USS MICHIGAN (SSBN 727)

USS Michigan (1863 - 1905) IronClad
 

The first Iron-Clad ship of the U.S. Navy. The new ship was christened Michigan, and she was launched on 4 December 1863.  The ship was propelled by a set of paddle wheels, 21 feet in diameter.  The paddle wheel houses were decorated with a large carving of an eagle and shield.  The engine had two cylinders, both of which had a 36 inch bore and eight foot stroke.  Two boilers consumed the ship's 120 tons of coal to obtain 330 horsepower.  The ship also carried three masts and was rigged as a barkentine for open lake sailing.  On trials, under engine alone, the ship made ten and a half statute miles an hour.  A full crew consisted of 106 officers and men.  As originally designed, the ship could have carried bow and stern pivot guns and twelve broadside guns. 

In 1905 she was renamed Wolverine, to free her original name for a new battleship. In 1909, when she was taken on trials she was still able to obtain ten miles an hour.   At the age of seventy, she was given the honor of towing the original U.S.S. Niagara, which had been raised and rebuilt, on a great lakes tour.  In August of 1923, while on a cruise with the Pennsylvania Naval Militia, a connecting rod broke, ending her active career.  Her second name, Wolverine, was given to the large side-wheeler when she became a training aircraft carrier in 1942.  A unique ship herself, the second Wolverine was one of two coal fired side wheel aircraft carriers in history, and sailed the coast of Illinois as a landing trainer for pilots from Glenview Naval Air Station.  After the World War II, this ship was declared surplus and scraped. 
 

USS Michigan (1910 - 1922) BB-27
 

USS Michigan, a 16,000-ton South Carolina class battleship built at Camden, New Jersey, was commissioned in January 1910. After initial operations along the Atlantic coast and in the Caribbean, she steamed across the ocean to visit England and France during November and December 1910. Michigan spent the next eight years taking part in regular Atlantic fleet exercises and cruises off the eastern seaboard, in the Caribbean and off Central America. In April-June 1914, she played a major role in the Vera Cruz incident, with many of her men serving ashore. The battleship suffered two notable accidents, one in September 1916 when a twelve-inch gun of her second turret burst while being fired and the second in January 1918 when her "cage" foremast collapsed during a storm at sea.

Michigan's First World War operations included convoy, training and battle practice operations in the western Atlantic area. In January-April 1919, soon after the war's end, she made two round-trips to Europe, bringing home over a thousand veterans of the conflict. In mid-1919, Michigan passed through the Panama Canal to the Pacific on a midshipmen's training cruise that took her as far west as Honolulu. When the Navy formally adopted ship hull numbers in 1920, she was designated BB-27. Michigan made another long-distance training voyage in mid-1921, this time calling on European ports from Norway to Gibraltar. She was decommissioned in February 1922. Made redundant by naval limitations treaty, USS Michigan was stricken from the Navy list in November 1923 and scrapped during 1924.
 

USS Michigan (1982 - Present) SSBN-727

The submarine USS MICHIGAN (SSBN 727) is the third U.S. Naval vessel to be named in honor of the state and is the second Trident Submarine to be commissioned.

Keel Layed:  4 April 1977
Christening Date:  26 April 1980
Commissioning Date:  11 September 1982
Currently:  In Active Service

USS MICHIGAN PHOTOGRAPHS

USS MICHIGAN (BB 27)

USS MICHIGAN (BB 27)

USS MICHIGAN (First Iron-Clad U.S. Ship)

USS MICHIGAN (SSBN 727)