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BB-40 USS NEW MEXICO
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104k | New Mexico (BB-40) being rebuilt and modernized at the Philadelphia Navy Yard between 5 March 1931 to 22 January 1933. Her other two sisters were rebuilt at Norfolk Navy Yard. The Coast Guard destroyers are the Tucker (CG-23), formerly DD-57 and the Cassin (CG-1), formerly DD-43. | Photo courtesy of uscg.mil., submitted by Mike Green. Partial text courtesy of DANFS. | |
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72k | Inboard profile of the New Mexico (BB-40), 1930. | Photo and text courtesy of U.S. Battleships: An Illustrated Design History by Norman Friedman. | |
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130k | 3, 4, & 5. Overhead port bow, waterlevel starboard quarter, and overhead
starboard bow views of the rebuilt ship taken in the mid 1930s. The three
views show the rebuilt ship's new appearance and new locations of her
equipment after her extensive rebuild at Philadelphia Navy Yard that took from 5 March 1931 to 22 January 1933. The three New Mexico's (BB-40-42) were the last to be rebuilt. They could be distinguished by their searchlight platforms. The Mississippi and Idaho (BB-42) had theirs far above their controls, with long struts, but the New Mexico (BB-40) hade her control cabins directly under the lights. Quite unlike their presecessors, they had tower masts supporting Mark-28 5-inch directors, the first to combine range finder and calculator into a single unit. The small cylinders were mark 31 directors, with an armored range finder at the forward end of the bridge structure. Below it, were secondary battery controls and battle lookout stations (note the eye slits), with the navigating bridge below that, then the chart house platform, the radio direction-finder platform, and the conning tower platform. Note the four 0.50-calibere machine guns visible on the latter. The radio direction finder itself was housed between the funnel and the bridge structure. The Idaho, fitted as a flagship, had a flag bridge below her navigating bridge. Her chart house was on the radio direction-finder platform. |
USN photo. Partial text courtesy of U.S. Battleships: An Illustrated Design History by Norman Friedman. | |
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135k | 3, 4, & 5. Overhead port bow, waterlevel starboard quarter, and overhead starboard bow views of the rebuilt ship taken in the mid 1930s. The three views show the rebuilt ship's new appearance and new locations of her equipment after her extensive rebuild at Philadelphia Navy Yard that took from 5 March 1931 to 22 January 1933. | USN photo. | |
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134k | 3, 4, & 5. Overhead port bow, waterlevel starboard quarter, and overhead starboard bow views of the rebuilt ship taken in the mid 1930s. The three views show the rebuilt ship's new appearance and new locations of her equipment after her extensive rebuild at Philadelphia Navy Yard that took from 5 March 1931 to 22 January 1933. | USN photo. | |
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85k | New Mexico (BB-40) after modernization in 1933. | Official U.S. Navy Photograph, USNHC # NH 60669, now in the collections of the National Archives. | |
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83k | Starboard view, after modernization in 1933. | National Archives # 80-G-180967, courtesy of EMC(SW) Brian Kroenung. | |
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55k | Circa 1933 photo port side view. | Jesse P. Mannix / USN photo. | |
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71k | New Mexico (BB-40) moored in the Hudson River with the Statue of Liberty in the background, June 1934. New Mexico returned to the Pacific in October 1934 to resume training exercises and tactical development operations. | USN photo. Text courtesy of DANFS. | |
 | 242k | New Mexico (BB-40) and her sisters lie in anchor, probably at San Pedro California sometime between October 1934 & 6 December 1940 before she was transferred to Pearl Harbor. | U.S. Navy Photograph courtesy of David Buell. | |
 | 280k | Idaho (BB-42) & one of her sisters, New Mexico (BB-40) or Mississippi (BB-41) at anchor in Seattle, circa during her participation in Fleet Week, July - August 1935. | USN photo courtesy of Robert M. Cieri. | |
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153k | In Pearl Harbor, 1935. | Official U.S. Navy Photograph, USNHC # NH 50299, now in the collections of the National Archives. | |
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116k | A Vought O3U-1 aboard New Mexico (BB-40) in 1935. Note the Captain's gig with the NM designation tied up inboard of the Staff Officers boat from Pennsylvania (BB-38) to the port boat boom. | USN photo courtesy of Pieter Bakels. | |
 | 900k | Very large 1936 photo of Battleship Row, Pearl Harbor. Among the ships in the harbor are:
On the far left are two New Orleans (CA-32) class heavy cruisers. Neither ship can be positively identified, but I believe the outer one (the one furthest from the camera) to be either New Orleans (CA-32), Quincy (CA-39), or Vincennes (CA-44). The battleships from left to right: Colorado (BB-45), or West Virginia (BB-48), outboard of Idaho (BB-42), Nevada (BB-36), outboard of Mississippi (BB-41), New Mexico (BB-40), outboard of Maryland (BB-46) or California (BB-44). On the far right is the Hospital ship Relief (AH-1) with two unidentified ships ahead and to her port side. | Text courtesy of David Johnston, (USNR) & Aryeh Wetherhorn (USNR). Photo courtesy of Edward Cwalinski, submitted by Barry Litchfield. | |
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95k | Forward turrets of the New Mexico (BB-40) all dressed up, circa 1930's.
The practice of gunnery at the beginning of the 20th century put a lot of emphasis on shooting first. Radio communications was still in diapers (cumbersome, morse code, slow) and visual signals, light, flaghoist or semaphore, were not much better. When an enemy was detected it also took time to train and elevate the guns to shoot at him. In poor visibility this might give him the first shot. The range clocks, and their companion, the deflection markers, were developed to shorten the time needed to get off the first salvo. Concentration of fire was also a major consideration, and usually all ships of a division would fire on the same target. Fire control was based on mechanical analog devices that incorporated input from the optical range finders located at several places on the ship. In USN ships this included the top of the cage mast. Long range visibility under battle conditions was often poor. The heavy black smoke from burning coal just made it worse. But individual ships could be expected to have a reasonably clear view of the next ship ahead in the division line. The flagship was almost always in the lead, and could direct concentration of fire by passing range and deflection data to the other ships. This process was made much faster by simply training the flagships own guns in the direction of the enemy and displaying the ships own average rangefinder results on a circular display. Trailing ships often did not have as good a view of the enemy as the leader, but could observe where the leaders guns were aimed (and read numbers from the range clock) in order to set initial values for aiming their own guns. That is enough of the background theory. There was no CIC as we know it today, but there was a central fire control plot on each ship. This plot included a MECHANICAL device for determining and transmitting refined settings for azimuth and elevation of the guns. Initial inputs were often set manually. Communications between the plot and the gun turrets (and the range clocks) included up to 4 separate and parallel methods. First, there was a mechanical connection, usually a bicycle chain and sprocket drive to ensure equivalent movement. Second, voice tubes connected the plot with rangefinder positions and guns. Third, when they became available, there were internal communications telephones matching the above circuits. Finally, if other means failed, you could write a note and send it by messenger. There is an excellent series of articles on battleship gunnery fire control in this era in WARSHIP INTERNATIONAL. vol 38 numbers 1,2,3 (2001) and also vol 41. It is devoted to the plotting instruments, not range clocks. As a final note, I'm sure you already noticed that the range "clocks" are numbered from 1 to 10, not 1 to 12. The figures were usually given in thousands of yards. |
USN photo courtesy of Robert M. Cieri. Text courtesy of Aryeh Wetherhorn, (USN & Israeli Navy, Retired). | |
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49k | New Mexico (BB-40) & Lexington (CV-2) in Bremerton, 1937. | USN photo courtesy of Robert M. Cieri. | |
 | 242k | A New Mexico (BB-40 / 42) class battleship in the van with other battleships of the Pacific Fleet with its air arm over head. This photo dates from no earlier than 25 June 1937, when Douglas began delivery of 114 TBD-1s (the only mono-planes in this picture) and between 20 May 1941 when the New Mexico's were transferred to the Atlantic Fleet. "The Navy uses enormous amounts of rubber. At least seventy-five tons of rubber, enough to makes 17,000 tires, are used in the construction of each of these battleships. Tons more are needed for the naval planes that are making history over the world. Medical and communication requirements--and countless other needs of the Navy--are met." |
Photograph # LC-USE64 - DC-000944 & partial text courtesy of memory.loc.gov. Photo added 02/16/08. | |
The contact listed, Was the contact at the time for this ship when located. If another person now is the contact, E-mail me and I will update this entry. These contacts are compiled from various sources over a long period of time and may or may not be correct. Every effort has been made to list the newest contact if more than one contact was found.
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