Talk:Colorado-class battleship

Quick Edit
I made a quick edit to the information on main batteries. While all later constructed US battleships had a 3x3 turret arrangement, the Montana would have had four triple turrets. 24.11.94.51 23:03, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

Inconsistent speed
The infobox claims a max speed of 21 knots (this is consistent with what I find elsewhere), but gives a cruising range of 9600 miles at 25 knots. Can anybody with a good source fix this? --Stephan Schulz 22:48, 1 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Good catch, that's ridiculous. I've fixed it. TomTheHand 00:35, 2 December 2007 (UTC)

Main Guns
The text claims main guns of 16in 50cal in one spot and 16in 45cal in another. I suspect the 16in 45cal is correct. Can someone check and edit. Thanks —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.4.32.132 (talk) 19:07, 3 May 2009 (UTC)


 * The text claims that the 16" gun was developed "using a bored-out and relined 13-inch (330 mm) Mark 2 gun." Although boring out of a smaller caliber weapon to a larger one (with relining) is common I find it unlikely that a 13" gun was bored out to 16" (perhaps they meant 14", but even this is difficult to accept); no mention of this appears in the cited source (the NavWeaps site) either.  The rest of the information in the paragraph seems to be directly taken from the NavWeaps source.  If someone has a source with this information it should be added, otherwise the statement should be deleted. Garyvp71 (talk) 17:23, 11 October 2017 (UTC)


 * I will check Friedman's book on "Naval Weapons of WWI", which was one of my sources for the 16"/45 caliber gun article, along with Navweaps. I'm pretty sure I would have noted that in my article if it was in either source, and clearly it isn't on the Navweaps site.Pennsy22 (talk) 03:59, 12 October 2017 (UTC)

Tangled Up in Blue
The references here are entangled. Conway's All the World's Fighting Ships: 1906–1922 v. Conway's All the World's Fighting Ships, 1922–1946, for example; multiple ref name=Conways117 to the two different sources, one of which masks the other (not seeing p. 117 actually shown to readers, just in editbox). See here for aborted fix. —Portuguese Man o' War 06:10, 11 September 2011 (UTC)

(resolved by Yoenit) —Portuguese Man o' War 22:26, 16 September 2011 (UTC)

Muzzle velocity of main battery
This sentence seems dubious: "The construction of battleships armed with 16-inch guns was envisioned by the United States Navy General Board and Bureau of Construction and Repair (C&R) as early as 1913, as the upgrade in gun caliber promised twice the muzzle velocity of the 12-inch gun then in service and half again as much as the 14-inch gun then being introduced." Could there be confusion here between muzzle velocity and kinetic energy? --Yaush (talk) 23:15, 18 September 2012 (UTC)


 * More than likely. Muzzle velocity tends to decrease as caliber increases, as was the case with the Mk 5 and Mk 8 guns used on the Colorados, compared to the 14" Mk 7 and the 12" Mk 7 guns - MV fell from 2,900fps on the 12" to 2,700 for the 14", and down to 2,520 on the 16". Parsecboy (talk) 00:13, 21 September 2012 (UTC)

This seems almost certain; twice the velocity of the 12"/50 is improbable (as it would equate to 5,800fps, only ever achieved in handful of one-off artillery) - energy on the other seems to equate well. Why no edit? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 31.67.202.151 (talk) 09:50, 26 June 2013 (UTC)


 * Probably because Yaush and I both forgot. It's fixed now - thanks for giving us a poke. Parsecboy (talk) 10:50, 26 June 2013 (UTC)

5-inch Mounts
"…5-inch 38 caliber Mark 12 dual-purpose guns in twin turrets." The correct terminology is "twin mounts". These guns were not mounted in turrets. I only want to clear that up. It is repeated in the article and in a caption for a photograph. Traumatic (talk) 23:32, 21 December 2015 (UTC)

External links modified
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underwater protection
Where is the description of underwater protection?--Inctructor (talk) 23:59, 2 February 2019 (UTC)

Armor protection, guns and fire control.
The belt thickness was 13.5" Class A armor until a sudden taper at the lower 1" or so. This is the same thickness as the Tennessee class on which the Colorado class was based. Check Friedman's Design History of US Battleships for the correct information. Jane's is usually accurate but can make mistakes as it is based on publicly available information at the time the annual edition was written. The deck armor is also incorrect. torpedo protection remained the same as that of the Tennessee class which introduced the multi-bulkhead system. The system was designed to defeat 400-500 lb TNT warheads when the liquid cells were filled to 95%. The addition of the slab-sided bulges in 1942-44, increased resistance to 750-880 lbs. The production guns were 16" Mk.1 L/45 produced at the Washington Gun Foundry. The gun fired a 2,100 lbs AP shell at 2,700 fps. The experimental gun was produced by boring out a 13" barrel. The Mk.1 was replaced by the Mk.5 which was optimized for the "heavy" shell of 2,240 lbs at a lower velocity. The shell remained 4 calibers long, the HE content being reduced to ~1% of shell weight in order to increase weight and density for long range (~30,000 yards) shooting. These ships did not fire the 2,700 lbs "superheavy" shell as it was 4.5 calibers long and the ammunition handling machinery was designed for 4 caliber shells. These ships had the full post WWI fire control system with directors in the spotting tops, the range keeper and stable vertical (gyroscope for artificial horizon) with AC power allowing smoother, more accurate data transmission by selsyn or synchros based on German WWI designs. This allowed for automatic input of variables and data to the rangekeeper, reducing both the manning of the fire control system and the number of manual entries which could introduce errors into the fire control solution. The only thing missing was remote power control, which was added when they were rebuilt. With SG surface search radar and Mk.8 Mod.3, the West Virginia detected and acquired the Japanese BBs at 40,000 yds, passed the bogie to the fire control system, which had a generated firing solution by 30,000 yds range, more than twice the effective night combat range of Japanese capital ships, which used searchlights and illumination rounds. By 1928, the US BBs mounted eight single 5" Mk.10 L/25 heavy AA guns, the heaviest such battery among the naval powers, along with the Mk.19 fire control director system, which was more effective than the British HACS, though the USN lagged behind the RN through 1942 in the number and quality of medium AAA. This was modified by the addition of a 15' stereo rangefinder integrated with the mount into the Director, Mk.1, which the class carried at Pearl Harbor. The rebuilt West Virginia received the Mk.37 director, the most effective heavy AA gun fire control system of WWII. Colorado and Maryland received Mk.33 directors, which remained superior to any version of HACS until the Mk.VI in 1944, during the war, both systems receiving the Mk.4 (FD) 40cm fire control radar, and then the Mk.12/22 combination for the Mk.37 and the Mk.28 for the Mk.33. Both systems allowed the use of RPC with powered mounts. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.26.65.5 (talk) 07:37, 26 October 2021 (UTC)

5in/38 and other secondaries
Sorry to ask this, but I've noticed that there seems to be an issue between this page and the individual ship pages as to whether the Colorado/Maryland had 5in/38 guns installed earlier in the war. This article, citing Breyer, says In 1942, the Mark 15 guns were replaced on West Virginia with sixteen 5-inch (127 mm)/38 caliber Mark 12 dual-purpose guns in twin turrets. On Maryland and Colorado ten Mark 15s were retained and augmented with eight 5 in/38 cal Mark 12s in single mountings with protective shields. The Colorado article, also citing Breyer, says During the refit, which was completed on 31 March 1942, two of the 12 original 5 in/51 caliber guns were removed, and were replaced by an equal number of 5 in/38 caliber guns. I don't have the Breyer book, so I'm reluctant to change anything but I do have Friedman's book on US battleships, which says that while splinter shields were installed in 1942, the original 5in/25 AA was retained on Colorado until the end of the war and survived on Maryland until her final major refit in 1945. Conway's Battleships gives war's end Colorado 5 5in/58, 8 5in/25, 32 40mm in 8 quad mounts and 59 20mm in 39 single, 8 twin and 1 quad mountings, while Maryland has 16 5in/38 in 8 twin turrets, 44 40mm in 11 quad mountings and 44 20mm in 20 twin and 1 quad mountings. So there's also discrepancy on the light AA armament as cited in this article. Can anyone help out on this? Thanks. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.111.201.145 (talk) 08:33, 21 May 2023 (UTC)