The St. Louis Class - 1902/1906
The St. Louis class ships were denominated First Class Cruisers. They had some vertical armor on their hulls in addition to the customary armored deck and protected conning tower and gun mounts, but were not considered armored cruisers. Completed in 1905-06, they were reasonably fast at 22½ knots and were competitive with other navies in fuel economy. They were intended for scouting and commerce raiding duties, and ended up as acceptable convoy escort ships.
Good-looking four-funnel cruisers, they appeared quite similar to the Pennsylvania class armored cruisers, but with single 6" mounts bow and stern instead of large turrets. The pronounced ram was back in place. Like the British battleships of the 1890s, they had prominent docking bridges and secondary control stations across the aft end of the superstructure. The funnels were cylindrical, extra tall and narrow, of the "stovepipe" profile. The masts were the USN standard at the time (cf. Pennsylvania and Mississippi classes), with 1-pdr guns mounted in each of two fighting tops on each mast. This class of ships did not have their original masts replaced by the USN's new standard wire lattice masts during WWI.
On the whole, these were not considered particularly successful ships. One of their number -- the Milwaukee -- met an untimely end due to navigational error while under the command of a callow lieutenant. After conversion to a torpedo depot ship, she was despatched to Eureka, CA to salvage a sub that had sunk off Humboldt Bay. While attempting to perform that task, she ran hard aground in a thick fog Jan. 13, 1917 and became a total loss, although none of her crew was killed in the incident.
 Sister ships St. Louis and Charleston became convoy escorts on the Atlantic steamer tracks during the Great War -- at right, the Charleston at sea on convoy duty. Each completed seven round-trips convoying merchant ships loaded with war matériel to Europe. St. Louis made seven transatlantic voyages after the Armistice to repatriate American troops serving in the conflict. Charleston was sent to the Mediterranean and thence to the Bosporus, where she assisted White Russian refugees fleeing the Communist takeover in Ukraine, and to a lesser degree, refugees from the invasion and civil war in Turkey. Both ships returned to the U.S. in 1921 to be decommissioned the following year and sold out of the service in 1930. Charleston was sold initially to the General Salvage Company of Seattle, who removed her machinery and upper works and sold the hulk to the Powell River Company in nearby British Columbia, Canada, along with the remains of the armored cruiser USS Huron (ex-South Dakota), to serve as part of a breakwater at a lumber mill on Vancouver Island. The remains of the two warships can still be seen there at Kelsey Bay, surrounded by scenic grandeur reminiscent of Norway's fjords.
Plan and Specifications
Specifications for the St. Louis clss:
Dimensions: 424' x 66' x 22'6" LOA: 426'6" Displacement: 9,856 tons std; 10,839 tons deep laden. Armament: (14) 6"/50, (18) 3" 14-pdr, and (4) 3-pdr guns; (8) 1-pdr Hotchkiss MG. Armor: Krupp type. 4" belt, upper belt, battery and casemates, 5" CT, 3" shields and conning tube, 3"/1" deck. Coal capacity: 650 tons normal, 1,776 tons maximum. Propulsion: (16) coal-fired B&W boilers. (2) VTE developing 27,200 hp, shafted to twin screw. Speed: 22.4 knots. Crew: 727.
Ships in class: St. Louis · Charleston · Milwaukee
Metric Specifications:
Dimensions: 130m x 20m x 6.86m Displacement: 9,700 tons. Armament: (14) 152 mm, (18) 76 mm, and (4) 3-pdr guns, all in single mounts; (8) 1-pdr Hotchkiss MG; (3) 356 mm torpedo tubes. Armor: 100 mm belt, upper belt, battery and casemates; 130 mm CT; 76 mm shields and conning tube, 76/25 mm deck. Coal capacity: 650 tons normal, 1,776 tons maximum. Propulsion: (16) coal-fired B&W boilers. (2) VTE developing 20,283 kW, shafted to twin screw. Speed: 41.8 km/hr. Crew: 727.
A St. Louis Class Scrapbook
The Charleston in a dramatic photo by Enrique Muller, mistakenly identified as an armored cruiser.
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USS Milwaukee shown in a flattering overall shot. The elaborate bow crest is well seen here. Enlarge
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The Milwaukee hard aground at Samoa Beach, near Eureka, CA, 1917. A storm in Nov. 1918 broke her in two. Enlarge
Remains of the Charleston today: as part of a breakwater at Kelsey Bay, Vancouver Island, B.C.
The Chester Class - 1905/1908
The name ship underway in Casco Bay.
Following developments in Continental navies, the U.S. Congress approved construction of three swift scouting cruisers in 1905. These ships abandoned much pretense of being battleworthy, having only a 2" plate of armor over the engines and steering engines. Unlike previous U.S. cruisers, the Chesters resisted the temptation to over-gunning: two 5" guns and six 3" sufficed. No teak decks here: anticipating warships of two world wars, the Chesters made do with plain steel and anti-skid paint. The foremost and aftermost of their four stacks were smaller and oblong, while the middle pair were oval and vented an extra boiler apiece. The three ships all had different engines, as a means of making an objective test of efficiency. The Birmingham had conventional 4-cylinder piston engines, while the Chester had Parsons turbines and the Milwaukee, Curtis turbines. Likewise thre were different boiler arrangements. The Chester, fastest of the three, was built at Bath Iron Works; the other two at the Fore River Shipyard in Quincy, MA.
 The ships were intended to be multi-use, available as flotilla leaders or, as inevitably turned out in WWI, convoy escorts. These ships were accounted a great success, and the apellation "protected cruiser" was dropped in the USN soon after. In fact, the existing protected cruisers were reclassified as light cruisers (CL). They were the first turbine cruisers in the American service,and the performance of their engines was highly esteemed.
The class's footnote in history was accomplished by the Birmingham when she accomplished the first flyoff of an aircraft from a warship. A wooden ramp was erected over the ship's foredeck and on Nov. 14, 1910, pioneer pilot Eugene Ely took off across Hampton Roads, Virginia, launched from the ship's bow. Ely outdid himself a few months later, landing on the anchored USS Pennsylvania in San Francisco Bay and then taking off again on January 18, 1911. The following year, the Royal Navy notched up its own first with a takeoff from HMS Hibernia while underway. The first landing on a vessel while underway occurred on the seaplane carrier HMS Furious in 1917. In those pioneering days of aviation, an historic first would become a commonplace operation within a very few years.
The Chesters were equipped with Curtiss-Wright Model F flying boats for operations against Pancho Villa in Mexico, 1914-16. In spring 1914, one of Birmingham's flying boats performed the first-ever U.S. aerial combat mission based from a warship, scouting for mines in Veracruz Bay. In WWI the Chesters all were tapped as convoy escorts, a task at which they excelled. Like so many American warships of their generation, they were laid up in 1923 under the terms of the Washington Treaty. They were sold for scrap in 1933
The Chesters were an obvious forerunner to the Omaha class cruisers, designed in 1916 but not completed until the early Twenties. These speedy four-stackers had the extra power the Chesters lacked, and could make 35 knots.
Plan and Specifications
Specifications for the Chester class:
Dimensions: 413'1" x 58'2" x 24'6" 423' OA length. Std. displacement: 3,810 tons. Armament: (2) 5"/51, (6) 3"/50, and (2) 6-pdr guns; two 21" torpedo tubes. Armor: 2"/1" deck; double skin over engine and steering engine spaces. Propulsion: 12 Fore River boilers (except Birmingham, 10 B&W). (2) Brown-Curtis turbine engines developing 16,000 hp, shafted to twin screw in Salem; (2) Parsons turbines developing 16,000 hp, geared to quad screw in Chester; two 4-cyl VTE developing 15,530 hp, shafted to twin screw in Birmingham. Speed: 24½ kts; 26½ f.d., Chester. Fuel capacity: 475 tons coal; 1,400 tons maximum. Crew: 359-373. Cost: £325,000 or US $1,576,250 at 1910 valuation, exclusive of armament.
Ships in class: Chester · Birmingham · Salem
Metric Specifications:
Dimensions: 125.9m x 14.4m x 5.2m 129m OA length. Std. displacement: 3,810 tons. Armament: (2) 127 mm/51, (6) 76 mm/50, and (2) 57 mm 6-pdr guns; two 53 cm torpedo tubes (removed 1910). 203 mm gun replaced by a third 152 mm/45 in 1910. (4) Gatling MG, (4) 75 mm AA added 1917. Armor: 63.5/40 mm deck. Propulsion: 12 Fore River boilers (except Birmingham, 10 B&W). (2) Brown-Curtis turbine engines developing 16,000 hp, shafted to twin screw in Salem; (2) Parsons turbines developing 16,000 hp, geared to quad screw in Chester; two 4-cyl VTE developing 11,581 kW, shafted to twin screw in Birmingham. Speed: 45.4 km/hr (49.1 f.d., Chester). Fuel capacity: 475 tons coal; 1,400 tons maximum. Crew: 359-373. Cost: £325,000 or US $1,576,250 at 1910 valuation, exclusive of armament.
A Chester Class Collection
Model of the Chester reveals the clean, modern lines of these advanced scout cruisers. Enlarge
Aerial view of the Salem shows her from the complementary angle from the model shot.
The different shapes of the funnels are especially apparent from this angle.
The Birmingham with flight deck rigged for the audacious feat of aeronautical acscension. Enlarge
Eugene Ely takes off from the Birmingham at Hampton Roads, November 14, 1910.
Now that's a feat worth celebrating! Kicking up a powerful wake, Birmingham fires a salute at Seattle, Sept. 1919.
This page contains some minimally edited material from DANFS.
 
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At right, bridge of the Cleveland as enclosed by the Mare Island dockyard; c. 1916; directly below at left, original bow scrolls of the same ship, 1909, taken in the Dewey Drydock at Olangapo, Philippine Islands.
Denver reported at New York on July 22, 1917 for duty escorting merchant convoys out of New York and Norfolk, Virginia, to a mid-ocean meeting point where destroyers took over the task of convoying men and troops to ports in England and France. Before the close of World War I, Denver made eight such voyages, then was detached on December 5, 1918 to patrol the east coast of South America, returning to New York on 4 June 1919. Between July 7, 1919 and September 27, 1921, she voyaged from New York to San Francisco, serving in the Panama Canal Zone and on the coasts of Central America both outward and homeward bound.
