The Indiana class was a class of three pre-dreadnought battleships launched in 1893. These were the first battleships built by the United States Navy comparable to contemporary European ships, such as the British . Authorized in 1890 and commissioned between November 1895 and April 1896, these were relatively small battleships with heavy armor and ordnance that pioneered the use of an intermediate battery. Specifically intended for coastal defense, their freeboard was insufficient to deal well with the waves of the open ocean. The turrets lacked counterweights, and the main belt armor was placed too low to be effective under most conditions.
The ships were named , , and and were designated Battleship Number 1 through 3. All three served in the Spanish–American War, although Oregon—which was stationed on the West Coast—had to cruise around South America to the East Coast first. After the war, Oregon returned to the Pacific and participated in the Philippine–American War and Boxer Rebellion, while her sister ships were restricted to training missions in the Atlantic Ocean. After 1903, the obsolete battleships were decommissioned and recommissioned several times, the last time during World War I when Indiana and Massachusetts served as training ships, while Oregon was a transport escort for the Siberian Intervention.
In 1919, all three ships were decommissioned for the final time. Indiana was sunk in shallow water as an explosives test target a year later and sold for scrap in 1924. Massachusetts was scuttled off the coast of Pensacola in 1920 and used as an artillery target. The wreck was never scrapped and is now a Florida Underwater Archaeological Preserve. Oregon was initially preserved as a museum, but was sold for scrap during World War II. The scrapping was later halted and the stripped hulk was used as an ammunition barge during the battle of Guam. The hulk was finally sold for scrap in 1956.
Background The Indiana class was very controversial at the time of its approval by the United States Congress. A policy board convened by the Secretary of the Navy Benjamin F. Tracy came up with an ambitious 15-year naval construction program on 16 July 1889, three years after the and the were authorized. The battleships in their plan would include ten first-rate long-range battleships with a top speed and a steaming radius of at — maximum. These ocean-going ships were envisioned as a possible fleet in being, a fleet capable of raiding an enemy's home ports and intended to deter powerful warships from ranging too far from home. Twenty-five short-range second-rate battleships would provide home defense in both the Atlantic and Pacific and support the faster and larger long-range vessels. With a range of roughly at 10 knots and a draft of , they would roam from the St. Lawrence River in the north to the Windward Islands and Panama in the south and would be able to enter all the ports in the southern United States.
It was proposed, probably for cost reasons, that the short-range battleships should have a hierarchy of three subclasses. The first would mount four guns each on eight ships, the second would mount four guns each on ten ships, and the third would mount two 12-inch and two guns each on five ships. The two battleships already under construction, Texas and Maine, were to be grouped under the last class. In addition, 167 smaller ships, including rams, cruisers and torpedo boats, would be built, coming to a total cost of $281.55 million, approximately equal to the sum of the entire US Navy budget during the previous 15 years (adjusted for inflation, $6.6 billion in 2009 dollars).
Congress balked at the plan, seeing in it an end to the United States policy of isolationism and the beginning of imperialism. Even some supporters of naval expansion were wary; Senator Eugene Hale feared that because the proposal was so large, the entire bill would be shot down and no money appropriated for any ships. However, in April 1890, the United States House of Representatives approved funding for three 8,000-long ton battleships. Tracy, trying to soothe tensions within Congress, remarked that these ships were so powerful only twelve would be necessary instead of the 35 called for in the original plan. He also slashed the operating costs of the Navy by giving the remaining Civil War-era monitors—which were utterly obsolete by this time—to navy militias operated by the states. The appropriation was also approved by the Senate, and in total three coast-defense battleships (the Indiana class), a cruiser, and a torpedo boat were given official approval and funding on 30 June 1890.
The first class of short-range ships as envisioned by the policy board were to mount 13-inch/35 caliber and new guns, with of belt armor, of deck armor and of armor over the casemates. The Indiana class, as actually built, exceeded the design in displacement by 25 percent, but most other aspects were relatively similar to the original plan. An belt and a secondary battery of and guns were adopted, the latter because the Bureau of Ordnance did not have the capability to construct rapid-firing 5-inch weaponry. The larger weapons were much slower firing and much heavier, but without the bigger guns, the ships would not be able to penetrate the armor of foreign battleships.
Design
General characteristics
The Indiana-class ships were designed specifically for coastal defense and were not intended for offensive actions. This design view was reflected in their moderate coal endurance, relatively small displacement and low freeboard, which limited seagoing capability. However, they were heavily armed and armored, so much in fact that Conway's All the World's Fighting Ships describes them as "attempting too much on a very limited displacement." They resembled the British battleship , but were shorter and featured an intermediate battery consisting of eight 8-inch guns not found in European ships, giving them a very respectable amount of firepower for their time.
The original design of the Indiana class included bilge keels, but with keels they would not fit in any of the American drydocks at the time, so they were omitted during construction. This meant a reduction in stability and caused a serious problem for Indiana, when both main turrets broke loose from their clamps in heavy seas a year after being commissioned. Because the turrets were not centrally balanced, they swung from side to side with the motion of the ship, until they were secured with heavy ropes. When the ship encountered more bad weather four months later, she promptly steamed back to port for fear the clamps would break again. This convinced the navy that bilge keels were necessary and they were subsequently installed on all three ships.
Armament Given their limited displacement, the Indiana class had formidable armament for the time: four 13-inch guns, an intermediate battery of eight 8-inch guns and a secondary battery of four 6-inch guns, twenty Hotchkiss 6-pounders, and six Maxim-Nordenfelt 1-pounders, as well as six 18 inch (450 mm) tubes.
The 13-inch gun was 35 calibers long and used black powder, giving a range of about at 15 degrees of elevation. At , a shell was expected to penetrate of side armor. The four guns were mounted in two centerline turrets, located fore and aft. The turrets were originally designed to feature sloping side armor, but space requirements made this impossible without using significantly larger gun turrets or redesigning the gun mounts (which was later done for the s). The ships' low freeboard greatly hindered the use of the main battery in rough weather conditions, because the deck would become awash. Also, because the ship lacked a counterweight to offset the weight of the gun barrels, the ship would list in the direction the guns were aimed. This reduced the maximum arc of elevation (and thus range) to about five degrees, brought the main armor belt under water on that side, and exposed the unarmored bottom on the other. It was considered in 1901 to replace the turrets with new balanced models used in later ships, but that was decided to be too costly as the ships were already obsolete. Instead, counterweights were added, which partially solved the problem. The hydraulic rammers and turning mechanisms of the 8-inch turrets were also replaced by faster and more efficient electric equivalents, new sights were fitted on Indiana and Massachusetts, and new turret hoists were installed to improve the reloading speed, but the gun mountings never performed in an entirely satisfactory manner.
The eight 8-inch guns were mounted in pairs in four wing turrets placed on the superstructure. Their arc of fire, although big on paper, was in reality limited. Adjacent gun positions and superstructure would be damaged by their muzzle blast if the gun was trained alongside it, a defect also suffered by the 13-inch guns. The smaller 6-inch guns were mounted in twin wing casemates midships on the main deck level, with a 6-pounder in between. The other Hotchkiss 6-pounders lined the superstructure and bridge decks. Four of the 1-pounders were placed in hull casemates at the bow and stern of the ship and two more in the fighting tops of the masts. In 1908, all the 6-inch and most of the lighter guns were removed to compensate for the counterweights added to the main battery and because ammunition supply for the guns was considered problematic. A year later, twelve /50-caliber single-purpose guns were added midships and in the fighting tops.
Sources conflict on the number of torpedo tubes originally included in the ships, but it is clear they were located on the berth deck and had above-water ports located on the extreme front and aft and midships. Each ship carried a total of 16 torpedoes. Located too close to the waterline to allow use while moving and vulnerable to gunfire when opened, they were considered useless and were quickly reduced in number, and removed entirely before 1908.
In 1918 there was a proposal to modify the three Indiana-class ships to carry a single 98-caliber gun built by lining down a 50-caliber gun to that size. Preliminary design of the turret for the gun was completed in October for service in mid-1919, but the end of the war the following month caused the program to be converted into a test program for long-range guns. The Bureau of Ordnance decided to first test a gun lined down to 3 inches as a proof of concept, but those tests did not commence until 1922.
Protection With the exception of the deck armor, 8-inch turrets and conning tower—which consisted of conventional nickel steel—the Indiana class was protected with the new Harvey armor. Its main protection was a belt thick, placed along two-thirds of the length of the hull from above to under the waterline. Beyond this point, the belt gradually grew thinner until it ended under the waterline, where the belt was only thick. Below the belt the ship had no armor, only a double bottom. On both ends the belt was connected to the barbettes of the main guns with armored bulkheads. In the waterline sections outside this central citadel, compartments were filled with compressed cellulose, intended to self-seal when damaged. Between the deck and the main belt, 5-inch hull armor was used. The deck armor was thick inside the citadel and outside it. The hollow conning tower was a single forging 10 inches thick. The 13-inch gun battery had of vertical turret plating and barbettes, while the 8-inch cannons had only 6inches of vertical turret plating and barbettes. The casemates protecting the 6-inch guns were 5inches thick and the other casemates, lighter guns, shell hoists and turret crowns were all lightly armored.