Maine Class Battleship: Construction
Famous quotes containing the words maine and/or class:
“On a late-winter evening in 1983, while driving through fog along the Maine coast, recollections of old campfires began to drift into the March mist, and I thought of the Abnaki Indians of the Algonquin tribe who dwelt near Bangor a thousand years ago.”
—Norman Mailer (b. 1923)
“We are the only class in history that has been left to fight its battles alone, unaided by the ruling powers. White labor and the freed black men had their champions, but where are ours?”
—Elizabeth Cady Stanton (1815–1902)