Even so, it was generally conceded that with this class a limit had been reached and that the modern armored cruiser no longer exemplified the logical principles of attack and defense in warship design, which meant using the most efficient weapon to its desired end.

All four ships in this class were given the hull classification symbol CA (armored cruiser) when the Navy adopted that system in 1920, and renamed by then so their original names could be used for new battleships.

Its naval build-up following the end of the First Sino-Japanese War in 1895 and its forced return of the Liaotung peninsula to China under pressure from Russia, Germany and France (in what became known as the "Triple Intervention") had at its core a "Six-Six Program" of six battleships and six (eventually eight) armored cruisers comparable to the British Cressy class.

United States President Theodore Roosevelt, while impressed with Japan's success in the war and its modernization overall, considered its actions a threat to American interests in the Pacific region.

This in turn had motivated him to maintain a "controlling voice" in the Philippines after the Philippine–American War ended in 1902 and would encourage him to send the Great White Fleet on its worldwide voyage in 1907.

)[7][a] Japan's 1905 victory in the Russo-Japanese War would usher its entrance as a world power and begin a rivalry with the United States over dominance in the Pacific.

Bradford of the Bureau of Equipment and Recruiting, who had supported the building of the Pennsylvanias, wanted to keep the new ships as homogeneous in size as possible to the earlier ones and at least comparable to them in fighting strength.

Since US cruisers generally carried heavier armament than their British counterparts, this necessitated magazines with greater volume to ensure adequate ammunition.

In his 14,500 proposed design labeled "F," Bowles extended the casemate armor to include the turrets and increased the ship's beam slightly to compensate for the added weight.

He also wanted to make the side armor one inch thinner than in the Pennsylvanias and concentrate the 6-inch guns at the ends of the ships to increase the areas covered by their protection.

[14] Meanwhile, Congress had become concerned about the growing size of new Navy ships of all ratings and set a firm limit of 14,500 tons, the same as the Pennsylvanias, for armored cruiser project to be considered for the 1902 naval building program.

Two four-cylinder vertical triple expansion engines, located in separate watertight compartments, supplied a combined total of 23,000 indicated horsepower at 120 revolutions per minute.

[27]) The Mark 3 was the last 10-inch gun built for the U.S. Navy, with a tube, jacket, locking ring and screw box liner manufactured from nickel steel.

A 30-inch (1 m)-thick cofferdam fitted between the protective and berth decks to the ends of the vessel, were filled with water-excluding material to aid in buoyancy in case of damage below the waterline.

Underwater protection was further increased by continuing this subdivision up the complete side of the subsurface hull to the lower edge of the armored deck slopes.

[38] Before North Carolina and Montana were laid down, the Bureau of Construction and Repair (C&R) made some minor design changes in light of experience gained from the Russo-Japanese War.

[22] In service, the Tennessees went through less refitting than the Pennsylvanias, as many features retrofitted to the latter, such as automatic ammunition hoist structures and longitudinal turret bulkheads, had already been built into the former from the outset.

Ships such as these were essentially Tennessee-class vessels in which the 6-inch battery had been traded for heavier main guns and protection and figured in Naval War College studies for several years.

Reciprocating engines such as the triple-expansion units on the Tennessees were not made for such continued punishment; pre-dreadnought battleships could not generally maintain flank speed for more than an hour.

Discussions, which continued into 1923, included flaring the bows in keeping with the design for the now-defunct Lexington-class battlecruisers, conversion to oil burning, added torpedo protection and an armament upgrade to 8-inch (200 mm) 55 caliber guns in triple turrets.

[47] The main issue turned out to be political, with War Plans concerned that reconstruction of the Tennessees might disrupt the building of new cruisers and with doubts about whether they would compare to more modern ships, even with their superior tonnage.

[48] C&R found it could install a 58,000–shaft horsepower power plant similar to one planned for the new aircraft carrier USS Ranger without disturbing the existing shaft lines of the cruisers; this would give them a speed of 26 knots.

[41] In November 1906, USS Tennessee escorted President Theodore Roosevelt (aboard the battleship Louisiana) to Panama to inspect construction of the canal there.

After two and a half years with the Pacific Fleet, Tennessee visited Argentina during that nation's independence celebration, carried President William Howard Taft to the Panama Canal and operated in the western Atlantic and the Gulf of Mexico.

Tennessee returned to the Mediterranean in August 1914 to conduct humanitarian missions and otherwise "show the flag" as the First World War spread through Europe and into the Turkish empire.

After an overhaul at the Norfolk Navy Yard, she returned to the Atlantic Fleet in 1912; among her duties was embarking the Secretary of State and his party on a cruise of South American between February and April 1912.

Washington served as temporary flagship in April–May 1912 while at the Philadelphia Navy Yard, then made several trips to the Dominican Republic and Haiti to help maintain an American presence in light of civil unrest and stood by to land Marines if the situation so required.

As World War I began in Europe, she and USS Tennessee called at ports of England and France and cruised the Mediterranean as a continued U.S. presence in the region before she returned to Boston 18 June 1915 for overhaul.

[51] Assigned to the Atlantic Fleet, USS Montana sailed in January 1909 for the Caribbean, then to the Mediterranean to protect American interests in the aftermath of the Turkish Revolution of 1908.

She also performed as a Naval Academy practice ship in the Chesapeake Bay area early in 1918 and, in six round trips from Europe from January to July 1919, brought home 8,800 American troops.