In total, 6 of these designs emerged (Tillman I, II, III, IV, IV-1 and IV-2) with, for the period, absolutely ridiculous characteristics. They had to be able to pass through the Panama canal. There was a single limit to these Tillman battleships. This first request didn’t go very far but it’s in 1916 that he would come back with his brilliant idea. To “take care of this issue”, he decided to ask the Bureau of constructions and repairs what would be the biggest battleship that they could potentially build.

Pitchfork Ben also didn’t appreciate that the Navy had the habit to build bigger battleships than what the Congress asked for.

He would basically do everything he could to cut their budget and also couldn’t understand why every new battleship class ordered was only slightly bigger and more expensive than the previous one. In 1912, senator Benjamin Tillman (a particularly unpleasant person), associated with the naval budget and naval designs at the time, wasn’t really a great fan of the U.S.

Out of all the potential designs we could expect among the preliminary designs for the Montana-class, Wargaming decided instead to bring us nothing else than the Tillman I design.įor those who never heard about this… amazing story, let me tell you a bit about the Tillman battleships.

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