USS Illinois was an uncompleted battleship of the U.S. Navy. She was originally intended to be the first ship of the Montana class. Her sister ship Kentucky was laid down in the same Philadelphia Naval Shipyard on December 6, 1942. Illinois was canceled in August 1945, but her hull remained as a parts hulk until she was broken up in 1958.
About USS Illinois (BB-65) in brief
USS Illinois was an uncompleted battleship of the U.S. Navy. She was originally intended to be the first ship of the Montana class. The hull of this ship and its sister ship BB-66 were reordered and laid down as Iowa class-class battleships in 1942. Illinois was canceled in August 1945, but her hull remained as a parts hulk until she was broken up in 1958. She would have been tasked with primarily the defense of the US fleet of Essex-class aircraft carriers. The ship was the fourth navy ship to be named in honor of the 21st US state, and the fifth member of the Iowa-class to be built. It would have had a maximum beam of 8ft 2in and a waterline length of 2.5m. She had a speed of 33 knots and a main battery of twelve 16-inch guns, three more than the Montana-class. The increase in the Montanas firepower and armor came at the expense of her speed and ability to utilize the Panama Canal, but transit between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans without having to round South America could have been eliminated through the construction of a third, much wider set of locks there.
Her sister ship Kentucky was laid down in the same Philadelphia Naval Shipyard on December 6, 1942, with a projected completion date of May 1, 1945. Her funding was authorized via the Two-Ocean Navy Act by the US Congress on July 19, 1940, and she would now be the fifth Iowa class battleship built for the United States Navy. When BB-65 was redesignated an Iowa- class, she was assigned the name Illinois and reconfigured to adhere to the \”fast battleship\” designs in 1938.
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This page is based on the article USS Illinois (BB-65) published in Wikipedia (as of Dec. 08, 2020) and was automatically summarized using artificial intelligence.
