page_title: List of battleships of the United States
section_title: Connecticut class
hierarchical_section_title: List of battleships of the United States / Predreadnought battleships / Connecticut class
caption_attribution_description: English: (Battleship # 18) Probably in San Diego harbor, California, in 1908. Photographed by Fred W. Kelsey. Courtesy of R.W. Cunningham, 1971. U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command Photograph.
context_page_description: The United States Navy began the construction of battleships with USS Texas in 1892, but the first battleship under that designation would be USS Indiana. Texas and USS Maine, commissioned three years later, were part of the New Navy program of the late 19th century, a proposal by then Secretary of the Navy William H. Hunt to match Europe's navies that ignited a years-long debate that was suddenly settled in Hunt's favor when the Brazilian Empire commissioned the battleship Riachuelo. In 1890, Alfred Thayer Mahan's book The Influence of Sea Power upon History was published and significantly influenced future naval policy—as an indirect of its influence on Secretary Benjamin F. Tracy, the Navy Act of June 30, 1890 authorized the construction of "three sea-going, coast-line battle ships" which became the Indiana class. The Navy Act of July 19, 1892 authorized construction of a fourth "sea-going, coast-line battle ship", which became USS Iowa. Despite much later claims that these were to be purely defensive and were authorized as "coastal defense ships", they were almost immediately used for offensive operations in the Spanish–American War.
context_section_description: Displacement: 16,000 tons
  Armament: 4 × 12 in (305 mm) (2x2), 8 × 8 in (203 mm) (4x2), 12 × 7 in (178 mm) (12x1), 10 × 3 in (76 mm) (10x1), 4 × 21 in (533 mm) torpedo tubes
  Armor: 11in Belt / 3in Deck
  Speed: 18 knots
  Ships in class: 6: USS Connecticut, USS Louisiana, USS Vermont, USS Kansas, USS Minnesota, and USS New Hampshire
  Commissioned: 2 June 1906 (Louisiana)
  Decommissioned: 1 March 1923 (Connecticut)
  Fate: Scrapped 1923–24
caption: USS Connecticut
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