![]() The Iowas are widely considered to be amongst the most attractive battleships ever built, with a long, narrow, elegant bow and three powerful gun turrets. While excellent sea boats, the ships are quite wet forward owing to the long bow. Like all American battleships of their generation, their armament was laid out in two turrets before the superstructure and one after ("2-A-1"), with the 5 inch dual-purpose secondaries (anti-ship and anti-aircraft) flanking the superstructure. By battleship standards they were slender for their length, in order to be able to pass through the Panama Canal. This made them difficult to armor, especially forward, near the #1 turret. ![]() The ships are actually two feet wider than what is accepted in the present day as a Panamax configuration, only allowing a single foot of clearance either side of the hull. The follow-on Montana class battleships, had they been completed, would have been built to a post- Panamax design, having a beam 12 feet wider than the Iowas. The Iowas were unique in several respects. First, they were designed as "fast" battleships, able to rely on an even mix of speed and firepower, and capable of sailing at the same speed as the carrier force. ![]() Second, although they had to be designed to fit through the Panama Canal, they took that to the limit, as described above.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply.AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |