Designed as an uprated Colorado with half again as many main guns, the Vermont class (originally known as the South Dakota Class) was curtailed to only two units by the Washington Naval Treaty. Easily distinguished by her "wishbone" smokestacks, she was a powerful warship, but she was terribly slow in comparison to the new world standards set by such ships as the "Saints" and Owari. The advent of radar in the late thirties gave this class a new lease of life as a first-class warship, if only the enemy would come to her. They did, but from the air.

The Virginia looked smart with all the other WW I-era battlewagons on Battleship Row in 1941, but a Japanese 18" projectile fitted as a bomb pierced her magazines and she exploded so violently that recognizable pieces were found in nearby Honolulu. Her hulk was raised and eventually towed to Normandy two and a half years later and used as a breakwater. Vermont served faithfully in convoy duty as a deterrent to German raiders but never fired her guns in anger. She survived Test Able but sank during Test Baker at Bikini atoll.