I had a query from one of the followers of the page if I could do a US Navy version of the Commonwealth Union of America ship Hawaii (which he liked) which was a double ended monitor. I had a look at the original Hawaii drawing and shuddered. I had not done my due diligence in researching what would be required to mount twin 16" turrets on what was a cruiser height hull. It looked odd. I figured I could do better than that and created the Puerto Rico Class. Enjoy!
The US Navy had the two lots of four turrets (8) that had been completed but never fitted to the Lexington and Saratoga, when those battlecruisers were converted to aircraft carriers after being cancelled by the Washington Treaty. The other ship that was most affected was the fourth unit of the Colorado class of 16" battleships which had to be scrapped under the terms of the Washington Treaty. The four turrets from the cancelled Washington went on to become the USS Louisiana. The other eight turrets had been built for battlecruisers and the turret armour was less than optimal for a new pair of battleships. One class of ship that the United States Navy had never built or contemplated was the shore bombardment monitor that the Royal Navy had so many of providing support at Gallipoli and along the coast of France and Belgium. The Royal navy ships used spare 14", 15" and whatever other turrets could be found or scrounged, but they were slow, the fastest being 14-15 knots, the slowest 5-6 knots. That was not a problem in Europe where the distances were short, but in the Pacific those same ships might find the war was over by the time they got to the front line. For the USN to contemplate a monitor it had to be fast enough to be useful. When looking at the single ended RN monitors, the USN could not see how they get that style to go the 24-25 knots they thought was needed for flexibility of use. Funnily enough it was the German Deutschland class Armoured ships that showed what might be a possible way for the USN to have what it wanted. The German ships mounted 6x11", the USN ships could mount 4x16". The USN could use a similar cruiser hull but with better armour. The one thing with using a cruiser hull, with the 16" barbettes, was the amount of deck penetration required, made the turret sit up above the hull line. The USN is sold, BuShips is to do a design for four ships to use up the battlecruiser turrets.
Two were ordered in 1929, and a further two in 1930. Having the main armament already available made the building times much shorter than normal. The first pair completing in early 1932, fell foul of a shortage of the twin 5"/38 turrets. Seven were supposed to be fitted, but only the three around the bridge were mounted, the other four were purloined for the lead ship of the Porter class Destroyer Leaders. Eight single 5"/38 were fitted instead. The quad 28mm cannons, and single 0.5" Browning machine guns, made up the original light AA weaponry. The twin 5"/38 were all fitted on the other three members of the class.
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The remaining ships had a refit in 1942 to update the AA and Radar systems. The ships had fought the first six months of their war in their pre-war states. Getting rid of the 28mm Chicago pianos was a great relief as those guns were found to be prone to jamming at the most inopportune moments, like when the Japanese bombers are incoming! Replacing the quad 28mm with twin 40mm made a huge difference to the AA fire from the ships, especially when coupled with radar predictors. New radar systems on the gun directors improved the accuracy of the 16" main battery a lot. Only having four guns made it difficuilt to hit ship targets with four gun broadside fire. Intelligence was received that the battlecruiser Kurama was holed up around the Solomon Islands. A small force of the Guam, a scout cruiser and two destroyers were dispatched to winkle the Kurama out of its lair and sink it. When the force found the Kurama and discovered it was an Area Defence Vessel, they launched spotter aircraft, keeping out of range of the Kurama's old 12", and had a bit of target practice. The 16" guns of the Guam with spotter aircraft and radar control made short work of the old ship. Old the Kurama may have been been, but it was still listed as a battlecruiser and a great feather in the cap of the Guam. A very nice battle star.
At wars start the ships were scattered all over the place. One was with the Ranger group in the North Atlantic doing neutrality patrols. Two were based on the Hawaiian Islands with the carrier fleet, being the 'fastest' capital ships that could keep up with them. Because of this they escaped the holocaust at Pearl Harbour and stayed with the carriers during the early battles in the Pacific. The last ship was in the Philippines doing anti-piracy patrols throughout the South China Seas. The Virgin Islands intercepted one of the many invasion forces going through the Dutch East Indies taking over the larger islands like Borneo, Java, Celebes etc. The cover force consisted of a Kongo class battlecruiser, two heavy cruisers, two light cruisers and a dozen destroyers. All of those ships were as fast as the Virgin Islands so it could not use speed to escape. The two large ships opened fire at 30,000 yards, the heavy cruisers joining in at 27,000 yards. The Virgin Islands was making zig-zag maneuvers, not because it knew of the 24" torpedoes, but to confuse the Japanese gunners as it was seriously outnumbered. The Virgin Island concentrated on the Kongo and had a spotter in the air to assist. The Virgin Islands Captain felt if he could do enough damage to the Kongo he could escape. No such luck. While he did do a lot of damage to the Kongo, his ship also received a lot of damage that slowed it to below 20 knots. The Kongo's 14" shells went through the Virgin Islands armour, and once the 8" cruisers started hitting as well, the end was in sight. As the Virgin Islands slowed further, three torpedoes hit along the length of the hull, opening the ship to the sea. Ten minutes later the ship rolled over and sank. Very few survivors made it to be rescued. Sharks and the open sea took a toll of the survivors. Since this my AU, I can criticise my Captain of the Virgin Islands. His ship was quite a valuable one and would become more so for the next 18 months. While it was brave of the Captain to attack the convoy, his best move may have been to turn 90 degrees and run. The Japanese Commander would not have bothered chasing as his orders were very clear, escort his convoy to its destination. The other loss to the class was the Puerto Rico itself, when it was torpedoed by German midget submarines off the coast of Normandy, supporting the D-Day landings.
The last action for the remaining two ships was as gunfire support at Korea. The ships were 20 years old, and though they were still in good condition, they were round pegs in a square Navy. On their return from ferrying US personnel back from Korea, they were added to the Mothball fleet. 1962 they were struck from the Navy List and sent to their respective Territories in the Pacific, there to be sunk as 'dive' ships for the evermore popular scuba diving tourist trade.