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The ''Virginia''-class of pre-dreadnought battleships were built for the United States Navy in the early 1900s. The class comprised five ships: , , , , and . The ships carried a mixed-caliber offensive battery of four and eight guns; these were mounted in an uncommon arrangement, with four of the 8-inch guns placed atop the 12-inch turrets. The arrangement proved to be a failure, as the 8-inch guns could not be fired independently of the 12-inch guns without interfering with them. Additionally, by the time the ''Virginia''s entered service, the first "all-big-gun" battleships—including the British —were nearing completion, which would render mixed battery ships like the ''Virginia'' class obsolescent. Nevertheless, the ships had active careers. All five ships took part in the cruise of the Great White Fleet in 1907–1909. 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 ''Virginia''-class ships were used to train sailors for an expanding wartime fleet. In September 1918, they began to escort convoys to Europe, though Germany surrendered two months later, ending the conflict. 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. ''Virginia'' and ''New Jersey'' were sunk in bombing tests in 1923, and the other three ships were broken up for scrap later that year. ==Design== The United States' victory in the Spanish–American War in 1898 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; the ''Virginia''s, three of which were authorized on 3 March 1899, were the first of these new ships. Two more were authorized on 7 June 1900, with the displacement for all five ships proposed at , a significant increase over previous designs. Initial design work, which began with a memorandum issued on 12 July 1898, called for a battleship based on the , to be armed with four guns, sixteen guns, and ten guns, protected with a 12 in belt of Krupp armor, and capable of steaming at . Arguments over the projected displacement and armament prevented further work until October 1899. Captain Charles O'Neill argued for a mixed battery of 12 in and guns with superposed turrets, while Phillip Hichborn, the chief constructor at the Bureau of Construction and Repair, preferred a design armed uniformly with guns instead of the mixed battery. The decision was made to adopt the mixed battery, since the 8 in gun could penetrate the medium armor on foreign battleships that protected their secondary batteries. Captain Royal Bradford, the chief of the Bureau of Equipment, suggested that 18.5 knots would be sufficient, though O'Neill demanded ; a compromise was found by requiring a minimum of . These compromises produced two variants: "A", which arranged the 8 in guns in four twin turrets amidships as with the , and "B", which placed two of the four turrets atop the 12 in turrets, as on the . The "A" design included sixteen 6 in guns in casemates, while "B" had only twelve. The Board on Construction initially favored "A", though one officer on the board rejected the design so strongly that the Secretary of the Navy ordered a second, larger board to be formed to examine the two designs. Eight line officers were added to the board; this group favored the superposed turrets of "B". One of the members, Rear Admiral Albert Baker, suggested to build the first three ships to "A" and the last two to "B". The board initially approved the idea, but the chief of the Bureau of Ordnance rejected it in favor of uniformity of design. The Secretary of the Navy convened a third board to settle the matter, and ten of the twelve members voted for "B". The finalized design was approved on 5 February 1901. The superposed turrets ultimately proved to be very problematic; the arrangement had been conceived initially to save weight and allow the much faster firing 8 in guns to shoot during the long reload time necessary for large caliber guns. By the time the ''Virginia''s entered service, smokeless propellant and rapid firing, large caliber guns had reduced the time between shots from 180 seconds to 20. The 8 in guns could no longer fire at their maximum rate without interfering with the 12 in guns, since the concussion and hot gasses would disrupt the crew below. In addition, the British —the first "all-big-gun" battleship to enter service—commissioned in late 1906 shortly after the ''Virginia''s and rendered them obsolescent at a single stroke. 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「Virginia-class battleship」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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