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The ''Wyoming'' class was a pair of dreadnought battleships built for the United States Navy. The two ships, and , were authorized in early 1909, and they were built between 1910 and 1912. They were the fourth dreadnought design of the US Navy, and they marked an incremental improvement over the preceding . The primary changes being the addition of a sixth twin-gun turret, bringing the number of guns to twelve, and improved armor protection, including the first use of a torpedo bulkhead in an American battleship design. The Navy had seriously considered a significantly more powerful gun, but it would have entailed major delays and required extensive harbor improvements to accommodate what would have been much larger ships. The two ships frequently served together, first in the Atlantic Fleet in the 1910s. Both vessels were deployed to British waters after the United States entered World War I in April 1917 to reinforce the Royal Navy's Grand Fleet. They served in the Pacific Fleet in 1919–21, before both returned to the Atlantic Fleet. Much of their time in the Atlantic Fleet was spent conducting peacetime training exercises, along with taking midshipmen from the US Naval Academy on training cruises. ''Wyoming'' and ''Arkansas'' were heavily modernized in the mid-1920s, receiving more efficient oil-fired boilers to replace their old coal-fired models, thicker deck armor to protect against plunging fire, anti-torpedo bulges to increase their resistance to underwater damage, and anti-aircraft guns to defend against aerial attacks. The London Naval Treaty of 1930 mandated that ''Wyoming'' be demilitarized; she accordingly was converted into a training ship, with half of her main battery turrets, belt armor, and anti-torpedo bulges removed. ''Arkansas'' was permitted to continue in service with the fleet, however. After the United States entered World War II, ''Arkansas'' was used to escort convoys to North Africa. By 1944, she served as a coastal bombardment vessel; in this role, she supported Allied landings at Normandy (Operation Overlord) and southern France (Operation Dragoon) before being transferred to the Pacific, where she provided fire support to Marines fighting on Iwo Jima and at Okinawa in 1945. ''Wyoming'' meanwhile continued as a training ship, being modified further in 1944 to include the various types of anti-aircraft guns that trainees would operate in the fleet. Both ships were decommissioned shortly after the war, with ''Arkansas'' being expended as a target ship during the 1946 nuclear tests at Operation Crossroads, and ''Wyoming'' being sold for scrap in 1947. == Design == On 22 July 1908, the Newport Conference was held; this included the General Board, the staff of the Naval War College, President Theodore Roosevelt—who had a keen interest in naval matters—and other officers. This conference examined a series of issues relating to existing battleships and new designs; the first of these new ships would become the ''Wyoming'' class. The Board on Construction received general instructions from the Newport Conference; those at the conference favored adopting the gun, as the British Royal Navy had already traded their guns for pieces. The Bureau of Ordnance (BuOrd) estimated that design work on the new gun, production, and testing would take two years. On 26 August, the Secretary of the Navy, Victor Metcalf, issued a request for eight- and ten-gun battleships armed with the 14 in weapons to the Bureau of Construction and Repair (C&R). Speed was to be at least , with as much armor as could be accommodated. BuOrd argued that at likely battle ranges, , the 12 in gun was powerful enough to penetrate existing armor, and so the 14 in gun was unnecessary. C&R produced three designs to meet Metcalf's request, all based on the preceding design; the first, referred to as design 404, was a battleship armed with eight 14 in guns. The second, design 502, had an additional twin turret for a total of ten 14 in guns. The third, design 601, would be fitted with twelve 12 in guns. The General Board chose 601, since the design work for the 14 in gun had not begun, and adopting it would have caused the class to be delayed. In addition, the ships' displacement would have increased more dramatically with the larger gun, requiring extensive improvements to harbor facilities; design 502 would have only been able to dock in Pearl Harbor and Puget Sound with the existing facilities. The placement of the secondary battery also proved to be problematic. The cruise of the Great White Fleet in 1907–09 had demonstrated the problems with casemates on the main deck. They were too easily washed out in even moderate seas, making them unusable. Some officers at the Newport Conference had advocated placing them in the superstructure, but the heavy guns used by the Navy would have added excessive top weight. Another alternative was to place them in the forecastle, but the additional weight forward would have strained the ship where the forecastle stepped down to the main deck. The designers ultimately settled on a full-length forecastle, which allowed the casemates to be moved about higher in the hull. The ships' armor protection was improved over earlier designs. The belt and barbette armor was increased by an inch compared to an earlier version of the twelve-gun battleship. A new protection scheme for the funnels was devised, after the Russian experience at the Battle of Tsushima three years before had highlighted the risk of a destroyed exhaust system. The designers also emphasized the need for improved underwater protection. As a result, the ''Wyoming'' design incorporated a torpedo bulkhead, the first time the feature was included on an American battleship design. Congress approved two new battleships, BB-32 and BB-33, on 3 March 1909. Design 502 later proved to be the basis for the subsequent class of battleships, the s. 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「Wyoming-class battleship」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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