In the early 1900’s the Dreadnought arms race was steadily underway. Powers all across
the planet were building larger and stronger Dreadnought designs by the year, from various
European countries fighting in the Atlantic, to Japan vying for control of the Pacific.
America was building a fleet capable of fighting in both, and even many South American countries
competed to purchase progressively more absurd and powerful designs from other powers;
An interesting story for another time. In today's video we’ll be discussing a ship
so strong not even two nukes were enough to sink it. This is the story of the USS Nevada.
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now let's get sailing with today's video. America, with two oceans to cover and the
industry to build a large fleet, was steadily keeping pace with the European powers both in
numbers and in innovation. America’s very first Dreadnought class, the South Carolinas, featured
superfiring turret pairs; Or, mounting one turret above and behind the other to give them better
firing arcs, which would become a standard design element for all countries in the next few years.
The scope of the Dreadnought projects gradually increased alongside the other countries, with
the Delaware-class carrying an additional turret, the Florida-class being larger and having better
stability, and the Wyoming class kicking the guns up to the more powerful 12-inch 50-caliber
Mark 7. American designs kept steaming ahead up to the New York-class, their first Super-Dreadnought
with the 14-inch 45-caliber Mark 1 cannon, giving it more punch to defeat the gradually
thickening armor of opposing Dreadnought designs. On the political side of things, Congress wasn’t
giving the General Board the amount of Battleships they desired. While it had been agreed on that two
Battleships would be purchased per year, only one was actually being purchased most years, leading
to the General Board requesting three each year to make up for the deficit. Meanwhile the Battleship
designs were getting larger and more expensive, placing further strain on the economic side and
making Congress hesitant to fund Battleships that would be obsolete within a few years.
President Howard Taft got Congress to purchase two ships in 1912, which became USS Nevada and USS
Oklahoma, the two ships of the Nevada class. When President Woodrow Wilson came into power in 1913,
he turned down proposals for significantly larger battleships after the Nevada-class, resulting in
these setting the new design standard for what would become the Standard-type Battleship.
The Pennsylvania, New Mexico, Tennessee, and Colorado classes that followed were all part
of the Standard-types; They had an overall similar design, allowing them to easily mesh
together in the Battle Line. This was unlike other countries that had fast and slow battleships,
requiring their lines to be split or resulting in difficulties maneuvering as a group.
The class was the head of multiple technological innovations and very ahead of its time. It was
the first Dreadnought class to embrace the All-Or-Nothing armor scheme. This design was
meant to provide protection to the ship’s most important sections in long range gun duels. This
came in the form of increased deck armor and belt armor over the boilers, magazines, and command
sections with no secondary turtleback layer behind them, along with other segments of the ship having
minimal armor as to not set off shell fuses. The most telling example of this design’s
effectiveness is the design shifts of every country after the Battle of Jutland. While
other countries had to redesign their Dreadnoughts for long-range gunfights, America’s were already
optimized for this, meaning they had to make minimal adjustments. By World War Two,
All-Or-Nothing armor schemes were used primarily by every country’s newly constructed Battleships,
other than Germany who still used Turtleback armor on the Scharnhorst and Bismarck classes.
They also swapped from coal-fired boilers, or a hybrid of oil and coal-fired boilers,
to purely oil. This had various advantages. With America being a major producer of oil at the time,
they wouldn’t have to worry about importing their fuel, which was a concern for some other
countries. Oil could output more energy for the weight carried than coal, increasing the range of
oil-fired Battleships. It also didn’t produce the dirty soot that burning coal pumped out,
which could block optics, and the oil-fired boilers could be run for longer without needing
filters to be cleaned like on the coal-fired ones. Another major innovation was using three-cannon
turrets. Previously, Dreadnoughts had used two-cannon turrets only,
resulting in complex internal layouts, extra weight, and longer ships. The Nevada-class
solved this by placing three guns into the bottom turrets in the fore and aft superfiring pairs,
meaning it could carry 10 cannons in 4 turrets as opposed to the 5 needed by other Dreadnoughts.
This came at the expense of extra complexity in the loading process; however this was well-worth
the reduction in weight and length, allowing the extra weight to be redistributed to the armor
scheme for additional protection. Three-cannon turrets would become common on Battleships after
this, and eventually on Cruisers, again showing the design of the Nevada was ahead of its time.
As for the actual history of Nevada, how did these design innovations hold up in combat?
With Nevada being commissioned in 1916, it was finished in time to take part in World War One;
However, it wasn’t able to head to Britain initially due to their shortage of oil,
causing America to send over four coal-fired Battleships instead.
Nevada was actually the last American warship to join the vessels sent across the Atlantic,
only arriving in August of 1918. All it did during the remainder of the war was convoy escort duty,
though it and nine other Battleships did escort USS George Washington,
carrying Woodrow Wilson, to France for the Paris peace talks; After this, she was returned home.
Next up came the interwar period, which while there was no war, some interesting events did
come up. USS Nevada took part in some cruises to other countries, such as the centennial of
Brazilian independence and the goodwill cruise to Australia and New Zealand. Nevada also got some
pretty major refits during the late 20’s. Tripod masts, geared turbines, anti-torpedo bulges,
new boilers, two aircraft catapults, a new superstructure, and some new 5-inch 25-caliber
anti-air guns were installed. This would be the design she entered World War Two in.
Her first fight of the war came right at the cause of America’s entry, the infamous Pearl
Harbor attack. Franklin D. Roosevelt had moved the Pacific Fleet to Hawaii to pressure Japan,
which they punished with a surprise attack on December 7th, 1941. Of the eight American
Battleships present at the harbor, all eight were Standard-types, with Nevada among them.
Nevada was away from the other Battleships at the time of the attack,
giving more room for maneuvering. Nevada initially took a single torpedo from a B5N torpedo bomber,
the listing from which was corrected by counter-flooding. In the second wave, Nevada
was targeted by significantly more aircraft. Five 250-kilogram bombs were dropped onto Nevada by D3A
dive bombers, dealing significant damage. To prevent the ship from sinking entirely,
Nevada grounded herself. During the attack, Nevada had lost 60 crew, with 109 being wounded.
After this, Nevada needed repairs; She was sent to Puget Sound Navy Yard, both to get repairs and
some refits. The old 5-inch/51’s and 5-inch/25’s were replaced with the 5-inch/38, America’s
legendary dual-purpose cannon that made its way onto surface warships of just about every class.
Other changes included getting thirty two 40-millimeter Bofors autocannons and forty
20-millimeter Oerlikon autocannons. Never again would she be an easy target for aerial attackers.
After the completion of Nevada’s refitting in mid-1943, she was put onto convoy duty;
There were concerns that a German capital ship would be sent to raid convoys, as Bismarck had
attempted to do in 1941, so keeping Battleships assigned to convoys provided some defense.
Nevada was then brought to the United Kingdom in preparation for the invasion of Normandy, and was
part of the ships providing shore bombardment during the D-Day landings. It’s notable that
Nevada was the only Battleship to have been at both the Pearl Harbor attack and the Normandy
landings. After this, Normandy provided more shore bombardment services, and was then sent back to
the Pacific for the final push against Japan. In February 1945, Nevada arrived at Iwo Jima,
providing fire support for the invasion force. After that she then assisted in the invasion of
Okinawa, again providing fire support. A force of seven Japanese kamikazes attacked the naval force
at dawn, with one crashing into Nevada’s number 3 turret, killing 13 crew and wounding 49 while
also disabling the turret. By the end of the war, Nevada was within firing distance of the Japanese
home islands, though no bombardment was ordered. After World War Two ended, America was considering
which Battleships to keep and which to dispose of. With Nevada being over 32 years old,
it was too obsolete to keep up in a modern fleet. Nevada’s final mission was to be used
as a target ship for 1948’s Operation Crossroads atomic bomb tests. The ship was painted orange,
and in the first test, it was directly targeted with the first air-dropped bomb.
The bomb was off the mark, and Nevada survived. The second bomb was an underwater detonation,
which Nevada yet again survived along with several tanks which had been placed on her deck.
After this, it was towed to Pearl Harbor, but was far too damaged and radioactive to
have any real value. It was used for target practice by some other American vessels,
but no matter what they fired at her, she refused to surrender. Finally on the 31st of July 1948,
an aircraft launched a torpedo into the midsection of the ship, finally sinking it.
The wreck wound up at a depth of 4700 meters, 675 nautical miles southwest
of Pearl Harbor being rediscovered on the 29th of April 2020. There she remains to
this day along with the tanks which survived the blasts alongside her. If any ship can be
said to have truly been all but unsinkable that honor has to be placed on the Nevada.
Huge thanks to Flipped_Stug for doing the research for this video.
I love to share history with you all but I’m not as knowledgeable about ships compared to tanks.
If you enjoyed the video please head over and check out his channel which focuses
more heavily on Naval content including several historical videos about some interesting designs.
Let me know in the comments if you’d like to have him come back to help with future videos as well.
Don’t forget to like and subscribe so you don't miss upcoming videos in this new
series as well as my other ones. Thanks for watching and I’ll see you in the next one.