Omaha class
| Omaha class | |
|---|---|
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| Overview | |
| Type: | Light cruiser |
| Namesake: | The city of Omaha , Nebraska |
| Units: | 10 built, 0 in service |
| Period of service: | US Navy: 1924-1949 |
| Technical specifications | |
| Displacement: | 7050 ts |
| Length: | 167.8 meters |
| Width: | 16.9 meters |
| Draft : | 6.1 meters |
| Drive : |
Steam turbines 90,000 WPS on 4 screws |
| Speed: | 34 knots |
| Crew: | 458 |
| Armament: | 12 × 6 inch (152 mm) guns (2 * 2 + 8 * 1) 4 × 3 inch (76 mm) Flak 6 × 533 mm torpedo tubes (2 * 3) After conversion: 10 × 6 inch (152 mm) guns ( 2 * 2 + 6 * 1) 8 × 3 inch (76 mm) Flak 6 × 533 mm torpedo tubes (2 * 3) |
| Aircraft: | 2 |
The Omaha-class was a class of light cruisers in the United States Navy . The total of ten ships of this class were built from 1920 and had been in service since 1924. At the beginning of the Second World War , the ships were already considered obsolete, but in the first few years they were used in both the Atlantic and Pacific in the forefront until sufficiently newer cruisers were available. After the end of the war, the ships were decommissioned and scrapped.
Planning and construction
In 1915, the planning department of the US Navy, the General Ship Board , decided to massively expand the American fleet. Within five years the fleet should have at least the same strength as the British Royal Navy . The aim of this plan was to ensure that the United States was prepared for an eventual confrontation with whichever side that would be the victor of World War I. In addition to new battleships and battlecruisers , reconnaissance cruisers were to be built that would operate in the apron of the battle fleet and locate the enemy.
The requirements placed on this cruiser were based on the knowledge of its potential opponents that one had about the cruisers of the British and German navies. The capabilities of Japan , allied with Britain at the time, were ignored as it was believed that the Japanese shipbuilding industry had not yet reached the capabilities of the US and European nations. Until then, all larger Japanese units such as B. the battlecruisers of the Kongō -class were previously designed by foreign shipyards. Taking the most modern European warships as the basis of the planning, it was believed that Japan was also covered.
The requirements ultimately set by the General Ship Board for the reconnaissance cruiser in 1917 were a speed of at least 30 knots , a very long range and an armament of at least six inch (152 mm) guns with a displacement of up to 8000 ts . After new knowledge about the (presumed) capabilities of cruisers under construction in Great Britain and Germany , an even higher speed was later deemed necessary. The cruiser should now be at 35 knots, which would be the speed of a destroyer . In addition, he should be able to take an aircraft on board. In the case of artillery, the emphasis should not be placed on broadside fire , but on the ability to fire over the bow or stern , since the ships always move towards or away from the enemy according to their task in an emergency, but do not fight in line with him would. This concept, which was already rejected by other fleets as a basis for the placement of the guns, led to the design of an exotic gun setup with a 6-inch twin turret in front and aft, behind which two single 6-inch guns were arranged in casemates on both sides of the ship . This gave the cruisers a firepower of six guns each fore and aft and a broadside of eight guns.
The first two cruisers, USS Omaha and USS Milwaukee , were laid down in December 1918, eight more followed in 1920. At this point, however, the class was no longer satisfied, as the General Ship Board was now also under Among other things, due to the personal experience gained and the cooperation with the British in the First World War, the artillery concept in the intended form was recognized as outdated and also recognized as overloaded. Therefore, in October 1920, the department responsible for construction, the Bureau of Construction and Repair , asked for construction to be halted for the eight ships that had just started in order to give time to revise the design. However, this was rejected by the General Ship Board . Since the war was over and funding was reduced accordingly, it was feared that Congress would cancel the ships altogether if construction was halted. The cruisers therefore had to be completed according to the original plan. After the ships were built, it turned out that the lower individual guns at the stern were so wet, even in shallow seas, that they could no longer be used efficiently.
The modified design, which wanted to replace the casemates at the bow and stern with an additional twin tower, was used as the basis for developing the next type of cruiser and, after several revisions and an increase in caliber from 6 to 8 inches (203 mm), resulted in the development of the Pensacola -Class .
commitment
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The ten cruisers of the class, all of which entered service between 1923 and 1925, were used in all parts of the fleet between the world wars. Your missions included a. supporting various American interventions in the Caribbean and safeguarding American interests in China during the civil war in the late 1920s. On board the USS Memphis , Charles Lindbergh returned to the United States in 1927 after his famous transatlantic flight . On February 14, 1939, during a voyage in the Caribbean, while measuring the depth of the sea in the Puerto Rico Trench , the Milwaukee discovered the deepest part of the Atlantic at around 8,400 m, the Milwaukee Deep , which is now named after the ship, and which at that time was 9,219 m deep was calculated. At the end of the thirties all cruisers underwent a major renovation, in which the unusable lower 6-inch casemates were removed aft and the flak was reinforced. In 1930 the names of the ships were renamed from reconnaissance cruisers to "light cruisers" according to the definitions adopted at the London Conference . At the outbreak of World War II, they were the oldest American cruisers still in service.
In the period between the outbreak of the war and the entry of the United States into the war , several cruisers of the class were used on the American Neutrality Patrol . It succeeded on November 6, 1941, the Omaha , the one with 3857 tons of raw rubber laden German blockade runner Odenwald raise that by its crew after the ignition of explosive charges for scuttling had been abandoned. The crew of the Omaha managed to save the ship and tow it to Puerto Rico , with which they received the US Navy’s last prize money to date . During the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor , the USS Detroit and USS Raleigh were in port and hit by Japanese bombs and torpedoes . The USS Marblehead served on the front lines in Southeast Asia as part of the ABDA fleet , and in 1943 the USS Richmond took part in the naval battle of the Komandorsky Islands as the flagship of the American Union . However, as more and more modern cruisers came from the shipyards, the outdated ships were only used for secondary tasks such as convoy protection and coastal shelling. The Milwaukee was loaned to the Soviet Union in April 1944 under the Lending and Lease Act , which used the ship as Murmansk in the North Sea until 1949 .
After the end of the war, all nine ships of this class were immediately decommissioned and scrapped shortly afterwards. The same happened to the Milwaukee after it was returned by the Soviet Union four years later.
List of ships
| Surname | Shipyard | Keel laying | Launch | Commissioning | Decommissioning |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| USS Omaha (CL-4) | Todd Dry Dock and Construction Co. , Tacoma | December 6, 1918 | December 14, 1920 | February 24, 1923 | November 1, 1945 |
| USS Milwaukee (CL-5) | December 13, 1918 | March 24, 1921 | June 20, 1923 | March 18, 1949 | |
| USS Cincinnati (CL-6) | May 15, 1920 | May 23, 1921 | January 1, 1924 | November 1, 1945 | |
| USS Raleigh (CL-7) | Fore River Shipyard , Quincy | August 16, 1920 | October 25, 1922 | February 6, 1924 | November 2, 1945 |
| USS Detroit (CL-8) | November 10, 1920 | June 29, 1922 | July 31, 1923 | January 11, 1946 | |
| USS Richmond (CL-9) | William Cramp and Sons , Philadelphia | February 16, 1920 | September 29, 1921 | July 2, 1923 | January 21, 1946 |
| USS Concord (CL-10) | March 29, 1920 | December 15, 1921 | November 3, 1923 | December 12, 1945 | |
| USS Trenton (CL-11) | August 18, 1920 | April 16, 1923 | April 19, 1924 | December 20, 1945 | |
| USS Marblehead (CL-12) | 4th August 1920 | October 9, 1923 | September 8, 1924 | November 1, 1945 | |
| USS Memphis (CL-13) | October 14, 1920 | April 17, 1924 | February 4, 1925 | December 17, 1945 |
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