Бірінші дүниежүзілік соғыс кезеңіндегі американдық «Максималды кемелер» зерттеулері

Series of studies for WWI era battleships in the USA

The "Maximum Battleships", also known as the "Tillman Battleships", were a series of World War I era design studies for extremely large battleships, prepared in late 1916 and early 1917 upon the order of Senator "Pitchfork" Benjamin Tillman by the Bureau of Construction and Repair (C&R) of the United States Navy. They helped influence design work on the and first South Dakota classes of battleships. The plans prepared for the senator were preserved by C&R in the first of its "Spring Styles" books, where it kept various warship designs conceptualized between 1911 and 1925.

During the years leading up to World War I, some members of the U. S. Congress were growing frustrated with what they perceived to be chronic overspending by the U. S. Navy on battleships. The only limits on the potential size of an American battleship were the dimensions of the locks of the Panama Canal. The locks measure roughly , and so the "maximum battleships" were The Panamax draft limit during the designing of these battleships was 39 feet (12 m), however the Department of the Navy required that all designs be limited to only 34 feet (10 m) in draft. In 1916, Tillman repeated his request, and C&R produced another series of design studies. C&R drew up four blueprints, all ships having varying characteristics despite being built on the same hull:

The Washington Naval Treaty of 1922 limited naval armaments, causing the cancellation of the South Dakotas and halting all consideration of the "maximum battleships."