TFCC: Fleet Command on the Battleship 

Adm Reason was my XO on the USS Mississippi, CGN-40. A great officer and should have been CNO but he was in charge of the Tailhook investigation and that, I am sure, did not endear him to many aviator admirals.

Tactical Flag Communication Center

It's important for the save icon to be a stylized floppy so whoever replaces you knows to go thru them looking for information.

The BAT (Bogen Amplified Telephone) phone, was/is used as more of a “side bar” or closed network communications line. It can be placed anywhere for specific compartment use or assigned for contacting a specific individual. Lines consisted of copper wire and numbers are assigned by placing said wires on specific terminal block leads.

I bet the fold down table is somewhere on the ship in some room that Ryan and crew almost never go in and never realized that it was the table.

Ryan, at some point you're going to have to reach out to your local retro/vintage computer club and try to get some of those vintage computer terminals working, and possibly extract any data if you've got old floppies or other archaic memory storage lying around. Most of the stuff I play with is in the late-80's/early-90's range, so I'm not familiar with the computer terminals you're showing (they look ~10 years older, except for the EWC terminal), but I just salivate every time I see one of those old terminals in shot in your videos!

Shipboard archeology sounds like a really fun puzzle except with missing pieces and possibly an inaccurate picture to go off of

Your comment about shipyard variations brought to mind a story I heard some time ago about the captain of an early Ticonderoga cruiser. The forward wall of the superstructure was a solid face. The new CO wanted portholes in his sea cabin so that he could see the bow of the ship and the sea forward of the ship from the cabin. It took some "discussion," but his request was granted. So high on that forward wall are two port holes, presumably in the Captain's sea cabin. I always enjoy seeing and learning from your videos. Thank you.

For the part about carriers, I've never been to or seen a museum carrier, but have been on 7 different carriers between Navy and civ career, and I don't work for the shipyards. -CVN-65 Enterprise -CVN-69 Dwight D. Eisenhower -CVN-71 Theodore Roosevelt (ship I served on) -CVN-73 George Washington -CVN-75 Harry S. Truman -CVN-77 George H.W. Bush -CVN-78 Gerald R. Ford

I've never had the pleasure of visiting an aircraft carrier. I've been on the USS Massachusetts and USS Salem. I've stood pier side and in the ways of Arleigh Burke destroyers when touring BIW. It was nice having a teacher who was retired Navy. Field trips BIW and NAS Brunswick were considered a logical part of the electronics course I had in HS.

In 1965 my family and I took the tour of the U.S.S. Ticonderoga aircraft carrier. As an eight year old it was very large and impressive. It was scraped years later so it is no longer around.

TFCC = Task Force Command Center? Dunno. Great video thanks Big J!

Visited the Midway a few years back. Loved it!

I've toured the Midway a few times, love it. I was just out there for their holiday Jingle Jets - The Roosevelt and Lincoln are across the water from her now. Stop in at Kansas City Barbeque a few minutes away from there - its the Top Gun bar from the movie and check out where some of the scenes were filmed.

Happy New Year Ryan and Libby and everybody else 😊😊😊😊😊

Walked through this space today and only got a spacing glance on the tour. This channel helps fill in so many of the blanks that can be overlooked in an already eventful day at the museum.

It's got the look of a one off role compartment , judging from the size of the cable runs and how much space there is in some and the bolt - on mounting arrangements it looks like some of the equipment would have been fit to receive which makes sense if the Admirals tenure was relatively short . Nice to see you've managed to source some replacements to give an impression of what it would have looked like . An interesting video Ryan is a great communicator - as always and it will be an interesting comparison come September .

It's amazing that after all the years New Jersey has been a museum, that you can still find new stuff. That says a lot about you and your staff. Have a great New Year!

The admiral should be on the flag bridge. members of his staff could be shoved into little offices like this. In the video on Bismark, Lutjens staff had 70 people! From the biography on Arleigh Burke, specifically his time as chief of staff to Mitscher, I gathered the staff was fairly small. the admiral, a chief of staff, operations officer, a few other officers, the flag lieutenant, an enlisted orderly. On any navy ships, certain areas would be marked as officer country. On ships that normally have embarked staff, there would also be areas marked : flag country or something similar

Visited Midway, my first one. Loved the engine room tour.

lol the aiphone, i put a system in on my first ship. we just open purchased it, and installed, no paper work, or ship alt etc.

How about doing a video simply walking through the tour route?

Happy New Year!

Most of Midway is available in a self-guided tour. There were maybe 2 thousand people on board when I visited.

I have not been on the Midway. In march 2011 - I opted for the San Diego Maritime Museum - instead- very close nearby - Has Multiple small historic or replica ships - and at that time 2 submarines. Please, when you visit the Midway also visit them ! I have been on the Lexington and Yorktown - but not the Hornet or Intrepid. I know - all there vessels will seem Old and Small compared to what you are used to.

I was on saturday on the ship and i wonderer what was that metal and that part of the ship. Excelent video timing 😂😂

At least we can see the bullseye in this video.

Thanks again for all the great videos. Wishing you a very safe, healthy and awesome 2024🇺🇸⚓️🇺🇸

I've been on the Yorktown, USS Laffey, and USS North Carolina. The North Carolina is my favorite, growing up here and knowing her history. I was an USAF technician and a Flight Simulator Maintenance Supervisor. I got to meet and talk to Tex Johnson and Col, Robert Morgan.

Some industries have, in addition to blue prints, "the work actually done" documents. Is that a thing with the navy? Whether they're available would be a different question. The idea is that you document how you actually did the work so that you don't have to assume that the blue prints were followed exactly. An example of this is with buried power lines.

Happy new year 🥳🥂🎆

Great video!

Gotta luv Radio Shack 📻☎📞🎧🎚🎛

Love your archeology Ryan!

I visited Midway in spring/summer 07. Regan was in port across the bay.

You could probably confirm what the room is if you look at a personal roster. An admiral on a ship is notable, and you have a time frame narrowing down. Did a quick google. From your own site: In 1989, USS New Jersey became a flagship once again. Admiral J. Paul Reason, the Navy’s first African American 4-star Admiral, commanded Cruiser-Destroyer Group 1 and Battle Group Romeo from the New Jersey. In October, the New Jersey participated in Pacific Exercise ’89, the largest gathering of American and allied warships since World War II. He might be your guy.

NTDS uses Link-11 for communicating with other ships.

Thanks, you're the best.

What is the TFCC It doesn't stand for Tactical Fleet Command Centre by any chance?

3:10 ntds, link 11 worked on that back in the 70s.

You’re missing the link to the Midway’s CIC/CEC video! 😢 Bummer. If you are going to visit the Midway, it would be great to have you back to visit us on the Hornet again in Alameda. Heck, CarrierCon is coming back in March if you want make it a year since the last time you visited…

Ryan of the Battleship USS New Jersey Museum and Memorial I remember during the Iran / Iraq tanker dispute- of hearing a news report that the New Jersey’s sister ship, the Battleship USS Missouri ( BB-63) had been sent to the Persian Gulf. I’m not sure if of hearing that the Battleship USS New Jersey was also sent there as well. Not sure that the US Navy would had been fine with two Iowa class battleships together been assigned to the Persian Gulf - where parts of it are narrow to navigate for them to move around.

I just visited Midway and I thought she is beautifully preserved. I also recommend visiting the Maritime Museum up the street if you have the time, but obviously that’s not warships oriented

Were these changes propagated by the advent of the "Battleship Battle Group" in the mid-late 80's?

Question for the museum: If the Navy released ALL restrictions on what you can reactivate on the battleship, what, if anything, would you want to reactivate and why?

the red "radiotelephone" is a secure radiotelephone that is called the... wait for it... BATPHONE

So far the Midway has been the best museum ship I have been on, there is just so much open space to explore in the ship. The USS Hornet in Oakland was another great tour for an aircraft carrier. The USS Intrepid by far the worst of any museum ship of any I have been on.

What would the flag spaces have been used for when there wasn't a flag officer on board?

Fun and Amusing - the ASWModule aboard USS Kitty Hawk became the space for COMDESRON31 during the 97-98 West Pac - since National Command Authority decided that we REALLY weren't going to be doing ASW anymore . Kind of amusing that they almost NEVER came into our space unless there was an actual incident occurring during Operation Southern Watch. Obviously, we had a number of RT's from our ASW days, great plotting table, and Link-11/JOTS consoles - there was ALSO a Cruiser grade admiral (DesRon was a JUNIOR admiral) who occupied the "REAL" flag spaces

thanks

Having the Admiral standing around? Ratings would hesitate saying, "Move yo ass!".

We called it CIC combat information center CIC

Ryan, for an "April Fools" video this year, could you give a tour of the battle damage that the New Jersey survived in her incredible fight with the Yamato using Drachinifel's "Battle of Samar - What if TF34 was there?" video as a reference? Add your own touches of drama with where med stations were set up, and fire & flooding were fought, and how the US Navy had to painstakingly rebuild parts of the ship that were hit. Keep making great videos New Jersey!

This was an office space for CEC at recommissioning.

You said something about a link to the Midway video in the Description? I don’t see it. 🤔

The Bat Phone probably got taken out by the Navy and sent to Wayne Manor in Gotham City, which would explain why you don't see it - it might've even been the same one that the admiral received calls on from the Caped Crusader himself when discussing things like selling nuclear submarines to people without a proper address! I jest, of course, but you gotta laugh at some of the terminology used by the Navy and other armed forces, they probably have just as much fun coming up with it ;-)

Will you be visiting the USS Edson DD946 in Bay City Michigan?

Commodore 64 computers? It might be an interesting video showing what they did with computers like that, or the ships computers in general. There's enough vintage computer expertise on RU-vid, even for obscure hardware, that you could probably find some help and collaboration partners fairly easily, at least for the stuff that isn't entirely Navy specific.

I’ve heard the Alaska class heavy cruiser sometimes referred to as a mini battleship, or a ww2 style pocket battleship. Can you do a comparison of capability between them and the Iowa’s?

Where's there a Commodore 64 computer?

Just saying, Admiral Reason is still alive, so it would be possible to double check with his recollections.

Kinda looks like the Navy just cleaned out a Radio Shack when upgrading those spaces in the 80’s?.

In many ways it looks like any personnel there is speaks to where the person is able to speak to the person collecting or disseminating information. Information for an admiral would be dependent on the incoming and outgoing information they process. Facing the screen another direction would allow a larger group to observe the information it displays. I noticed the safe near the floor while you recorded. Was it a place where they used launch keys? Or was it a place that required information security from others since it was an unrestricted transit route? Someone else mentioned information stored on disks for computers. Within a few days ago I was watching a RU-vid video on the topic of computers using the computer language of BASIC. Possibly to preserve a manufacturer’s market share they covered how each manufacturer would have a different type of BASIC that used their own syntax for graphics or screen colors. Each manufacturer couldn’t necessarily process someone else’s BASIC codes. Since there was no universality, it’s very important to not group computers, floppy disk drives, or any equipment used to communicate between terminals together with the assumption that they’re compatible with each other. You need to find someone knowledgeable about which types can interpret the others coding before intermingling them together. VERY IMPORTANT FOR PRESERVING INFORMATION! Paper records information at least won’t be lost because of the inability to identify what’s on any given medium, be it magnetic, light, braille, bar code, or any other type that isn’t based upon human language origin. Without the ability to relay the method of storage and translation it can be lost forever. Your team is doing extraordinary work on discovering the archeological record of the history of the ship and how it was used. Kudos to all of you during the process! Perhaps you should document how you’ve all been able to source the underlying information to bring it to the light of day? That would be an interesting topic all on its own. Again, great work!

I wonder where they thought they were going to put the Kurta pad at the JOTS console; it doesn't seem like there's any room for it. The single display above and to the right of the JOTS console is a lot smaller than 25" diagonal. Likewise, the two monitors at the FWO and AFWO stations are smaller than 19" diagonal. I can understand why what was built and installed isn't the same as what was on the plan; the plan seems to have been drawn up for a significantly larger space - or by someone who was a great deal more concerned with what they (or their superior) wanted rather than what was actually possible.

Ryan, why is such an important room on the outer skin side of the ship ? rather than more centralised offering better protection ! Was it considered by this time any potential enemy would not be capable of bringing fire to bear on the hull?

Ryan, you looking for clues on the deck made me grin because I am like that. I think if I ever make it to the battleship you may end up wanting to hire me. I would be in my element being a detective like that. I can't imagine me and you on one of the curator tours. With my love for naval history and warship development, WW2 in particular, I can't imagine a better way to spend a day. I think we both would have a good time. I wanted to add we are now seeing the downside of the "paperless" craze. I have found old boxes of floppies at my work and I don't know of a machine anywhere with a 5.25" floppy drive. It's hard because I know the info on them is archival and still could be important for some things. It may as well be on Mars. Thank you to you and your crew. You really do a good job. Especially when your opening shot has the space's "bullseye" so we know where you are when you're talking about a specific space er, room. 😉👍‍🇺🇸

Where does the removed stuff like the folding table go?

TFCC Task Force Command Center?

I’m surprised, really surprised, that the museum did not document the changes it made. It suggests a lack of good management. Documentation is an essential part of curatorial practice.

Link to Midway video where?

Hey Ryan any chance we could see your current DC space if you guys have one?

What about ssrt = ship to shore radio telephone.

Tactical Flux Capacitor Center

RT=red phone

Task Force Command Center

I understand the need but yeah acronyms suck!

1st, 1 January 2024

1st, 1 January 2023