The USS Tennessee was an American super-dreadnought battleship launched in 1919. The ships of the Tennessee class were the last
ones designed for the United States Navy before this one had knowledge of the British battleships of Queen Elizabeth class,
which were armed with 381-millimeter cannons; as a consequence of this, the successive American battleships would be designed
for mounting 406-millimeter cannons. Unlike in previous designs, in the ships of the Tennesse class the secondary armament was
no longer integrated in the hull.
The USS Tennessee and her sister USS California were damaged during the attack at Pearl Harbour in December 1941. The USS Tennessee
was reincorporated to active duty in March 1942 and the following year, along with her sister, she suffered a deep reconstruction,
which not only provided an important improvement for her combat capacity, but also a radical change on her appearance. The propulsion
system and the main armament remained the same, but the hull was widened and the superstructure was totally remodelled. The cost of this grandiose
transformation was not correctly valued, given the radical changes that naval warfare was suffering then.
The illustration shows the USS Tennessee after her reconstruction in 1943; note the single funnel and the compact superstructure
surrounded by antiaircraft artillery and radars, and the catapult astern with a Kingfisher seaplane. The USS Tennessee and the
USS California operated in the Pacific and survived the war, only to be decommissioned in 1947 and finally scrapped in 1959.
Class: Tennessee (2 units - California (BB-44), Tennessee (BB-43))
Type: Battleship
Length: 190.7 meters
Beam: 29.7 meters as built; 34.8 meters in 1945
Draught: 9.2 meters as built; 10.7 meters in 1945
Displacement (full load): 34540 tonnes as built; 41150 tonnes in 1945
Propulsion: 4 x shaft, electric motors Westinghouse, steam turbines Westinghouse, 8 x boiler Babcock and Wilcox, 30900 horsepower
Speed: 21 knots (39 kilometers/hour)
Range: 8400 nautical miles (15540 kilometers) at 10 knots
Fuel: 3380 tonnes of petrol
Complement: 1083 as built; 2375 in 1945
Armament (as built): 12 x 356-millimeter 50-caliber cannon, 14 x 127-millimeter 51-caliber cannon, 4 x 76-millimeter cannon, 2 x 533-millimeter torpedo tube
Armament (in 1945): 12 x 356-millimeter 50-caliber cannon, 16 x 127-millimeter 38-caliber cannon, 48 x 40-millimeter cannon,
51 x 20-millimeter cannon, 2 x 533-millimeter torpedo tube, 2 x aircraft
Armor: 356 millimeters in belt, 203 millimeters in ends, 90 millimeters in upper deck, 63-127 millimeters in lower deck,
330 millimeters in barbettes, 229-457 millimeters in main turrets, 292 millimeters in conning tower
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