Ancestors

Written by Richard Welty on 2024-12-28 at 12:10

taking advantage of our extended trip to Durham NC for the holidays; today i'm making the run to the coast to visit the Battleship North Carolina. will post a few pics later today. 1/

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Written by Richard Welty on 2024-12-28 at 12:12

2/ North Carolina was the first Treaty Battleship built by the US. the Washington Naval Treaties had imposed limits on naval units built by the signatories (the major naval powers) including a battleship "holiday". the holiday ended in the mid 1930s at which point new BBs were constructed. these BBs, though, were constrained by the treaties (the Washington Treaty and the subsequent London Treaties) in both displacement and size of the main battery.

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Written by Richard Welty on 2024-12-28 at 12:15

3/ thus, the design of the North Carolina class was limited to 35,000 tons and 14" guns. however, actions by various treaty signatories triggered a clause that permitted the North Carolinas to be built with 16" guns, leading to an "imbalanced" design; this is to day that the North Carolinas were not armored against guns of the size they carried. two North Carolinas were built (the other being Washington) and they served well through out the war.

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Written by Richard Welty on 2024-12-28 at 12:28

4/ Washington, in particular, was noted for the accuracy of her gunnery (Admiral Lee, who used Washington as his flagship, was a noted marksman and wouldn't have it any other way.) the story of Washington (and Lee's) encounter with Krishima at Guadalcanal is told here: https://www.usni.org/magazines/naval-history-magazine/2011/january/washington-wins-draw

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Written by Richard Welty on 2024-12-28 at 12:29

5/ the North Carolinas were immediately followed by the 4 BBs of the South Dakota class. they reduced the length of the ship to afford a more compact armored citadel, thus balancing the design.

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Toot

Written by Richard Welty on 2024-12-28 at 12:33

6/ Battleship gunfire actions were rare in the Pacific. US battleships only participated in two. BBs were being eclipsed by carriers, and mostly served as floating AA batteries (you can fit a lot of AA guns on a battleship) and for shore bombardment. US naval officers quickly became obsessed with AA and spent the entire war figuring out how to cram more and more on everything that floated.

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Descendants

Written by Richard Welty on 2024-12-28 at 12:34

7/7 of these battleships North Carolina was preserved, in Wilmington. Two of the South Dakotas were preserved, Massachusetts (Fall River MA) and Alabama (Mobile AL). The following class of battleships, the Iowas, were a different story.

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