In this episode we're talking about a new discovery made at the museum. To send Ryan a message on Facebook: / ryanszimanski To support this channel and Battleship New Jersey, go to: www.battleshipnewjersey.org/v...
As a kid, I went on a school field trip to a Minuteman III launch training facility. It was deep underground and mounted on HUGE shock absorbers. I was one of two kids who got to turn the pair of keys to "launch" an ICBM.
Somewhere in the Pentagon a small red light and a buzzer turned on when he turned those keys. "Sir!" "What is it?" "The... the New Jersey just armed their Tomahawk launchers..!"...
I worked on that Display in the 1980's at Raytheon. The funny thing that I found was that the bottom of that display shelf had 2 captive screws that could be opened with a dime, and you could literally jump across the solder connections to the key. I did not see any interlock that would prevent that method from working
I love that there are people still around that know cool details like that. For every visitor who sees "history", there's someone who knows "Yeah, I made that. On a Tuesday in 1983."
Reminds me of a movie I saw as a kid - Twilight's Last Gleaming - where a group manage to take control of a Titan battery's launch control facility and bypass all the physical safeguards and threaten to start WW3. Pretty scary flick for a 7th grader.
Aren’t the keys spring loaded to prevent one person from completing multiple steps of the arming/firing process alone? For instance, having to hold the key in the on position prevents you from walking to the terminal and entering the codes, or whatever the other steps might be. You have to physically stand there and just hold the key, while someone else does the next step. That way one rogue person can’t launch nukes or tomahawks at somebody without proper authorization, and multiple people being given the order to fire.
I'm a volunteer on WISCONSIN, and there are two, dual-combination lock safes in and near CEC that could hold the Nuclear Permission to Fire keys. The dual-combination locks are required for the NUKE keys to ensure two person integrity is maintained. WISKY also has both sets of keys, and I use them during my Command and Control Tour. I always start my discussions on NUKES with the "I cannot neither confirm nor deny the presence of nuclear weapons on Board USS WISCONSIN..." The Fire Inhibit/Enable key is used for all TOMAHAWK missions while the NUKE PTF keys are used in conjunction with the Inhibit/Enable key to fire a nuke.
I'd say Ryan would have better returns threatening Philadelphia, demanding Pat's and Geno's cheesesteak sandwiches for the entire museum crew, because as good as Camden's Campbell's Soup is, fresh and hot cheesesteaks are better!
It's great to see the childlike wonder when he finds something new and unexpected. We don't get that feeling very often as we get older. I love living vicariously through this channel.
please do a collab with the lock picking lawyer or some other physical security expert, it'd be interesting to see how pick resistant these systems were (guessing not at all)
The high security locks like on arms rooms in the army have a few keys. One of which is a maintenance Key that you can pull the guts out of the lock body. It took me a few minutes to pick mine one day, but that was after looking at the guts. Years later and many more practice sessions with the lock on my arms room, I made a bet with my 1st Sergent that I might be able to pick the lock on the arms room. He had no idea what I did before and, 4 minutes later it was open. He was shocked, I felt Luckey. Then someone, a former squad leader informed him of my hobby with no lock picking tools.
To be fair I think anyone trying to pick these is less worried by the lock and more worried about the location being a constantly occupied room of trained personnel.
I do not really think that it really mattered. Tomahawks incorporated a permissive action link (PAL) system so you need to input a code to the warhead for them to be operational. I would say that the keys are an extra step you need to do so you do not launch them by mistake. Requiring a key for a launch, to begin with, is a way so any training and simulation of the system can't result in a weapon launch. You need to actively get a key and turn it around that is not something that you do by mistake. Add an extra key for the nuclear variant so no one launches one by mistake when a conventional one should be launched. Even if the warhead does not detonate it would very bad thing to do.
Ryan, I have been told by B-52 crewman that each crewman's enable switch to arm the nukes was in a very awkward position to insure that it could not be accidentally used.
It would definitely be the smallest safe! 2 man rule. One opens the safe the other opens the inner safe. Both would present the keys after authentication procedure.
@@Simon-ho6ly dev is the one to go to. He is trained and certified to work on government safes. LPL does locks as a hobby, most of his safe work is simple bypassed, not enough for a real safe.
@@phillyphakename1255 Those simple bypasses are often on real safes you would find containing valuables... modern govt safe standards are somewhat better but for anything small enough to be mobile and especially something that small and age is not going to be a particularly fancy locking mechanism.. dev is certainly the better option but we are still looking at an old and somewhat basic safe
@@phillyphakename1255 hes done a few more secure ones and has talked about being able to manipulate safes to some extent before, hes not at the same level as dev but theres a good chance he could open that safe since it looks to be pretty basic and cheap
The smaller safe is the Electronics Warfare (EW) publications safe that held the NWPs (Naval Warfare Publications) and EPLs (ELINT Parameters List) and other classified material including the programming and maintenance tapes for the AN/SLQ-32.
It would seem the Nuke key is spring loaded so that you have to purposely hold it in position in order to launch. Reduces the "oops" factor I imagine. why do I picture Ryan being shown the keys, then he says, "OOO! I know where these might fit!" and runs out of the room with staff asking "Should someone follow him??"
I would ask "Are we sure they took all the missiles off of this thing?" followed by "Are we sure that we didn't acquire any after the Navy gave it to us?"
possibly it's for the same reason they're spring-loaded in Launch Control Centers for the ICBM force, it prevents somebody from turning more than one of the keys to the launch position. Now, I'd be very surprised if somebody could take over the weapon stations that controlled the nukes all on their own, but if they did, and the two consoles needed were far away enough from each other, then that might prevent a single person from kicking off WW3.
@@bentuttle9170 Yeah need at least two launch officers to go mad to start WW3. It's funny after the war they let West German pilots fly FA 86's with atom bombs. That was pre two man rule. One of them could have easily thought fuck the allies and nuked West Berlin.
Ya know I’ve pressed those buttons on the Battleship Wisconsin before. It’s nice to see the Navy left you guys some gifts. It’s like finding the keys to a brand new car except with more spicy world ending neutrons. Edit: I went back and found the picture I took of the Nuclear Perm To Fire buttons on USS Wisconsin and not only are they identical in looks but the keyholes also match those seen on New Jersey. Whether the keys would still work between the ships is still a mystery but they do in fact look identical
What's even more important is that if the keys match between decommissioned battleships there's no reason they wouldn't work on commissioned serving and armed ships/submarines.
I can imagine Ryan being all smug and dangling these keys going nah-nah-nah at the annual battleship museum curator's meeting! So nice to see him light up because of a find like that!
I just started working at the USS Hornet a couple months ago, and just was brought up to Radio Central yesterday, in fact. It's where all of the ships radios are located and operated (as the name might suggest...). That includes communications at all levels of classification, from "in the clear" all the way up to Top Secret. It's cool that the main door has both a key and a combo lock just to get into the room. The door's top half can open partially, and has bars over it. Behind the door is a curtain. That way, someone inside can close the curtain and open the top half of the door to talk to some out outside, and they can't see in. Even once you are inside, the TS compartment is locked again with different keys and a combo lock. There is vacuum tubes to send communications around the ship (kind of like at the bank or post office). They go to, I think, PriFly (Primary Flight Control), CIC, bridge, and the admiral's bridge.
The key to the wardroom icebox, naturally. You've got to keep the strawberries somewhere. Now, if you find a duplicate key to that icebox, why, you'd really be on to something.
Speaking as a former assistant RPS custodian on a Gearing class destroyer. In the first safe you indicated with the safe inside probably held the authentication cards to authenticate a message to use nuclear weapons. It would require two officers to open the two safes to get the cards.
Were those in those snap-in-half envelopes? I've always thought those were cool, and wanted to know what they were called (the envelopes). Can you buy them?
Everyone always talks about their use... What I always wondered... what was the process to generate the recipe (codes), create the biscuits, and put them in the oven (safe)? Then keeping track of this biscuit is on this vessel/station with this key set... knowing the DoD / Gov't - probably handled by the GSA under a sub-contract to the lowest bidder - who handles all the documentation with a paper spreadsheet kept in their notebook (Trapper Keeper?) they used high school. I don't need the codes - I need the notebook.
So Cool. Over 40 years ago, as an intern, I worked on a display system that looked just like this console and I was told it was for firing cruise missiles on the recommissioned battleships. I designed the fonts in dot matrix format, but I remember amber display.
What kind of system is it? The vintage computers I play with are mainly 80's and early 90's. If that's a 5.25" drive, maybe late-70's? That's the kind of system I'd imagine CuriousMarc and his team of nerds would love to fix up.
Thank you and your people for not just pocketing and keeping these keys. It would have been soooooo easy to just slip these in your pocket and pretend they were never found. Amazing
You should check to see if you have the keys to the locks on the main reduction gears. It would also make a good video to talk about the procedures followed when the main reduction gears were actually open. Cool to know there are still discoveries to be made after all these years!
Ditto that. On the ships that I served on the main reduction gear covers were securely locked. Otherwise it would have been very easy to sabotage the very high precision gears with foreign objects or other very bad things. The keys were under the control of the Chief Engineer. This actually happened on the USS Ranger in believe 1973, and disabled the ship for perhaps three months.
@HVAC Quality Assurance the Navy doesnt own most if not all of the MRG's on its current ships. They are leased and removed when decommissioned. If the MRG's are onboard the New Jersey, then I absolutely agree that they were bought outright by the Navy. Definitely interested to know if they are or are not still onboard. They would have to have been cutout for sure if leased or the Navy paid them off so they didnt have to cut them out lol.
@@rickthorp8363 The ship was built around the MRGs. There's no removing them, particularly the bull gear. They are simply too large to pass through any of the available hatches even if removed from the housing.
The FZ (Magazine Intrusion) alarm panels should have covers and require two keys to open. There should be two of the little 6X6 combo safes somewhere in the compartment or close by which contained the panel keys. Two-man rule applied, so it took two of us to get at the keys. No one person would ever know the combo to both safes. Most of the small junction boxes for FZ would be safety-wired and sealed using the hand press which you found in a previous video. The larger junction/terminal boxes would have had padlocks installed. On our ship, the FZ tech manuals, seal press, and J-box keys were kept in the safe in the Chief Engineer's stateroom. Standard 2-man rule applied here as well, so two FZ-Certified techs needed to be present (plus the Cheng, obviously) to get any of the above. There may be keys for the PBX cabinet, if it is an AT&T Dimension 2000 system. As the D2000 PBX was 100% commercial equipment, it was not classified. However, locking the cabinet did keep it secure during heavy seas. The terminal boxes on the weather decks where the cables to the pier for phone service connected may have also been padlocked. The only other thing that I can think of in the IC Shop which required a special key would have been the shop's Flammables Locker where we kept small quantities of alcohol, solvents, and oils required for PMS.
Other than weapons the most secret place on warships is the communications suite so I imagine there are many keys and safes there. After the Falklands War Navy divers entered the safes in the wrecks to recover documents and code-books and it is said, expensive spare parts, from HM Ships Coventry, Ardent and Antelope all resting in shallow water.
On boomers, the Captain carries the permission to fire key. I think he keeps it in a safe until the order to go to 1SQ. The Captain has a missile status console in the conn, which takes the key. The Weapons officer has a safe with a trigger, and there are crew to set the PAL (permissive action links). The tactical stuff has a lead seal on it (there are training versions). Burnt umber is the official color of tactical stuff. On the BB, it wouldn't be a surprise to require two officers to launch missiles. Although thinking about it, because the Tomahawk is a versatile weapons system unlike the Trident II, they may be required for normal launches (I wouldn't be surprised if they wanted two person integrity even for regular strikes, because of rules of engagement, even conventional they can start a war). There would have been additional equipment I imagine to set the PALs, and also the targets would probably have been defined in a SIOP package. I'm not sure how skimmers get EAMs, but that directs the crew to enter targeting info based on the order. If they used the same weapons package (like the W88 warhead, but not in an reentry body), they would need the PAL package. That stuff was probably removed. I think the Captain has a safe in his room (on British boomers they do) where the key is kept. Everything is together at that console, which makes me think it isn't for the nukes, especially for each launcher. The AF puts the launch keys in the EAM boxes. Crimson Tide in my opinion was accurate in regards to the launch procedure, but the Captains dog would have gotten TDU'ed at the first opportunity, especially if he took a leak in Sherwood Forest... I can say the 'button' on a submarine looks like a pistol grip, with a old-school phone cord, and burnt umber for the tactical trigger, black for training.
I have been is several Minuteman ICBM Launch Crew Capsules. I have seen the Red Ammo box with two combination locks on it. Inside are the launch consoles keys. I did not see the keys. My job was to maintain the 465L SACCS equipment that was one of several means of passing the Presidential Emergency War order.
For tactical nukes like the TLAM-N's actually they didn't use a two-person system, primarily because these are not weapons that can really lunched on a whim and are intended to be potentially used anywhere, and so unlike strategic missiles, these things are deployed dumb (no mission data what-so-over) and need to have mission data uploaded to them prior to launch. Assuming we carried one on a fast attack, if we were to launch one we would need an appropriate mission data package to upload to the weapon, a permissive interlock for the TLAM-N installed in the tube control panel and finally the CO's rom key. So on a fast attack to launch on you would at minimum need three people, at least one FT, the Strike Officer or Weapons Officer and the CO.... FT+ Strike or WEPS for the retrieval and upload of mission data, and CO for the rom key, if not more when relying on transmitted data, because then you have whoever many people were involved in making the new mission data package for it, lol. Mission data can be sent to us.... but usually they have several potential packages stored on a drive held in a two-combination safe in the CSES the safe combinations top one was had by the WEps and Strike, and the bottom by all qualified FTOW's
@@tekcomputers The CAPT was in the con, and he just had to put in a key to launch all missiles. The missiles aren't necessarily programmed with strike information, and people aren't necessarily aware of the target. The XO was only involved in authentication of the EAM (Emergency Action Message). WEPS had the trigger. The FTB's (now MT's I suppose) had to denote and prepare the missiles. There was a target list, but it was using ID's and not names. Computations were constantly run as the boat's position was updated. Funny they used FORTRAN libraries over the C ones because of accuracy.
Museum Curator discovers National Treasure! Or historically significant artifacts, at least! Brilliant! I’m so happy for you, Battleship New Jersey, and all the future generations who will benefit from learning about our past! Hooyah, Ryan! Hooyah!
I was looking at videos from the Wisconsin, and I think they found their "nuke keys". Also, for the Desert Storm/Desert Shield Anniversary, they interviewed a TAO from the ship, and he talked about, when they got the orders to deploy to Desert Shield, they suddenly had a problem, because the ships being deployed were to be not carrying any nukes, but they had some aboard, so they had to offload them, before they could deploy.
Remember it was an thing after the cold war that the US would stop carry nuclear weapons on surface ships. Now it could be carriers only as you could fly in new bombs and air launched missiles anyway.
@@magnemoe1 Actually, at the time, late 1990-early 1991, that "directive/order" hadn't been given, yet. The USS JFK, I think, even still had it's "W Company" aboard, which was the weapons handlers who handled the nuclear bombs on the ship. The "directive" removing nuclear weapons from the surface navy wasn't issued until after the end of Desert Storm. Heck, there was congressional outrage over the B-1Bs not participating in Desert Shield/Desert Storm, but they were fulfilling their mission, still sitting nuclear pad alert at the SAC Bases in the US, and were still nuclear weapons, only. They hadn't received the ability to carry and employ conventional munitions, yet.
@@magnemoe1 Cannot confirm nor deny. was the training nuke a dummy or real. When it was swapped was it another dummy or real. Treat it as real, hope it was a dummy. Talking in the early 70's. Offload and forget about it. Onload and pretend or was it real? I don't know who had the keys and if anyone onboard could confirm or deny.
I absolutely LOVE that you’re the guy that has them ! This is , by far , the COOLEST thing ever . No , I take that back . The coolest thing is that some of the the lights have come on behind you for tours . Wouldn’t be cool if one day they were all lit ! Cheers from California !
Nice knowing you Ryan. Enjoy your visit from the NSA any minute now, they're only like a 30 minute helicopter ride away lol. Coming Tuesday: "Hi I'm Kelly Ann Rogers curator on the battleship New Jersey and i'm here to talk about how our plans for the spring season are going!!"
@@BattleshipNewJersey I really can't... It sank in for me a little over a year ago... when Alaina was aghast at my comment of just zip-wheeling the locks off. I never thought to view the locks themselves as artifacts... they were just obstacles to my mind.
It's so cool not only that they found those, but that Ryan's standing there like a kid at Christmas going look what I have! This is awesome! Also, the Ryan snark lives large. Love the snark.
That would totally be "Shut up and take my money!" territory! :D We have a secure keybox at work to control access things like the campus master key sets and state vehicle keys. I'm always disappointed when I return a key to the locker and I turn the "carrier" key into the slot. A little LED goes out, but I never hear a missile launch or a space laser fire or anything. :P
On the topic of other keys, I recall seeing a picture of the padlocks installed on the access covers to the combining gears on one of the Iowas. Apparently, the locks were put in place to prevent someone sabotaging the ship by dumping a bunch of metal shavings or other debris into the gears. If I remember right, the locks went in during the Vietnam War because other ships had been damaged that way. Not sure if the photo was from New Jersey.
I concur that is standard (from 702-80s) _ I call then Reduction Gears instead. Also _ I have heard comments that those used to actually only be Long term lease by Navy, not owned.
The tomahawk launch console is common among many types of ships. Since the tomahawk was nuclear capable, the controls had to be built into the console even if the specific ship did not carry nuclear tomahawks.
Have to love Ryan. Like a kid in a candy store . Such a smart hard working young man. Have to get him as a presenter on Jeopardy for clues on the New Jersey or anything on Naval ships.
If I found them I would definitely run immediately to the launch station and insert them just for the fun of it! That’s so awesome and very cool to see.
Just a strong suggestion - With that many keys, look into lishi lock pick tools. You can use one of these tools to decode the bitting for that lock. With the keyway and bitting information any locksmith can easily cut missing keys for you. You could also catalog the keys and their bitting, and use the lock's bitting information to easily look up the right key.
Thank God they were never used in warfare. Really cool that you found them. One day I just have to get up there to see the ship in person. Nice! Keep up the good work!
What an incredible find, i would suspect they were left behind by someone who wanted the history preserved, as you said the capability was removed, but these are huge in the cold war history of the ship!❤
Speaking as a former cold war Gunner's Mate, many of the extra keys you have would be for mags both below decks and top side. When I can make it up for a visit, I would be happy to take a look to see if I could help ID anything.
Was in the Gulf War when Missouri and the Whiskey were in the gulf. Grateful as a Marine to see both of these ships. Wisconsin was in the PG and Missouri I toured in Subic
The nuclear you generally speaking has to have two key locks turns It's spring loaded so one person cannot enable both, there's a distance between them.
@Ryan, Very cool find and great video as always. The small safe is most likely the EWs safe and definitely not where those keys would've been kept. This is where we would keep our large operational specific publication some of which were classified Secret and above. The EW Logo on the front of the safe gives it away. The secondary safe inside would be for the most highly sensitive materials which typically would require two people to access. This would mean that two people to knowingly be accountable for any loss or leak of that highly sensitive information. Incidentally, EWs merged with CTTs on 1 Oct 2003. Finding an FC that served on the ship may be a good start on finding the answer on the keys.
@@MiddKnightAlphaOmega Mergers can be good, and mergers can be bad. I was a submarine FT, we had a chief who was actually trained as a DS, but at some point in time they decided to merge sub DS's into the FT rate because the DS's pretty much just handled OTH data (which we had to be at PD or surfaced to work with) and didn't have maintenance on their own equipment (FT's did). But in the wonderful logic of the navy in personnel matter they took decided to take any DS's E-5 and below and send them back to school to crossrate to FT's; but for E-6's and above someone at bupers waved a magic rating wand and they fell asleep as a DS one day and woke up as a FT the next. That chief was a DS1 when it happened. I never had to spend so much time explaining to someone what we needed to do.
I worked in the armory the last few months in the USMC. We had a small safe just like that. The main part of the safe had the duty pistols and some other stuff that I can’t remember. The inner safe held the ammo to the duty pistol.
Yes, yes, yes, FIR-what no don’t fire that will start a nuclear war. On second thought that would be the least craziest thing in the last four years. FIRE!
It would be a really dumb way to go if someone, somewhere, jokingly activated an old nuke launch console, only to find out that the demilling process had been skipped. But we can trust them that far, at least. Right? Fingers crossed...
"Now witness the power of this fully armed and operational battleship!" Engineering keys? Main reduction gear inspection ports, maybe lube oil strainer (I forgot whether the spray shield was locked on my lowly ammunition ship), and LOTS of spring bearing fill, dipstick, and drain ports. My ship had 9 spring bearings and a single shaft, Iowa class has 4 shafts so it may be 36, but the outboard shafts are slightly shorter.
Awesome find! I wonder how hard it would be to make a simulator add-on like in the Titan Museum where turning the key does a simulated (we hope!) launch sequence....
From the picture of the other keys those are definitely Medeco keys to the big Sargent & Greenleaf padlocks such as the ones on the reduction gear. Be careful guys.
You should consider making copies of those keys - if for no other reason than you have a "disposable" set you can test on, or gift to, the other Iowa-class museums whenever you all go out for drinks or something.
Can you imagine the person at the counter's reaction though. Having Ryan waltz in asking to get a couple of keys copied, "yeah, no trouble". Then watching their face as they read the tags on what the keys are for. Absolutely needs to video that interaction.
@marth6271 I actually used to work at Home Depot and at least the store near me that I worked at they were certain keys that we were not able or allowed to copy, mostly because we couldn’t carry every blank under the sun so if we didn’t have the blank we couldn’t copy it but there were certain restricted access keys that we just would refuse to copy because we wouldn’t want the copies falling into unauthorized hands, one of the big ones was medico keys that say do not copy or anything with Yale 1103 as those are used for peco service area locks for things like powerline switching, CT cabinet locks and even substation access
Good Presentation. Reminds when a German F-104G Flashed by me while I was sitting at the edge of cliff waiting for a buck to walk by. He pulled vertical then curved back over the top and went back the way he had flown in. Uphill two miles away was a fenced in "Weather Station" that I later ID as a bomb release training beacon used to measure drop accuracy when practice releases are done. Target in this case was the Glenrock Wyoming power station. In this case no practice bombs are used just the radiotelemetry to the beacon.
I'm sorry that you can't launch anything, but it's probably for the best! You have a fascinating job! As a former shipbuilder I would love to come visit the NJ someday!
Awesome! Congratulations to you, Ryan!! this Friday the 13 th is my beloved mother's birthday from 1930. (: Do we think the number 1 keys were once stored near the weapons locker or control spaces or captains safe? The "red safes" ( if any ) should probably have already been removed whenever the related secret or nuclear systems were taken off... Did you also try using the number 1 key in the lock switches? Congrats! Hope the other Battleship Museums' can tell if they have found keys like this and which consoles remain on ship. Great info! (:
20 pounds ( apprx 44 kilos ) of other keys! wow! ( 8:54 ) No wonder they had people taught in lock repair and / or locksmithing ! ( my maternal grandfather was a paymaster during WW1 times, lol ).
