The "South Dakota"s had eight Babcock & Wilcox three-drum express type boilers that had a steam pressure of and a temperature of . The steam drove four geared turbines, one for each propeller shaft. General Electric provided the turbines for the "South Dakota" and the "Massachusetts", while identical machinery for "Indiana" and "Alabama" were provided by Westinghouse. Similar to the "North Carolina"-class, the machinery was divided into four machinery spaces, each with two boilers and one set of turbines in order to ensure isolation of main propulsion machinery. No longitudinal bulkheads were fitted in the machinery spaces; this was to reduce the risk of asymmetric flooding and capsizing.