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This is a thought experiment based in the actual existance of the US Navy's prototype 18"gun and the cancellation of the South Dakota Class

Much of the layout was taken from Karle94's and Alvama's Work.

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French Vice-admiral Louis-René-Madeleine Le Vassor de La Touche, comte de Tréville
The original spelling of my last name is: LaTouche.

I believe there would still have been two thinner, slightly taller funnels. These ships (as far as I'm aware of!) were supposed to have Turbo-electric machinery, and small-tube boilers with forced draught by super heaters. Hence the funnel configuration. Also the bridge looks very different from what I've read the South Dakotas (and possible successors) would've sported. Yours is more akin to the older, Pennsylvania/Nevada-class style. Look up the Maryland-class for a more appropriate bridge configuration!
Other than that, it shows great promise!

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My Avatar:Петр Алексеевич Безобразов (Petr Alekseevich Bezobrazov), Вице-адмирал , царская ВМФ России(1845-1906) - I sign my drawings as Ari Saarinen

on first glance, I think the ship would have grown bigger then the drawing here, or an switch to 3 turrets, possibly even with an 2-aft arrangement. the turrets as of now look huge compared with the rest of the ship, and if we compare it with the iowa which carried 3*3 16in guns but which were longer (this, of course, partially because of their higher speed, but that separate) it seems like 3 twins on an hull this size seems to be the maximum for this ship.
an tryout with only 2 tripple turrets might be interesting too

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Drawings are credited with J.Scholtens
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I think 4 turrets looks to much possibly 3 but give her 2 secondary turrets of smaller 6in or 8in one in place of the x turret and the other behind b turret, the only ship class fielded with 18s was the Japanese Yamato class and they blew the Washington treaty out of the water I'd look at them for design style.

You may also need an extra 30-40 meters or so Yamamoto was 256m ang the Iowa's 270 and they had 16's she'll also need some serious AA fire power as she is one big sitting duck.

Yamato. Yamamoto was the admiral who used her as a flagship.

I like the drawing, even though I agree with what's been mentioned about it.

Thanks for the input.

AsI said, Iwas kicking around the idea and decided to see what a 4x2x18" arangmentt, rather like what the Colorado's have, would look like. And I agree, the turrets are disprapotionately large even on a 715' hull.

Here's the link to the US 18" naval gun.

http://www.navweaps.com/Weapons/WNUS_18-48_mk1.htm

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French Vice-admiral Louis-René-Madeleine Le Vassor de La Touche, comte de Tréville
The original spelling of my last name is: LaTouche.

hehehe this gives a lot of information already

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I agree about two funnels for the turbo electric machinery, and that the ship would be bigger but I have to disagree with some of the other suggestions. Also you may consider calling this a follow up to the SoDaks, without the treaty there is no reason to believe they wouldn't have been finished as designed, the first couple were already about half way done. A follow up design would have been very similar and probably mounted the 18" guns to counter British and Japanese designs.

As far as the turret arrangement goes the only reason the navy ever stopped doing a 4 turret layout was because of the Washington Naval Treaty, without restrictions they would have probably kept the "standard" layout.

The bridge also makes sense, it is not the original bridge for the pennsylvanias, it is the kind that was installed during the refits in the late 20s early 30s, so plausible for late 20s constructed ships. of course the "standard" type bridge and cage masts from the big 5 would also be plausible, especially if you decide to keep this as SoDak instead of a follow up class.

Casemate guns are still plausible but you may want to consider turreted secondaries, either 6" like the omahas or 8" like the lexingotn CVs and a few single open mount 3" guns as AA.

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I agree Ace, but it still stings that the Yamato's had 18" guns and we didn't. The Brits also had an 18" gun on at least one monitor I believe. It was 18"/40 (45.7 cm) Mark I, 1917, found on the Furious class.

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French Vice-admiral Louis-René-Madeleine Le Vassor de La Touche, comte de Tréville
The original spelling of my last name is: LaTouche.

Turbo-electric drive battleships also fascinate me. Why we abandoned it for 80 years is puzzling. The USS Vermont (BB-72) the 21st century Battleship I designed was Nuke with turbo-electric drive.

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French Vice-admiral Louis-René-Madeleine Le Vassor de La Touche, comte de Tréville
The original spelling of my last name is: LaTouche.