they would be equipped with the same caliber main guns and similar secondary guns; however, Montana and her sisters would have more armor, mount three more main guns in one more turret, and be longer and wider than the Iowa class. The final contract design was issued in June 1942. Construction was authorized by the United States Congress and the projected date of completion was estimated to be somewhere between 1 July and 1 November 1945. Fate The Navy ordered the ships in May 1942, but the Montana class was placed on hold because the Iowa-class battleships and the Essex-class aircraft carriers were under construction in the shipyards intended to build the Montanas. Both the Iowa and Essex classes had been given higher priorities: the Iowas as they were far along enough in construction and urgently needed to operate alongside the Essex-class carriers and defend them with 5-inch, 40 mm, and 20 mm AA guns, and the Essexes because of their ability to launch aircraft to gain and maintain air supremacy over the islands in the Pacific and intercept warships of the Imperial Japanese Navy. The entire Montana class was suspended in June 1942 following the Battle of Midway, before any of their keels had been laid. In July 1943, the construction of the Montana class was finally cancelled after the Navy fully accepted the shift in naval warfare from surface engagements to air supremacy and from battleships to aircraft carriers. Work on the new locks for the Panama Canal also ceased in 1941, owing to a shortage of steel due to the changing strategic and material priorities. Specifications General characteristics The final BB-67-4 design for the Montana-class battleships was long at the waterline and long overall. The maximum beam was while the waterline beam was due to the inclination of the external armor belt. The design displacement figures were standard, full load, and emergency load. At emergency load displacement, the mean draft was . At design combat displacement of , the mean draft was , and (GM) metacentric height was . The Montana design shares many characteristics with the previous classes of American fast battleships starting from the North Carolina class, such as a bulbous bow, triple bottom under the armored citadel, and twin skegs in which the inner shafts were housed. The Montanas overall construction would have made extensive use of welding for joining structural plates and homogeneous