Pre-Dreadnought Photos: Part 12

An American flavour, now, to the latest instalment of Pre-dred pics, in this case colourised Postcard views of various U.S. Navy vessels from around the turn of the century.

The colourisation means that you shouldn't take the colour schemes as Gospel, but nevertheless, I think some clear and interesting images.

(Remember, they are all clickable for a zoomed, Macro view.)

Above we have a stern view of the Armoured Cruiser Brooklyn, tied up at New York, and showing lines that are very reminiscent of the Varyag, built in the U.S. for the RJW-era Russian Navy.

A veteran of both Santiago Bay and the Boxer Rebellion deployment, she was re-commissioned during the First World War in order to add to the American naval presence in the North Atlantic.

Next up, we have a view of the Armoured Cruiser USS Pennsylvania, launched in 1903 from the Cramp's yard, she was renamed the Pittsburgh in 1912, and soldiered on until 1931:

Moving on, we have the Armoured Cruiser the Colorado, of the same class, which was also renamed during her career, this time as the Pueblo; there's a good summary of her life at the battleships-cruisers website:

http://www.battleships-cruisers.co.uk/uss_colorado.htm

Another view of the Brooklyn here, this time from the bows, with another Cruiser in the background; these cards are from The Illustrated Postal Card Company of New York, circa 1910:

Moving up a class, we have the Battleship USS Kearsage next, which having been launched in 1898, apparently survived all the way until 1955, albeit in the guise of a Floating Crane ship!

Nice view of the turret-upon-turret design here - can't imaging what it was like for the gun crew in the primary when those secondaries gave fire just above....

Moving on, we have a view of the Armoured Cruiser USS Washington, launched 1905, part of the Tennessee class of improved vessels:

Now a representation of the Battleship Vermont of 1905; there's a nice web page concerning her weapons complement that can be seen here:

http://www.navweaps.com/Weapons/WNUS_7-45_mk2.htm

Next up, we have another veteran of the Span-Am War, and at least at the time of writing, the last surviving of her type - the Cruiser USS Olympia - hopefully she can be retained as a floating Museum, rather than be scuttled after all these years......what a waste!

The authoritative record of why she deserves her reputation can be found here at the Span-Am War website:

http://www.spanamwar.com/olympia.htm

Next we have the Bainbridge Class Destroyer, the USS Decatur; there's a good Wiki page with all her info here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Decatur_(DD-5)

Surprisingly, for a small vessel that had cruised extensively in the Far East and Philippines, she was transferred to the rough waters of the Atlantic for convoy duty at the tail end of 1918:

Finally, we have a nice colourised depiction of that strangest of weapon-platform craft, namely the Dynamite gun armed USS Vesuvius (aptly named....):

There is an explanatory entry at the excellent Span-Am War site as below:

http://www.spanamwar.com/vesuvius.htm

The 15" weapons fired an explosive charge through an 'explosion' of compressed air; propelling the mixture of nitrocellulose and nitroglycerine out to a range of one and a half miles!

At least that was the theory......

Certainly a unique vessel - it's a shame, but I don't think any 1/3000th manufacturer makes a model of one. :-)