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The ''Connecticut''-class of pre-dreadnought battleships were the penultimate class of the type built for the United States Navy. The class comprised six ships: , , , , , and , which were built between 1903 and 1908. The ships were armed with a mixed offensive battery of , , and guns. This arrangement was rendered obsolete by the advent of all-big-gun battleships like the British , which was completed before most of the ''Connecticut''s entered service. Nevertheless, the ships had active careers. The first five ships took part in the cruise of the Great White Fleet in 1907–1909—''New Hampshire'' had not entered service. From 1909 onward, they served as the workhorses of the US Atlantic Fleet, conducting training exercises and showing the flag in Europe and Central America. As unrest broke out in several Central American countries in the 1910s, the ships became involved in police actions in the region. The most significant was the American intervention in the Mexican Revolution during the occupation of Veracruz in April 1914. During the American participation in World War I, the ''Connecticut''-class ships were used to train sailors for an expanding wartime fleet. In late 1918, they began to escort convoys to Europe, and in September that year, ''Minnesota'' was badly damaged by a mine laid by a German U-boat. After the war, they were used to bring American soldiers back from France and later as training ships. The 1922 Washington Naval Treaty, which mandated major reductions in naval weapons, cut the ships' careers short. Within two years, all six ships had been sold for scrap. ==Design== The United States' victory in the Spanish–American War in 1898 before had a dramatic impact on battleship design, as the question of the role of the fleet—namely, whether it should be focused on coastal defense or high seas operations—had been solved. The fleet's ability to conduct offensive operations overseas showed the necessity of a powerful fleet of battleships. As a result, the US Congress was willing to authorize much larger ships. Design work on what would become the ''Connecticut'' class began in 1901. The Secretary of the Navy submitted a request for a new battleship design on 6 March to the Board on Construction. Among the issues considered was the composition and placement of the secondary battery. The preceding design, the , placed some of its secondary guns in fixed turrets atop the main battery turrets as a way to save weight. The Board disliked the arrangement, as some members argued that guns in casemates could be fired faster. Additionally, the ''Virginia''s had mounted a mixed secondary battery of and guns; the Bureau of Ordnance (BuOrd) had recently introduced a quick-firing gun, which was more powerful than the 6 in and fired faster than the 8 in. The initial version of the ''Connecticut'' design, proposed by BuOrd, featured a secondary battery of twenty-four 7 in guns with the same number of guns for defense against torpedo boats. The armor layout was more comprehensive but thinner, and displacement rose to . BuOrd determined that a longer and finer hull shape, coupled with a small increase in engine power, would maintain the standard speed of . The Bureau of Construction and Repair (C&R) proposed a ship more closely based on the ''Virginia''s, with the same two-story turrets and mixed 6- and 8-inch secondary battery, on a displacement of . This design featured only eight 3 in guns, which was deemed wholly insufficient to defend the ship from small craft. In November, the Board agreed to a compromise design that incorporated a secondary battery of eight 8 in guns in four twin turrets amidships and twelve 7 in guns in casemates. The decision to retain the 8 in guns was made in large part due to American experiences in the Spanish-American War three years before. US Navy officers had been impressed with the performance of the gun at the Battle of Santiago de Cuba; despite scoring only 13 hits out of 309 shells fired, the gun had a flat trajectory and good range for its size. Armor protection was improved over the BuOrd design, with a thicker armored belt and casemate protection, albeit at the expense of thinner armor covering the barbettes that supported the gun turrets. The designers reasoned that since the barbettes were behind the belt and a transverse bulkhead, weight could be saved by reducing the level of direct protection. The last four ships, starting with , received slightly improved armor protection, with the last vessel——having further improvements. As a result, they are sometimes referred to as the ''Vermont'' class. The six ''Connecticut''-class ships were the most powerful pre-dreadnought type battleship built by the US Navy, and they compared well with contemporary foreign designs. They were nevertheless rendered obsolescent almost immediately due to the advent of the "all-big-gun" battleship epitomized by the British . Two follow-on ships, the , were built at the same time to a design based on the ''Connecticut''s but significantly reduced in size. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Connecticut-class battleship」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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