SN 1-04 USS Utah BB-31

New 1/1250 scale waterline model of the American battleship USS Utah BB-31 after her mid 1920's reconstruction by Spider Navy (SN 1-04) as in 1929.

She and her sister ship Florida formed the Florida class of dreadnought battleships. Utah was laid down at the New York Shipbuilding Corporation in March 1909, launched in December 1909, and commissioned into the US Navy in on August 31, 1911. She was armed with a main battery of ten 12-inch (305 mm) guns and was very similar in design to the preceding Delaware class battleships.

Utah was one of the first ships to arrive during the United States occupation of Veracruz in early 1914, and part of her crew joined the landing party that occupied the city. After the American entrance into World War I she was based in Bantry Bay, Ireland, where she protected convoys. She saw no combat action during the war.

Through the 1920's the ship conducted training cruises and participated in fleet maneuvers. She was heavily modernized in the mid 1920's. In 1931 to comply with the London Naval Treaty the Utah was demilitarized and converted into a target ship with the new designation AG-16.

Her role changed again by 1939 when she received additional anti-aircraft guns and became a gunnery training ship. She was serving in the role for the Pacific Fleet at Pearl Harbor and was in port on December 7, 1941. In the first minutes of the Japanese attack that morning she was hit by two torpedoes. Utah quickly rolled over and sank; the vast majority of her crew were able to escape, but 64 men were killed in the attack. The wreck remains in the harbor, and in 1972, a memorial was erected near the ship.