US Torpedo Battleships | Guide 379

The torpedo battleships—ambitious yet unbuilt designs of the United States Navy—are today’s subject.

At the turn of the 20th century, as naval warfare rapidly evolved, American naval planners experimented with the idea of heavily armed battleships equipped not only with large-caliber guns but also integrated torpedo armament. These proposed “torpedo battleships” aimed to combine the line-of-battle firepower of traditional pre-dreadnoughts with the close-range striking power of self-propelled torpedoes.

Guide 379 explores the strategic logic behind these designs, how they fit within contemporary naval doctrine, and why the concept ultimately remained on paper. Though never constructed, these projects reveal a transitional moment in U.S. naval thinking—bridging the gap between 19th-century tactics and the all-big-gun dreadnought era that would soon redefine battleship design.