Аяқталмаған «Кентукки» линкор кемесінің тарихы

Uncompleted battleship of the United States Navy

USS Kentucky (BB 66) was an uncompleted battleship intended to be the last ship of the Hull BB 66 was originally to be the second ship of the s. However, the urgent need for more warships at the outbreak of World War II and the U. S. Navy's experiences in the Pacific theater led it to conclude that rather than battleships larger and more heavily armed than the , it quickly needed more fast battleships of that class to escort the new s being built. As a result, hulls BB 65 and BB 66 were reordered and laid down as Iowa class battleships in 1942. As such, she was intended to be the sixth and final member of the Iowa class constructed. At the time of her construction she was the second ship of the United States Navy to be named in honor of the U. S. state of Kentucky. Like her sister ship Illinois, laid down as one of the last pair of Iowa class ahead of her, Kentucky was still under construction at the end of hostilities and became caught up in the post war draw down of the armed services. Her construction was suspended twice, during which times she served as a parts hulk. In the 1950s, several proposals were made to complete the ship as a guided missile battleship, abandoned primarily due to cost concerns and the rapid pace of evolving missile technology. Kentucky ultimately was sold for scrap in 1958.

Kentucky was conceived in 1935, when the United States Navy initiated design studies for the creation of an extended that was not restricted by the Second London Naval Treaty. This resulted in one of the "fast battleship" designs planned in 1938 by the Preliminary Design Branch at the Bureau of Construction and Repair. The passage of the Second Vinson Act in 1938 had cleared the way for construction of the four South Dakota class battleships and the first two Iowa class fast battleships (those with the hull numbers BB 61 and BB 62). The latter four battleships of the class, those designated with the hull numbers BB 63, BB 64, BB 65, and BB 66 (Missouri, Wisconsin, Illinois, and Kentucky, respectively) were not cleared for construction until 12 July 1940. While BB 63 and BB 64 were originally planned as the final ships in the Iowa class, BB 65 and BB 66 were intended to be the first ships of the Montana class which was larger and slower while mounting twelve Mark 7 guns. However, the passage of an emergency war building program on 19 July 1940 resulting in Illinois and Kentucky being re ordered as the fifth and sixth ships, respectively, of the in order to save time on construction, so the first ship of the would be reassigned as BB 67. The orders for BB 65 and BB 66 were placed on 9 September 1940, and the ships were laid down on 6 December 1942, and 7 March 1942, respectively. By 1942 the United States Navy shifted its building focus from battleships to aircraft carriers after the successes of carrier combat in both the Battle of the Coral Sea, and to a greater extent, the Battle of Midway. As a result, the construction of the US fleet of s had been given the highest priority for completion in the US shipyards by the US Navy. The Essex class carriers were proving vital to the war effort by enabling the Allies to gain and maintain air supremacy in the Pacific War, and were rapidly becoming the principal striking arm of the United States Navy in the ongoing effort to defeat the Empire of Japan. Accordingly, the United States accepted shortcomings in the armor of their s in favor of additional speed, which could steam at a comparable speed with the Essex class and provide the carriers with the maximum amount of anti aircraft protection. The guided missile battleship project was authorized in 1954, and Kentucky was renumbered from BB 66 to BBG 1, with the conversion due to be complete in 1956. However, the project was soon cancelled, with the conversion ideas transferred to a smaller platform that led to the guided missile cruiser. These partial conversions of two heavy cruisers proved only partially successful in their new role, as the pace of change in cruise missile technology rendered their new weapons systems obsolete, while their remaining heavy guns proved in demand. Another conversion project in early 1956 called for the installation of two Polaris nuclear ballistic missile launchers with a capacity for sixteen weapons. Also proposed were four RIM 8 Talos SAM launchers with eighty missiles per launcher and twelve RIM 24 Tartar SAM launchers with 504 missiles. A July 1956 estimate projected completing the ship by July 1961, but the cost of the conversion ultimately forced the Navy to abandon the project.

Kentucky was never completed, instead serving as a parts hulk while in the mothball fleet at the Philadelphia Naval Shipyard from about 1950 to 1958. Hurricane Hazel hit the area on 15 October 1954, causing Kentucky to break free from her moorings and run aground in the Delaware River. In 1956, Kentuckys bow was removed and used in the repair of Wisconsin, which had been damaged in a collision with the destroyer Eaton on 6 May 1956. Congressman William Huston Natcher attempted to block the sale of the ship by objecting to the bill in August 1957. Nevertheless, Kentucky was struck from the Naval Vessel Register on 9 June 1958 and her incomplete hulk was sold for scrapping to Boston Metals Company of Baltimore, Maryland on 31 October for $1,176,666. She was towed to their shipyard in Baltimore in February 1959. Kentuckys four 600 psi (4.1 MPa) boilers and turbine sets were used to power the first two s, Sacramento laid down in 1961 and Camden in 1964. When the Navy switched to 1,200 psi (8.3 MPa) boilers, sailors who had served aboard Sacramento and Camden provided the experience to operate the older lower pressure boilers aboard New Jersey during her combat tour in the Vietnam War and aboard all four of the Iowas when they were recalled and modernized in the 1980s as part of the 600 ship Navy plan. A pair of mahogany doors that had been donated by the state of Kentucky while the ship was under construction were removed and used in an officer's club in New York City before eventually being returned to the Kentucky Historical Society in early January 1994.