Battleship Texas, Making the Rounds! 

Thank you, that's a very nice thing to say. I completely agree, while 22 pounds of explosive doesn't seem like much, they obviously wanted most of the weight to be in the shell so that kinetic energy could do most of the work. Think about the damage just the shell would do as it crashed into a boiler room. Then, add the effects of 22 pounds of high explosive detonating to send 1,500 lbs of razor sharp steel fragments ricocheting around the room like a giant Cuisinart!

Do I know you? :)

@@tomscotttheolderone364 There is a good chance. 😀

Thanks, Lisa!

That just barely scratches the surface! There are Navy ordnance manuals and Naval Academy textbooks from the1920's more than 500-700 pages long and filled with formulas that get into the details.

Thank you, you are far too kind!

Thank you, I enjoyed your comment and I agree that reaching their firing solutions was close to sorcery! As bad as it was for Texas and her 13 mile gun range, it got much worse for later ships that were able to fire over much greater distances. Can you imagine having to account for the Earth's Coriolis force in order to put a shell on a tennis court size patch of ground while 25 miles away and on the move?

Hi Bob, as always, thanks for the compliment and your comments! All of your points are dead on, but I left them out to keep it fairly generic. With the exception of shell and explosive filler weights, pretty much everything covered regarding design and construction applies equally well to 12-16" shells. As far as not increasing gun elevation beyond 15 deg., the only time it was economically feasible was during the ship's modernization in 1925-26. It was rejected in order to meet the terms of the Washington Treaty saying that a ship could not increase its offensive power. Later ships, like Oklahoma and Nevada started out with the same limitation, but by the time they were modernized, the decision was made to make the change anyway, so they increased elevation on their guns. There was an initiative in about 1942 to make the improvement on Texas, but it was rejected since the ship would be out of service and critical shipyard facilities would be tied up for as long as a year during wartime. The improvement wasn't worth that.

@@tomscotttheolderone364 Even without the turret modifications to increase the maximum gun elevations and thus range of the main batteries, Texas and the others did very well when it counted most, proving that they were still very dangerous opponents. I'm impressed that flooding the torpedo blisters on one side to induce a defacto elevation increase could be handled by the fire control system to produce accurate solutions, such as at Normandy.

@@robertf3479 It was only done once, 9 days after the D-Day landings. See June 15 on page 8 of the attached. It really wasn't that difficult. The range keeper was capable of finding firing solutions that exceeded Texas' guns elevation range of 15 degrees. Once they knew they had to go 2 degrees past maximum elevation, they simply flooded the tanks until they achieved the exact list required to get there. My assumption was they flooded beyond what they actually needed so that they could correct back down to the required elevation with minute of angle accuracy. By the way, they were anchored, which greatly helped. battleshiptexas.info/images/Documents/1944WarDiary/06.html

@@tomscotttheolderone364 I would assume the same with regard to flooding the blisters, you never know if or when you might need that extra range. Roger that on being anchored, it would help provide a more stable gunnery platform with Texas' hull form. The NGFS that we practiced was with the ship underway with bare steerage way on, again to provide that extra stability although with a long, narrow destroyer type hull. People who don't know better might assume that NGFS isn't really the exact science that it is. My hat is off to the people in WWII who did the most to refine that science. Early in the war NGFS was more haphazard and guesswork than I'd be comfortable with, by War's end they had it refined to what I'm familiar with now, the same book used during Korea and Vietnam up through today.

That's a good question. I've never seen a rationalization for the bombardment round to have a good answer. It certainly appeared to be a single purpose round and its design suggests that it was less costly to produce. However, the inability to take point detonating fuses, along with the explosive boosters commonly added, appeared to seriously compromise its reliability. It's possible that part of the problem was the base fuse not triggering with shallow angle impacts. During its use by Texas during the North African landings, spotter aircraft were clearly able to see the duds when they impacted at a low angle. They would dive below ground then come back up to the surface. This stripped the paint off of them and their shiny surface made them easy to see from the air. They were also inspected up close once the area was taken, but I haven't seen any written reports that resulted.

You are right, the 14"/50 cal. guns used on later standards used exactly the same shells. However, Texas and New York required a slightly shorter armor piercing round than all other ships using the same guns. This was due to size limitations in their upper shell hoists. Fortunately, it only required a slight modification that shortened the windshield to make shells fit. High capacity shells were okay because the low profile nose plugs made them short enough to fit all ship hoists. Longer nose mounted fuses would have made them too long to fit Texas' hoists, but they were only added after the shells had been hoisted into the gun house, so that wasn't a problem. The propellant used in the powder charges was slightly different between the shorter barrels on the first three classes than what was used on the longer 14" guns used on later classes. This was done to maximize burning efficiency, but the charge weight of 420 lbs. was the same. 16" shells were obviously scaled up. They incorporated improvements to driving band design and changes to the armor piercing cap, but were otherwise pretty much the same.

@@tomscotttheolderone364 Ah, so. I appreciate your reply and the explanation. Stay safe and beware of the heat.

Glad you liked it!

The ship is still in final preparations for being towed to dry dock. Current estimate for the day of the tow is sometime in late August. They will likely not set a firm date until about a week before the event. There are too many variables that can make that change, from dry dock preparations, to weather and tides and even ship channel traffic.

@@tomscotttheolderone364 Thanks for answering

I have never seen one, but I would be surprised if it doesn't exist in some form somewhere. My opinion is that I would always prefer the naval shell in any case since as long as I am within range, I can put them onto targets at any time and in any weather without the risk of losing pilots and aircraft.

I am not aware of proximity fuses designed for these shells, nor do I recall seeing one listed in a in a 1945 Navy munitions manual that I have access to. Its discussion of vt fuses concentrates on their use in AA shells.

While probably not used in battleship HE or HiCap rounds, the VT fuse is still used for anti-aircraft and missile defense as well in an NGFS (Naval GunFire Support) role to produce maximum shrapnel damage against soft targets such as buildings, unarmored vehicles and exposed troops. The AP rounds are used against protected bunkers and armored vehicles like Personnel Carriers and tanks. My experience was with the MK-45 5"/54 gun in the 1980s and early 90's.

@@robertf3479 True on AAA. The manual to which I refer does give a description of the vt fuses for aircraft. I was interested to recently read that they were predominantly used in the Pacific, but saw little or no use in Europe. They apparently didn't want to risk a dud falling into enemy hands. That wasn't a problem with ship protection.

@@robertf3479 Interesting, you mentioned HE and HiCap rounds. I was thing of this. I have seen descriptions of HE but only few references to High Capacity and no definition. Are HE and HiCap the same or different projectiles?

@@Eugene2ndW Please understand that this is only my understanding as I was not a Gunner's Mate. The terms "HiCap" and "HE" appear to be interchangeable for most uses.

Good question, it wasn’t necessary. The bourellet was easy to machine with just enough clearance to allow it to easily ride on the rifling lands without a lot of lateral play. A second band would add significant cost and difficulty without adding any real benefit. One thing to keep in mind is that shell friction resulted in very little bore erosion. The big problem was with the effect of instantly heating the surface of the bore by a couple of thousand degrees whenever the gun fired. That caused micro fractures in the surface of the metal leading to erosion. The solution was to use reduced powder charges whenever possible and ultimately chrome plate the bore in the final barrel designs.

@@tomscotttheolderone364 ah thanks! didnt know that the main factor in barrel wear was the temp change as opposed to the huge shell sliding through it. thanks for the reply! love your channel!

Most ships did, but it appears that Texas did not.

It certainly does everything that you describe. As far as "causing little damage", that is a relative term. A shell that punches through a ship without exploding will certainly wreck everything in its immediate path. Because of the way warships are designed, it is likely that flooding can be controlled, damaged systems can be bypassed or repaired, and much of their ability to fight remain intact. However, a shell that punches deep into a ship, then explodes creates damage that is magnitudes higher. When it explodes, it sends out well over 1,000 pounds of hot, razor sharp fragments traveling at hundreds of feet per second, each one weighing anywhere from a few ounces to more than 100 pounds. These can rip the guts out of a ship.

I only know of seven off the top of my head. One that you see in turret 1 and six in the starboard shell magazine and handling room for turret 5. There were others, but I think that most, if not all, of them were taken back by the Navy in 2019 or 2020 when responsibility for the ship transferred from Texas Parks and Wildlife Dept. to Battleship Texas foundation. I suspect that the ones still on the ship were left there because of the extreme effort it would take to remove them. Hopefully, the ones that were taken will return to the ship when she is out of the shipyard and at her new home port.

@@tomscotttheolderone364 Growing up just across the ship channel from San Jacinto, I've seen and been on the battleship many times and was always wishing for access to more regions of the ship. Thanks so much for "opening up" these areas for all to see. Thanks also for the wealth of information included in your videos. You mention that numerous shells were on the Texas prior to the transfer from TPWD to the foundation. Were these shells there when the ship was acquired in the 40's? And I assume that they are all inert?

@@leaj847 Thank you for the kind comments. All shells are marked inert. The list of items transferred with the ship in 1948 say nothing about the shells. My guess is that they were obtained sometime after Texas came to San Jacinto, but I don't know when.

I haven't studied 16" rounds in detail, but it's likely that the major differences are those of scale.

@@tomscotttheolderone364 fair enough. Excuse my ignorance but what size and caliber are the Texas guns? I want to say 14" .50 caliber? From watching the New Jersey channel I know that "caliber" for naval gun is the measurement of some ratio and not the circumference of the projectile like in small arms.

@@paulloveless9180 Texas has 14"/45 cal guns. They were used on 3 classes, New York, Nevada and Pennsylvania. Caliber is used to state a gun's bore length, which is the portion of the bore that does not include the powder chamber. You simply multiply the bore diameter (14") X caliber (45) = 630". Divide that by 12 and you get a bore length of 52.5 feet. Using that, the bore length of the 16"/50 cal guns on the Iowa class is 800", or 66.7 feet.

@@tomscotttheolderone364 that's extremely interesting! One last question and I'm sure you've answered it several times but how did you become such a subject matter expert on many different systems of a 100 year old naval ship?

@@paulloveless9180 I have been a volunteer on Texas for more than 20 years. This gave me access to her archives. Retirement has also given me the opportunity to spend hundreds of hours finding and reading period textbooks and technical manuals. By the way, most can be found on Google Books.

From what I gather, Texas shells did not have die packs.

No, they haven't moved in more than 75 years. It took continuous service of the electrical and hydraulic motors, plus a source of very high amperage, 120 volt dc to run them.

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.

My goal was, and is, the result of trying to provide high quality content on a very tight budget. Unfortunately, it can result in occasional loss of production quality. The wind noise and echoes are the result of using the on-camera mic. Since I have no plans to invest in an external mic, what you heard will occasionally be the result. As bad as it may sound to you, I would be surprised if you couldn’t understand what I was saying, which again is my basic goal

It would be nice. Unfortunately, the only opportunity to see a fired band would be on a dud shell. However, it is unlikely that the ship would want one back, even if one was offered.

Yeah, that occasionally happens when I use my camera's built in mic, especially outside and in the wind. This is a budget operation that concentrates on content and not expensive gear. I use a compact camera because I have to carry an absolute minimum of equipment to safely climb ladders and squeeze through tight spaces. My camera has been covered with dirt and rust, dropped, and banged on hatch openings while taking 20,000 photos and hundreds of hours of videos. No large camera, or one with interchangeable lenses, would ever survive the abuse, so I'm pretty happy with it in spite of the occasional audio issues.