During World War I, Louisiana was employed as a training ship before serving as a convoy escort in late 1918.

The Connecticut class followed the Virginia-class battleships, but corrected some of the most significant deficiencies in the earlier design, most notably the superposed arrangement of the main and some of the secondary guns.

Despite the improvements, the ships were rendered obsolescent by the revolutionary British battleship HMS Dreadnought, completed before most of the members of the Connecticut class.

As was standard for capital ships of the period, Louisiana carried four 21 inch (533 mm) torpedo tubes, submerged in her hull on the broadside.

She left the United States on 15 September with Secretary of War William Howard Taft and Assistant Secretary of State Robert Bacon aboard; they were requested as a peace commission by Cuban President Tomás Estrada Palma to suppress an insurrection in the country.

After their work was completed, Taft and Bacon returned to the ship, which took them back to Fortress Monroe, Virginia.

After inspecting the progress of construction, Roosevelt boarded Louisiana and made a visit to Puerto Rico to examine the new government building there before continuing on to Piney Point, arriving on 26 November.

Over the course of the following year, the ship made a series of cruises to American ports, including New Orleans and Norfolk, and visits to Havana and Guantánamo Bay in Cuba.

[3] Louisiana joined the Great White Fleet on 16 December 1907, when they departed Hampton Roads to begin their circumnavigation of the globe.

The press in both countries began to call for war, and Roosevelt hoped to use the demonstration of naval might to deter Japanese aggression.

[6] After leaving Australia, the fleet turned north for the Philippines, stopping in Manila, before continuing on to Japan where a welcoming ceremony was held in Yokohama.

The ships then crossed the Atlantic to return to Hampton Roads on 22 February 1909, having traveled 46,729 nautical miles (86,542 km; 53,775 mi).

The worsening unrest of the Mexican Revolution led the United States to begin intervening in the conflict to protect American interests; in support of these interventions, Louisiana made three trips to Mexico between July 1913 and September 1915.

[3] After returning from the last operation, Louisiana was reduced to reserve status at Norfolk and employed as a training ship for midshipmen and naval militia units.

Following the United States' declaration of war on Germany on 6 April 1917, Louisiana was used to train gunners and engine room personnel.

[9] The ship was thereafter used to examine one of Arthur Pollen's Argo Clocks, a fire control system that incorporated the first mechanical analog computer.