I used to work as a pipefitter/service plumber. Under that hatch my “plumbers eye” focused on that piping under the hatch plate. You can see (where the insulation ends) that they put pipe couplings on the piping so that if the full dimensions of the hatch were needed you could use a pair of pipe wrenches to take out the couple of feet of pipe easier. This would mean you had to drain those lines (if filled) in addition to all the disassembly of the bulkheads/interior partitions. Talk about a pain in the butt if you had to do that multiple times each year.
@@hypergolic8468 I’m willing to bet that the pipe couplings were not an “afterthought” or something that was installed after the boat left the yard (unless I misunderstood the video and both the hatch and the couplings were done at a later date). So to me that means that they did “design” a solution and knew of the “problem”. They put couplings for easy on and easy off. Other options could have included “rerouting” the piping around the hatch opening or even the entire space (most likely… there are other reasons that those lines are where they are as well. A submarine, even one as old as that, is an extremely cluttered and complex beast. They pack so much into such tight confines that it’s not possible to make everything “perfect” as far as the design goes. Everything is a compromise. Having easy access to those lines might have been the real priority (not having anything to do with the battery “in and out” sequencing. If they could “reroute” the pipe and had designed it that way in the shipyard that has its own set of “cons”. The more bending and additional fittings (of any type) in the system adds not just complexity to the design but wherever there is any “break” in a length of pipe that isn’t just flush and straight (valves, couplings, bends, diameter changes, etc)… those are the sections of pipe that will fail or require servicing first. For instance corrosion will occur at valves soldering and they will most always fail before the straight sections of the piping system. Also if there is a “clog”… they tend to happen at diameter changes, bends, etc. As I said I used to be a pipe fitter but I eventually got a degree in Structural Engineering. Mechanical Engineers are the real experts at “piping” designs or fluid flows but I took many of the same courses as that discipline of Engineering. Engineering design is very very complex and it’s hard enough when everything is standardized but on a submarine… almost nothing is. Even as far as “ship design” goes… submarines are totally unique. I do hear your point however. I often curse the Automotive Engineers. The world would be a better place… if every engineer building an automobile… was also an automotive mechanic and understood what it was to have to really work on the thing in real world conditions. My engineering office paid for and sent me to “welding school” for instance. While I am not “welding” in my day to day. I certainly am preparing the drawings and spec packages for the fabrication of all types of “metalwork” and understanding what the guys actually have to do to make the type and sizes of welds specified in my drawings… it really helps to “know” the basics of a variety of different types of welding.
Paul, those hatches weren't just for the batteries, they were also used for pieces of machinery that had to be removed or installed. I'd say that the frequency of the battery work would correlate with the yard periods. I've been on Silversides and saw the hatches in the deck for battery compartment access. I didn't know about the soft patches, that's a first for me. I knew that interior pic was from Silversides due to the dent in the bulkhead next to the entrance to the maneuvering room. The story I heard from Scott Harbin who was a tour guide at the time was that dent was from a crewman's head during a violent depth charge attack. Thanks for making these videos, the history and workings of these subs is very interesting.
Years ago a friend of mine had a sailboat at Battery Park. Those dock spiders were some of the largest hungriest meanest looking arachnids I’ve ever seen. Lucky Paul made it out without “donating” a pint or two! 🙂
Thanks Paul. What a lot of work it is to service the batteries. Every five months seems frequent, but WW-II batteries didn’t have metal as pure as now nor did they have the advanced chemistry. I had the opportunity to see a nuclear powered boat in dry dock at Norfolk. The new way of dealing with large mechanicals is to cut a hole in the hull, do the work, then weld plating back again.
@@tomhenry897 Major difference between regular lead acid and deep cycle. Deep cycle are designed to be completely discharged and recharged 100s of times. Regular lead acid batteries are not.
@@tomhenry897 I am not a battery engineer, so take this with a grain of salt: My guess is that sulfation was the issue with the sub batteries. The sub’s primary batteries were under pretty heavy charge and discharge cycles. Telephone exchange primary batteries could last up to 100 years, but they aren’t heavily cycled. I believe it wasn’t until the 1970s that lead acid batteries started using high purity lead. There is a trade-off between the ductility of the plates vs. purity and using stiffer plates which will sulfate faster. I believe Gates was the first company to tackle the sulfation issue in the 1970s by using spiral wound high purity lead grid plates with woven glass spacers between the plates to keep the lead from deforming. I could believe a WW-II sub battery might need to be swapped as often as five months due to the way it was used and the fact it was a simple flooded electrolyte cell prone to sulfation.
@@wtmayhew heavy discharge and relatively rapid recharge, as one would expect on a submarine, inhibits sulfation. Sulphation is more or a problem in batteries used for standby service, such as telephone exchanges. Deliberate heavy charge-discharge cycling was often done on telephone exchange batteries, to bring back capacity lost due to sulfation, before vented/semi-sealed batteries came into use about 30 years ago. WW2 submarine batteries would have been the flooded Plante type, using very pure lead. Antimony was added to the lead to impart mechanical strength. I very much doubt that they would need replacing after only 5 months. The application is very similar in terms of demands on batteries as in electric forklifts and yard trucks used in warehouses - and a service life of over 2 years is normal. Batteries should last longer on a sub as they were/are maintained by trained personnel. The reason why telephone exchange batteries could last in excess of 50 years is because they were also maintained by trained personnel and used very high purity lead. But without antimony, as they sit in one place, get no shocks or bumps, and the strength is not needed. Very high purity lead goes back much much further than the 1970's. The 1970's is almost at the time when vented/semi-sealed batteries made the flooded Plante type obsolete.
I can't get over the size and space under the casing for a diesel boat I was 2nd coxswain on UK diesel submarines I had to paint and preserve all of the steel fittings i had to check for casing rattles and loose stowages which could affect the sonar or aid the enemy in detecting us.
When I think of a Fleet Submarine from W.W.II I think of a pure boxer, ready for battle at any time. However, as you have presented, many times Paul, it takes the entire crew and vessel to get into that boxer's stance, this is just another fine example of that. Thank you!
Never worked on a submarine before but previous experience in mining has shown me how stuff you never dreamed possible can be fit down a hole. With the right wiggling it may even be possible to fit an entire diesel engine block or propulsion motor stator through that patch. The heads and crank can probably be put in through the torpedeo tubes. Remember to lift with you non-rates.
Thanks again Paul to you and Tom Street for your pre-shipyard overhaul tour of the USS COD! Your knowledge of the Gato Class submarines is phenomenal! Keep up the good work! You and Tom brought back a lot of good memories for this old E-5 Torpedo-man!
The riggers at Subase Pearl were really skilled at moving motors and pumps in and out of the hull. I was amazed by their speed. (I was a former Nuclear Operator) With aloha...
After the war AT&T used the same batteries as backup power for remote sites. I moved a few hundred of them in the 1980s when everything went digital and required less power/smaller cells.
Another great video Cod crew! What an incredibly difficult job it would have been to replace those batteries in such cramped conditions. In reality, to do any repairs, overhauls, refits etc would have taken enormous efforts and patience. It had to be done correctly. The lives of 80 or so submariners depended on it! Thank you for sharing, Paul and crew!!
I’ve been on Silversides a few times and also Drum, both built in Navy yards, so I see the differences in design between Navy yard and Electric Boat. I enjoy your videos, very informative. I’m from Michigan and wish they would do videos on Silversides like you do on Cod. Thanks for your efforts, they are greatly appreciated.
We had two batteries each consisting of 224 cells of exide quarter tonne batteries they used to use soap on hardwood boards to slide them into position for lifting we had hatches and if one cell was us all the other cells would have to be lifted onto the shoreside to get to the one sell that was defective it was literally a game of battery solitaire and would be the most demoralising job off an electrician on a boat could face it could take up to a week to replace a few cells
Oh my god I do this for industrial batteries and we use DOW 9000 grease to slide the 500 pound batteries on lifts but I’ve never had a situation that bad. I do know what you mean by demoralizing. Believe me brother 😂
When I started work for New York Telephone Company in 1969 I was given a tour of the 37St. Central Office in Manhattan. One of the stops was the power room for the telephone switches. Guess what. They had a room filled with Exide submarine batteries. The switched ran on DC. Even though I had a chance to tour several diesel boats I never did see the batteries on any of them.
You did a video on the forward superstructure and Liberty boat storage. I know you said the Liberty boat was never put on U.S.S. Cod, I'm sure some of the other boats had them stowed on board. The question I have is about the stowage and ship function when the boat is stowed onboard. When the Submarine would dive the Liberty boat being stowed in an upright position. It would act like a boat and try to float until the boat would fill with water. Then when the Submarine would surface it boat would be full of water. If you cover the boat to prevent flooding the cover and boat would be crushed by the water pressure. I can see the Liberty boat being a problem when surfacing because of the weight of the water, about 20 tons of water and the additional buoyancy when diving. What and how did the crew deal with the problem? I'm sure there most have been a lot of stain on the Liberty boat from the weight of the water. I never knew US sub had launches till that video. I cannot find any info on the auxiliary boats. Thanks for the videos. They are great.
Hold downs, indicated in that video, locked the boat when diving. A large drain in the bottom would drain the water inside when surfacing. No liberty boats were carried in wartime
@@paulfarace9595 Must have been a big drain. Thanks for the info. I know you said in the video none of the subs carried them in them during the war. I was more interested in the handling characteristics of the mother ship when they were carried. Thanks again for the info.
My dad tells stories of climbing on top of those batteries to service them while at sea. There wasn't much room to crawl around in there. He served on the USS Rock.
4:10 Lead-acid batteries can last as much as five years or they can be killed in a month. It mostly depends on depth of discharge, if the operational situation meant the batteries were discharged to near-dead several times, they have lost a significant amount of capacity. Since this loss of submerged operating time may mean the difference between life or death, submarine COs were highly motivated to make sure they began a patrol with good batteries.
If they actually did have to change out the battery that often, it sounds like some short sighted design. Hopefully, it was no oftener than the 18 months you suggested. The change was probably done by yard workers. They would have had the blueprints with annotations as to every change made to the boat over the years. They would've known when the boat was coming in and would have had a complete set of plans laid out as to exactly how they were going to do it. They would have probably changed out both at the same time with different crews. Or, maybe change out the forward battery one time and then the after battery the next time. During the war, how many men stayed aboard when the boat returned from a patrol? I got the impression that almost the whole crew went to the Royal Hawaiian. This would leave full access to the yard workers.
As I recall, our batteries (SARGO II ??) were on a 3-4 year cycle, alternating with our normal overhaul cycle. We were in a shipyard every 2 years or so. Individual battery cells that failed in service would be disconnected and jumpered out with LARGE cables.
@@paulfarace9595 My PERSONAL experience. I reported in NOV63 and I'm certain the battery had been serviced by PHL in 61-62. I was around in 66 for the PNSY battery replacement. I've heard chatter that there was a battery replacement done in NLON in 69-70.
They are not "batteries". They are CELLS. There are only TWO batteries in the boat, one forward, one aft, and each one consists of 126 individual cells. What he is calling "batteries" are the individual cells. Batteries were not replaced at 18-month intervals. They would go for a few years at a time.
We were very specific in using proper terminology in the past battery episode, even pointing that out. But we reverted to common terminology in this casual discussion. Oh and just how far apart is "about 18 months" and "a couple of years?" We said we're investigating... Sir Picker of Nit! 😅
@paulferace From this link: en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greater_Underwater_Propulsion_Power_Program Sargo batteries that were used by US subs in WW2 were planned to be replaced every 5 years. The upgraded GUPPY batteries provided more power for a longer time, but needed to be replaced every 18 months.
@@banedonrunestar5618 Which is why that battery type was not widely used, and Sargo batteries were retained for the vast majority of fleet boats, including most Guppies.
When Clamagore was scrapped, her batteries were sitting in the parking lot at Patriots Point. The dates clearly visible spanning 20 years the newest was 1972. I was in the car and did not see them all. They were different shapes and sizes.
From this link: en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greater_Underwater_Propulsion_Power_Program Sargo batteries that were used by US subs in WW2 were planned to be replaced every 5 years. The upgraded GUPPY batteries provided more power for a longer time, but needed to be replaced every 18 months.
how does shore power work on a sub? I am imagining with batteries many systems aboard would be designed to run on DC instead of AC but that is just a guess- I imagine rectifiers in WWII would be pricy. I know Texas is 100V DC but that is down to her being from the 1910s
We take city power and rectify to DC... the ship's lighting bus is DC. There's a hotel circuit that is household AC for things Ike shop vacs, etc. The sub used ac motor generators to create AC for equipment that needed it.
Former U S NAVY sailor here, as far as I know there is no such thing as a non rate. All navy sailors have a rate and a rank. So I believe you should be referring to the sailors doing the dirty jobs as the enlisted men as opposed to the commissioned officers.
Paul, firstly, no electrical puns. How did the odd shape under the grating effect the hydrodynamics of the Sub when she was going forward thru the water? Were there cavitation bubbles or turbulence because of this space? And as always, thank you for another great video!
Well remember the subscwete mostly surfaced and diving was mostly done to avoid enemy detection. Subs don't move fast enough to cause noise very often.
What was that word Paul used to describe the oppositee of fore-to-aft orientation. Afordships?? I think. It was hard to understand and I can't find any info on it when I look it up. Please help. Lol
WIMP the 70's in PDX is a nice t-shirt/shorts day and not a parka day. Why not restore the "original" deck planking over the batteries? Yes you could strengthen them by running a couple ribs down the center.
@@paulfarace9595 No over the battery trunks. You said that you were trying to figure out how to put the edge trimming on the floor under the vinyl (still image of a sister sub was shown) I was just suggesting that you restore the original flooring.
Battery life depends on recharging care and on strength of electrolyte. My solar cell batteries should last decades, because the electrolyte is half strength. Cork for subs? Abetter Cork Company in Manhattan.
look like 12 inch to me from Paul's shoes. I know why he is concerned. I was wondering about that when I first saw interior material of the soft patch.
Well maybe you could write out the script, send it to him weeks in advance, and he could learn his lines before each video is shot. Better yet, why don't YOU go there, appear on camera, and show us all how it should be done, there, Mister Perfect ?
