Montana Class Battleship - History

History

As the political situation in Europe and Asia worsened in the prelude to World War II, Carl Vinson, the chairman of the House Committee on Naval Affairs, instituted the Vinson Naval Plan, which aimed to get the Navy into fighting shape after the cutbacks imposed by the depression and the naval treaties of the 1930s. As part of the overall plan Congress passed the Second Vinson Act in 1938, which cleared the way for construction of the four South Dakota-class fast battleships and the first two Iowa-class battleships (hull numbers BB-61 and BB-62). Four additional battleships (with hull numbers BB-63, BB-64, BB-65, and BB-66) were approved for construction in 1940, with the last two intended to be the first ships of the Montana class. By 1942, it was apparent to the US Navy high command that they needed as many fast battleships as possible, and hull numbers BB-65 and BB-66 were allocated to fast battleships Illinois and Kentucky.

The Navy, mindful of the ongoing construction of Japan's Yamato-class battleships, had been working on a 58,000-ton "super battleship" concept since 1938. This new class, with twelve 16-inch (406 mm) guns, was assigned the name Montana and cleared for construction by the United States Congress under the Two-Ocean Navy Act in 1940; funding for the new ships was approved in 1941. These ships, the last battleships to be ordered by the Navy, were originally to be designated BB-65 through BB-69; however, BB-65 and −66 were subsequently re-ordered as Iowa-class ships, Illinois and Kentucky, and the Montanas were redesignated BB-67 through BB-71.

Completion of the Montana-class, and the last two Iowa-class battleships, was intended to give the US Navy a considerable advantage over any other nation, or probable combination of nations, with a total of 17 new battleships by the late 1940s. The Montanas also would have been the only American ships to come close to equaling Japan's massive Yamato and her sister Musashi in terms of size and firepower.