text:
Allan Blakeney

Allan Emrys Blakeney (September 7, 1925 – April 16, 2011) was a Canadian politician who served as the tenth premier of Saskatchewan from 1971 to 1982. Originally from Bridgewater, Nova Scotia, Blakeney moved to Regina, Saskatchewan, and worked in the province's civil service before running for office with the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation (CCF) under Tommy Douglas. Blakeney became leader of the Saskatchewan New Democratic Party (NDP) in 1970. Altogether, he was a member of the Legislative Assembly of Saskatchewan from 1960 to 1988.

Before he was premier, Blakeney played a key role in the implementation of the first Canadian public health insurance program (Medicare) in 1962. As premier, Blakeney's government was notable for its approach to resource development. The NDP nationalized the potash industry, created a range of new crown corporations such as SaskOil and PotashCorp, and fought with the federal government over resource rights and taxation. Blakeney was also a key figure in the negotiations surrounding Patriation of the Canadian Constitution in the early 1980s, and in the development of the Constitution's Charter of Rights and Freedoms. After retiring from politics, Blakeney taught and wrote about constitutional law for more than two decades.

Early life and career
Blakeney was born in Bridgewater, Nova Scotia on September 7, 1925. He attended Dalhousie University in Halifax and earned a degree in history and political science, followed by a law degree from Dalhousie Law School, winning a gold medal. He was awarded a Rhodes Scholarship and attended Queen's College, Oxford, where he played for the Oxford University Ice Hockey Club. There he earned a bachelor's degree, second class, in politics, philosophy. and economics. Although he grew up in a conservative household—his father worked as an election scrutineer for the Conservatives in Nova Scotia—Blakeney's time in law school, the events of the Second World War, and his experience in postwar England, where the Clement Atlee's Labour government was actively building the British welfare state, all inclined him towards government intervention in meeting the needs of citizens. His eventual embrace of the CCF is said to have caused a "mild scandal in Bridgewater."

After graduating from Oxford, Blakeney returned to Canada and passed the Nova Scotia bar exam in 1950. That same year he married and took a job with the Saskatchewan civil service, prompting a move to Regina. Blakeney was attracted to the province due to the innovation of Tommy Douglas' CCF administration, which in 1944 had become the first social democratic government elected in North America. Blakeney later stated that he initially intended to stay in Saskatchewan only for a couple of years, explaining that "Saskatchewan was the end of the Earth to me in 1950". However, he found the work engaging, and during the 1950s he became a senior civil servant. His first wife, Molly, died suddenly in 1957. He married his second wife, Anne, in 1959, and the couple would have four children.

CCF/NDP MLA
By the end of the 1950s, Blakeney decided to enter politics himself. He first ran as a CCF candidate in the 1960 election at a time when electoral districts elected multiple members for the Legislative Assembly (MLAs). Blakeney was one of four MLAs elected for Regina City—he would go on to represent a Regina-based riding without interruption until his retirement in 1988, including Regina Elphinstone from 1975 onward.

Blakeney served as a cabinet minister in the governments of Douglas and—when Douglas resigned to become leader of the federal New Democratic Party—Woodrow Lloyd, until the government was defeated in the 1964 election. In cabinet, he served as minister of education, provincial treasurer, and most prominently as minister of health. In that role, he helped implement Medicare in the province, a struggle which culminated in the 1962 Saskatchewan doctors' strike.

In 1969, Blakeney was elected national president of the federal NDP, succeeding James Renwick. He held the position until 1971, when he was succeeded by Donald MacDonald.

NDP leadership
In 1964, the party was defeated by Ross Thatcher's Liberals after five consecutive terms in government. The defeat, coming on the heels of the protracted Medicare battle, prompted a transition period for the party, now in Opposition. In 1967, the party fully adopted the NDP name. Around the same time, the party—both provincially and nationally—became gripped with a factional dispute with a growing left-wing movement called "The Waffle". The Waffle advocated for a return to the party's socialist roots, including through the nationalization of key industries. The movement had a strong base in Saskatchewan, the historic NDP stronghold. However, it was divisive. While its Manifesto for an Independent Socialist Canada was defeated in a vote at the 1969 federal NDP convention, Woodrow Lloyd voted in support of it, believing in the manifesto's potential to revitalize debate in the party. That episode, and resistance to Lloyd's willingness to open the party to debate, contributed to Lloyd's decision to resign as leader in 1970. Blakeney decided to run in the race to succeed Lloyd.

Blakeney was joined in the race by young lawyer Row Romanow, who had joined the caucus in 1967; Waffle candidate Don Mitchell; and labour candidate George Taylor. Blakeney's motivation was principally to continue the legacy of the CCF in building and maintaining the welfare state. While MItchell had a strong showing in the leadership election, Blakeney ultimately defeated Romanow on the final ballot. The result was seen as a victory for the party establishment over the Waffle. However, once he became leader, a priority for Blakeney was uniting the party and he would prove open to some of the movement's proposals.

Premier of Saskatchewan (1971–1982)
Blakeney's first election platform as leader was titled "A New Deal for People", and it offered an ambitious social democratic agenda premised on state intervention in the economy and strong support for organized labour, and promising expanded health and social programs, including drug and children's dental programs, housing development, and increased supports for the poor and elderly. In the 1971 provincial election, Blakeney defeated Thatcher's Liberals and led the NDP to power with their highest ever share of the popular vote at 55%.

One of Blakeney's key priorities was putting together a strong cabinet and building a robust civil service, which had been significantly weakened by Thatcher, who had prioritized a smaller government. Blakeney believed in evidence-based policy and relied heavily on the professional civil service and delegation to cabinet ministers. In terms of policy, the government quickly enacted extensive labour reforms, for example making it easier for workers to organize and guaranteeing the right to collectively bargain. The NPD also established legal aid and the Saskatchewan Human Rights Commission.

One of the NDP's earliest and most controversial initiatives was the creation of a Land Bank for agricultural land. An attempt to address rural decline, driven in part through agricultural consolidation and the weakening of the family farm, the Bank could purchase available land and then lease it to young farmers, guaranteeing them tenure but also providing the option to purchase the land after a five-year term. Blakeney also introduced programs to stabilize crop prices, retain transportation links, and modernize rural life. Blakeney later stated that he looked back "ruefully" on the government's uneven efforts to stem the tide of corporatization in agriculture, citing the extremely high costs—such as those borne by many European states—as a barrier to true success.

Blakeney's government was resource nationalist, and he saw mineral resource development as a key to achieving the government's goals. The advent of the Energy Crisis in the 1970s, which resulted in a rapid rise in energy commodity prices, made resource development a priority, and Blakeney relied on a state-led model of development. Above all, Blakeney believed that the primary beneficiaries of resource development in the province needed to be its citizens rather than the corporate sector. The NDP created new crown corporations such as SaskOil, a relatively small enterprise mainly concerned with exploration, and the Saskatchewan Mining Development Corporation, which became a key developer of the province's significant uranium reserves. The province also went to court with the federal government over resource taxation, and joined with Alberta in its opposition to the federal National Energy Program, which exacerbated a new wave of western alienation sentiment. The province's most significant decision was to nationalize the potash industry in 1976. These developments were not without controversy. The potash industry was initially shocked by nationalization, but the province managed to arrange purchase agreements and never had to expropriate any mines. Uranium development, meanwhile, proved contentious within the NDP as environmental and peace activists favoured a moratorium on the resource. However, the Blakeney government also created a Department of the Environment, introduced environmental assessment standards, and held a number of public inquiries into resource projects.

Like CCF premiers Douglas and Lloyd, Blakeney placed an emphasis on sound fiscal management. The government's significant spending on social programs was largely offset by its new ventures in resource development along with high royalties. Blakeney not only presented a succession of surplus budgets, but established a Heritage fund for the province, saving surplus resource revenues for future economic challenges. With this record, Blakeney's NDP were comfortably re-elected in the 1975 and 1978 provincial elections.

Patriation negotiations
Given his legal background, Blakeney was intensely interested in constitutional matters, and he played an important role in the federal-provincial negotiations that led to the 1982 Patriation of the Canadian Constitution. One priority was ensuring the recognition of provincial rights over natural resources in the Constitution; to this end, Blakeney worked closely with Alberta premier Peter Lougheed to negotiate those rights, which were ultimately enshrined in Section 92A of the Constitution. Blakeney was also instrumental in the development of Section 33 of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, which enshrined the notwithstanding clause and thus preserved a preeminent role in legislation for elected governments over appointed courts. After an initial draft without it was agreed to, Blakeney and his team also ensured the ultimate inclusion of Section 35, which enshrined Indigenous rights in the Constitution. This was achieved when other negotiators insisted on changes to ensure that sexual equality rights could not be subject to the notwithstanding clause; Blakeney stated that he would agree to such a change only if Section 35 was re-inserted.

Late political career (1982–1988)
Blakeney sought a fourth consecutive term in the 1982 provincial election. However, his government was defeated by Grant Devine's Progressive Conservatives. The scope of the defeat was surprising: the NDP lost 35 of its 44 seats, its 9 elected members marking the smallest presence for the party since the 1930s. The result has been attributed to a variety of factors. The national economy was struggling. Public fatigue with constitutional matters made the NDP vulnerable to charges that they had lost touch with issues on the ground in Saskatchewan. The party also lost significant union support—normally a bulwark for the NDP—ahead of the election due both to its support for federal wage and price controls and for conflicts with organized labour late in its term, including legislating hospital staff back to work in 1982. It has also been noted that the NDP saw a significant decrease in support among female voters, which could be attributable to its labour dispute with the female-dominated hospital workers, constitutional negotiations, or, as has been speculated, a lack of female representation in the NDP government. In addition, Devine and his PCs ran an aggressive campaign on the slogan, "There's so much more we can be", promising more private business opportunities along with tax and interest relief.

Despite the defeat, Blakeney decided to stay on as Opposition leader. Blakeney led the party into the 1986 provincial election, and particularly after a string of deficit budgets from the PCs, reversing the 1982 result appeared possible. In the election, the NDP narrowly edged the PCs in the popular vote. However, the PCs—who secured a $1 billion farming aid package from Brian Mulroney's federal Progressive Conservative government on the eve of the election—managed to ride a dominant performance in rural Saskatchewan into a second term. Although the NDP more than doubled its seat-count to 25, it was a disappointing result for Blakeney. In 1987, he announced that he would be resigning as party leader and MLA when a new leader was chosen. In November of that year, Romanow was acclaimed as Blakeney's successor. In March 1988, Dwain Lingenfelter held Blakeney's former Regina Elphinstone seat for the NDP in a by-election.

After politics
After retiring from politics, Blakeney took a two-year chair teaching constitutional law at Osgoode Hall at Toronto's York University. He then accepted the inaugural Law Foundation Chair at the University of Saskatchewan School of Law in Saskatoon, and remained a visiting scholar there. Blakeney served as a consultant to the Romanow government in the 1990s, and served on a number of boards, including the board of Cameco, a uranium company formed by the merger of the former Saskatchewan Mining Development Corporation and the former federal Eldorado crown corporation. Blakeney was a past president of the Canadian Civil Liberties Association.

In the 1990s, Blakeney worked on an International Development Research Centre project advising the African National Congress in South Africa. The project mainly entailed discussions ahead of the 1994 national elections, and Blakeney helped to advise on the nuances of federal political systems. The same decade, Blakeney spent time in the former Soviet republics of Russia and Kyrgyzstan—Cameco operated one of he largest gold mines in the latter—advising legislators and government.

Blakeney co-authored Political Management in Canada with Sandford Borins, with whom he worked at Osgoode Hall. The book, released in 1992, offers Blakeney's perspective and experience on governance and social democracy. Blakeney published his memoirs in 2008.

Death
Blakeney died on April 16, 2011, at his home in Saskatoon of complications from cancer. Federal NDP leader Jack Layton dedicated his 2011 federal election campaign to Blakeney after he died halfway through the campaign. Approximately 600 people attended his memorial, including federal NDP leaders Jack Layton and Ed Broadbent, former provincial premiers Roy Romanow, Lorne Calvert, Peter Lougheed, Ed Schreyer, Bill Davis, and Bob Rae, as well as Saskatchewan premier Brad Wall.

Honours
On April 30, 1992, Blakeney was appointed as an Officer of the Order of Canada for his work as premier, his contribution to the field of public administration, and for his role as a key player in introducing the first comprehensive public medical health care plan in Canada. In 2000, he was awarded the Saskatchewan Order of Merit, and in 2001, he was made a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada. He received honorary degrees from the University of Saskatchewan, the University of Regina, York University, Mount Allison University, and Western University.

In 2017, Regina's adult campus, where adults aged 18 to 21 who did not complete high school can obtain secondary school credits, was renamed the Allan Blakeney Adult Campus in his honour. There is also a memorial plinth for Blakeney in Wascana Centre, near the Saskatchewan Legislative Building.

Legacy
Blakeney was closely involved in Saskatchewan government and politics from the 1950s into the 1990s, actually sitting in government for nearly the entirety of the 1960s through the 1980s. As such, he played a significant role in the province's political and social development, while his influence also extended beyond the province. Within Saskatchewan, Blakeney's government has been seen as the last truly social democratic government in the CCF tradition, whose "progressive creativity" helped to shape the province's political institutions. This legacy is clearly seen in the province's continued tradition of supporting its crown corporations, which were a major focus of Blakeney's government. Blakeney's government has been called "the most innovative in Canadian history."

Beyond Saskatchewan, Blakeney's legacy has been widely acknowledged, especially in health care and constitutional matters. Although Blakeney was first elected as a CCF MLA in 1960 in what was effectively a referendum election on public health insurance in the province, he played a critical role in navigating the doctors' strike that nearly derailed the legislation and in implementing the program in its aftermath as the Minister of Health. Only a few years later, Canada implemented Medicare nationwide. Blakeney was also critical in negotiations leading to Patriation of the Canadian Constitution in 1982. His legacy is noted especially in Sections 35 and 92a, as well as Section 33 of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. The notwithstanding clause remains controversial in Canada. For his part, Blakeney argued that it was an important check on appointed courts by democratically elected governments; while courts could rule on certain legal rights, they had less purview to rule on moral rights—such as the right to healthcare—that can only be enacted and enforced by governments. In essence, Blakeney asserted that certain rights should not be given precedence over others because they were included in the Charter. Overall, Blakeney saw the Charter as incomplete for protecting only individual and not collective rights.

References and further reading

 * Blakeney, Allan (2008). An Honourable Calling: Political Memoirs. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. ISBN 978-0-8020-9891-7. OCLC 227928829
 * McGrane, David; Whyte, John D.; Romanow, Roy; and Isinger, Russell, eds. (2019). Back to Blakeney: Revitalizing the Democratic State. Regina, Sask.: University of Regina Press. ISBN 9780889776821 OCLC 1090178443
 * McGrane, David; Whyte, John D.; Romanow, Roy; and Isinger, Russell, eds. (2019). Back to Blakeney: Revitalizing the Democratic State. Regina, Sask.: University of Regina Press. ISBN 9780889776821 OCLC 1090178443

title: Allan Blakeney


text: Template:Tennessee class battleship

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: Template:Tennessee class battleship


text:
Tammy Lynn Michaels

Tammy Lynn Michaels (née Doring), also known by the surname Etheridge from her relationship with Melissa Etheridge, is an American actress.

Michaels portrayed mean girl Nicole Julian on The WB's Popular.

Career
Michaels developed a passion for acting in junior high school, and after graduating, moved to New York City to pursue it. She attended the American Musical and Dramatic Academy in New York and completed three semesters but withdrew from the school before graduation. While working as a bartender at a restaurant, she was discovered by Alayne Skylar, a talent scout.

After moving to Los Angeles, Michaels landed the role of Nicole Julian on Popular.

In 2002, Michaels guest-starred on the Fox show That '80s Show, followed by a guest appearance in 2004 on the Showtime drama The L Word. In 2005, she played the character Tess on the NBC series Committed.

In 2003, Michaels played the role of Max in the short-film D.E.B.S.. The film received several awards and later was expanded to a feature-length film of the same name and released in 2004. However, most of the actresses in the original D.E.B.S. were replaced for the expanded version, including Michaels.

Personal life
Michaels is openly a lesbian.

She started dating singer Melissa Etheridge in 2001. The couple had a commitment ceremony in September 2003 and they became registered domestic partners in 2005. In April 2006, the couple announced that Michaels was pregnant with twins. Michaels gave birth to a daughter and a son in October 2006.

On April 15, 2010, Michaels and Etheridge confirmed that they had ended their nearly nine-year relationship. In May 2012 it was announced that their two-year child support battle had been settled.

Since 2005, Michaels has kept a blog, in which she discusses politics, current events and her personal life.

title: Tammy Lynn Michaels


text:
Talk:Ali Hassan Mwinyi

Untitled
This is off the top of my head(i.e no references, but I would say this is all standard stuff that any observer of Tanzanian politics would know about.

title: Talk:Ali Hassan Mwinyi


text: Template:Colorado class battleship

title: Template:Colorado class battleship


text:
User talk:Chinasaur

March 2012: I rarely log into WP so don't expect to hear from me if you post here.

Archives

 * User talk:Chinasaur/Archive1 - February 2004 @ February 2005
 * User talk:Chinasaur/Archive2 - February 2005 @ 2012
 * User talk:Chinasaur/Tkorrovi vs. Psb777 - Talk related to this ArbCom case

Nomination for deletion of Template:Geolinks-US-buildingscale
Template:Geolinks-US-buildingscale has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the template's entry on the Templates for discussion page. Andy Mabbett ( Pigsonthewing ); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 11:16, 21 January 2013 (UTC)

File:Taps.gif missing description details
Dear uploader: The media file you uploaded as: is missing a description and/or other details on its image description page. If possible, please add this information. This will help other editors make better use of the image, and it will be more informative to readers.
 * File:Taps.gif

If you have any questions, please see Help:Image page. Thank you. Message delivered by Theo's Little Bot (opt-out) 16:03, 3 August 2013 (UTC)

Nomination of LSM (Zeiss) for deletion
A discussion is taking place as to whether the article LSM (Zeiss) is suitable for inclusion in Wikipedia according to Wikipedia's policies and guidelines or whether it should be deleted. The article will be discussed at Articles for deletion/LSM (Zeiss)

ArbCom elections are now open!
Hi, You appear to be eligible to vote in the current Arbitration Committee election. The Arbitration Committee is the panel of editors responsible for conducting the Wikipedia arbitration process. It has the authority to enact binding solutions for disputes between editors, primarily related to serious behavioural issues that the community has been unable to resolve. This includes the ability to impose site bans, topic bans, editing restrictions, and other measures needed to maintain our editing environment. The arbitration policy describes the Committee's roles and responsibilities in greater detail. If you wish to participate, you are welcome to review the candidates' statements and submit your choices on the voting page. For the Election committee, MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 22:13, 30 November 2015 (UTC)

Nomination for deletion of Template:Unicode
Template:Unicode has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the template's entry on the Templates for discussion page. —Ruud 21:07, 16 March 2016 (UTC)

Nomination for deletion of Template:NSFIL
Template:NSFIL has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the template's entry on the Templates for discussion page. Ten Pound Hammer • (What did I screw up now?) 17:50, 15 October 2017 (UTC)

Please claim your upload(s): File:Ceiling and chandelier of the Castro Theater, San Francisco.jpg
Hi, This image was seemingly uploaded prior to current image polices, Thank you.

However, as part of ongoing efforts to ensure all media on English Wikipedia is correctly licensed and attributed it would be appreciated if you were able to confirm, that it was your own work, by marking it as own, amending the information added by a third party, and by changing the license to an appropriate "self" variant. You can also add  to the Media by uploader or Presumed self tag(s) if  present to indicate that you've acknowledged the image, and license shown (and updated the information where appropriate).

IF you have other uploads, please consider "claiming" them in a similar manner, You can find a list of files you have created [ here].

This will assist those reviewing the many many "free" images on commons that have not yet been transferred to Commons. ShakespeareFan00 (talk) 09:51, 16 March 2018 (UTC)

Proposed deletion of Little Oak Ranch

The article Little Oak Ranch has been proposed for deletion because of the following concern: "No indication of importance; no apparent significant coverage in independent sources"

While all constructive contributions to Wikipedia are appreciated, pages may be deleted for any of several reasons.

You may prevent the proposed deletion by removing the notice, but please explain why in your edit summary or on the article's talk page.

Please consider improving the page to address the issues raised. Removing will stop the proposed deletion process, but other deletion processes exist. In particular, the speedy deletion process can result in deletion without discussion, and articles for deletion allows discussion to reach consensus for deletion. Pi.1415926535 (talk) 21:31, 3 January 2024 (UTC)

Nomination of Little Oak Ranch for deletion
A discussion is taking place as to whether the article Little Oak Ranch is suitable for inclusion in Wikipedia according to Wikipedia's policies and guidelines or whether it should be deleted.

The article will be discussed at Articles for deletion/Little Oak Ranch until a consensus is reached, and anyone, including you, is welcome to contribute to the discussion. The nomination will explain the policies and guidelines which are of concern. The discussion focuses on high-quality evidence and our policies and guidelines.

Users may edit the article during the discussion, including to improve the article to address concerns raised in the discussion. However, do not remove the article-for-deletion notice from the top of the article until the discussion has finished. Pi.1415926535 (talk) 04:03, 6 January 2024 (UTC)

title: User talk:Chinasaur


text:
Colorado-class battleship

The Colorado-class battleships were a group of four United States Navy super-dreadnoughts, the last of its pre-Treaty battleships. Designed during World War I, their construction overlapped the end of that conflict and continued in its immediate aftermath. Though all four keels were laid, only three ships entered service: USS Colorado (BB-45), USS Maryland (BB-46), and USS West Virginia (BB-48). USS Washington (BB-47) was over 75% completed when she was canceled under the terms of the Washington Naval Treaty in 1922. As such, the 16" gun Colorado-class ships were the last and most powerful battleships built by the U.S. Navy until the North Carolina-class battleship entered service on the eve of World War II.

The Colorados were the final group of the Standard-type battleships, designed to have similar speed and handling to simplify maneuvers with the line of battle. The cancelled South Dakota-class battleship (1920) which was to follow would have in several ways been a departure from this practice. Apart from an upgrade in striking power with their eight 16-inch guns, the Colorados were essentially repeats of the earlier Tennessee-class battleship. The Colorados were also the last American capital ships built with four main armament turrets and twin-mounted guns.

All three ships had extensive careers during World War II. Maryland and West Virginia were both present during the attack on Pearl Harbor on 7 December 1941. While Maryland escaped relatively unscathed, West Virginia was sunk in the shallow waters of the harbor but subsequently raised and repaired. All three ships served as naval gunfire support ships during numerous amphibious operations. Maryland and West Virginia were present at the last surface action between battleships, the Battle of Surigao Strait during the Battle of Leyte Gulf in October 1944. All three ships were placed into the reserve fleet after the end of the war and were scrapped by the late 1950s.

Design

The construction of battleships armed with 16-inch guns was envisioned by the General Board of the United States Navy and Bureau of Construction and Repair (C&R) as early as 1913, as the upgrade in gun caliber promised twice the kinetic energy of the 12-inch gun then in service and half again as much as the 14-inch gun then being introduced. The 14-inch gun dominated the design of battleships between 1913 and 1916, just as the 12-inch gun had dictated designs from 1908 to 1910. However, while the General Board approved the 16-inch gun as early as 1911, George von Lengerke Meyer, the Secretary of the Navy, felt that a move to the larger gun caliber would make capital ships still on the drawing board obsolete. For this reason, he restricted the Bureau of Ordnance to proceed no further than blueprints for the new gun as a hedge against foreign developments. He finally approved construction of this gun in October 1912 and the weapon was test-fired successfully in August 1914. This success, along with the unofficial news in several naval publications of 15- and 16-inch weapons being adopted by the United Kingdom, Italy, Germany and Japan, led the Board to consider cancelling the construction of the Pennsylvania-class battleship in favor of an up-gunned design. Such a move meant an increase of 8,000 tons per ship, twice as much as the jump from the Nevada-class battleships to the Pennsylvanias. Debate continued for the next three years. Each year, President Woodrow Wilson's Secretary of the Navy, Josephus Daniels, balked at the potential increase in cost and ordered instead that the design features of the Standard Class be continued, but eventually compromised with the 1917 design battleships by allowing their armament to be upgraded. However, this was the only substantial change permitted.

The design of the Colorado class was therefore adapted from the preceding Tennessee-class battleship; other than the significant improvement of eight 16 in/45 caliber guns in four dual turrets taking the place of the Tennessee-class's twelve 14 in/50 caliber guns in four triple turrets, there was no major difference between the two designs. Likewise, the Tennessees were the results of modifications to the New Mexico-class battleship, which had been the most modern U.S. Navy capital ships to see service in World War I and had attracted the attention of British constructors both serving with and outside C&R. This similarity would carry over into the Lexington-class battlecruiser and South Dakota-class battleship (1920)es as the U.S. Navy further standardized its capital ship designs. This was partly the result of wartime experience, when over 250 destroyers and more than 450 submarine chasers had to be built quickly for service in the North Atlantic. The U.S. Navy had done this by a process almost akin to the assembly line, sticking to one basic design per class with a maximum amount of standardization and rationalization. Since the Naval Act of 1916 meant the imminent construction of 16 battleships and six battlecruisers, it was necessary to streamline production to save time and labor.

Nevertheless, while U.S. battleships were standardized as much as possible, design improvements were incorporated whenever practicable. Most of the changes in the Colorados were incorporated prior to any of their keels being laid. However, plans for the underwater protection—the ships' main defense against torpedoes and shells that fell short of the ship but traveled through the water to hit underneath the waterline—could not be worked out in time. The problem was that tests in caissons—experiments that would eventually prove that a series of compartments divided between being filled with liquid and being left empty would be a very effective defense against torpedoes—were not yet complete. In order to commence construction of the ships as soon as possible, proposals sent to shipbuilding corporations noted that if they were selected to build the ships, alterations to the design of the ships three months after their keels were laid must be allowed.

General characteristics

The Colorados were very similar overall to the Tennessees, with a 624 ft overall length and a beam at the waterline of 97 ft. They displaced 32600 LT at normal load and 33590 LT at deep load and had a draft of 30.5 ft. As in the New Mexico and Tennessee classes, they were designed with a clipper bow to help keep the ships dryer in heavy seas, and also kept the secondary armament in the superstructure rather than in the upper hull (Pennsylvania and earlier classes), where the guns had proved to be excessively wet in heavy seas and thus were frequently unusable.

Propulsion
Turbo-electric transmission, which had been used in the prior class, was retained here. Advantages included the ability for the turbines to run at optimum speed without regard to propeller speed, which led to greater fuel economy and range, and an easier sub-division of machinery, which increased the ships' ability to withstand torpedo hits. Each of the four propeller shafts was powered by a 5,424 kilowatt electric motor, fed by two two-phase turbo generators (General Electric for Maryland, Westinghouse for Colorado and West Virginia) rated at 5,000 volts). Eight oil-fired Babcock & Wilcox water-tube boilers, each in its individual compartment, provided steam for the generators. Altogether, the ships' power plant was rated at 28,900 electrical horsepower (EHP) to provide a flank speed of 21 kn. With a maximum bunker capacity of 4570 tons, the Colorados' range without refueling at sea was 10000 nmi.

Main guns
The Colorado class was armed with eight 16 in/45 caliber Mark 1 guns, which fired a 2110 lb armor-piercing (AP) shell at a muzzle velocity of 2600 ft/s and a rate of about 1.5 rounds per minute to a range of 34300 yd at a maximum turret elevation of 30 degrees. Development of this weapon had begun in August 1913, using a bored-out and relined 13 in Mark 2 gun, with the promise of twice the muzzle energy of the 12 in/50 caliber Mark 7 guns and 50 percent more than the 14-inch /45 caliber weapon used on the New York-class battleships. After an initial proof firing in July 1914 and minor changes, the 16-inch Mark 1 was re-proved in May 1916 and production approved in January 1917. When the Colorados were modernized in the 1930s, these guns were rebuilt per standard navy practice and redesignated 16-inch/45 (40.6 cm) Mark 5 and Mark 8.

Secondary guns
Fourteen 5 in/51 caliber Mark 15 guns were installed to defend against enemy destroyers. This was reduced to 12 in 1922. The Mark 15 fired a 50 lb shell at a velocity of 3150 ft/s to a maximum range of 15850 yd at 20 degrees at a rate of seven rounds per minute and was extremely accurate, with a danger space longer than the range to the target for distances less than 3000 yd. As in the New Mexico and Tennessee classes, these were mounted in unarmored casemates on the main deck, one deck higher than in previous classes, to allow them to be manned in heavy weather if necessary.

Heavily damaged at Pearl Harbour, in 1942 West Virginia began a major reconstruction that saw her Mark 15 guns removed and replaced with sixteen 5 in/38 caliber Mark 12 dual-purpose guns in twin turrets. Urgently needed in the Pacific, Maryland and Colorado retained 8 of the prewar Mark 15s, in Colorado's case until the end of the war; the twin turrets planned and later installed were at that time in short supply, and it was only in May 1945 that Maryland would be refitted with 16 5in/38 in 8 twin mountings as in West Virginia. The Mark 12 fired a 55.18 lb shell to a maximum range of 17392 yd and a maximum elevation of 37200 ft at an elevation of 45 degrees. They had a high rate of fire due to their being hand-loaded but power-rammed and their capability for easy loading at any angle of elevation. The introduction of proximity-fused anti-aircraft shells in 1943 made the 5 in/38 even more potent in this capacity.

Anti-aircraft guns
Four 3 in/23 caliber guns were mounted initially for anti-aircraft (AA) defense. This was increased to eight guns in 1922. These guns fired a 3 in shell at a muzzle velocity of 1650 ft/s to a maximum range of 8800 yd and ceiling of 18000 ft at an elevation of 45.3 degrees and a rate of between eight and nine rounds per minute. These weapons were replaced in 1928–1929 with the same number of 5 in/25 caliber guns, the first Navy gun designed specifically for AA use. They fired a 54 lb shell at a muzzle velocity of 2155 ft/s at a rate of between 15 and 20 rounds per minute to a maximum range of 14500 yd at an elevation of 45 degrees and a ceiling of 27400 ft at a maximum elevation of 85 degrees. These weapons were supplemented with quadruple-mount (quad) 1.1-inch/75-caliber guns in 1937–1938.

In 1942, the air defense system on these ships was overhauled completely. In addition to their 5 in/25s, they carried sixteen Bofors 40 mm guns in quad mounts and up to thirty-two Oerlikon 20 mm cannons in single mounts. The quad 40 mm Bofors fired a 1.985 lb shell at a rate of 120 rounds per minute per barrel nominal, 140 to 160 rounds per minute when horizontal (gravity assist), to a maximum range of 11133 yd at 45 degrees and a ceiling of 22299 ft. The 20 mm Oerlikons fired a 0.271 lb shell at an average muzzle velocity of 2725 ft/s and a practical rate of between 250 and 320 rounds per minute to a maximum range of 4800 yd at 45 degrees and a ceiling of 10000 ft.

A second overhaul of AA defense was made between 1944 and 1945, as the Navy had found 20 mm shells too light to stop Japanese kamikaze planes; this plus the higher approach speeds of these planes made these manually-controlled guns obsolete. In their place, more quad 40 mm Bofors mounts were fitted. Maryland eventually carried 40 40 mm in 10 quad mountings and 36 20mm in 18 twin mountings (a different source has her with forty-four 40mm in 11 quad mounts and forty-four 20mm in 20 twin and 1 quad mountings.) Colorado had either 32 or 40 40mm in quad mountings but with 39 single, 8 twin and 1 quad 20mm. West Virginia carried forty 40 mm in quad mountings and 64 20 mm guns in 58 single, one twin and one quad mounting.

Armor and underwater protection
The "all or nothing" armor scheme introduced in the Nevada-class battleships was continued here, as throughout the Standard-type warships, with armor suite virtually identical to the preceding Tennessee class. The exception was an increase in belt armor near vital machinery to 16 in to correspond with the increased main gun caliber. Otherwise, the minimum thickness along the belt remained 14 inches. Upper deck armor was 3.6 in initially and was later increased to 4.1 in. Lower deck armor ranged between 2.25 and 1.5 in and was also presumably strengthened during conversion.

As with the Tennessees, the Colorados were modernized in the 1930s to improve their staying power. A new underwater protection scheme featured five compartments separated by armored bulkheads 0.75 in thick on either side of the ship: an outer empty one, three filled, and an empty inner one. In addition, the eight boilers were moved from their location in previous designs and placed in separate spaces to port and starboard of the turboelectric power plant. This arrangement formed another line of defense, which would allow the ship to sail if one or even an entire side of boilers was incapacitated. A consequence was the chief aesthetic change between the New Mexicos and Tennessees: the single large funnel of the former was replaced by two smaller funnels in the latter. Turret armor was 5" on the roofs, 8 on the sides and rears, and 18 on the faces.

Other improvements imported from the Tennessee class included an attempt to move the forward torpedo room away from the 16-inch gun magazines, as the room was viewed as vulnerable. Also, the design called for the use of external, rather than internal, belt armor so that a "break in the continuity of the side structure" would not exist, which would minimize drag in the water and any corresponding waste of power.

Modifications
With fiscal year 1917 appropriations, bids on the four Colorados were opened on 18 October 1916; though Maryland's keel was laid on 24 April 1917, the other three battleships were not until 1919–1920. With the cancellation of the first South Dakota-class battleship (1920), the Colorados were the last U.S. battleships to enter service for nearly two decades. They were also the final U.S. battleships to use twin gun turrets—the North Carolina-class battleships and second South Dakota classes had nine 16-inch/45 caliber guns and the Iowa-class battleships used nine 16 in/50 caliber in three triple turrets.

Inter-war modernization
Plans for modernization of the Tennessee and Colorado classes were made in October 1931, in part to take advantage of loopholes in the Washington Naval Treaty. While reconstruction under this treaty was allowed only to increase protection from air and underwater attack, it could include improvements in fire control and increased elevation for main armament as these items were not listed in the treaty. Also, any changes made inside the hull could be justified as meant to increase protection, even if the outcome meant increased speed or longer operational range, since the term "blister" had been specified to limit changes only outside the hull, such as main armor belt thickness and main gun caliber. Modifications to the secondary battery were also outside the purview of the Washington Treaty.

Included in initial plans was some protection against chemical shells which contained poisonous gas, although the General Board stated in the late 1920s that decontaminating a battleship hit with these shells would not be possible—the ship would have to be scuttled. Also, the deck armor was to be bolstered with 80 lb-special treatment steel (STS)—which would add 1319 LT to the displacement of the ships—the armor on the tops of the main turrets was to be made thicker, fire controls were to be improved with the latest technology, and new shells for the main guns were to be designed. Two (later four) quad 1.1-inch guns were to be added, and all of the machinery in place would be removed in favor of newer equipment so that the ships would not lose any speed with the great increase in weight. Anti-torpedo bulges were also to be installed to improve buoyancy but not to increase the ships' beams any greater than 106 ft so they could still use the Panama Canal when transferring from the Atlantic to the Pacific and vice verse. These improvements were estimated to cost about $15,000,000 per ship ($71,723,000 total). However, with the country in the throes of the Great Depression, not much money was available for the Navy. Savings of $26,625,000 could be realized by reconditioning the propulsion machinery rather than replacing it, which would lower the ships' speed. Adding protection against chemical shells could be dropped, along with development of the new shells. Nevertheless, the cost-saving elements of the later proposal were later dropped. The Navy asked the Secretary of the Navy to request money in the fiscal year 1933 to modernize the two classes from Congress, but the depression worsened. Although proposals for modifications were still made, plans were put on hold and never carried out.

In the beginning of 1934, the Bureau of Construction and Repair proposed that the "Big Five"—the two Tennessees and three Colorados—be fitted with anti-torpedo bulges so that the ships could benefit from increased buoyancy; because of, among other factors, the normal procedure of leaving port with the maximum amount of fuel possible on board, the five ships were quite overweight and rode low in the water. For example, in June 1935, Tennessee had a normal operating displacement of 38200 LT—more than 2000 LT above the maximum emergency load her original design called for. This made her draft higher—meaning that the ship's waterline was down 5 ft. Construction and Repair called for a bulge on the Colorados that would displace about 2000 LT and raise the ships' draft by 20 in. Installing these would be a year's worth of work, with each ship spending six months of that in a dry dock—the first month docked so that the hull shape could be determined, the next six sailing while the bulge was built, and the last five back in the dock so it could be added to the ship.

Three years later (1937), the various Navy bureaus held a joint meeting to discuss a possible partial modernization of the Tennessees and Colorados. They were much different than the changes proposed in 1933; there were no provisions for extra deck armor, but many additions and replacements. To gain space for newer fire control systems, the ships were to be reboilered. The main and secondary battery fire controls were to be replaced, including new rangefinders and plotting room instruments for the main, while new Mark 33 anti-aircraft fire control directors were planned. The mainmast and M2 Brownings would be removed, and studies of the feasibility of a torpedo bulge, the addition of which Construction and Repair believed to be paramount, which would increase the beam to 108 ft and displacement to 39600 LT. Varying plans for these were complete by October 1938. None was a full reconstruction; costs ranged from $8,094,000 to $38,369,000 per ship. However, as the money for the improvements would lessen the amount available for new battleship construction, and these would be better than any reconstructed old battleship, the Secretary of the Navy rejected these plans in November. Congress did appropriate $6,600,000 in 1939 for some of these improvements, including the bulges.

World War II changes
With the beginning of World War II in Europe, the Navy began to apply lessons learned by the British to U.S. ships. The Board under Ernest J. King of 1940–1941 proposed sweeping changes to the secondary armament of the battleships to increase their defense against air attacks. These included the removal of all 5 in/25 caliber guns and 5 in/51 in favor of the dual-purpose 5 in/38, the addition of six quad 1.1-inch guns, and the cutting away of superstructure to clear arcs of fire for the new anti-aircraft weapons. An ultimate secondary battery of sixteen 5 in/38 in dual mounts, sixteen Bofors 40 mm in quadruple mounts and eight single Oerlikon 20 mm guns was called for by the board in 1941, although they were not certain the ships could handle the added weight and it would take a large amount of time in dry dock for these modifications to take place. With these concerns, an interim measure of four quad 1.1-inch guns was proposed by the board; however, the gun was not being produced in any great number very quickly, so a second interim solution was implemented. 3 in/50 caliber guns were added to all of the U.S. battleships except for Arizona and Nevada by June 1941; these were replaced on the three battleships in the Atlantic by the quad 1.1-inch guns by November—they received them first because they were closer to a war zone.

As these modifications were carried out upon the various battleships, much additional weight was added onto the already overweight ships, forcing torpedo bulges to be added so that a decent freeboard could be maintained. These would cost $750,000 and around three or four months in a dry dock. The King Board suggested that the deck armor be bolstered and 5 in/38 dual-purpose guns be added, but the Chief of Naval Operations decreed that any major changes such as these had to wait due to the wars raging around the world at the time. The addition of bulges, however, was approved for the "Big Five", with each ship spending three months in dry dock at the Puget Sound Naval Shipyard. Maryland would be first (17 February 1941 to 20 May), followed by West Virginia (10 May to 8 August), Colorado (28 July to 28 October), Tennessee (19 January 1942 to 21 April) and California (16 March to 16 June). However, the estimates for how long the addition of bulges would take were too low; Puget Sound believed that they could complete work on Maryland in 123 calendar days (about four months)—if the work would be given a priority equal to that of USS Saratoga (CV-3)'s refit and higher than new construction.

Only two of the ships had bulges added to them through this program, Maryland (completed 1 August 1941) and Colorado (26 February 1942); the attack on Pearl Harbor interrupted the refits intended for West Virginia and the two Tennessees. The surprise strike did not touch Colorado, which was at Puget Sound, and did not hurt Maryland very badly; however, West Virginia was severely damaged and needed a major refit at minimum.

Little to no major modifications were made to the two active Colorados in the opening months of the U.S.'s entry into the war; all of the battleships in the Pacific Fleet had a constant order to be ready to sail within 48 hours in case of a Japanese attempt to invade Hawaii or the West Coast and could not be spared for any major yard work. Colorado was hurried through the rest of her refit with the addition of essential items like radar, splinter protection, fourteen Oerlikon 20 mm and four quad 1.1-in guns; Maryland received a similar treatment later, the only difference being sixteen 20 mm guns and no 1.1-in guns. Although tower masts were constructed for Colorado and Maryland and a majority of their aft cage masts were cut down by the ships' crews in the beginning of 1942, the ships could not be spared the time needed to install the new masts. The tower masts were placed into storage and not used until early 1944.

Colorado and Maryland were greatly needed in the war zone, and as such did not undergo a major refit until 1944, although minor additions and removals, mainly to the anti-aircraft weaponry, were made in-between. Throughout the war, both ships saw their anti-aircraft battery changed constantly. Beginning in 1942, they carried eight 5 in/25, four quad 1.1-in guns, a greatly varying number of 20 mm guns, and eight .50 caliber machine guns. In June 1942, Colorado had fourteen 20 mm guns; just five months later, this was upped to twenty-two, with thirty-six temporarily approved for a later time. By February 1943, both Colorado and Maryland had two more quad 1.1-in guns added (for a total of six mounts) and forty-eight total 20 mm guns; a month later she was given an additional ten .50 caliber machine guns. November 1943 saw the removal of two of the single-purpose 5 in/51, the six quad 1.1-in guns, and a small number of 20 mm guns (six on Colorado and eight on Maryland) in favor of thirty-two Bofors 40 mm guns – six quad and two twin.

Both ships finally underwent major refits in 1944. Here their remaining aft cage masts were taken off in favor of the tower masts, the two twin 40 mm replaced by quads, a quadruple 20 mm added, and a new radar fitted. Although more extensive refits were proposed by Admiral Ernest J. King, including the addition of eight twin 5 in/38, more advanced fire control systems, and a second protective deck plating, the Bureau of Ships, after demonstrating what would have to be removed as compensation for the weight added for King's ideas, counter-proposed that a smaller reconstruction, like the ones given to the New Mexico class, would be more desirable. However, no action was taken until Maryland was struck by a kamikaze aircraft. While undergoing repair, eight twin 5 in/38 were added, but nothing else; her conning tower was removed and replaced by a 50 lb special-treated steel structure to balance the additional weight of the 5 in guns.

USS Colorado

USS Colorado (BB-45) was the third ship of the United States Navy named in honor of the 38th state. Her keel was laid down on 29 May 1919 by the New York Shipbuilding Corporation of Camden, New Jersey. She was launched on 22 March 1921 and commissioned on 30 August 1923, Captain R. R. Belknap in command. During her career, Colorado was involved in various ceremonies and fleet exercises, and assisted residents of Long Beach, California following the 1933 earthquake. In 1937, she was one of several ships that searched for Amelia Earhart after she and her plane went missing. Colorado was at Puget Sound undergoing overhaul at the time of the attack on Pearl Harbor on 7 December 1941.

After extensive training maneuvers along the West Coast, Colorado returned to Pearl Harbor in April 1942. From November 1942 to September 1943 she was stationed in the South West Pacific. In November 1943, she participated in operations against the Japanese during both the Gilbert and Marshall Islands campaign and Mariana and Palau Islands campaign, and shelled Luzon and Okinawa in advance of the planned amphibious assaults there. Following the end of World War II Colorado participated in Operation Magic Carpet before being decommissioned in 1947. She was sold for scrap in 1957.

USS Maryland

USS Maryland (BB-46) was the third ship of the United States Navy to be named in honor of the seventh state. Her keel was laid down on 24 April 1917 by the Newport News Shipbuilding Company of Newport News, Virginia. She was launched on 20 March 1920 and commissioned on 21 July 1921, Captain C.F. Preston in command. During her career she made a goodwill voyage to Australia and New Zealand in 1925, and transported President-elect Herbert Hoover on the Pacific leg of his tour of Latin America in 1928. Throughout the 1920s and 1930s, she served as a mainstay of fleet readiness through multiple training exercises.

In 1940, Maryland changed her base of operations to Pearl Harbor. She was moored at Battleship Row next to Ford Island during the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on 7 December 1941. Damaged during the attack, Maryland reported to Puget Sound, where she was repaired and modernized. Maryland supported the amphibious landings during the Battle of Tarawa, and thereafter participated in the Gilbert and Marshall Islands campaign, the Mariana and Palau Islands campaign, the Battle of Peleliu, the Philippines campaign, and the Battle of Okinawa. Following the end of World War II Maryland participated in Operation Magic Carpet before being decommissioned in 1947. She was sold for scrap in 1959.

USS Washington

USS Washington (BB-47) was the second ship of the United States Navy named in honor of the 42nd state. Her keel was laid down on 30 June 1919 by the New York Shipbuilding Corporation of Camden, New Jersey. She was launched on 1 September 1921, but on 8 February 1922, two days after the signing of the Washington Naval Treaty, all construction work ceased on the 75.9% completed dreadnought.

The ship was towed out to sea off the Virginia Capes in November 1924 to be used as a gunnery target. On the first day of testing, the ship was hit by two 400 lb torpedoes and three 1 ST near-miss bombs with minor damage and a list of three degrees. On that day, the ship had 400 pounds of TNT detonated on board, but she remained afloat. Two days later, the ship was hit by fourteen 14 in shells dropped from 4000 ft, but only one penetrated. The ship was finally sunk on 26 November 1924 by the battleships USS New York (BB-34) and USS Texas (BB-35) with fourteen 14-inch shell hits. After the test, it was determined that the existing deck armor on battleships was inadequate, and that future battleships should be fitted with triple bottoms.

USS West Virginia

USS West Virginia (BB-48) was the second ship of the United States Navy named in honor of the 35th state. Her keel was laid down on 12 April 1920 by the Newport News Shipbuilding Company of Newport News, Virginia. She was launched on 17 November 1921 and commissioned on 1 December 1923, Captain Thomas J. Senn in command. Despite a grounding incident early in her career West Virginia received high acclaim for gunnery and armor protection, and was involved in exercises to test the defenses of the Hawaiian Islands in the 1930s. On the morning of 7 December 1941, West Virginia was sunk at her berth in Battleship Row by multiple Japanese torpedo and bomb hits, but thanks in large part to counterflooding the battleship settled on an even keel, similar to USS California (BB-44). Refloated on 17 May 1942, West Virginia received sufficient temporary repairs to sail to Puget Sound for reconstruction and modernization.

In July 1944 she departed Puget Sound and rejoined the Pacific Fleet for combat operations on the eve of the Philippines campaign. There she participated in the Battle of Surigao Strait, the last battleship vs battleship duel of World War II, where her new Mk. 8 fire-control radar enabled her to hit the JAPANESE BATTLESHIP Yamashiro with her first salvo – in the dark – at 22800 yd. In February 1945 West Virginia participated in the Battle of Iwo Jima, initially by preinvasion bombardment, and later by callfire support for the ground forces on the island. Her last combat operations were during the Battle of Okinawa; after the surrender of Japan, she participated in Operation Magic Carpet. Decommissioned in 1947, she was sold for scrap in 1959.

title: Colorado-class battleship


text:
Talk:Turner syndrome

only affects women - does it?
"Turner syndrome ... only affects women." 1. If all of a person' cells are X0, their body's outer appearance is that of a woman. But is they a woman? 2. If a person is a Human chimera, some of the cells might be X0 and some might be XY. The person might be considered a man or intersexed. 2A01:C23:74C6:FD00:AC76:E0C5:310E:1209 (talk) 18:11, 21 December 2023 (UTC)

title: Talk:Turner syndrome


text:
Les Rougon-Macquart

Les Rougon-Macquart is the collective title given to a cycle of twenty novels by French writer Émile Zola. Subtitled Histoire naturelle et sociale d'une famille sous le Second Empire (Natural and social history of a family under the Second Empire), it follows the lives of the members of the two titular branches of a fictional family living during the Second French Empire (1852–1870) and is one of the most prominent works of the French naturalism literary movement.

Influences
Early in his life, Zola discovered the work of Honoré de Balzac and his famous cycle La Comédie humaine. This had a profound impact on Zola, who decided to write his own, unique cycle. However, in 1869, he explained in Différences entre Balzac et moi, why he would not make the same kind of book as Balzac:

"In one word, his work wants to be the mirror of the contemporary society. My work, mine, will be something else entirely. The scope will be narrower. I don't want to describe the contemporary society, but a single family, showing how the race is modified by the environment. (...) My big task is to be strictly naturalist, strictly physiologist."

As a naturalist writer, Zola was highly interested by science and especially the problem of heredity and evolution. He notably read and mentioned the work of the doctor Prosper Lucas, Claude Bernard, and Charles Darwin as references for his own work. This led him to think that people are heavily influenced by heredity and their environment. He intended to prove this by showing how these two factors could influence the members of a family. In 1871, in the preface of La Fortune des Rougon, he explained his intent:

"The great characteristic of the Rougon-Macquarts, the group or family which I propose to study, is their ravenous appetite, the great outburst of our age which rushes upon enjoyment. Physiologically the Rougon-Macquarts represent the slow succession of accidents pertaining to the nerves or the blood, which befall a race after the first organic lesion, and, according to environment, determine in each individual member of the race those feelings, desires and passions—briefly, all the natural and instinctive manifestations peculiar to humanity—whose outcome assumes the conventional name of virtue or vice."

Preparations
In a letter to his publisher, Zola stated his goals for the Rougon-Macquart: "1° To study in a family the questions of blood and environments. [...] 2° To study the whole Second Empire, from the coup d'état to nowadays."

Genealogy and heredity
Since his first goal was to show how heredity can affect the lives of descendants, Zola started working on the Rougon-Macquart by drawing the family tree for the Rougon-Macquart. Though it was to be modified many times over the years, with some members appearing or disappearing, the original tree shows how Zola planned the whole cycle before writing the first book.

The tree provides the name and date of birth of each member, along with certain properties of his heredity and his life:

 * The prepotency : The prepotency is a term used by the doctor Lucas. It is part of a biological theory that tries to determine how heredity transmits traits through generations. Zola apply this theory to the mental state of his protagonists and uses terms from the work of the doctor Lucas: Election du père (Prepotency of the father, meaning the father is the main influence on the child), Election de la mère (Prepotency of the mother), Mélange soudure (Fusion of the 2 parents) or Innéité (No influence from either parent).
 * Physical likeness: Whether the member looks like his mother or his father.
 * Biographical information: his job and important facts of his life. Additionally, for members still living at the end of Le Docteur Pascal, their place of living at the end of the cycle may be included. Otherwise, the date of death is included.

Note: the gallery does not include the tree made for La Bete Humaine which included for the first time Jacques, the main protagonist of the book For example, the entry for Jean Macquart on the 1878 tree read: ''Jean Macquart, né en 1831 - Election de la mère - Ressemblance physique du père. Soldat'' (Jean Macquart, born in 1831 - Prepotency of the mother - Physical likeness to his father. Soldier)

The study of the Second Empire
To study the Second Empire, Zola thought of each novel as a novel about a specific aspect of the life in his time. For example, in the list he made in 1872, he intended to make a "political novel", a "novel about the defeat", "a scientific novel", and a "novel about the war in Italy". The first three ideas led to Son Excellence Eugène Rougon, La Débâcle, and Le Docteur Pascal, respectively. However, the last idea would never be made into a book.

Indeed, at the beginning, Zola did not know exactly how many books he would write. In the first letter to his publisher, he mentioned "ten episodes". In 1872, his list included seventeen novels, but some of them would never be made (such as the one on the war in Italy), whereas others were to be added later on. In 1877, in the preface of L'Assommoir, he stated that he was going to write "about twenty novels". In the end, he settled for twenty books.

Story
Almost all of the main protagonists for each novel are introduced in the first book, La Fortune des Rougon. The last novel in the cycle, Le Docteur Pascal, contains a lengthy chapter that ties up loose ends from the other novels. In between, there is no "best sequence" in which to read the novels in the cycle, as they are not in chronological order and indeed are impossible to arrange into such an order. Although some of the novels in the cycle are direct sequels to one another, many of them follow on directly from the last chapters of La Fortune des Rougon, and there is a great deal of chronological overlap between the books; there are numerous recurring characters and several of them make "guest" appearances in novels centered on other members of the family.

The Rougon-Macquart
The Rougon-Macquart family begins with Adelaïde Fouque. Born in 1768 in the fictional Provençal town Plassans to middle-class parents (members of the French "bourgeoisie"), she has a slight intellectual disability. She marries Rougon, and gives birth to a son, Pierre Rougon. However, she also has a lover, the smuggler Macquart, with whom she has two children: Ursule and Antoine Macquart. This means that the family is split in three branches:

 * The first, legitimate, one is the Rougons branch. They are the most successful of the children. Most of them live in the upper classes (such as Eugene Rougon who becomes a minister) or/and have a good education (such as Pascal, the doctor who is the main protagonist of Le Docteur Pascal).
 * The second branch is the low-born Macquarts. They are urban working-class (L'Assommoir), farmers (La Terre), or soldiers (La Débâcle).
 * The third branch is the Mourets (the name of Ursule Macquart's husband). They are a mix of the other two. They are middle-class people (bourgeois) and tend to live more balanced lives than the others.

Because Zola believed that everyone is driven by their heredity, Adelaide's children show signs of their mother's original deficiency. For the Rougon, this manifests as a drive for power, money, and excess in life. For the Macquarts, who live in a difficult environment, it is manifested by alcoholism (L'Assommoir), prostitution (Nana), and homicide (La Bête humaine). Even the Mourets are marked to a certain degree; in La Faute de l'Abbé Mouret, the priest Serge Mouret has to fight his desire for a young woman.

View of France under Napoleon III
As a naturalist, Zola also gave detailed descriptions of urban and rural settings, and different types of businesses. Le Ventre de Paris, for example, has a detailed description of the central market in Paris at the time.

As a political reflection of life under Napoleon III, the novel La Conquête de Plassans looks at how an ambitious priest infiltrates a small Provence town one family at a time, starting with the Rougons. La Débâcle takes place during the 1870 Franco-Prussian War and depicts Napoleon III's downfall. Son Excellence also looks at political life, and Pot-Bouille and Au Bonheur des Dames look at middle class life in Paris.

Note that Zola wrote the novels after the fall of Napoleon III.

List of novels
In an "Introduction" of his last novel, Le Docteur Pascal, Zola gave a recommended reading order, although it is not required, as each novel stands on its own.

Publication order
 * 1) La Fortune des Rougon (1871)
 * 2) La Curée (1872)
 * 3) Le Ventre de Paris (1873)
 * 4) La Conquête de Plassans (1874)
 * 5) La Faute de l'Abbé Mouret (1875)
 * 6) Son Excellence Eugène Rougon (1876)
 * 7) L'Assommoir (1877)
 * 8) Une page d'amour (1878)
 * 9) Nana (1880)
 * 10) Pot-Bouille (1882)
 * 11) Au Bonheur des Dames (1883)
 * 12) La joie de vivre (1884)
 * 13) Germinal (1885)
 * 14) L'Œuvre (1886)
 * 15) La Terre (1887)
 * 16) Le Rêve (1888)
 * 17) La Bête humaine (1890)
 * 18) L'Argent (1891)
 * 19) La Débâcle (1892)
 * 20) Le Docteur Pascal (1893)

A recommended reading order
 * 1) La Fortune des Rougon (The Fortune of the Rougons) (1871)
 * 2) Son Excellence Eugène Rougon (His Excellency Eugène Rougon) (1876)
 * 3) La Curée (The Kill) (1872)
 * 4) L'Argent (Money) (1891)
 * 5) Le Rêve (The Dream) (1888)
 * 6) La Conquête de Plassans (The Conquest of Plassans) (1874)
 * 7) Pot-Bouille (Pot Luck) (1882)
 * 8) Au Bonheur des Dames (The Ladies Paradise/The Ladies' Delight) (1883)
 * 9) La Faute de l'Abbé Mouret  (The Sin of Abbé Mouret) (1875)
 * 10) Une page d'amour (A Love Story) (1878)
 * 11) Le Ventre de Paris  (The Belly of Paris) (1873)
 * 12) La joie de vivre (The Bright Side of Life) (1884)
 * 13) L'Assommoir  (The Drinking Den) (1877)
 * 14) L'Œuvre (The Masterpiece) (1886)
 * 15) La Bête humaine (The Beast Within) (1890)
 * 16) Germinal (1885)
 * 17) Nana (1880)
 * 18) La Terre (The Earth) (1887)
 * 19) La Débâcle (The Debacle) (1892)
 * 20) Le Docteur Pascal (Doctor Pascal) (1893)

English translations
All of the twenty novels have been translated into English under various titles and editions. For many years, the novels were best known in bowdlerized editions of the late 19th and early 20th century, especially those published by Vizetelly & Co. Although the more well-known novels in the series received 20th century translations, and Elek Books published 11 new translations during the 1950s, many of the volumes remained largely out-of-print in the English language for decades after Zola's death. For instance, The Fortune of the Rougons was translated in 1898, and then not again until 2012. The Kill was translated in 1895, and then not again until 2004.

After about 1970, modern translations of the more famous novels in the series, such as L'Assommoir and Germinal, were released by publishers like Penguin and Modern Library. Between 1993 (The Masterpiece) and 2021 (The Assommoir), Oxford World's Classics published a complete run of all 20 novels in modern translation.

This list comprises first-edition English translations. Later reprints in different years or under different titles or publishers generally not included. Source for early translation information:

1. La Fortune des Rougon
 * The Fortune of the Rougons (1886, tr. unknown for H. Vizetelly, Vizetelly & Co.)
 * The Fortune of the Rougons (1898, tr. unknown edited by E. A. Vizetelly, Chatto & Windus)
 * The Fortune of the Rougons (2012, tr. Brian Nelson, Oxford University Press)

2. La Curée
 * The Rush for the Spoil (1886, tr. unknown for H. Vizetelly, Vizetelly & Co.)
 * The Kill (1895, tr. A. Teixeira de Mattos, Lutetian Society)
 * The Kill (2004, tr. Brian Nelson, Oxford University Press)
 * The Kill (2004, tr. Arthur Goldhammer, Modern Library)

3. Le Ventre de Paris
 * La Belle Lisa or The Paris Market Girls (1882, tr. Mary Neal Sherwood, T. B. Peterson Bros.)
 * The Fat and the Thin (1888, tr. unknown for H. Vizetelly, Vizetelly & Co.)
 * The Fat and the Thin (1896, tr. E. A. Vizetelly, Chatto & Windus)
 * Savage Paris (1955, tr. David Hughes & Marie-Jacqueline Mason, Elek Books)
 * The Belly of Paris (2007, tr. Brian Nelson, Oxford University Press)
 * The Belly of Paris (2009, tr. Mark Kurlansky, Modern Library)

4. La Conquête de Plassans
 * The Conquest of Plassans (1887, tr. unknown for H. Vizetelly, Vizetelly & Co.)
 * A Priest in the House (1957, tr. Brian Rhys, Elek Books)
 * The Conquest of Plassans (2014, tr. Helen Constantine, Oxford University Press)

5. La Faute de l'Abbé Mouret
 * Abbé Mouret's Transgression (1886, tr. unknown for H. Vizetelly, Vizetelly & Co.)
 * Abbé Mouret's Transgression (1900, tr. unknown edited by E. A. Vizetelly, Chatto & Windus)
 * The Sin of the Abbé Mouret (1904, tr. M. Smyth, McLaren & Co.)
 * The Abbé Mouret's Sin (1957, tr. Alec Brown, Elek Books, republished as The Sinful Priest in 1960)
 * The Sin of Father Mouret (1969, tr. Sandy Petrey, Prentice-Hall)
 * The Sin of Abbé Mouret (2017, tr. Valerie Minogue, Oxford University Press)

6. Son Excellence Eugène Rougon
 * Clorinda or The Rise and Reign of His Excellency Eugène Rougon (1880, tr. Mary Neal Sherwood, T.B. Peterson & Bros.)
 * His Excellency Eugène Rougon (1886, tr. unknown for H. Vizetelly, Vizetelly & Co.)
 * His Excellency (1958, tr. Alec Brown, Elek Books)
 * His Excellency Eugène Rougon (2018, tr. Brian Nelson, Oxford University Press)

7. L'Assommoir
 * L'assommoir (1879, tr. Mary Neal Sherwood, T.B. Peterson & Bros.)
 * Gervaise (1879, tr. E. Binsse, G. W. Carleton & Co.)
 * The ‘Assommoir’ (1884, tr. unknown for H. Vizetelly, Vizetelly & Co.)
 * L'Assommoir (1895, tr. Arthur Symons, Lutetian Society)
 * The Dram Shop (1897, tr. unknown edited by E. A. Vizetelly, Chatto & Windus)
 * Drink (1903, tr. S.J.A. Fitzgerald, Greening & Co.)
 * The Dram Shop (1951, tr. Gerard Hopkins, Hamish Hamilton)
 * The Gin Palace (1952, tr. Buckner B. Trawick, Avon Publications)
 * L'Assommoir (1962, tr. Atwood H. Townsend, New American Library)
 * L'Assommoir (1970, tr. Leonard Tancock, Penguin Books)
 * L'Assommoir (1995, tr. Margaret Mauldon, Oxford University Press)
 * The Drinking Den (2000, tr. Robin Buss, Penguin Books)
 * The Assommoir (2021, tr. Brian Nelson, Oxford University Press)

8. Une Page d'amour
 * Hélène: A Love Episode (1878, tr. Mary Neal Sherwood, T.B. Peterson & Bros.)
 * A Love Episode (1886, tr. unknown for H. Vizetelly, Vizetelly & Co.)
 * A Love Episode (1895, tr. E. A. Vizetelly, Hutchinson & Co.)
 * A Page of Love (1897, tr. T. F. Rogerson, Geo Barrie & Son)
 * A Love Episode (1905, tr. C. C. Starkweather, Société des Beaux-arts)
 * A Love Affair (1957, tr. Jean Stewart, Elek Books)
 * A Love Story (2017, tr. Helen Constantine, Oxford University Press)

9. Nana
 * Nana (1884, tr. unknown for H. Vizetelly, Vizetelly & Co.)
 * Nana (1895, tr. Victor Plarr, Lutetian Society)
 * Nana (1926, tr. Joseph Keating, Cecil Palmer)
 * Nana (1953, tr. Charles Duff, William Heinemann)
 * Nana (1964, tr. Lowell Blair, Bantam Books)
 * Nana (1972, tr. George Holden, Penguin Books)
 * Nana (1992, tr. Douglas Parmee, Oxford University Press)
 * Nana (2020, tr. Helen Constantine, introduction and annotation by Brian Nelson, Oxford University Press)

10. Pot-Bouille
 * Piping Hot! (1885, tr. unknown for H. Vizetelly, Vizetelly & Co.)
 * Pot-Bouille (1895, tr. Percy Pinkerton, Lutetian Society)
 * Restless House (other versions of Pinkerton's translation)
 * Pot Luck (1999, tr. Brian Nelson, Oxford University Press)

11. Au Bonheur des Dames
 * Shop Girls of Paris (1883, tr. Mary Neal Sherwood, T.B. Peterson & Bros.)
 * The Ladies' Paradise (1883, tr. Frank Belmont, Tinsley Bros.)
 * Ladies' Delight (1957, tr. April Fitzlyon, John Calder)
 * The Ladies Paradise (1995, tr. Brian Nelson, Oxford University Press)
 * Au Bonheur des Dames (The Ladies' Delight) (2001, tr. Robin Buss, Penguin Books)

12. La joie de vivre
 * How Jolly Life Is! (1886, tr. unknown for H. Vizetelly, Vizetelly & Co.)
 * The Joy of Life (1901, tr. unknown edited by E. A. Vizetelly, Chatto & Windus)
 * Zest for Life (1955, tr. Jean Stewart, Elek Books)
 * The Bright Side of Life (2018, tr. Andrew Rothwell, Oxford University Press)

13. Germinal
 * Germinal (1885, tr. Carlynne, Belford, Clarke & Co.)
 * Germinal (1886, tr. Albert Vandam, Vizetelly & Co.)
 * Germinal (1894, tr. Havelock Ellis, Lutetian Society)
 * Germinal (1954, tr. L. W. Tancock, Penguin Books)
 * Germinal (1962, tr. Willard R. Trask, Bantam Books)
 * Germinal (1970, tr. Stanley Hochman and Eleanor Hochman, New American Library)
 * Germinal (1993, tr. Peter Collier, Oxford University Press)
 * Germinal (2004, tr. Roger Pearson, Penguin Books)

14. L'Œuvre
 * The Masterpiece (1886, tr. G. D. Cox, T. B. Peterson & Bros.)
 * His Masterpiece (1886, tr. Albert Vandam, Vizetelly & Co.)
 * His Masterpiece (1902, tr. Albert Vandam edited by E. A. Vizetelly, Chatto & Windus)
 * The Masterpiece (1946, tr. Katherine Woods, Howell Soskin)
 * The Masterpiece (1950, tr. Thomas Walton, Elek Books)
 * The Masterpiece (1993, tr. Roger Pearson's rev of Thomas Walton's tr., Oxford University Press)

15. La Terre
 * The Soil (c. 1888, tr. G. D. Cox, T. B. Peterson & Bros.)
 * The Soil (1888, tr. unknown for E. A. Vizetelly, Vizetelly & Co.)
 * La Terre (1895, tr. Ernest Dowson, Lutetian Society)
 * Earth (1954, tr. Ann Lindsay, Elek Books)
 * Earth (1962, tr. Margaret Crosland, New English Library)
 * The Earth (1980, tr. Douglas Parmee, Penguin Books)
 * The Earth (2016, tr. Brian Nelson and Julie Rose, Oxford University Press)

16. Le Rêve
 * The Dream (1893, tr. Eliza E. Chase, Chatto & Windus)
 * The Dream (2005, tr. Michael Glencross, Peter Owen)
 * The Dream (2005, tr. Andrew Brown, Hesperus Press)
 * The Dream (2018, Paul Gibbard, Oxford University Press)

17. La Bête humaine
 * The Human Beast (c. 1891, tr. G. D. Cox, T. B. Peterson)
 * The Monomaniac (1901, tr. Edward Vizetelly, Hutchinson & Co.)
 * The Human Beast (1937, tr. Louis Colman, Julien Press)
 * The Human Beast (1954, tr. Frances Frenaye, Avon Publications)
 * The Beast in Man (1958, tr. Alec Brown, Elek Books)
 * La Bete Humaine (1977, tr. Leonard Tancock, Penguin Books)
 * La Bete Humaine (1999, tr. Roger Pearson, Oxford University Press)
 * The Beast Within (2008, tr. Roger Whitehouse, Penguin Books)

18. L'Argent
 * Money (1891, tr. Benjamin R. Tucker, Benjamin R. Tucker)
 * Money (1894, tr. E. A. Vizetelly, Chatto & Windus)
 * Money (2014, tr. Valerie Minogue, Oxford University Press)
 * Money (2016, tr. André Naffis-Sahely, Alma Books)

19. La Débâcle
 * The Downfall (1892, tr. E. A. Vizetelly, Chatto & Windus)
 * The Downfall or The Smash-up (1898, tr. E. P. Robins, The Cassell Co.)
 * The Downfall (1902, tr. W. M. Sloane, P. F. Collier & Son)
 * The Debacle (1968, tr. John Hands, Elek Books)
 * The Debacle (1972, tr. Leonard Tancock, Penguin Books)
 * La Débâcle (2000, tr. Elinor Dorday, Oxford University Press)

20. Le Docteur Pascal
 * Doctor Pascal (1893, tr. E. A. Vizetelly, Chatto & Windus)
 * Doctor Pascal (1901, tr. Mary J. Serrano, MacMillan Co.)
 * Doctor Pascal (1957, tr. Vladimir Kean, Elek Books)
 * Doctor Pascal (2020, tr. Julie Rose, Oxford University Press)

Adaptations
The BBC adapted the novels into a 27-episode (20 hour) radio drama series called Blood, Sex and Money by Emile Zola. The "radical re-imagining" was broadcast in three seasons on BBC Radio 4 between November 2015 and October 2016.

title: Les Rougon-Macquart


text: Template:Alaska class large cruiser

title: Template:Alaska class large cruiser


text:
Alaska-class cruiser

The Alaska-class were six large cruisers ordered before World War II for the United States Navy (USN), of which only two were completed and saw service late in the war. The USN designation for the ships of this class was 'large cruiser' (CB), a designation unique to the Alaska-class, and the majority of leading reference works consider them as such. However, various other works have alternately described these ships as battlecruisers despite the USN having never classified them as such, and having actively discouraged the use of the term in describing the class. The Alaskas were all named after territories or insular areas of the United States, signifying their intermediate status between larger battleships (which were mostly named after states) and smaller heavy and light cruisers (which were named after cities).

The idea for a large cruiser class originated in the early 1930s when the USN sought to counter the Deutschland-class cruiser "pocket battleships" being launched by Germany. Planning for ships that eventually evolved into the Alaska-class began in the late 1930s after the deployment of Germany's Scharnhorst-class battleships and rumors that Japan was constructing a new large cruiser class, the B-65 "super cruiser." To serve as "cruiser-killers" capable of seeking out and destroying these post-treaty heavy cruisers, the class was given large guns of a new and expensive design, limited armor protection against 12-inch shells, and machinery capable of speeds of about 31 –.

Of the six planned, USS Alaska (CB-1) and USS Guam (CB-2) were the only two to be completed; a third, Hawaii, was still building at the war's end and had its construction suspended on 16 April 1947, while the remaining three were cancelled. Alaska and Guam served with the USN for the last year of World War II as bombardment ships and fast carrier escorts. They were decommissioned in 1947 after spending only 32 and 29 months in service, respectively.

Background
Heavy cruiser development formalized between World War I and World War II due to the terms of the Washington Naval Treaty and successor treaties and conferences, where the United States, Britain, Japan, France, and Italy agreed to limit heavy cruisers to 10,000 tons displacement with 8-inch main armament. Up until the Alaska class, US cruisers designed between the wars followed this pattern.

The initial impetus for the Alaska design came from the deployments of Germany's so-called pocket battleships in the early 1930s. Though no actions were immediately taken, these thoughts were revived in the late 1930s when intelligence reports indicated Japan was planning or building "super cruisers" of the B-65 class that would be much more powerful than the current US heavy cruisers. The navy responded in 1938 when the General Board asked the Bureau of Construction and Repair to conduct a "comprehensive study of all types of naval vessels for consideration for a new and expanded building program". The US president at the time, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, may have taken a lead role in the development of the class with his desire to have a counter to raiding abilities of Japanese cruisers and German pocket battleships. While these claims are difficult to verify, others have speculated that their design was "politically motivated" rather than strategic.

Design
One historian described the design process of the Alaska class as "torturous" due to the numerous changes and modifications made to the ship's layouts by numerous departments and individuals. Indeed, there were at least nine different layouts, ranging from 6,000-ton Atlanta-class cruiser anti-aircraft cruisers to "overgrown" heavy cruisers and a 38,000-ton mini-battleship that would have been armed with twelve 12-inch and sixteen 5-inch guns. The General Board, in an attempt to keep the displacement under 25,000 tons, allowed the designs to offer only limited underwater protection such that they were vulnerable, by comparison with a battleship, to torpedoes and to shells that fell short of the ship. The final design was a scaled-up Baltimore-class cruiser that had the same machinery as the Essex-class aircraft carriers. This ship combined a main armament of nine 12-inch guns with protection against 10-inch gunfire into a hull that was capable of 33 kn.

The Alaskas were officially funded in September 1940 along with a plethora of other ships as a part of the Two-Ocean Navy Act. Their role had been altered slightly: in addition to their surface-to-surface role, they were planned to protect carrier groups. This carrier escort capability was favored by Admiral King. Because of their bigger guns, greater size and increased speed, they would be more valuable in this role than heavy cruisers, and would provide insurance against reports that Japan was building super cruisers more powerful than the American heavy cruisers. The escort concept would also free the few existing heavy cruisers for scouting (their original purpose).

Possible conversion to aircraft carriers

Yet another drastic change was considered during the "carrier panic" in late 1941, when the US Navy realized that they needed more aircraft carriers as quickly as possible. Many hulls currently under construction were considered for conversion into carriers. At different times, they considered some or all of the Cleveland-class cruiser light cruisers, the Baltimore-class cruiser heavy cruisers, the Alaska class, and even one of the Iowa-class battleships; in the end, they chose the Clevelands, resulting in the conversion of nine ships under construction at the New York Shipbuilding Corporation shipyard as the light aircraft carriers comprising the Independence-class aircraft carrier.

A conversion of the Alaska cruisers to carriers was "particularly attractive" because of the many similarities between the design of the Essex-class aircraft carriers and the Alaska class, including the same machinery. However, when Alaska cruisers were compared to the Essex carriers, converted cruisers would have had a shorter flight deck (so they could carry only 90% of the aircraft), would have been 11 ft lower in the water, and could travel 8000 nmi less at 15 kn. In addition, the large cruiser design did not include the extensive underwater protections found in normal carriers due to the armor weight devoted to counter shell fire. Lastly, an Alaska conversion could not satisfy the navy's goal of having new aircraft carriers quickly, as the work needed to modify the ships into carriers would entail long delays. With this in mind, all planning to convert the Alaskas was abandoned on 7 January 1942.

Construction
Of the six Alaska-class cruisers that were planned, only three were laid down. The first two, USS Alaska (CB-1) and USS Guam (CB-2), were completed by the New York Shipbuilding Corporation. Construction of USS Hawaii (CB-3), the third, was suspended on 16 April 1947 when she was 84% complete. The last three, Philippines, Puerto Rico, and Samoa, were delayed since all available materials and slipways were allocated to higher priority ships, such as aircraft carriers, destroyers, and submarines. Construction had still not begun when steel shortages and a realization that these "cruiser-killers" had no more cruisers to hunt—as the fleets of Japanese cruisers had already been defeated by aircraft and submarines—made the ships "white elephants". As a result, construction of the last three members of the class never began, and they were officially cancelled on 24 June 1943.

Service history

USS Alaska (CB-1) and USS Guam (CB-2) served with the U.S. Navy during the last year of World War II, forming Cruiser Division 16 commanded by Rear Admiral Francis S. Low, USN. Similar to the Iowa-class battleship fast battleships, their firepower was useful in shore bombardment, and their speed made them excellent fast carrier escorts, a role for which the two had become celebrated within the fleet by the war's end. Both Alaska and Guam protected USS Franklin (CV-13) when she was on her way to be repaired in Guam after being hit by two Japanese bombs. Afterward, Alaska supported the landings on Okinawa, while Guam went to San Pedro Bay to become the leader of a new task force, Cruiser Task Force 95, under the overall command of Vice Admiral Jesse B. Oldendorf. Guam, joined by Alaska, four light cruisers, and nine destroyers, led the task force into the East China and Yellow Seas to conduct raids upon shipping; however, they encountered only Chinese junks.

After the war, both ships served as part of Task Force 71, the designation for the U.S. Seventh Fleet's North China Naval Force. Its mission was to support the American occupation of southern Korea. This included executing various show-the-flag operations along the western coast of Korea as well as in the Bohai Sea. These naval demonstrations preceded Operation Campus, the amphibious landing of U.S. Army ground forces at Incheon, Korea, on 8 September 1945. Subsequently, both ships returned to the United States in mid-December 1945, and they were decommissioned and "mothballed" in 1947, after having spent 32 months (Alaska) and 29 months (Guam) in service.

In 1958, the Bureau of Ships prepared two feasibility studies to explore whether Alaska and Guam could be suitably converted into guided-missile cruisers. The first study involved removing all of the guns in favor of four different missile systems. At $160 million, the cost of this proposed removal was seen as prohibitive, so a second study was initiated. The study left the forward batteries (the two 12-inch triple turrets and three of the 5-inch dual turrets) unchanged, and added a reduced version of the first plan on the stern of the ship. Even though the proposals would have cost approximately half as much as the first study's plan ($82 million), it was still seen as too expensive. As a result, both ships were stricken from the Naval Vessel Register on 1 June 1960. Alaska was sold for scrap on 30 June 1960, and Guam on 24 May 1961. The still-incomplete USS Hawaii (CB-3) was considered for a conversion to be the Navy's first guided-missile cruiser; this thought lasted until 26 February 1952, when a different conversion to a "large command ship" was contemplated. In anticipation of the conversion, her classification was changed to CBC-1. This would have made her a "larger sister" to USS Northampton (CLC-1), but a year and a half later (9 October 1954) she was re-designated CB-3. Hawaii was stricken from the Naval Vessel Register on 9 June 1958 and was sold for scrap in 1959.

"Large cruisers" or "battlecruisers"

The Alaska class, along with the Dutch Design 1047 battlecruiser and the Japanese Design B-65 cruiser, were specifically to counter the heavy cruisers being built by their naval rivals. All three have been described as "super cruisers", "large cruisers" or even "unrestricted cruisers", with some (up to Jane's Fighting Ships of World War II itself) advocating that they even be considered as battlecruisers. However, they were never officially classified as capital ships, as that designation was reserved for true battlecruisers and battleships. Early in its development, the class used the US battlecruiser designation CC, which had been planned for the Lexington-class battlecruiser. However, the designation was changed to CB to reflect their new status, "large cruiser", and the practice of referring to them as battlecruisers was officially discouraged. The U.S. Navy then named the individual vessels after U.S. territories, rather than states (as was the tradition with battleships) or cities (for which cruisers were traditionally named), to symbolize the belief that these ships were supposed to play an intermediate role between heavy cruisers and fully-fledged battleships.

The Alaska class certainly resembled contemporary US battleships (particularly the North Carolina-class battleship, South Dakota-class battleship (1939), and Iowa-class battleship) in appearance, including the familiar 2-A-1 main battery and massive columnar mast. Their displacement was twice that of the newest heavy cruisers (the Baltimore-class cruiser), being only 5,000 tons less than the Washington Treaty's battleship standard displacement limit of 35,000 long tons (36,000 t) (unchanged through the final naval treaty, the London Treaty of 1936). They were also longer than several treaty battleships such as the King George V-class battleship (1939) and 724 ft North Carolina class.

In overall terms, the design of the Alaska class was scaled up from that of the Baltimore-class cruiser (themselves the first cruisers in the US Navy to be designed without the limitations of the London Naval Treaty, and exceeding 10,000 tons standard displacement). The armor scheme of the Alaskas was deemed sufficient to provide protection against not only 8″ heavy cruiser shells but even the larger 11″ shells used by Germany's Deutschland-class cruiser "pocket battleships" and Scharnhorst-class battleship-class battleships. However, they lacked the comprehensive underwater protection systems found on the larger US battleships or even on smaller, earlier battleships like the French Dunkerque-class battleship and German Scharnhorst classes. Thus, the Alaskas were potentially as vulnerable to torpedoes as a heavy cruiser was, as well as to effects from near-misses and 'shorts' (where enemy gunnery misses the ship proper, instead impacting the sea; this could still damage the target ship, as the shell may have enough energy to impact beneath the waterline, or if a shell detonated underwater, the shockwave could damage the target ship).

In addition, despite being much larger than the Baltimore class, the secondary battery of the Alaskas was identical, albeit with an improvement in light anti-aircraft battery size. Whereas the Alaska class carried twelve 5"/38 caliber in six twin turrets, fifty-six 40 mm, and thirty-four 20 mm guns, the Baltimore class carried the same number of 5"/38s, eight fewer 40 mm, and ten fewer 20 mm, considerably fewer than new U.S. battleships that had ten (save for USS South Dakota (BB-57)) 5"/38 twin mounts while older refitted U.S. battleships had eight. The dearth of anti-aircraft weaponry for a ship of its size was attributed to the amidships aircraft catapult like older US cruisers; while other modern U.S. cruisers and battleships opted for stern-mounted aircraft catapults to free up space along the central superstructure for more secondaries and anti-aircraft guns. In common with U.S. heavy cruisers, they had aircraft hangars and a single large rudder; the single rudder combined with the hull's long length gave the Alaskas a turning radius of 800 yard, which exceeded the turning circles of larger battleships and carriers in the U.S. Navy. Author Richard Worth remarked that when they were finally completed, launched, and commissioned, they had the "size of a battleship but the capabilities of a cruiser". The Alaska class was similarly expensive to build and maintain as contemporary battleships, yet far less capable due to armor deficiencies, while able to put up an anti-aircraft defense comparable only to the much cheaper Baltimore cruisers.

Despite these cruiser-like characteristics, and the U.S. Navy's insistence on their status as cruisers, the Alaska class has been frequently described as battlecruisers. The official navy magazine All Hands said "The Guam and her sister ship Alaska are the first American battle cruisers ever to be completed as such." Author Chris Knupp noted that while "other nations fulfilled the battlecruiser role by designing vessels like battleships, but stripped of armor and other features to gain speed", the United States "fulfilled the battlecruiser role by creating a larger, more powerful heavy cruiser...[whose] design already offered less armor and higher speed, but by enlarging the ship they gained the heavier firepower". The Alaskas' percentage of armor tonnage, 28.4%, was slightly less than that of fast battleships; the British King George V class, the American Iowa class, and the battlecruiser/fast battleship HMS Hood all had armor percentages between 32 and 33%, whereas the Lexington-class battlecruiser design had a nearly identical armor percentage of 28.5%. In fact, older battlecruisers, such as Invincible-class battlecruiser (19.9%), had a significantly lower percentage. Armament-wise, they had much larger guns than contemporary heavy cruisers; while the Baltimore class only carried nine 8"/55 caliber Marks 12 and 15 guns, the Alaska class carried nine 12"/50 caliber guns that were as good as, if not superior to, the old 14"/50 caliber gun used on the U.S. Navy's pre-treaty battleships.

Main battery

As built, the Alaska class had nine 12"/50 caliber Mark 8 guns mounted in three triple (3-gun) turrets, with two turrets forward and one aft, a configuration known as "2-A-1". The previous 12" gun manufactured for the U.S. Navy was the Mark 7 version, which had been designed for and installed in the 1912 Wyoming-class battleship s. The Mark 8 was of considerably higher quality; in fact, it "was by far the most powerful weapon of its caliber ever placed in service". Designed in 1939, it weighed 121856 lb including the breech, and could sustain an average rate of fire of 2.4–3 rounds a minute. It could throw a 1140 lb Mark 18 armor-piercing shell 38573 yd at an elevation of 45°, and had a 344-shot barrel life (about 54 more than the much larger but similar 16"/50 caliber Mark 7 gun found on the Iowa battleships.). The Alaskas' Mark 8 guns were the heaviest main battery of any cruiser of World War II, and as capable as the old 14"/45 caliber gun used on the U.S. Navy's pre-treaty battleships.

The turrets were very similar to those of the Iowa-class battleships, but differed in several ways; for example, the Alaska class had a two-stage powder hoist instead of the Iowa class's one-stage hoist. These differences made operating the guns safer and increased the rate of fire. In addition, a "projectile rammer" was added to Alaska and Guam. This machine transferred shells from storage on the ship to the rotating ring that fed the guns. However, this feature proved unsatisfactory, and it was not planned for Hawaii or any subsequent ships.

Because Alaska and Guam were the only two ships to mount these guns, only ten turrets were made during the war (three for each ship including Hawaii and one spare). They cost $1,550,000 each and were the most expensive heavy guns purchased by the U.S. Navy in World War II.

Secondary battery
The secondary battery of the Alaska class was composed of twelve dual-purpose (anti-air and anti-ship) 5"/38 caliber guns in twin mounts, with four offset on each side of the superstructure (two on each beam) and two centerline turrets fore and aft. The 5"/38 was originally intended for use on only destroyers built in the 1930s, but by 1934 and into World War II it was being installed on almost all of the U.S.'s major warships, including aircraft carriers, battleships, and heavy and light cruisers.

Anti-aircraft battery

Medium anti-aircraft armament (a key component of area air defence within a Task Group) on the Alaska-class ships was 56 x 40mm Bofors guns and for close-in air defence they carried 34 × 20 mm guns. These numbers may be compared with; 48 × 40 mm and 24 × 20 mm on the smaller Baltimore-class heavy cruisers, 60 x 40 mm and 36 x 20 mm on the larger battleship North Carolina at the end of the war, and 80 × 40 mm and 49 × 20 mm on the even larger Iowa-class battleships.

Ships in class

 * USS Alaska (CB-1) was commissioned on 17 June 1944. She served in the Pacific, screening aircraft carriers, providing shore bombardment at Okinawa, and going on raiding missions in the East China Sea. She was decommissioned on 17 February 1947 after less than three years of service and was scrapped in 1960.
 * USS Guam (CB-2) was commissioned on 17 September 1944. She served in the Pacific with Alaska on almost all of the same operations. Along with Alaska, she was decommissioned on 17 February 1947 and was scrapped in 1961.
 * USS Hawaii (CB-3) was intended as a third ship of the class, but she was never completed. Numerous plans to utilize her as a guided-missile cruiser or a large command ship in the years after the war were fruitless, and she was scrapped.
 * USS Philippines (CB-4), Puerto Rico (CB-5), and Samoa (CB-6) were planned as the fourth, fifth, and sixth ships of the class, respectively. All three ships were to be built at Camden, New Jersey, but they were cancelled before construction could begin.

title: Alaska-class cruiser