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Here at LSOZI, we are going to take off every Wednesday for a look at the old steam/diesel navies of the 1859-1946 time period and will profile a different ship each week. These ships have a life, a tale all of their own, which sometimes takes them to the strangest places. – Christopher Eger

Warship Wednesday July 15, 2015: The Great War’s Granite State

Here we see the Connecticut-class battleship, USS New Hampshire (BB-25) at age 12 in the Gatun Locks of the Panama Canal. At this point of her life the young girl had already been in two real live shooting wars, had sunk a friendly battleship, and had but three years to live.

As part of the international naval race, the Connecticut-class was the top of the line in your U.S. predreadnought ships of the line. A century ago, the Connecticuts were the best and most intensely beautiful warships in the US Navy.

Connecticut herself was such an important ship that a crowd of some 30,000 civilians as well as most of the entire active battle fleet of the Atlantic Squadron was present for her commissioning in 1906. As a 15,000-ton ship with 11-inches of armor belt and carrying four 12-inch guns, she was a hoss.

Of course, the commissioning of the all-big-gun HMS Dreadnought the very same year, with her 10×12-inch guns, 21-knot top speed, and up to 12-inches of armor in a 21,000-ton package, the Connecticut was already sadly and badly obsolete.

That didn’t stop the Navy from finishing five sisters, Louisiana, Vermont, Kansas, Minnesota, and our hero, New Hampshire by 1908, spread across four east coast shipyards. Antiquated before they were even finished.

New Hampshire was laid down 1 May 1905 (just days before the pivotal Battle of Tsushima Strait., the apogee of predreadnought battlewagons). She was built alongside sistership USS Kansas at New York Shipbuilding Corporation in Camden, NJ at a cost of $3,748,000 and was commissioned 19 March 1908– then was rushed into front line service.

On her shakedown cruise, New Hampshire schlepped a provisional Marine regiment from Hampton Roads to Panama to protect the Canal there. You see her five sisters, all completed the year before, had set off on an around the world cruise of the Great White Fleet, and she was left holding the line until they returned and, afterwards, was one of the first ships made “combat ready” by replacing her original military masts with lattice cage masts, trading gleaming white and buff for haze gray, and landing her ornate bow crest seen above.

In March 1911, she got to warm up her four 12 inch /45 Mark 5 guns as well as her extensive (20 gun!) mixed set of 7 and 8 inchers on the former battleship USS Texas. Renamed the USS San Marcos, that 1892-era 6,300-ton vessel was one of the nation’s first modern heavy warships. By 1911, she was barely considered a warship anymore by modern standards so it made sense that her 12-inches of armor plate should be tested on the New Hampshire‘s still relatively modern guns.

And the 870 lbs. AP shells of New Hampshire did their job very well, destroying her above the waterline and holing her below so many times she sank at her moorings and the current was allowed to flow without hindrance from side to side.

The below images are from Navsource via USNIP, 1938, courtesy of Pieter Bakel, and are attributed to Lt.Cdr. Radford Moses, USNR who was among the inspectors of the old San Marcos after New Hampshire was done with her.

After sinking San Marcos, New Hampshire trained mids from Annapolis and conducted peacetime cycles of training and flag waving missions abroad.

In April 1914, she was among the ships who landed shore parties to occupy Veracruz.

By the time the U.S. entered WWI, New Hampshire was relegated to train gunnery and engineering rates in Chesapeake Bay and by September 1918 was tasked with escorting convoys across the North Atlantic.

Then came magic carpet rides bringing Doughboys back from ‘Over There’ through the first part of 1919.

Peacetime service after the war for the relatively young ship (she was but a decade old) was more of the same midshipmen cruises and flag-waving.

On Nov. 10, 1923, in one of the saddest days for any naval buff, all six of the Connecticuts were stricken from the Naval List and very soon after scrapped in accordance with the terms of the Washington Naval Treaty.

By the end of 1924, the entire class was nothing but so much re-purposed steel, although it’s likely that some of her smaller mounts were retained in storage and used during WWII to arm merchantmen.

Perhaps the only tangible piece of the old battleship New Hampshire is her 72-piece silver service and bell. Expertly made by New Hampshire’s W.B. Durgin Co. and presented to the PCS in 1908, it is currently on display at the New Hampshire Historical Society in Concord.

Specs:

Displacement: 16,000 long tons (16,000 t)
Length: 456 ft. 4 in (139.09 m)
Beam: 76 ft. 10 in (23.42 m)
Draft: 24 ft. 6 in (7.47 m)
Propulsion: 12 Babcock & Wilcox boilers
16,500 ihp (12,300 kW)
Speed: 18 kn (21 mph; 33 km/h)
Complement: 827 officers and men
Armament:
4 × 12 in (305 mm)/45 cal Mark 5 guns
8 × 8 in (203 mm)/45 cal guns
12 × 7 in (178 mm)/45 cal guns
20 × 3 in (76 mm)/50 cal guns
12 × 3 pounder guns
4 × 1 pounder guns
4 × 21 in (530 mm) torpedo tubes
Armor:
Belt: 6–11 in (152–279 mm)
Barbettes: 6–10 in (152–254 mm)
Turret Main: 8–12 in (203–305 mm)
Turret secondary: 7 in (178 mm)
Conning tower: 9 in (229 mm)

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