How many battleships were built?

[USSWisconsin]

US Battleship building yards

[Dreadnought]

In case you may want to read a little about PNSY. At the time it was pretty much a one of a kind base. Like no other.

Outside of ship building, they also produced, turbines, boilers, propellers ,aircraft, rockets, submarines, uniforms and even participated briefly in the Atomic bomb. They also had an armor shop, built turrets, used as a Marine Training reserve and other things mentioned here. It is/was also one of the largest naval reserves chosen because it was in freshwater instead of saltwater. As mentioned, at one time, a base like no other out there.

The Philadelphia Navy Yard: from the ... - Google Books

[USSWisconsin]

In case you may want to read a little about PNSY. At the time it was pretty much a one of a kind base. Like no other.

Outside of ship building, they also produced, turbines, boilers, propellers ,aircraft, rockets, submarines, uniforms and even participated briefly in the Atomic bomb. They also had an armor shop, built turrets, used as a Marine Training reserve and other things mentioned here. It is/was also one of the largest naval reserves chosen because it was in freshwater instead of saltwater. As mentioned, at one time, a base like no other out there.

The Philadelphia Navy Yard: from the ... - Google Books

Thank You - good book - I may invest in it - the yards are really interesting - as Rusty's book demonstrated
I used your extra info to expand my paragraph on PNSY, it was too breif, but this is just an addendum to the main subject of battleships, and I am considering adding the major refitting yards, like LBNSY and Puget Sound - though I may not - since the USN battleships section is already the largest now - about 130 pages without the details of the ACR's and Ironclads (probably another 5 pages with these) - it will be a whole different work - every thing is changed -your name will listed as a contributor in the bibilography.

[Dreadnought]

Thanks Whiskey, but not necessary.

[USSWisconsin]

the new navy

this part supplements the battleships

[USSWisconsin]

The USN Battleships revised

Here is a nearly finished version - I am pretty happy with this - I shortened the ironclads section and added more text - all the battleship parts were updated. Now all the other sections can have a similar update - to include the same stuff. I may want an unbuilt plans section too though.

[USSWisconsin]

British Amored Cruisers

A subsection for the British Battleships section - it will be incorporated in that section - but for now it is a stand alone section - 47 ships - here it is:
(British coast defense ships, experimental ironclads and monitors still in progress, coming soon... all but the monitors part is already done)

[USSWisconsin]

British Big Gun Monitors

Here is a section on the big gun monitors

[USSWisconsin]

Experimental Ironclads and Coast Defense Ships

[USSWisconsin]

[ATTACH]26656[/ATTACH]

Sort of a catch all section - with the ships that didn't fall into any other categories - and the coast defense ships - that Britain didn't really need (they were handy in India and Australia... but for the most part the British fleet made them unnecessary - these types were really best suited to smaller countries without full size battleships. With a large fleet protecting the home islands - the need for these was questionable - how would an enemy fleet get to them?

[USSWisconsin]

The Study of Battleships

Why would anyone care about ships that haven't been built since WWII, and probably won't ever be built again? These ships were symbolic, icons of power and resistance - demonstrating the strength of the nations that commissioned them. Studying them provides a window into the nations of the time, the features they felt were essential, reflecting their attitudes and policies, the size and strengths of the fleets reflecting their relative positions on the world stage. The battleship rose to the top of the weapons pyramid in the late 19th century, it had evolved from the sailing man of war, which had ruled the seas for centuries. It began with steam propulsion and shell firing guns, the steam propulsion would eventually end the dependency on sails, and the shell firing gun would force the abandonment of wooden construction. The armor on these early ships was simple wrought iron, and was not technically advanced compared to the propulsion and weapons, this would change. The battleship didn't come about overnight, the first armored ships were wooden, and didn't even have steam power. The combination of steam and armor occurred in the mid 19th century and was demonstrated in the Crimean war. A more dramatic demonstration occurred in the American Civil War. Shortly before this conflict, Britain and France had embarked on a naval arms race with the wooden hulled French le Glorie being the first sea going armored frigate, and the British response, the larger, iron built HMS Warrior, which upped the ante. Soon “ironclads” were considered essential in all navies, but steam alone was not ready for ocean going ships, and sails remained a feature of these early ships, by the 1880's, pure steam battleships were being built by the world's dominant navies. The progress from the 1880's to 1906 was gradual and evolutionary. This changed in 1906 with the commissioning of HMS Dreadnought, a revolutionary ship, with turbines and an all 12” gun armament. All the existing battleships were obsolete overnight, and a clean slate enabled the German navy to embark on a dreadnought arms race. The dreadnought type evolved until WWII, when it was finally replaced by aircraft carriers as the dominant capital ship. WWII demonstrated weapons that made battleships less invulnerable, and their enormous cost was no longer justified. Nuclear weapons made armor ineffective, and it was reduced or eliminated on most ship types, other weapons like shaped charge warheads and guided missiles made the big gun unnecessary. Aircraft and submarine technology evolved into more cost effective systems, able to take over power projection, bombardment and sea control duties. The British and French each commissioned one new battleship after WWII, but both ships had been designed and laid down before WWII, and their completions were merely delayed (though many updates were made to the designs) – these ships had very short careers and saw little in the way of combat. The USN kept her last four battleships and reactivated them for a number of conflicts after WWII, with a major upgrade being done to the ships less than a decade before they were finally retired in the 1990's. The last battleship to be maintained in reserve by anyone's navy, USS Iowa, was donated to a museum in 2011, and today there are no battleships held by any navy. Some people refer to the Russian Kirov missile cruisers as battleships, and while they are the closest thing to a modern battleship in any fleet today – they aren't battleships, even their builders didn't think so.

A disproportionate amount of attention has been given to the US battleships. These are the best documented and preserved of all the battleships built, with eight ships currently serving as museums, only one other battleship is preserved, the Mikasa in Japan (Mikasa was actually built in Britain, at the end of the 19th century). Several ironclads and armored cruisers are also preserved, and these are often called battleships by the media, but so are most other large warships for that matter. This abundance of information, and the preserved ships all contribute to the perception that the USN built the best and most powerful battleships. While the USN's record with battleships is impressive, it is relevant to consider that the USN actually fought in only a few battles with their battleships against enemy battleships, and only one engagement was anything near evenly matched. The destruction of the Spanish squadron at Santiago was one sided, and the Spanish were hopelessly over-matched, the battle of Leyte Gulf (Suragio Strait) was similar, the Japanese were doomed before the battle started. The 1942 Second Battle of the Java Sea found two US battleships engaging a powerful Japanese squadron, the USS South Dakota was put out of action quickly, but the Kirishima was surprised by the second US battleship, USS Washington, who summarily sank her. With only three surface engagements with her battleships, two of them against much weaker fleets, there was not much experience with these ships in their designed role. Still the Americans lost battleships to enemy action on only two occasions, both times they were attacked without warning, at anchor, in peacetime, and the ships lost were obsolete. The British, Germans and Russians were all involved in many more battleship battles and each suffered the loss of many battleships, allowing much experience with the tactics and effects of such battles. The Americans are a nationalistic people, and many of the surviving people with experience and knowledge of these ships are American, and are justifiable proud of their nation's excellent battleships, their objectivity regarding the battleships of other nations is occasionally questionable. There is little doubt that the final US battleships were among the best ever built, but they were very expensive compared to other battleships, they were never proven in an engagement with other battleships, and all but the ten WWII built US battleships were quite slow compared to their contemporaries (over half of these were also slower than most of their contemporaries). The USN had favored protection and firepower at the expense of speed on most of their ships, which typically allowed the faster battleships to avoid them. The final USN battleships, the Iowa class, were very fast and heavily armed and armored – but had a few issues with seakeeping as compared to some of their international contemporaries. These final US battleships never engaged another battleship in combat.

The British built more battleships than any other nation, and while the quality of their ships is sometimes questioned by people who believe their own nations ships are superior, the facts are that the British fought in more battleship vs battleship engagements than any other nation, and they did quite well in all of them, usually achieving their objectives and rarely loosing a battleship in combat with other battleships. The less expensive British battleships served their purpose quite well, and their lower cost permitted them to be built in adequate numbers when more expensive ships probably wouldn't have been possible at all, at least in the numbers required, this alone justified most of their so called weaknesses. The German battleships proved very difficult to sink, but the expense of building them was hard for that country to endure, and the size of her fleet suffered. The Japanese Nagato and Yamato classes proved to be very tough, and the German Bismark was impressive in the amount of damage she absorbed before sinking. Italian and French battleships were technologically advanced, but circumstances and leadership led to them be surprisingly ineffective. The Czar's battleships – the last to be completed in Russia, were plagued by leadership, political and financial problems and were caught up in the revolution that occurred in that country – rarely prevailing in combat due to the way they were used. Altogether, battleships were built by nine countries, though Spain only built two herself, with British assistance. By WWII, there were only six battleship building countries (the Soviet Union never completed a battleship of their own).

Battleships were so effective in their designed role, that they were rarely sunk by other battleships. The largest single sinking of battleships occurred after WWI, with the German scuttling of their captive High Seas Fleet at Scapa Flow. Many other battleships were destroyed by powder explosions while sitting peacefully at anchor. In combat, aircraft were very deadly to battleships, as were the torpedo and mine (frequently delivered by aircraft), these much cheaper weapons sunk the majority of the battleships that were lost in combat. The aircraft delivered the death blow in WWII (war planners did their part too).

National pride is intangible, and people often favor certain ships for reasons other than the technical or performance. Some people dislike the ships built by other nations because of the conflicts between their countries, seeking to disparage the ships of their “enemy” for largely nationalistic or political reasons. Battleships once represented the peak of technology and the greatest expression of sovereignty and power possible on the world stage. A nation with a powerful battle fleet could not be ignored – this is still the case, thought the ships used to express this power are now typically carriers and submarines. The expense of such large surface combatant warships is now deemed unnecessary, and is no longer considered at all. Guided missiles provide similar firepower to much smaller ships, and the accuracy of these weapons offsets the smaller number of rounds typically carried.

[JAD_333]

Wisconsin:

Very interesting. Good reading. Your punctuation needs some work, but I figure you probably know that.

[Dreadnought]

One instance that stands out though beside Savo Island was Leyte (Surigao Straits) where the ships raised from Pearl Harbor proved their metal against the Japanese. It was the IJN's own strategic failure that put them in the wrong place and the wrong time. Many have and always will question the accuracy of those big guns, but those big guns proved even back then they could hit "bows on targets" which for the range they opened fire with and their age proved the accuracy of the big guns.

"[At 0408] Mississippi got on the big target [Yamashiro] and fired a full salvo, range 19,790 yards. Admiral Oldendorf had just ordered Cease Fire, but she had not yet got the word. Thus Misissippi had the honor of firing the last major-caliber salvo of this battle; and, at the same time, sounding the knell of the old battle-line tactics which had been foremost in naval warfare since the Seventeenth Century."

*This was just over 11 miles (nautical) in other words indirect fire from very primitive fire control radars well over the horizion. Pretty impressive for the age of those ships that were raised from Pearl Harbor. Bittersweet no doubt for their crews..

[USSWisconsin]

Suragio strait is a favorite "perfect" battleship battle, but who would want to be the Japanese at that one - they had two battleships to the whole American line, they were surprised and had their T crossed. While they were being torpedoed by destroyers as they moved up the strait they came under smuthering and accurate fire from a long line of rebuilt old American battlewagons and suffered total annihilation. If they managed to return fire - no one noticed.

I mentioned it only at the end of the same sentence with the Spanish fleet getting a similar pasting at Santiago. My point about that was it was one sided. IMO, Java Sea was the battle where the American ships really proved themselves in combat - taking punishment without being sunk and defeating a foe that could have won.

[USSWisconsin]

A recent draft

Here is the most recent draft of the general section again - with many corrections and some additions (it has the tables with all the battleships at the ends). After I hadn't read it for a few months - it was much easier to spot the bad grammer and awkward phases... Added a few details here and there and filled out some battles descriptions.

with the other 11 parts - it is now over 1000 pages.