Warship Wednesday March 7th
Here at LSOZI, we are going to take out every Wednesday for a look at the old steampunk navies of the 1880s-1930s and will profile a different ship each week.
– Christopher Eger
Warship Wednesday, March 7
Here we have the USS Oregon BB-3
USS Oregon (BB-3) was a pre-Dreadnought Indiana-class battleship of the United States Navy. Her construction was authorized on 30 June 1890,
Oregon with her warpaint on in 1898. She steamed 14,000 miles in 66 days, over 212 miles per day, to reach Cuba from the West Coast
In 1898 she steamed 14,000 miles in 66 days, a remarkable feat of seamanship for the iron hulled steam navy. She took part in the Battle of Santiago de Cuba, where she and the cruiser Brooklyn were the only ships fast enough to chase down the Spanish cruiser Cristóbal Colón, forcing its surrender. Around this time she received the nickname “Bulldog of the Navy”. She was still afloat in WWI and served as an escort for US troops to Siberia in 1918. The next year she was decommed for the last time and turned into a floating museum operated by the state of Oregon from 1925-41, one of the first of its kind in the country.
When WWII started the city donated her back to the navy and she was used as an ammunition barge during the battle of Guam, finally being broken up in 1956…in Japan.
Displacement: 10,288 long tons (10,453 t; 11,523 ST)
Length: 351 ft 2 in (107.04 m)
Beam: 69 ft 3 in (21.11 m)
Draft: 27 ft (8.2 m)
Propulsion:
Two vertical inverted triple expansion reciprocating steam engines[2]
4 double ended Scotch boilers
9,000 ihp (6.7 MW) (design)[3]
11,111 ihp (8.285 MW) (trial)
Speed:
15 kn (28 km/h; 17 mph) (design)[3]
16.8 kn (31.1 km/h; 19.3 mph) (trial)
Range: 5,600 nmi (10,400 km; 6,400 mi)[a][4]
Complement: 473 officers and men[5]
Armament:
4 × 13″/35 gun (2×2)
8 × 8″/35 gun (4×2)
4 × 6″/40 gun removed 1908
12 × 3″/50 gun added 1910
20 × 6-pounders
6 × 1 pounder guns
5 × Whitehead torpedo tubes[b]
Armor: Harveyized steel
Belt: 18–8 in (460–200 mm)
13″ turrets: 15 in (380 mm)
Hull: 6.25 in (159 mm)
Conventional nickel-steel
Tower: 10 in (250 mm)
8″ turrets: 6 in (150 mm)
Deck: 4.5 in (110 mm)