Virginia-class battleship

The Virginia class of pre-dreadnought battleships was built for the United States Navy in the early 1900s and comprised five ships: Virginia, Nebraska, Georgia, New Jersey and Rhode Island. They carried an uncommon mixed battery of four 12-inch and eight 8-inch guns, with four of the 8-inch guns mounted atop the 12-inch turrets, an arrangement that proved a failure because the smaller guns could not fire independently. By the time they entered service the first all-big-gun battleships were nearly complete, which made mixed-battery ships obsolete. Even so the ships had active careers: all five sailed with the Great White Fleet in 1907 to 1909, worked as the Atlantic Fleet workhorses, took part in the Veracruz occupation of 1914, and trained sailors and escorted convoys in the First World War. The 1922 Washington Naval Treaty cut their careers short, and Virginia and New Jersey were sunk in bombing tests in 1923. Bath Iron Works in Maine built Georgia, the only battleship ever built in Bath.