Sunday Battleship Blogging: ARA Rivadavia

The South American dreadnought race of the 1910s began with the Brazilian order of Minas Gerais and Sao Paulo from British yards. Not to be outdone, Argentina and Chile soon ordered battleships of their own. Chile ordered two battleships from British yards, while Argentina decided to go with and American supplier. This turned out to be an excellent choice. At the beginning of World War I, Great Britain seized both Chilean battleships and two Turkish battleships for incorporation into the Royal Navy. A Greek dreadnought, Salamis, under construction in Germany was never completed as the Germans decided to work on their own ships. It is unclear why the Germans did not follow British practice and simply seize the half-complete Salamis, although I suspect that they may have been motivated by a fear of offending Greece. An accident of timing allowed the British to escape what would have been a more troubling dilemma. The battlecruiser Kongo, built in a British yard to Japanese specifications, had been turned over to the Imperial Japanese Navy in late 1913. Kongo was, at the time of her construction, the largest and most powerful capital ship in the world. Although Japan was a British ally, and would eventually join the war against Germany, I suspect it would have been VERY difficult for the British to give her up.

Rivadavia was completed in late 1914, making she and her sister rough contemporaries of the US New York class. The design of Rivadavia was, in some ways, more advanced than that of the New Yorks. Rivadavia had a similar displacement (27000 tons), was powered by steam turbines, and could make almost 23 knots, 2 knots faster than the US ships. However, Rivadavia carried 12 12″ guns to New York’s 10 14″, and had somewhat lighter armor. Rivadavia’s armament was arranged in two superfiring turrets each fore and aft and two wing turrets, making she and Moreno the only battleships built in the United States to carry wing turrets. Rivadavia carried a single cage mast forward, making the ARA the only navy besides the USN to operate dreadnoughts with cage masts.

Upon their delivery to the ARA, Rivadavia and Moreno became the most powerful ships in South America. Battleship technology advanced rapidly in the first twenty years of the twentieth century. Whereas Sao Paulo and Minas Gerais had been among the most poweful ships in the world upon their completion in 1910, they were completely outclassed by the Argentine ships in 1915. Rivadavio probably was not the equal of Almirante Latorre, finally delivered to Chile after World War I, but the two Argentine ships made up the most powerful squadron in the area. Rivadavio also seems to have been better taken care of than the Brazilian ships. She received oil fired boilers during a major refit in the 1920s, and remained fairly active in the 1920s and 1930s.

World War II brought some mild tensions to South America. Brazil leaned very heavily toward the Allies, eventually joining the war (and making a significant contribution both on land and at sea) in 1942. Chile and Argentina were less forthcoming, both having significant Axis sympathies. Both Argentina and Chile would eventually declare war on Germany and Japan, but neither lent any meaningful contribution to the Allied cause. Rivadavia embarked on her last long cruise in 1946, visiting a number of South American ports before being placed in reserve. By 1952 Rivadavia was disarmed, and was struck from the ARA List in 1957. Had the ARA maintained Rivadavia for just another 25 years, she would have had the opportunity to be sunk by the Royal Navy in the Falklands War…

Trivia (Last week’s winner was Jackdaw):

What was the last battleship to be destroyed in combat against other battleships?