The Alabama wasn’t quite as decorated at the leadship of Battle Group 58 - Battleship X, the South Dakota - but she neverthless saw plenty of action, first as a protector of Atlantic Russian vessels, then later as the flagship for Adm. It had twenty 5-inch secondary gun turrets clustered in pairs along either side of midship it had nine 16-inch Mark VI main guns, clustered in three turrets.Īnd while nine guns doesn’t sound too threatening, please understand the Mark VI gun itself weighed 178,000 pounds, and could launch a projectile weighing 2700 pounds a distance of 23 miles: The Alabama was capable of traveling a top speed of 31.6 mpg at 130,000 hp, cruising for 17,000 miles at 17 mph. Part of America’s blue water naval strategy, the Alabama was built to take on Nazis headfirst in the icy North Atlantic, and to ultimately wage war upon the vast expanses of the Pacific Ocean - capturing Japan’s Yamamoto capital ships. By the end of World War II and all several rounds of subsequent retrofitting, the USS Alabama was a killing machine. The last of four vessels constructed in the South Dakota class of fast battleships, the Alabama was built between 19 in compliance with the now-expired 1922 Washington Naval Treaty, which had been intended to slow down a global naval arms race (such as the one between the HM Royal Navy and the German Imperial Navy that had already led to the Thucydides Trap underlying World War One.)īut, what the Alabama sacrificed in the sheer size of say the Iowa and the Japanese Yamamota class of super battleships, it made up for with speed, maneuverability, and rows upon rows of armaments bristling from the deck like a porcupine. As awe-inspiring as it may be silhouetted in the Mobile Bay, there’s something you have to understand about the 680-foot, 35,600-ton USS Alabama* - part of the finest fast battleship class ever made - it could have been much bigger and much nastier, like the later Iowa class battleships.
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