The South Dakota class was a group of four fast battleships built by the United States Navy. They were the second class of battleships to be named after the 40th state; the first were designed in the
Alabama in Casco Bay, Maine, circa December 1942
South Dakota under construction in April 1940
South Dakota shows the range of independent elevation of her main guns
Massachusetts' 5-inch gun battery
The North Carolina class were a pair of fast battleships, North Carolina and Washington, built for the United States Navy in the late 1930s and early 1940s.
South Dakota-class battleship (1939)
…Indiana, Massachusetts, and Alabama. They were designed to the same treaty standard displacement limit of 35,000 long tons (35,600 t) as the preceding North Carolina class and had the same main battery of nine 16"/45 caliber Mark 6 guns in three-gun turrets, but were more compact and better protected. The ships can be…
North Carolina underway on 3 June 1946. By this time, many of the light anti-aircraft weapons (Bofors 40 mm and Oerlikon 20 mm) mounted during the war had been removed, while more modern radars had been mounted on its fore and main masts.
North Carolina seen from the air on 17 April 1942
North Carolina fires a three-gun salvo from its number one turret
The 32,250-long-ton (32,770 t) design "A" was one of the first proposals. Unlike "B" and "C", it was far below the treaty-mandated limit of 35,000–tons. It would have carried nine 14-inch guns in its main battery; although all of the turrets were forward of the superstructure, the guns could still fire forward provided that they were elevated to 4.5 degrees or more. The secondary battery planned was twelve 5-inch (127 mm) were unusually arranged in triple mounts.