The Ships of Brawling Battleships Steel: United States Battleship Delaware (BB 28)

Laid down on November 11, 1907, launched on February 6, 1909 and commissioned on April 4, 1910, Delaware carried a main armament of ten 12 inch main guns mounted two per turret; two centerline superfiring forward, one centerline aft, one centerline behind that which could fire only aft at an angle and to the sides and a third behind that on a raised deck that enabled it to fire over both of the other aft turrets. Delaware was the name ship of a two-ship class and retained the coal-fired reciprocating engines of the earlier South Carolina class, although her sister ship, North Dakota was the first American capital ship to be fitted with coal-fired steam turbine engines. The key change in the Delawares from the South Carolinas was the addition of the fifth turret. All United States battleships, with the exception of the pre-dreadnought Kearsarge, were named after states, a custom that went back to the age of sail. Also, all dreadnought battleships were assigned a hull number (starting in 1920) that was normally displayed on the hull indicating its original priority for construction. An earlier U. S. S. Delaware was built in 1861 as the commercial steamer Virginia Dare and purchased for the Union Navy in October of that same year. She served on the Atlantic coast during the entire Civil War until decommissioned in August 1865. The ship was then operated by the Revenue Service (renamed Louis McLane in June 1873) until October 1903. On January 17, 1911, the new battleship Delaware suffered some damage with a boiler explosion. During 1914, she was involved in the crisis in Vera Cruz, Mexico. On November 25, 1917, Delaware was sent to join the British Grand Fleet as part of Admiral Hugh Rodman’s (the "Kentucky Admiral" - 1859–1940) American Sixth Battle Squadron and spent most of 1918 escorting convoys and the minelayers placing the North Sea Barrage. She was decommissioned and deleted on November 10, 1923. Delaware was sold for scrap in February 1924.

See other American battleships: Utah, Texas, Arizona