BB-32 Wyoming Class
The Wyoming class numbered two ships, both built along the Delaware River. Designed after the U.S. Atlantic Fleet's 1907-09 World cruise, the two Wyomings were nearly twenty-percent larger than their immediate predecessors, with more extensive armor protection. A flush-deck hull, raking in an essentially straight line from a high bow to a rather lower stern, allowed the midships five-inch secondary battery to be located higher (and therefore dryer) than in earlier ships. This same general arrangement would be repeated in the next class, the New Yorks of 1911, though with a change to fourteen-inch guns. The Wyoming class were the last U.S. battleships to be driven by direct drive steam turbines.
The dreadnought design of 1906 armed the Michigan and South Carolina with 8 12-inch guns in 4 central turrets. The Delaware and North Dakota, designed in 1907 and commissioned within three years, carry 5 similar turrets with a displacement of 20,000 tons and steam 21 knots. The two Wyomings had two more twelve-inch guns, for a total of a dozen, mounted in six twin turrets, the largest number of individual turrets in any U.S. "all-big-gun" battleship. The Florida and Utah, commissioned in 1911, had 16 5-inch guns as an anti-torpedo battery in place of the Delaware's 14; and the Arkansas and Wyoming, completed in 1912, have 21 of these guns besides six pairs of 12-inch guns mounted in turrets.
The Michigan, 16,000 tons, has a mean draft of 24 ft. Ü in.; the North Dakota, 20.000 tons, 26 ft. 11 in.; the Wyoming. 26.000 tons, about 28 ft, 6 in. The Michigan is 450 ft. long on the load water line; the North Dakota, 610 ft.; the Wyoming, 550 ft. The Michigan has an extreme breadth at load water line of 80 ft. 2g in.; the \orth Dakota, 85 ft. 2 in.; the Wyoming, 93 ft. 28 in.
In 1907 the Delaware and North Dakota were laid down, Curtis turbines fitted in the North Dakota and reciprocating engines of the latest type in the Delaware, the reciprocating engines of the Delaware giving better results in cruising than the turbines of her consort. Parsons turbines were adopted for the four battleships next laid down. The first two, the Florida and Utah, commenced in 1909, are very similar to the Delaware, but of 21,825 tons displacement and 28 ft 6 in. mean draught. The second pair. the Arkansas and Wyoming, begun in 1910, were of much greater displacement, viz., 26,000 tons; 8100 tons greater than the Dreadnought.
Their coal-fired boilers allowed both Wyoming and Arkansas to operate with the British Grand Fleet in the then-oil-deprived North Sea during World War I. The first problem connected with the design of a boiler plant is to determine accurately the maximum number of pounds of steam that will be used by the various engines, pumps, and other parts of the plant which will have to be supplied. As 1 square foot of heating surface should be allowed in shell boilers for every 3 pounds of water to be evaporated into steam from and at 212 degrees in an hour's time. With water-tube boilers the heating surface can be obtained by dividing the number of pounds of water to be evaporated into steam from and at 212 degrees per hour by 3.4. With this proportion and sufficient draft and grate surface to burn the necessary amount of fuel, a boiler can easily be forced 33 per cent over this capacity and maintain a good efficiency.
Some boilers can do much better than this. In a test of Babcock and Wilcox marine boilers, by the U. S. Navy Department, for the battleship Wyoming, the efficiency was 74.3 per cent and 69.1 per cent with an evaporation of 3.88 pounds and 10.52 pounds of water per square foot of heating surface per hour respectively.
Tests were made on the United States battleship Wyoming with coal as fuel, oil as fuel, and a combination of coal and oil. The oil was sprayed over the coal fire, a flat flame being secured by adjusting the admission of air. The capacity of the boilers can be increased by using oil in this manner, but efficient results are obtained only when either fuel is used alone.
Boat crane motors as furnished for the U. S. S. Arkansas and Texas involve material departures from previous practice, in that the motors in conjunction with the system of control are adapted to permit entire elimination of the mechanical brake which is customarily ussd to hold the load during lowering, also the auxiliary brake customarily used for rapidly handling light loads such as coaling the ship, etc.
Before the war, they served in the Atlantic Fleet and afterwards in both the Atlantic and Pacific, with modernization following in 1925-27. That work gave them broader beams, greater displacement and thicker deck armor. New oil-burning boilers and newer gunfire controls produced a change in silhouette to a single smokestack and only one "basket" mast. Some of their five-inch guns were remounted in the superstructure.
In 1931, Wyoming was converted to a training ship, with her armor and six of the twelve-inch guns removed. Arkansas was also largely employed on training service, though she formally remained a battleship. The two ships served through World War II. Arkansas, refitted with a new tripod foremast, performed escort and training duties in 1941-44 and conducted shore bombardment at Normandy, Southern France, Iwo Jima and Okinawa after that. Wyoming was a gunnery training ship throughout the conflict. In 1944, she lost all her big guns, and later her "basket" foremast. Now carrying more dual-purpose five-inch gun mounts, she was better suited for urgently-needed anti-aircraft training. In 1945-47, she was also employed as an experimental gunnery ship and then scrapped. Arkansas was sunk as a target in the July 1946 Bikini atomic bomb tests.
