Talk:USS Texas

Working on History text

The USS Texas was the second capital ship to be named as such, the first pre-Drednaught being built in 1892. When work started on the next ship to replace the Wyoming class the thought was to jump ahead of the other navies with 16" main guns, but it was soon determined to be difficult to handle and load such a massive projectile so it was reduced to a still leading 14" (mm) shell. The bigger issue was propulsion. While steam turbines were the norm, they were not efficient enough for the trans Pacific missions that would be demanded. After lack of interest from the turbine manufactures for a better turbine, it was decided to go with steam piston engines, and some of the biggest ever produced for a ship! Because of the slower RPM the New York class also had largest screws, and only 2 of them when 4 was common for top of line warships.

Bids for Texas were accepted from 27 September to 1 December with the winning bid of $5,830,000—excluding the price of armor and armament—submitted by Newport News Shipbuilding.