USS Vesuvius may refer to:
The 1806 ship was named for the volcano namesake and all others named after the 1806 ship.
USS Vesuvius, the third ship of the United States Navy named for the Italian volcano, was a unique vessel in the Navy inventory which marked a departure from more conventional forms of main battery armament. She is considered a dynamite gun cruiser and was essentially an operational testbed for large dynamite guns.
Vesuvius was laid down in September 1887 at Philadelphia by William Cramp and Sons Ships and Engine Building Company, subcontracted from the Pneumatic Dynamite Gun Company of New York City. She was launched on 28 April 1888 sponsored by Miss Eleanor Breckinridge and commissioned on 2 June 1890 at the Philadelphia Navy Yard with Lieutenant Seaton Schroeder in command.
Vesuvius carried three 15-inch (38-cm) cast iron pneumatic guns, invented by D. M. Medford and developed by Edmund Zalinski, a retired officer of the United States Army. They were mounted forward side-by-side at a fixed elevation of 16 degrees. Gun barrels were 55 feet (17 meters) long with the muzzles extending 15 feet (4.6 meters) through the deck 37 feet (11 meters) abaft the bow. In order to train these weapons, the ship had to be aimed, like a gun, at its target. Compressed air from a 1000 psi (70 atm) reservoir projected the shells from the dynamite guns. Two air compressors were available to recharge the reservoir.
Originally named USS Tippecanoe, after the river in Indiana,USS Wyandotte was a single-turreted Canonicus-class monitor built for the Union Navy during the American Civil War. Completed after the end of the war, Wyandotte was laid up until 1876, although she received her new name in 1869. The ship was commissioned in 1876 and assigned to the North Atlantic Squadron for the next three years. She became a receiving ship in 1879 until she was placed in reserve again in 1885. Wyandotte was on militia duty when the Spanish–American War began and she was recommissioned in 1898 to defend Boston, Massachusetts from any Spanish raiders. The ship was decommissioned after the end of the war and sold for scrap in 1899.
The ship was 224 feet 6 inches (68.4 m) long overall, had a beam of 43 feet 5 inches (13.2 m) and had a maximum draft of 13 feet 3 inches (4.0 m). Wyandotte had a tonnage of 1,034 tons burthen and displaced 2,100 long tons (2,100 t). Her crew consisted of 100 officers and enlisted men.