The Wyoming (BB-32), along with her sister the Arkansas (BB-33), shared the distinction of mounting the largest number of main battery turrets installed in a U.S. Navy battleship: six, each with two 12-inch/50-caliber guns. Both ships saw service attached to the British Grand Fleet in 1917-18. The Arkansas participated in combat in the Atlantic and Pacific during World War II. The Wyoming, commissioned during September 1912, fell victim to the disarmament provisions of the London Treaty of 1930; she was demilitarized as gunnery training ship AG-17, losing her side armor, antitorpedo bulges, and half her 12-inch gun battery. During World War II, the “Chesapeake Raider” is said to have fired more ammunition than any other U.S. Navy warship, all of it at non-hostile targets and most of it within a few miles of her Norfolk base. Some 35,000 wartime gunners learned their trade on board the Wyoming, which was decommissioned on 1 August 1947.
In June 1942, sporting a modest camouflage, the Wyoming (top right) shows the effects of her conversion to an auxiliary: The two forward and stern-most 12-inch turrets remain, as does the cage foremast. Visible to starboard are the early wartime additions of one twin and two single 5-inch/38-caliber, dual-purpose guns, but the 16 5-inch/51-caliber, low-angle weapons initially retained have been deleted from their casemate and deck positions.
A refit early in 1944 brought a major revision to the Wyoming’s cluttered silhouette. The remaining 12-inch turrets were removed and replaced with twin 5-inch/38-caliber mountings atop their barbettes. The cage foremast was replaced by a simple pole mast supporting the antenna for a surface- search radar; two directors for Mk 37 gun fire-control systems were added, amidships and to starboard (a portside Mk 34 system was retained); the light antiaircraft armament was augmented; and a small catapult for target drones was added at the stern.
At war’s end, the 28,724-ton Wyoming mounted substantially the same weaponry seen in this April 1945 view: four twin 5-inch and six single 5-inch (two of them enclosed) mountings; four 3-inch/50-caliber single mounts; 11 40- mm guns in one quadruple, three twin, and one single mounts; and 19 20-mm guns in two quadruple, one twin, and nine single mounts. The experimental quadruple 20-mm installations had replaced the quadruple 1.1-inch mounts carried until June 1945. The guns of all sizes were carried in mounts of various marks and models to provide diversity in training and maintenance. Also carried were a variety of fire-control systems, most of them radar equipped, including two Mk 37, one Mk 34, one Mk 50, eight Mk 51, one Mk 57, and one Mk 63.