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Thursday 14 December 2017

Brazilian battleships Minas Geraes and Sao Paulo modernized/being modernized according to the Dutch magazine Marineblad dated 1938 no. 6


Minas Gerais-class

An item referred to the magazine Schiffbau dated 15 August 1938 reported that the Brazilian battleship Minas Geraes (1) was recommissioned after her modernisation. The 18 coal fired boilers were replaced by oil fuelled boilers and the space which came available as a result was used for increasing her bunker capacity. The range of the 12-30,5cm/12” guns was increased by enlarging the elevation. At that moment was the modernisation of her sister ship Sao Paulo (2) in the USA going on.

Notes
1. Of the Minas Geraes-class consisting of the Minas Geraes and the Sao Paulo. Building ordered in 1906, laid down at Armstrong Whitworth, Newcastle-on-Tyne, England with yard number 791 on 17 April 1907, launched on 10 September 1908, completed on 5 January 1910, modernized 22 August 1920-4 October 1921 at New York, modernized at the Rio de Janeiro Naval Yard between June 1931-April 1938, modernized 1939-1943, during the Second World War serving as floating battery in the harbour of Salvador, decommissioned on 16 May 1952, stricken on 31 December 1952, sold to SA Cantiete Navale de Santa Maria, departed on 1 March 1954 to her final fate arriving on 22 April 1954 at Genoa, Italy where she was the same year broken up.
2. Of the Minas Geraes-class consisting of the Minas Geraes and the Sao Paulo. Laid down at Vickers, Barrow, England on 30 April 1907, launched and baptized by Mrs. Régis de Oliveira, on 19 April 1909, commissioned on 12 July 1910, refitted at New York, USA between 7 August 1918-7 January 1920, not modernized during to her worse condition in the 1930 served as harbour defence ship during the Second World War, stricken on 2 August 1947, Training vessel until August 1951, sold to the Iron and Steel Corporation of Great Britain to be broken up and sunk when she was underway from Rio de Janeiro to the scrap yard at Greenock with her caretaker crew on board north of the Azores in early November 1951 without finding a trace of her back