There are a number of reasons why I was attracted to and have been a volunteer on board Battleship Texas for the last 25 years. Among them is her unique place in history as the world’s last dreadnought style battleship, her history as the last surviving U.S. warship that participated in both World Wars, her contribution to some of the most important naval landings in World War II and her wide variety of equipment and systems that exist nowhere else. As an unabashed mechanical geek, I have been driven to perform deep dive studies of things as large as her huge 14” guns and as small as a single pull handle hanging from an overhead.
To that end, I have produced a number of videos that describe why and how the systems on the world’s last dreadnought battleship were designed and operated. It’s my hope that they will attract casual visitors who will at least appreciate the ship’s history and complexity, and also satisfy the needs of serious students of these incredible ships.
Tom, thanks for making these videos about this historic battleship. Interesting to learn about and, see the state of the art technology that was in use at the end of the 19th century.
You seriously misunderstood me if you think I said that. What the shells have are a driving band, the rear skirt of which expands to act as a gas check. The expansion is caused high pressure caused by expanding burning propellant gasses.
I didn’t realize how fast these rounds go. 2700 feet per second is the equivalent of about 1841 miles per hour- basically close to Mach III. That is incredible for basically an analogue system and 1940’s technology. I would not want to be in the receiving end of one of these rounds. That is an insane amount of power per 14” gun!! Thanks for taking the time to make and share this video. I’ve always wondered about how these guns work (and work so well at that!).
Excellent job explaining the process and positions. I just visited the uss Alabama and I was just in awe of the entire ship. I absolutely love old machinery so I was like a kid in a candy store the entire time. Truly amazing the technology and what was accomplished almost 100 years ago. I had no idea of how complex they were and will definitely be back to see it again and things I’m sure I missed.
Pressure Safety Valves (PSVs) lift when main steam stop valve closes. Only thing preventing pressure build up in a drum boiler is the constant flow of steam to the steam engine. Took me a long time to understand why pressure was highest at the feed pump rather than at main steam. Seems like if you’re putting more and more energy into the steam as it gets heated the pressure should increase. However, that pressure doesn’t build because it is converted into flow and then removed from the cycle by converting it into work in the steam engine. When PSVs trip you gain a unique appreciation for how much power is being generated in the boiler. Also, the staging is to maintain steam flow through all parts of the cycle. Main steam has lowest set pressure so super heaters continue receiving cooling flow once the main steam stop valve is shut. Fires are usually extinguished pretty quickly, but if there is still a lot of residual energy to dissipate the drum PSVs (set at a higher pressure) will lift to prevent over pressuring the system.
It sounds and feels like a rocket engine blasting off when a large PSV lifts. I was on the ground floor, inside a building when a main steam safety 100ft above and 50+ feet horizontally away lifted. The walls were shaking so bad I thought something had blown up and I was about to be blown away by shrapnel. This was a 2100lb safety relieving a 10-20kkph at a land based power plant. Those are lower pressure but there is no where to get away. I imagine it was several times scarier in the hull of a ship!
I largely agree, except for one thing. Assuming that the volume of a pressure vessel remains the same, steam pressure only increases when more steam is created from water. Adding energy to steam will only increase its temperature, not pressure. That’s the beauty of superheat. It raises steam temp and energy while maintaining the same pressure. That additional energy is 100% useful. Unfortunately, turbines love it, but not the reciprocating engines on Texas. They required the condensation from saturated steam to lubricate the cylinder walls. Dry, superheated steam would result in seizing and cylinder scoring.
@@tomscotttheolderone364 Thanks for the reply! I may have misunderstood your point, but I believe that pressure and temperature both increase with rising temperature in a fix volume. Dry steam continues to increase in pressure unless it is converted into flow. For example, a pressure cooker is a fix volume of water that converts liquid to dry steam. The pressure inside slowly increases along with the temperature and if there isn't an outlet it would explode due to over pressurizing the vessel beyond the materials strength. As an aside, I found your point about recip steam engines requiring saturated steam very interesting. On another channel, (@Drachinifel's video titled "Navel Engines - Rotate that shaft") he said the opposite. Liquid is generally bad in a recip engine because it is incompressible and hence if you hit it at the bottom of the stroke it can cause the piston to not turn and break the engine. However, what you're saying makes more sense because steam engines, unlike gasoline engines, do not have a compression stroke. Compression takes place external to the engine.
@@tomscotttheolderone364 Thanks for the reply! I may have misunderstood your point, but I believe that pressure and temperature both increase with rising temperature in a fix volume. Dry steam continues to increase in pressure unless it is converted into flow. For example, a pressure cooker is a fix volume of water that converts liquid to dry steam. The pressure inside slowly increases along with the temperature and if there isn't an outlet it would explode due to over pressurizing the vessel beyond the materials strength. As an aside, I found your point about recip steam engines requiring saturated steam very interesting. On another channel, (@Drachinifel's video titled "Navel Engines - Rotate that shaft") he said the opposite. Liquid is generally bad in a recip engine because it is incompressible and hence if you hit it at the bottom of the stroke it can cause the piston to not turn and break the engine. However, what you're saying makes more sense because steam engines, unlike gasoline engines, do not have a compression stroke. Compression takes place external to the engine.
@@Jason-Spice Your analogy is not correct. As long as there is liquid water in a pressure cooker, it will continue to produce more steam, raising both pressure and temperature until one of two things happen. Either the relief valve opens, or you run out of water. If you put just a few ounces of water in a cooker and attach a pressure gauge and thermometer, you would see pressure and temperature increase until you run out of water. At that point, expansion stops. Temperature will continue to increase, but not pressure. The temperature above saturation is pure, recoverable energy that makes steam dry, or super heated. That extra is highly valued because 100% of the extra put in can be recovered as work in an engine designed for it. The ones on Texas were not. I am not in disagreement with Drachinifel because I didn't say that an appreciable amount was allowed to gather in the cylinders. All I said was that condensate was needed to lubricate cylinder walls. The crew watched pressure and temperature in each cylinder. If properly balanced, just enough water would condense on cylinder walls to do the job. It is likely that they allowed more than was needed since too little could result in cylinder wall scoring. If they had too much, they could hear it make a crackling noise as it tried to evaporate and condense with the pressure changes caused by piston movement. When that happened, they would open a cylinder drain to get rid of it. However, that was usually only needed during startup since that is when most condensation occurs. During normal operation, they regularly open the drains for a few seconds on each cylinder to keep water from accumulating.
You just made it under the wire! :) The ship was equipped with OS2-U float planes during WWII that were capable of carrying 100lb. bombs and small depth charges. During the invasion of North Africa, one of her aircraft dropped a depth charge, with its fuse set on instant, that directly hit a German tank and overturned two more. The reason for the depth charge was because that was what was on the plane as it sat on the catapult. They received a request for immediate support, so it launched with what it had. It seemed to work out pretty well!
@@houstonpatriot59 The person actually firing a salvo had two keys (triggers) that he squeezed. The first sounded salvo bells that rang inside and outside all turrets to warn everyone that a gun was about to fire. He always squeezed that one a few seconds before squeezing the actual firing key. So, while gun crews didn't know precisely when one or more gun would fire, they knew that it would be a matter of seconds and they'd better be in a safe position.
@@tomscotttheolderone364 I just saw raw footage from inside USS Missouri Gun housing You hear the warning bells and loader stands back and says “this is for you mom” and the breach is like the size of a wall coming back at him! He proceeds to use technique exactly how you demonstrated but on a larger scale!
0:48 Oh I am subscribing to this channel ... and unsubscribing from that other channel for that very reason ... the ship is what I want to see ... not the curator.
Computers certainly existed prior to the electronic digital devices that we use now. They were mechanical analog devices that could multiply, divide, add and subtract, and weren't limited to what was used on warships. While they lacked the speed, power, complexity and flexibility of what we use now, they were capable of performing the complex calculations required to determine the point of aim where the shell fired by the ship's guns would meet a moving target more than 10 miles away. Google "Hannibal Ford range keeper" and you will see what I am talking about. By the way, they were still used on the Iowa class battleships to calculate firing solutions until the early 1990's when the ships were finally taken out of service because of their extreme accuracy.
how did they seal the boiler tube seams up without welding after they were rolled..Brazing? I know they use to hammar forge pipe..Amazing what they had to learn to do..
I do not know the details on how boiler tubes were fabricated, but a 1919 book on boiler construction said there were three types commonly used. The most popular was lap welded steel, due to low cost. There was also hot rolled seamless steel and cold drawn seamless steel. You can find the book in the following link. books.google.com/books?id=1U0iAQAAMAAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=Steam+Boilers+1919&hl=en&newbks=1&newbks_redir=0&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjBmoqHsb2GAxUn48kDHbezBDwQ6AF6BAgFEAI#v=onepage&q=Steam%20Boilers%201919&f=false
It's a year later and I watched it again and It is still terrific. How can the gunners verify that the compressed air has done its work and that the barrel is now safe to open the breach?
Thanks! Thanks for the question. It cannot be overstated just how important the gas ejector system was. There would almost certainly be a flashback into the turret if a breech plug was opened without compressed air first being shot into the gun after firing. That happened on Battleship Mississippi when system pressure dropped below its operational level and a gun in turret 2 failed to be cleared. The resulting flashback killed several crewmen. They could not directly observe that the bore was clear of explosive gasses until they opened the breech. However, it was a sound assumption that if a sufficient quantity of compressed air had shot into the bore, it would be clear. On Texas, and I'm sure all other battleships, there is a pressure gauge located above each gun's breech and a backup gauge in the commander's booth that constantly monitored air pressure in the gas ejector system. One of the checklist items prior to going into action was to trip the ejector valve by hand and observe it blow air into the powder chamber. If it worked then, it was reasonable to assume that it would work while the gun was in action. If pressure dropped below a safe level, they could remove the spent primer and use a portable air hose to shoot air through the primer vent to clear the gun before the breech plug was opened. Lastly, they could hear the gas ejector valve trip and air shoot into the gun as the breech plug was rotated. If that wasn't heard, the plug man would not completely unlock the plug and they would use the previously mentioned portable hose.
In WWI my father was on large coal burning auxiliaries. A destroyer tender and a troop transport. Coaling was all hands. They use to coat their bodies with oil or a jelly like lubricant to fill their pores to keep coal out and make later washing up easier. Coal was dumped on deck by conveyors from coaling ships and then shoveled into buckets or wheelbarrows. Then moved along deck to the chutes to the coal bunkers. The pictures he had show him and his mates covered with coal dust looking like a minstrel show. In those days few ships had evaporators to make fresh water, so washing was in salt water and then a fresh water rinse. On one ship sailors got 1 gallon of fresh water a day. First you washed yourself and then you washed your clothes. They hung their clothes on the lifelines or uptakes to dry. When I went thru navy boot camp in the mid 1960s, we had to hand wash our clothes for the first half.
That is the standard way of identifying various sizes and designs of U.S. Naval guns. Unlike rifles and handguns, caliber is not used to state a gun's bore diameter, but the length of a barrel's bore in number of calibers. It may seem a little odd, but it has worked very well for over 100 years. A 16", 50 caliber gun has a bore diameter of 16" and a bore length of 50 calibers. The bore is not the overall barrel length, but its bore length. So, a 16"/50 caliber has a bore length of 16X50= 800" long, or 66' 8" long. The following link will take you to the NavWeaps page that gives detailed descriptions of all modern and historic U.S. Naval weapons. You will see how well the nomenclature works once it is combined with Mark and Mod numbers that further segregate them according to design changes within each type. www.navweaps.com/Weapons/WNUS_Main.php
As a chief engineer of steamships I commend you for your excellent narration. You set a standard that is far beyond that exhibited by other historical ship sites.
Great info & pictures. I highly recommend not speed reading a script so u can leave pics up longer......will make for a much better presentation. Take my word for it; I've been a historian for 59 years.
I understand what you are saying. However, I have some experience with these things also, plus the ability to review analytics for the videos. I concluded a while back that what I am doing seems to provide the best balance.
At about 1:00 he refers to a "forged casting." There is no such thing. Either it is forged or it is cast or, for thin sections, rolled. By 1900 there was no important part of any cannon that was cast. These guns involved the forging of steel ingots which are different from castings in several important ways.
Thanks for the correction! I went back to ordnance textbooks of the period and they are in 100% agreement with you. Gun tubes, hoops, rings, slides, etc. were forged from ingots, not castings.
Yes, I know. As I explained in the video and in previous comments, it was intentionally done in order to more clearly demonstrate breech operation. If I placed the plug in its correct horizontal position, I would not be able to clearly show the stepped thread breech plug design and its operation.
Thank you! I've served as Machinist Mate aboard nuclear and oil fired ships. I always said that the Boiler Techs were the only people on the ship that MMs could feel sorry for. Seems it was even more true in coal fired days.
Your prob right but I know I personally watched all 3 and loved them I personally came to your channel because of Ryan with New Jersey it’s awesome to see the difference in the older ship compared to New Jersey
If you look at your section image is a "top view", then the hinged breech block appears correct. If you look at the image as a "side view", then it looks wrong. Just label the image "top view" and Bob's your uncle.
I felt no need to add a label because I commented that it was incorrectly position in the video. It was intentionally done that way to better show the components and process. By showing the side of the incorrectly positioned breech plug, its interrupted threads and carrier, and its operation was instantly identifiable. If drawn in the correct position, one would mainly see a circle that is the plug face.
Nice video. I am on shift taking care of the Powerhouse for a hospital right now. I enjoy being a Watertender and always have even when handling coal and Bunker C Oil fired boilers. I was Chief Engineer in a Powerhouse with 4 1600bhp Babcock and Wilcox Sterling pattern boilers that were 4 stories high. I am very familiar with everything in the video
That is high praise, I am glad you liked it. I have also produced a video on the Dyson oil fired boilers that replaced these units. If you are interested, you can go to it here. ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-DhmUHQ_wcvE.html
I work in a modern coal fired power station and it's amazing that in 2024, the oil burner technology is almost exactly the same including the need and procedure of cleaning burner tips. The main exception being that air is forced through the air registers instead of natural draught (Please note: oil is only used to get the fire stable enough for coal to be introduced)
The original coal fired boilers on Texas included oil burners, but for a somewhat opposite reason. If they needed a a firing rate greater than what could be achieved with only coal, they could increase it with oil. As part of the precommission ship's builder's trials, they added the oil burners to fully coal fired boilers to further increase heat. The fireboxes got so hot, they warped the coal grate bars. They had to pull the fires one boiler at a time, then pull each grate bar and beat it out straight. For that reason, I would be surprised if they did it more than when absolutely necessary.
I know its a pipe dream, but it would be awesome to see reproductions of all that rusted out equipment be made to replace the destroyed stuff, especially the diesel generators.
