All three ships took part in the cruise of the Great White Fleet in 1907–1909, though Maine's excessive coal consumption forced her to proceed independently for most of the voyage.

Missouri was used as a training ship for much of the rest of her career, and Ohio took part in the American intervention in the Mexican Revolution in 1914.

With the destruction of the armored cruiser Maine in Havana harbor and the subsequent declaration of war on Spain on 25 April 1898, however, a large naval expansion program was passed through Congress.

In addition, Krupp cemented armor had been developed in Germany; the steel was a significant improvement over the older Harvey process.

Since the steel was stronger, thinner armor plating could achieve the same level of protection and more importantly, significant savings in weight.

The Navy requested that the shipyards submitting designs for the contract increase the speed of their proposed ships to match the Russian vessel.

Cramp & Sons responded by lengthening the hull by 15 feet (4.6 m) to increase its fineness (and thus reduce drag) and incorporate new Niclausse boilers, while the Newport News Shipbuilding & Drydock Company lengthened the hull by 20 feet (6.1 m) and increased the horsepower of the propulsion system by sixty percent, to 16,000 indicated horsepower (12,000 kW).

As was standard for capital ships of the period, the Maine-class battleships carried two 18 in (457 mm) torpedo tubes, submerged in her hull on the broadside.

[3] They were initially equipped with the Mark II Whitehead design, which carried a 140-pound (64 kg) warhead and had a range of 800 yards (730 m) at a speed of 27 knots (50 km/h; 31 mph).

Maine was detached owing to her excessive use of coal along with the battleship Alabama; the two ships continued the journey independently and on a greatly shortened itinerary.

The rest of the ships then crossed the Pacific and stopped in Australia, the Philippines, and Japan before continuing on through the Indian Ocean.

They transited the Suez Canal and toured the Mediterranean before crossing the Atlantic, arriving bank in Hampton Roads on 22 February 1909 for a naval review with President Theodore Roosevelt.

Missouri spent most of the time out of active service, only recommissioning for summer training cruises with midshipmen from the US Naval Academy.

Following the German surrender in November 1918, Missouri was used to ferry American soldiers back from France,[b] though the other two vessels were not so employed, since their short range and lack of sufficient accommodations would have made them inefficient transports.

All three ships were sold for scrap, with Maine and Missouri going to the breakers' yard in January 1922 and Ohio joining them in March 1923.