Passing 660lbs of Powder For the 16in Guns 

"DO NOT RIDE THIS HOIST" I would like to meet the sailor responsible for inventing that rule

Just showed this to my 97 year old father. He knew every step. He was a gun capt in1951. Iowa

The choreography these guys do to work and keep up in general quarters doing rapid firing must have been an impressive show.

Aww the memories. I handled powder on occasion, but my main job was the left lower powder door operator of the left gun of turret 3. It got really hectic during the Lebanon conflict where we fired 100's of rounds a day. You talked extensively about the passing of powder through the scuttle, the water bulkheads, and the operation of the scuttle. But did not talk too much about the powder doors red markings nor the operation of the powder doors. Could you do a video about the operation of the powder doors, showing those who never served on a Battleship how the doors open? Do not forget that the red goes toward the red on the powder doors. The painted red part on the powder bags goes toward the red part of the powder hoist. The red part of the powder bag (which you used training bags without the marking) is the part where the finer powder is. They all have to face the same, so the hoist operator does not have to waste time turning the bags around. I enjoyed reliving being part of the gun crew. I was proud to have fought in Lebanon and being a Battleship Sailor from late 1983 until 1990. And then cross rating from a Boatswains Mate to a Cook for another 12 years, and then a Master at Arms for another 6 years. Retiring in 2010. Proud to have served. US Navy. Thank you. You are a great Battleship curator. 😀

It could be fun having a small camera attached to both a powderbag and a shell, filming the whole voyage though from the depot through the the elevators, etc. ❤

Ahh, the magical boom dust.

This is absolutely one of the best videos you've done. I love these videos where you deep dive into the ship's workings. Ok was wondering if you could do a deep dive into the propulsion system. Specifically, a "cold and dark" startup and show things like where air enters the intakes for the boilers, how the boilers and engines get up and running, and where the steam travels after it's made. Keep up the good work Ryan, your videos are incredible.

It would be interesting to see the workings of the compressed air purge after the gun has fired.

Out of curiosity, would y’all do a videos, or at least release a diagram of every space you have done a video on? With so many compartments, I would be interested to see how many y’all have actually chewed through. Great video!

I would love a video discussing the differences between British and US turret operations, specifically why the US never adopted all the flash hoods and such like the Brits.

The engineering is just amazing and how fast the ships could be built.

kind of ingenious to use gravity hoists in the magazines. no electricity to be disrupted or spark, always ready to work

Wish uss Alabama would make videos like you guys as that is my home state. Really enjoy every video that you guys put out and learning about these great ships 🤙🏽

Hey Ryan. Thanks for the detailed breakdown on this. Is there any chance you could do a deep dive on what a cold start of the engineering plant would look like? Something like what would probably happen after a long stay in a dry dock for a refit.

Wow! My suggestion for a deep dive: the process of detecting, designating, prioritizing and aiming at a target! Or the procedures for calibrating the ship's ranging & targeting equipment.

If you really want to follow a powder bag. Need to talk to grandparents and granduncles and aunts they all worked at inaap indiana army ammo plant. My great uncle was a firefighter grandma and great aunt were sewers they sewed the bags my grandma actually still has a sewing machine and lots of needles from the ammo plant my grandpa was able to get them for her . He was an electrician he rebuilt motors at inaap

This is an awesome video, Thank you. I reload pistol and rifle ammunition so i thought that I had a good notion of what goes on, but WOW! the amount safety steps blew me away. Would you consider a similar video for the actual shells? I assume the shells are fully assembled once they get to the ship, but it would be cool to see what the internals of a 16" shell are, and how they work together to go boom.

Interesting that the breech block swivels up/down. In UK battleships the breech block swings to one side for loading.

I really like your delivery Ryan. You have a conversational style that's easy to listen to and absorb the info from. I'm also impressed with the level of knowledge you have. It's incredible, really. You either have a vast knowledge or are really good at boning up on an area just before doing your presentation on it. Either way I find it impressive. Thanks for what you do. I enjoy learning about these things.

Nit pick.😉 ALL powder bags have the 10 pound Black Powder charge on the back.

When you think on those guys handling enormous amounts of explosive energy... those shells and powder bags are real monsters only waiting for you to make the false move and to destroy a big portion of the whole ship. Manhandling heavy pieces in tight spaces is an art in itself, even without the explosive element.

Thankyou for the content Ryan! This helped me conceptualize how thousands of men are needed to operate these vessels of war. Brings everything into perspective how so much life can be lost so quickly and the engineering evolved to prevent such occurrences. Mind boggling.

Great visual and verbal process description, Ryan. There's nothing quite like seeing the various stations and steps involved.

Phenomenal content!

I think how they fed that many soldiers is fascinating! Have you done many videos on food prep and storage?

That was incredibly interesting. I've never never seen the loading and use of the powder bags explained to so thoroughly. I've seen the NJ many times at concerts at whatever they are calling the local local music theatre these days. No better backdrop for a heavy metal festival then the battleship. NJ lol. I plan to visit the NJ one of these days, I'm only like 20 miles away, I hope to meet you and absorb some of your knowledge.

Really well done 👏

My dad served aboard the USS Maryland @‘42-‘46 as a Radarman, it would be great to see the radar station set up and perhaps clips of those stations in action.

Another great video from the battleship. Thanks

Great video. Thank you Ryan

Thank you Ryan!!!!

Quite a process from start to finish. Nice video

Great video!

very well illustrated. was always curious about this process. Thanks :)

Wow! Thorough, thank you!

Outstanding video as usual, Ryan!

Very fascinating. Thank you for taking the step by step and showing how this was done

Thank you, this was great

Wonderful video thank you

Thanks, Ryan. That was really interesting!

Ausome and very clear tour 👏👏👏

Just saw the USS Massachusetts in Fall River and was curious how this system worked. Love the simple explanation!

That was really cool! Loved this full walkthrough of a process.

Thanks, dude, very interesting as always.

great video, well done thank you!

Thats a brilliantly thorough walkthrough of the process, great content as always 🙂👍

Thank you, thank you, I really enjoyed this one. thanks!

This was so cool! Thanks BNJ curators and staff!

A deap dive like this on the rangefinders and fore control computers would be awesome

Yet another very interesting video, thanks for sharing. I would love to visit the ship one day 😊

I look at the battleship anew Jersey every day!! Need to check it out.

Whoa! If you're passing powder you REALLY need to drink more water 🚰 😁 I couldn't resist.

Ryan, you do a wonderful job of explaining things. Well done sir.

one of your best videos Ryan , in this old man's opinion, cheers Paul in Orlando, FL

one of the most interesting videos ever. it helps you understand why battleships had such large crews; because a lot had to be done by hand. I'm pretty sure I couldn't move many 110 pound (50 kg oof) powder bags in a row without getting exhausted

This was great

My prediction: very carefully, given how long this powder had been lying around

Another great video! it's stunning to think of how much design time and study of previous systems has to go into the last generation of battleship big guns. It's intricate but sturdy, contains numerous safeguards but still very fast, and really does show that the men were thought of in all aspects of the function. Yes, you need a lot of men, especially for consistent and quick powder passing, but it flows very well when they are trained up and practiced. The USS Salem's auto 8-inch guns are impressive in their design, but I can't say they have the same level of connection that the man-handled guns do.

A 19:30 video to describe what took roughly 30 seconds to perform. 9 guns in 3 turrets, ability to fire 18 total rounds in 1 minute. Once you see all the steps involved, it becomes an amazing feat.

This is very cool, always like to know this exact sort of thing.

I love this! I am brought back to the 80s when my dad would take young me to Battleship Cove in Fall River, MA. I was always fascinated by the powder loading, and this was a most welcome bit of reminiscing.

I really wish we had a staff with your knowledge and dedication at our museum! God knows we need it

ryan and crew i have learnded more about battleships watching your videos than i have in 50years!! we love all of your videos! watching from missoura!!🤣👍🏻🖖🏻

"We off load it the fun way".......oh yes. Cheers for another good video.

that was great thanks

Just wow! I have admired these battleships since I was a kid, but never knew just how much manpower and coordination it took to create the rolling thunder!

Off topic here. (I have heard this story many times over the years. It never really changed unless you asked for more details.) My father was on the lsd-3 Carter Hall. He got out at the beginning of the Vietnam war after the ship did service in danang harbor. He had a very interesting story about his last voyage home. After leaving Japan the ship blew an engine. Which reduced her speed to about six knots. The fleet having better things to do wished them good luck as they sailed over the horizon. The second engine blew six hundred miles south of adak Alaska leaving the ship dead in the water. Fleet said they’d send a tug…out of Frisco. The ship happened to be transporting a crap load of canvas tarpaulin out of Manila and a whole bunch of Seabees heading home from Southeast Asia. And a typhoon howling up out of the South China Sea. What happened was that the crew and the Seabee’s teamed up to convert the ship to sail. They disassembled the deck Crain mounted on the stern and moved it to the bow. They made a cross piece and a very large viking style sail. They then ran ropes back through the hawseyes to the bow winches. Flat out full tilt boogie the ol’ carter hall could turn twelve knots (with tail wind). She was making over eighteen knots under sail. Passed the fleet off Seattle and made it to frisco. They had grand plans to sail in under the golden gate at high noon. They received direct orders to drop sail beyond sight of land and await a tug boat. He said everyone on board were ordered to not talk about it. Evidently Uncle Sam didn’t want anyone to know how fast those hulls really were. Although his description of its handling characteristics were for to colorful for a RU-vid comment.

Although the 2nd official Navy investigation came to conclusion "we're not sure why," (after the first investigation incredulously claimed it was Sailor Clayton Hartwig sabotaging the gun), it's pretty likely that over-ramming the powder bags, which Ryan emphasized you do NOT want to do @17:20, is what cause the deadly explosion in the center gun pit in turret 2 on the Iowa. How the bags were over-rammed is open to debate, but these are the facts that seemed to have combined into a perfect storm: 1. A rookie rammer-this live firing exercise was the first live fire exercise for the sailor manning the rammer station of the center gun; other center gun crew members were also very inexperienced. Hartwig, the previous center gun captain, was assigned to help the center gun crew about a half hour before the firing exercise started. 2. The live fire exercise was using only 5 powder bags, not 6, so the actual total weight of the charge was less than normal, which could lead the rammer man to apply too much force for the weight being rammed 3. There were reports from previous exercises that the center gun's rammer occasionally "took off on its own." 4. The powder bags being used were subjected to being stored at much higher temps than allowed when they were last offloaded from the Iowa when it made its last port call, as described by Ryan @4:33 5. The powder being used was from lots made 1943-1945. Ryan has done a memorial video on the Iowa explosion ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-8D6v48cXvRo.html. I think an in-depth video is warranted.

I still can't comprehend lifting 110 lb from over your head, lifting in various spaces in an OHSA nightmare workspace.

Great video. Interesting how it was different then on USS Texas.

Excellent tour - thank you. One can see how the British Battle-Cruisers at Jutland in 1916 were destroyed by magazine explosions, and how the safety systems on New Jersey were far safer due to that experience.

Amazing.

GREAT VIDEO

You have covered many great subjects. You have mentioned the galleys several times and how you are not allowed to use them today. But showing how they prepared 4 meals a day for 2,000 or so sailors might be interesting.

For every advancement we make into the future, we leave one behind. Without people like you these almost forgotten monoliths from another time seam almost Alien. With the help of you the memory of this great ship and the young men that served upon her are not so easily forgotten. The same can be said about the Apollo program! Thank you so much for all the time you put into these videos, without you this information would be truly lost to time. I wonder with all of our incredible knowledge we think we have gained do you think in 100 years anyone could figure out how to run this machine? PS My father served on the HMS Duke of York and used to tell me stories. God bless you.

Wow ! Black powder primer ,awsome

Big boom! Gotta love the big gun ships.

always wondered why there was that latent puff of smoke from the barrel after firing. I guessed it was the breech being opened and natural venting taking place. Thanks for showing me why!

I'd like to see details about the fuse setting 5 in guns system. It has my imagination going as how streamlined and effectively you can down incoming aircraft.

impressive and interesting

As a mechanical engineer, I find these complicated machines fascinating. OSHA inspectors would have a heart attack with all the unguarded moving equipment and the accompanying noise. There must have been a lot of severed hands and arms plus hearing loss.

This was something different for me. I'm a huge fan of ballistics & firearms. Fairly simple & straightforward yet complex, if that makes sense? Working on the water most of my life, that must be quite the procedure when dealing with ugly seas! Idk exactly what type of weather it would take to have a battleship bouncing up & down (or if that can even happen?) If so I can only imagine the struggle sailors must have to deal with! Very informative video & I really enjoyed it. I like listening to knowledgeable ppl explain things I find interesting but know nothing about

the conduit work behind his head at 420 is amazing

“Unloading the fun way” very nice.

It's pretty crazy how much equipment and effort went into moving the powder around! But it worked :)

Very nice 👌

Great video👍👍 The only thing you forgot was the guns would automatically return to the load position after being fired.

New Jersey, when are you sailing to the Black Sea? there is work to be done

Super interesting

I would like to see how the 40mm guns interacted with their fire control directors (or how any of the guns received information from/were controlled by their respective fire control directors and computers (for the 16" and 5").

That's a nice seaman's beard there, Ryan. If you ask me: Keep it, looks cool!

A thorough look at the functioning of the breach and the primer setup for the main gun would be cool

What happened to the center gun of turret two on Iowa, how did that accident occur, and what led up to that incident.. much respect for the professionalism of the crews of all the sailors that manned these mighty vessels

So I have a question, did they have to keep special track of the powder bags with the red dot on them that had the gunpowder to make sure they were loaded in the correct order? Were they stored in a special place?

Oh this was cool.

Regarding USS Iowa’s explosion, 1. why did the Capt order the turret cleaned out once the fires had been put out an body recovery made; with parts and such tossed over the side into the ocean and no preservation of evidence being done for investigation purposes? 2. Was the entire turret so-destroyed that the entire turret could never be in service again? As opposed to, say, USS Newport News, where after her explosion, the turret was placed back in use minus one gun?

Deep dive into the 16 inch gun RAMMERS !!!

Basically Battle of Jutland experience put into practice with the flashproof doors

I'd like to see a deep dive on the hydraulic circuits of the turret and how the elevation of each gun is done and where are the synchros that send the position signal to the fire computer

It would be nice to do a deep dive into diving, or the the way the ship was supported by divers, and supported divers as well.