This is an impromptu video I recently shot while standing in the right gun house of turret one on Battleship Texas. Excuse my breathlessness, I had been doing some heavy climbing just prior to shooting the video.
Tom that was the most thorough and accurate explanation of the gun I have heard. The 14” guns on Texas and New York were the last to use springs for counterrecoil. We didn’t have a salvo counter on the New Jersey’s 16” guns but the rest is very similar. Interesting side note the gas check pads were originally made from asbestos and mutton tallow.
Thank you Tom, very informative. My father operated the ram for the right hand gun in turret 1, USS New York. I now understand how the guns operated, and what my Father's duty station looked like. Thanks again!!
Why would they pay when he's doing such a good job for free? If the channel blows up and starts making money, then they'll want in on it. Thanks for the videos by the way.
USS Texas is a beautiful old ship and was formidable in her time. Today, although she would be militarily obsolete, if she were restored she would still be a formidable weapon. I have visited USS Texas twice, climbed all over her and hope she will be restored and maintained as a museum.
Battleships were never obsolete, they just lost their place as world dominating capital ships that ruled the waves as the primary weapon of naval supremacy. To this day, they are still excellent naval artillery, and completely unmatched in this regard to this very day. A refurbished Texas, or hell, any of the surviving battleships all the way to even IJN Mikasa, would be fist rate naval bombardment vessels, with reduced purpose, but not obsolete in terms of practical function in any small sense. If we use your logic, we can all aircraft carriers obsolete. They lost their role of being the big capital ship that was the primary weapon for naval supremacy decades ago, but has been far surpassed by modern missile and submarine technology to the point it is badly outmatched. But, even though the aircraft carrier is obsolete as a naval supremacy weapon, it is still very important for support. It, too, has greatly diminished importance, but, it too, has great secondary role capability. The only thing that is obsolete is the concept of the CAPITAL SHIP. It reigned supreme from the Victorian era till a little while after WW2. It is badly obsolete, and naval warfare is back to the way it always was, where number and capability of smaller average ships matters, and not a handful of super powered ships.
Thank you for the very detailed and informative video. I appreciate how difficult it is to film in these spaces and I understand that lighting, camera focus, and sound cannot be perfect. Your subject matter and attention to detail make up for it! Show us more ship! Especially, the spaces and mechanisms we never get to see anywhere else. With any luck, your videos will breathe enough new life into the cause that The Grand Lady will get the love (and new bottom) she's earned.
Be sure to check the status of the ship before making the trip. At this time it is not open for visits due to serious issues with the ship. According to what I have read, at sometime after the Atlantic hurricane season (June through Nov) the old girl will be towed to an Alabama dry dock for extensive repairs. She is being prepped for the trip to ensure that she doesn't end up sinking before she gets there. After the restoration the Texas will be towed to a new undisclosed (to my knowledge) museum port that should be a better place for her than the San Jacinto Battleground site.
I'm watching this after watching a video by Battleship New Jersey. It's truly saddening to see the difference in care that's been taken between the two ships.
You sir know your stuff. I look forward to watching all of your other videos describing battleship Texas. They are very educational. Thank you for your effort.
i've always been interested in the Battleships of old, alas USS Texas is a tad too far from me (i'm in the UK) but this will be a fabulous channel to watch, what an amazing insight to the workings of a Dreadnaught Battleship and great to see what so many may never see in person with the only reference being from books and no where as in depth as here - i am forever in awe of old technology and how such things were built, especially considering the scale of these weapons and the workmanship behind them, it truly beggars belief and what it must have taken to commission and build them i've said this a few times on other channels how great it is to have someone who has so much knowledge on the workings of any historical piece of machinery - these videos serve in so many ways, not only to document the ship in her present state with any restoration going on and identifying parts and how they were used, but details of the personnel who operated them and not to mention Tom Scott explaining everything in such detail serves as a personal record to himself - his stories will live on forever - once these people have passed on, future custodians of these machines will seldom have the capacity to explain everything as this chap does so well - great work Tom as for this video itself, it must of been such an awful place to work in, especially during the height of any battle, working inside this tin can had to be full of so many mixed emotions, thrilling and scary in such an incredibly dangerous environment and pretty much no where to escape to in an emergency, God forbid, and bless all those who did succumb to such horrors during battle - fantastic to see this stuff i often think folk should have an option instead of buying a ticket to see this vessel, purchase a tin of paint, get your overalls on and come and paint a section just to smarten the place up - there's a thought
Thanks for posting this! I'm sure that I'm not the only one watching this who has dreamed of seeing and hearing those 14" guns fire again, but this video makes it obvious that it would take just too much risk, time, restoration, re-engineering, re-learning, and of course money for that to ever happen again.
They could be made to fire blank charges and no projectile since they don't produce recoil. Recoil is what causes the problems. However, anything approaching realistic sound levels would not only cause damage to the ship, but probably break every window within a quarter mile of the ship.
Firing a powder charge, even without a projectile in the barrel, will produce recoil, although not as much as with one. I suspect though that as part of the donation process the guns were rendered unfireable, so you'd also have to restore whatever they removed to make that happen.
WOW!!!.. I really enjoyed this video.. So many questions were answered in like 20 minutes. Now, lets throw into the mix, a small thought (most of you already know this)... Ready for this thought.... These units were design on paper, and used a slide rule to figure these massive units out. When I say "units", I am not only speaking on behalf of the gun system, I am speaking on behalf of the entire ship.. HOLY COW these are amazing... Thank you for taking the time to show this...
Charles, if you are the owner of the very informative "Battleship Texas BB35" website, thank you for building and maintaining it! I find it to be highly valuable, and it is my go-to site for all things BB-35.
@@rek-tekconsultingllc8827 If you are referring to the website with the green drop-down menu at the top that always stays in view that is my website. Appreciate you comments
Wait.. tom, are you a curator? If not... You are AMAZING mentally, terminology, references info of then and history of now.. wish my mind was this active accurate... But that means I need to improve upon what I'm working with now
Very well done video. Genuinely top notch knowledge and coordinating piece by piece. Short of sailing on the mighty Texas in WW2 while filming You sir brought that cold steel back to life. Out of curiosity, do you concealed carry that beautiful all american naval rifle? I have been lucky enough to tour the Battleships North Carolina, Massachusetts, and the scary powerful mighty New Jersey. While they're quite a bit more powerful than our ole girl, old reliable Texas, there is no American Man who doesn't have a super soft spot for her. I truly hope someday I get the opportunity to walk those legendary decks and see those naval rifles first hand. All the effort and time spent making this video Sir is deeply appreciated. For posterity alone this video will have a special place for us all. Thank you
Now those are some serious bolt's there. Imagine the wrench that goes on it. Or the gigantic socket and impact gun they used to install them back in the day. Not sure how they did it, but I imagine a big ass wrench with 3 dudes hanging off it. Lol.
Hello Mr. Scott, I am German and am fascinated by your incredible detailed knowledge of the Texas. What I find particularly interesting is the effort with which people tried to hit their targets using the technical possibilities (fire control) at that time. May I ask if you had anything to do with ships in the past and what that was? Was the Texas earlier in a naval battle with an enemy battle ship or just land bombardment against Japan? Thank you Sir !
Stubi, thank you for your interest! I have a small amount of shipyard experience, but only enough to prime my interest in ship construction, but little actual knowledge gained. Beyond that, I have over 20 years of study and experience as a volunteer on Battleship Texas. Like you, I have a lot of interest in fire control and its difficulties. I also have immense respect for the genius of the early pioneers of range keeper development. It is very unfortunate that the Navy removed this equipment from Texas during decommissioning. So, while it is a subject I would like to address, it would only consist of The closest event Texas ever experienced to ship to ship combat was firing upon a suspected German submarine during World War I with her 5" guns. She saw considerable action during WWII providing support for landings at North Africa, Normandy, Southern France, Iwo Jima and Okinawa.
@@tomscotttheolderone364 Hello Mr. Scott Thank you very much for your answer and yes it is sad that the Navy has dismanteld this measuring device. There is a lot of know-how in it. Consider how many parameters need to be taken into account so that the projectile hits as accurately as possible. Such guns with 14 inch could shoot over 35 km or 20 miles and the enemy target is actually no longer visible at this distance. Speed and course of the enemy, speed and course of your own ship, air temperature and wind direction with wind speed and then the heeling of your own ship due to the waves, number of charges for the projectile, different projectile weights and their balistics, lead angle and height angle of the projectile barel as the result of all the parameter calculation, ONLY to name just a few parameters. A physical, metrological and control engineering challenge of the first order! Maybe one day I can visit your beautiful homeland, the USA, and then I'll visit the battle shipTexas. We Germans also had such beautiful ships, but we both know what became of them.... I wish you all the best and stay healthy ! Best Regards Berni from Germany.... 😎
I don't have any material on that. However, I assume they were made like any other large coil spring where red hot, large diameter steel wire was wound around a mandrel of the correct diameter and the resulting coils spaced apart a predetermined distance. It would be removed from the mandrel, reheated and then quenched to temper it. They would then put it in a press and measure compression to verify that it met specifications.
Its disabled the loading ramp is welded to chamber if nobody noticed I can’t believe they destroyed these historic guns that’s why they aren’t oiled and literally talked about everything else but that
I watched that part again and it looked like it might be welded but i couldn't really make it out for sure. Sad but i guess it's not like it was ever going to fire again. Wish someone would by some heavy duty corrosion inhibitor and go crazy in there though.
Salute to the designers, builders, and crew of these ships. Texas was designed and built in the early 1900's and 1910's. and served through WWII. Mr. Scott stated the tolerances were 0.004 of an inch that's without computers or lasers think about that.
The amazing technology of WWII. How many mental giants were involved with the design/engineering of these guns? Truly amazing. How loud was it in the area you were standing in during firing?
We had the opportunity to ask veterans about 20 years ago who served in the turrets. While they could hear the guns fire, it wasn't terribly loud inside the turrets because of the thickness of the armor. There was the continuous sound of air blowers and motors that ran the training and elevating gears. When guns fired, there was a lot of noise from the recoil buffers and counter recoil springs pushing the barrels back into battery position, but nothing requiring ear protection.
Excellent video. So glad that the algorithm showed me something I am actually interested in for once! How in the world did you learn so much about these guns?! Thank you for posting this 😀
Oh no, you’re going to get a long answer. I’ve volunteered on the ship for more than 20 years and gained a good general knowledge of the guns and turrets. Oddly, even though I had been in the turrets and given tours of them scores of times, I simply didn’t notice all of the details that really made things work. It wasn’t until I worked on a photo archive project where I took closeups of details that I realized that I knew very little about operation. So, I started with researching each detail until I worked out its function and how it related to the overall system. This frequently meant reshooting photos to get things in their proper context. A perfect example is a small sign only remaining in 3-4 of the gun pits that refers to “tramming”. Neither I or the ship’s manager were familiar with the term, so we spent a couple of weeks searching the internet until we discovered a procedure describing the function for a AAA mount. It refers to the procedure for confirming that the gun barrels are parallel with its mount and ship’s reference plane. With that, I started searching gunnery manuals and drawings (most available on line) where I found a couple of descriptions of tramming blocks. They are small metal blocks welded to the gun slide and turret pit wall during turret installation that serve as reference points. A tramming bar whose length is calibrated at the shipyard is inserted between the blocks to confirm alignment at any time. Once I knew that, I returned to a turret and immediately saw the blocks, which were small and easy to miss. I’ve repeated that process of discovery many times to sort out the mechanical and aiming systems for the main battery along with many other things on the ship. Probably my greatest joy, besides hands on exploration, is the appreciation I’ve gained for the incredible complexity of the systems and their sophistication. The people that designed and built them were very, very good!
@@tomscotttheolderone364 the term tramming is used when talking about milling machines. It's basically getting the head/spindle of the machine perpendicular to the table or vice. Same principle as the guns.
The camera doesn't do justice to how claustrophobic that space is. Many years ago, I entered the turret, through the hatch on the bottom of the turret overhang, and I instantly started to go into pre panic mode. I stayed maybe 2 minutes and then I went out the hatch a hellava lot faster than I went in. Imagine the hatch closed and several other crew members inside with you. I'd rather not.
Yeah, it's pretty tight in there! I felt like I could hold a barn dance when I climbed into one of Alabama's turrets after this one. That hatch you climbed through is the emergency escape hatch below the turret officer's booth that would always stay closed when at general quarters, so it is even closer in there than what you experienced.
The barrel is supported only by the sleeve that it slides in for recoil and counter recoil. It is very closely machined to fit in bronze bushings contained in the slide. The barrel is keyed so that it cannot rotate in the slide. Fore and aft travel is limited by the stops in the recoil buffer and counter recoil springs. The slide also has the trunnions integral to it that act as vertical pivots for gun elevation. Plus the center of gravity for the slide, barrel and breech assembly is at the trunnions, so it balances there and the only motor effort required is what it takes to handle the inertia of moving the weight and the weight of projectile and powder. The trunnions on each side of the slide are contained in trunnions blocks that have frictionless bearings. These in turn are mounted to deck lugs that are bolted to gun girders that tie the mount int the very substantial framing inside the turret. While this sound like over design, it allowed an incredible degree of alignment and adjusting required for accurate aiming.
I’m not sure what you are looking at. Most of it is bolted in place so that it can be removed. Installing new barrels required removing the top and rear armor. I suppose there may be some welds on the front and sides, but I’d have to look.
At 3:32, is there a crack on the Trunion as your showing us? It appears to be about an inch to an inch and a half long. Excellent documentary...Too bad that they won't "Re-commission" it and use it for drug interdiction... The old girl has a soul that is still there waiting her turn to set sail again... A little bit of oil on small moving parts and surfaces can go a VERY long way to keep things functional and prevent a lot of corrosion.
No, there's no crack. You cannot see the trunnion itself. It is completely surrounded by bushings and bearings. I suspect what you are seeing is the edge of a bushing.
Thank you for the compliment. I understand and can describe equipment in pretty good detail, but that doesn't necessarily mean I could operate it. I suppose I can be called an advanced layman. I have had the irreplaceable advantage of being able to get up close and personal with the equipment itself. I initially didn't understand most things found in these videos, so I referred to drawings that I acquired and cast a wide net on the internet and usually found what I needed. This can take days, or weeks in some cases. Most happened over a period of about 20 years. Having the time to do this now is one of the many benefits of being retired!
@@matthewrinehart2367 Unfortunately, I am not a member of the staff so I cannot give you that kind of access to the ship. However, I will be happy to set up a cot in my garage and you can give me six months of labor around my house!
I want to see the lathes and mills that made these parts. Today you would just have a giant CNC lathe/mill churn this out. the tolerance as you mentioned was only 100μm so that is pretty sloppy by todays standards but very impressive given the primitive manual machines of that era
Use the following link to go to the 1921 edition of "Naval Ordnance" Start at page 301 to see construction details and some good photos of lathes and measurement devices. books.google.com/books?id=zhU0AQAAMAAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=editions:VmVS6ScryKUC&hl=en&newbks=1&newbks_redir=0&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwi-jpTQ6_f6AhUInGoFHQGwCVkQuwV6BAgKEAU#v=onepage&q&f=false
@Tom Scott, The Older One freaking unbelievable 😳 Tom! Thanks. My grandfather was a MM2 on the armored crusier USS FERDINAND during WW1 so it's interesting to see this material and hear your thoughts on how everything.
The damn thing is over 100 years old. It’s not about getting the volunteers who are willing to do work, it’s the money, so you realize how much a full restoration will cost?
Not that I am aware of. We had a chance to visit with some during reunions that were held on board back in the early 2000's. All but a very few have all passed. Oral histories were taken from everyone and we learned a lot from them. The problem is that it's hard to know what specific questions you may have in the future. That is where I am at now.
Looks like it's either 366 or 866. Don't believe the guns had lifetimes that long so it's possible it wasn't reset, or they intentionally shot the piss out those guns.
@@baileyparadis1815 Probably the latter, 366 sounds a reasonable number. They were probably due for replacement. The USS New York wore the linings out of her guns at Okinawa. They sent her to the bottom with a brand new set of guns in 1948.
The "45 caliber" tells us that the 14" barrel is 45 calibers long, or 630" (52.5 feet) long. The 16"/50 caliber means that it was 800" (66.67 feet) long. Early 14" and 16" guns were 45 caliber. The New York, Nevada and Pennsylvania classes used 14"/45 cal. and later classes used 14"/50 cal. 16" battleships prior to the Iowa class used 16"/45 cal. The Iowas used 16"/50 cal. As far as why they didn't simply start out the designs with 50 caliber, I don't know.
@@tomscotttheolderone364 Well, had they wanted to start out with 14"/50 barrels, then the entire turret assembly/barbette would need to be larger and stronger, requiring a completely larger ship overall to support it. I guess there were treaty limitations preventing that from happening back then?
@@AmericanThunder I agree that the change would require completely different turrets, but not a major redesign of the ship, nor would it require a change with the barbette. It's likely that the increased weight of the 14"./50 would have created some structural issues on Texas, but not on succeeding Nevada or Pennsylvania classes which also used the 14"/45. This is easily seen in the New Mexico and later classes that used the 14"/50's. They were only slightly larger and almost structurally identical to the earlier standards. Ammo and propellant storage and handling weren't issues. Both the 45's and 50's used exactly the same projectiles, but the 50's used larger charges. The additional propellant weight would only represent total increase of 50-60 tons, which is almost insignificant. There were no treaty limitations when Texas or the standards were constructed. The Washington Naval Arms Limitation Treaty of 1922 didn't limit gun size per se, but it did prohibit increasing offensive strength on existing ships, which is why Texas and New York were not modified to increase maximum gun elevation from 15 to 30 degrees. That would have improved their range from 20,000 to 30,000 yards in violation of the treaty.
Does anybody know, (this abstract question)? If one of these guns was turned 90 degrees to the side, and then fired, how far would the ship be pushed sideways, if the boat was just sitting there? an inch, a few inches, possibly a foot maybe even a few feet? let alone, these battle ships had many guns on them, I am sure, that they all didn't fire at one time, or had a mechanism that prevented such a salvo from happening.. but, imaging the ship's team of navigators, who are supposed to know exactly where the ship is at any given point in time and location.. and every time a Volk Wagon beetle is shot out each gun, at a bazillion miles per hour, the ship changes course of direction of intention... LOL.. I really enjoyed this video.. my mind is racing a 100 mph in thoughts.. Thank you.
There has actually been a pretty good mathematical analysis done on the subject motivated by photos of an Iowa class ship appearing to move sideways when firing a broadside. The conclusion was that it doesn't move. When looking at the total energy of all 9 guns firing compared to moving a 45,000 ton ship, there just isn't enough to make it move more than a fraction of an inch. This is very conservative since the calculations were done simply based upon the mass of the ship and didn't include the resistance caused by the surrounding water. Effectively, it would amount to doing calculations based upon the ship sitting on ice. They were also based upon the energy being expended instantly and not drawn out over a fractions of a second, which is the case. So, if you added the effects of those two factors, any sideways movement would probably be unmeasurable. Btw, go to this Wiki link and the first photo shows what started this discussion in the first place. What looks like wake from sideways movement is really the effects of the huge pressure waves that rapidly spread from the muzzle blasts. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Iowa_(BB-61)
In answer to another issue in your post, main battery guns were frequently fired at precisely the same moment. There were issues with early 3-gun turrets where the barrels were spaced closely together where it was felt that the wakes from the shells traveling that close together affected their flight. In order to correct that, they inserted delay coils in the firing circuits of the two outer barrels to delay firing a few milliseconds. However, this was never perceived as an issue with 2-gun turrets. Firing the guns had no measurable effect upon the ship's course or speed. Regardless, aiming calculations were never an issue for navigators or the helmsman. The ship's course and speed was automatically and continuously sent to main battery plotting room where it was entered into analog computers called range keepers. If the ship changes course or speed, that was automatically entered into the computer. Target speed, range and direction came down from fire control directors in the masts. All of these variables, along with others, where used to precisely calculate where guns needed to be aimed so that when fired, the shells reached a point where the target was going to be when they arrived. It is every bit as complex as it sounds, and probably more so. As ranges increase, other variables became significant, even including Coriolis effect, which is the effect of the Earth's rotation on the flight of the shells. This changed depending upon the latitude the ship and target were at and the direction of fire. The ability of these very sophisticated computers developed during the first half of the 20th century was so good that when used on the Iowa class ships during Desert Storm, they were dropping shells into areas the size of tennis courts up to 20 miles away.
@@jamesbeaman6337 :) Mute point with the guns in the video. They were limited to 15 degrees of elevation which meant they had a maximum range of a little over 11 miles.
Actually, 45 calibers! The term caliber was used to describe bore length so that a 14"/45cal indicates that it has a 14" bore diameter and the bore is 45 calibers long. That means that the bore length is 630", or 52' 6" long.
@@tomscotttheolderone364 While closed for maintenance , the ship will be open to the public on July 3 and 4, 2021 then closed again for movement to drydock in late July/August time frame according to the ship's website.
@@billbutler335 I am not sure where in their website they said July/August, but the ship will not leave until after hurricane season is over. That puts the soonest time in November.
What about the firing count. Those large guns don't have a long life. After a few hundred rounds fired each barrel has to be replaced, right? Maybe 3 or 4 hundred. What a pain it must have been to change out one of those barrels.
Replacing gun barrels was a major effort that didn't occur very many times in a battleship's life. It only happened 4 times in Texas' career. It may surprise you how long a barrel rated for 250 rounds could be made to last and still be accurate. What follows is a link to my video that discusses that in detail. If you search my videos, you will find another one that discussed building and rebuilding a barrel. ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-dXLueUOnJN8.html
@@tomscotttheolderone364 Yes, I see. Another consideration is that large battleships didn't get into that many battles where they were firing any/all of the larger guns. I'm thinking that most large battleships were tools of intimidation. Also, a few volleys of 1,500 pound rounds pretty much ends a "disagreement" with the enemy. So it would take a long time (of many battles) to use up the life of a barrel. Lastly, "accuracy" means a few things in my estimations. A 14" (or larger) naval gun, even when worn out, is very accurate in deflection (i.e. being straight on target). The inaccuracy is normally regarding the distance up or down due to topography and/or barrel degradation. Normally inaccuracy is due to shooting over the head or in front of a target (according to my understanding of naval guns.)
@@stangraff800 Changes in range due to bore erosion is reasonably simple to predict and correct in firing solutions. That is one of the jobs of the proving grounds. The big problem with erosion is the effect it has on horizontal dispersion of shots that is largely random. That cannot be estimated or effectively corrected.
