Maybe not, with scramjets added to artillery, you can get enormous range.. And getting a massive gun platform that technically could shoot nukes all over a country wouldn't be bad to have I think. :)
@@MrZnarffy cool concept, but I think scramjets need to be at like mach 3 or so to kick in, shells for these guns max at like mach 2. Of course you, like I, believe there may be a future for large bore artillery with modern or future munitions. Who knows what they could do if we tried.
@@samuelnakai1804 No, it's about mach 2.5, well within the range of these guns, they almost hit mach3 with a 1 ton projectile. So basically you can have thousands of nuclear shells with the range of hundreds of km/miles on one of these.. Make them nuclear propulsed too, so they can roam freely, and stack a bunch of phalanx on them. You can then pretty much glass a country with one ship...
You know a weapon system means business when you have to sound an alarm to brace for the discharge and when the weapon fires the camera goes dark for a moment
@@Kevin_Kennelly It's from the camera's over exposure from the barrel flash. It's like facing your camera toward the sun and then to the ground real quick, it takes a couple seconds for the camera to compensate for the extreme light change and we are talking about cameras from the 1990's here
@@dancingtiger577 In the grand scheme of things, his point still holds. Those cannons put out enough fire to trigger the glare protection on the camera, something normally the sun only does.
@@finscreenname Indeed. Very primitive cameras back then. Nowadays any smartphone even from the cheapest selection would be a much better video camera. Desert Storm was such a long time ago. On the other hand, when I was recording stuff, back then, with the huge VHS video cameras of the day, they felt like the most awesome pieces of technology.
I was on the USS Stein (FF-1065), and was part of a Surface Action Group with the USS New Jersey in 1989. When we left port, they were still prohibited from firing their 16" guns because of the Iowa accident. We were transiting to Korea and spent 40+ days in the north Pacific, and during that time the guns were cleared for action. We were able to watch a live fire and it's one of the most impressive things I ever saw while I was in the Navy. We were about 3-4 miles astern and just to port, and it was truly amazing. The boat simply disappeared behind the fireball from the shot. Truly a sight to behold.
Cool I was on the USS Long Beach during that same time. I remember the battleship opening up one night when I was on the fantail of our ship. We were at least as far away, but it lit up the otherwise black night sky!
I was a young Marine watching the rounds inbound. It was like God rain down hell on this positions. The ground shook 5 miles away and the sound was unreal!!!!! You actually felt sorry for the poor bastards the rounds were landing on!
@@1pcfred I actually do feel bad for them. The Republican guard weren't religious crazies like ISIS or Al-Queda. They were profession soldiers forced into an impossible war by their idiot dictator.
@@Elthenar They were PsOS. I was present in the briefings to hear what the republican guard was doing to the people of Kuwait. Then I saw it first hand. The way they killed people and commandeered the vehicles to escape us - US Marines. Disgusting. That why I called in air strikes on them. The fathers of Al Qaida and ISIS. No remorse. I was right there watching Old 63, Mighty Mo do her thing.
Semper Fidelis Brother. I was right down the current from Mighty MO, Old 63 watching her alongside USS Wisconsin prepping for us to go in. They create massive waves of water and wind!
Imagine being 18 years old, in charge of a multimillion dollar weapons system and operating it at levels unheard of. Chops to all the battleship crews!
projectiles can’t be shot down and be made as prisoner of war ... this battleship can put 90 tons of ordinance in just 5 minutes ... damn that is powerful punch !!!
imagine this battleship can take up serious punishment ... it can withstand a couple of shots ... but when its guns are ready to fire ... I dunno if any armor of any ship in modern era can take this 16” shells ... it’s AP shell can punch through bunkers easily ... damn so much brutal power. do the math muzzle velocity, muzzle energy and shell weight to punch any target be it bunkers, ships or anything you can imagine with gun range it will obliterate it!
@@JackSparrow-wn1on The Problem is AP is designed to be used against heavily armoured ships, no modern warship has the level of armour required to arm the shells, so you likely just punch a hole clean through the ship and out the other side
This footage sends chills down my spine. The Iowa class battleships were the finest, most powerful and longest serving battleships in history. I really hope to see more footage like this. Absolutely amazing.
@@markalvarado4450 wrong, those 18" guns were far less capable and didn't pack the punch of the Iowa class 16" shells. And Iowa class battleships were far superior in weapons management. Bigger doesn't mean better
@@markalvarado4450 the yamatos guns didnt have the range to match, the shell velocity was ass, the shell dispersion was ass, the Japanese gun fire control was ass, even the radar they had was crap. The iowas were superior in every respect.
Causing lots of damage to shipboard systems, from glass to electric to personnel. Note they’re not firing salvoes, but single shots. On Yamato with 18 inch guns, you couldn’t be on an open deck when they fired.
Battleships are still useful. Just not against other vessels as over the years they started building more destroyers. Battleships were still devastating for island bombardment
It’s amazing how fast they were reloading these guns and getting them ready to fire.. and on technology and engineering that was 60+ years old at that time..
Makes me think of what a modern built battleship could be like. I get missiles are far superior in ship to ship, but they do cost a heck a lot if all your want is to bomb the hell out of a land based target.
@@budmeister What? Do you even understand what you wrote? Do you understand what a target line is? Do you know where the BB was during this engagement?
For those wondering what the hissing sound is at around 6:41, after the gun fires the barrel is still filled with propellant gasses that could combust if they opened the breach and exposed it to oxygen. The breach has high pressure compressed air outlets that trigger after the gun fires, pushing the gasses out of the barrel. If you watch footage of the guns firing you will see those gasses being expelled after firing as a cloud of white smoke.
@@HATER506. Just trying to stay relaxed and calm probably. He was a Gunners Mate, but we were not his regular crew. We were Center Gun Turret 3 guys filling in for them, while they took a break to eat.
The fact that an entire Iraqi battalion surrendered just because it saw this ship’s silhouette on the horizon off the coast of Kuwait, tells me all I need to know.
@@realmatiasguerra only 2 of them did USS Missouri and USS Wisconsin the iowa did not fight because of her turret explosion and the uss new jersey was decommissioned right before the war
@@amychan811 Yes there were two in the Gulf if I remember right and they fired at targets around Kuwait City. I was a Marine tanker on the ground then.
What’s amazing is that the analog gear targeting computer and gyroscope could tell you how to aim perfectly precise. Even in 3 dimensions with moving targets. It would self fire as soon as the barrel was in the right spot as the ship was moving around in the waves. The computer was designed in the 20’s. They never broke down. They were used into the 90’s. Whole system will last many centuries.
@Joseph Melcher The Iowa's never really took fire. They only fired at other ships a small handful of times and never against anything that could threaten them. Most of the Iowa class service history is shore bombardment and defending carriers from aircraft or destroyers. In short, this is pretty much exactly what the Iowa's always did.
@Joseph Melcher I suggest you review that list of battles. Then ask yourself how many of those an Iowa class was present for. My statement was 102% accurate with a 2% margin of error. There were actually 2 of the Iowa's fighting in the Persian Gulf, we still had all 4 in service just a few years prior. They were reactivated and reaarmed in the early 80s as a counter to the Soviet Kirov class.
While I agree that battleships are no longer practical thanks to aircraft carriers, no one can deny that seeing a battleship let off a full broadside is one of the most awe inspiring sights ever beheld by man.
Heard tell tale that in wars where these ships served after ww2, fighting morale spiked when these ships entered the area. So not just about missiles and saving money, theres the human element too :)
Technically, they'll reach just shy of 24miles AP mark 8's have been thrown a little over 42,300~ yards (rated for 38,720m) The various other specialty and HC shells have almost identical ballistics, and just about reach 41,600~ yards (38,059m)
Ive been inside Iowa's #2 16" Mount. Seriously, does not look like 60 year old tech. And they were still using the original 'fire control radar' for NGFS (naval gunfire support) and targeting systems from WW2 in 90-91... Because, honestly. There was nothing better. Any of those BB's could and did, land, shell square on target on the 2nd salvo. And usually were close enough on the first salvo to badly damage structure target and kill or injure many in the target area. 2nd shot was generally 'fatal' for intended land target.
It's amazing to see how little the gun moves and the turret is rock-steady while it's sending a projectile that weighs as much as a Toyota to a target miles away. They really built those things well.
They could shoot a Toyota 24 miles. 2,600 feet per second. Time of flight 1 minute 30 seconds. Then remember that the Toyota is packed with high explosives. Would love to see video of those things hitting their target.
The turrets weight something like 2,200 tons, almost 4.5 million pounds each, 7in armor on the roof, 12inches on the back and I think 3 inches elsewhere, they are truly massive chuncks of steel and mass, absolute marvels of engineering.
SLR107FR31 in a world of supercarriers you want to build a puny Iowa class? If you’re building a railgun battleship, go all the way and do it with a Montana class battleship.
@@Candid1ify Yes they did after the 1980s modernization. The nuclear tipped shells were discontinued in the 1960s because of the safety hazard they posed but also how obselite they were.
My father was in the Navy during vietnam. He said, " When you see a battleship, you better know it means business!" He went on to say, it was the most powerful weapon on the planet!
@@devilsoffspring5519 Modern tactical nuclear physics packages are small enough to fit within the volume of an Iowa shell. Now, you just need to make sure they can withstand the enormous g-forces. Also, you wouldn't want to fire strategic warheads from a BB.
@@andreworiez8920 Shells and powder are cheap for live fire practice. What's expensive is the ship maintenance costs and crew salaries, and fuel costs. A WAG, but I'd say it would be a rounding error in the annual cost of running the ship to have, eh, 4 live fire drills per year.
Imagine that...a white Gunner sitting next to a black Gunner fighting on behalf of the red white n blue. Yeah our past isn't without blemmish but our service men and women show us we are better than what we are
I showed this video to a neighbor, a very old WW2 2nd class Gunners mate , served USS Massachusetts , his comment on the loading, quote" God they're fucking slow" I have never heard this man curse in the 20 yrs I've known him lol
In 1972 I was aboard an amphibious ship in the coastal waters of 'Nam. I still don't know what the deal was, but before an evacuation the USS Iowa was shelling far inland from the shore. I had pictures of almost the entire operation, I even caught the yellow smoke plume and flash. It was cool.
You didn't see the USS Iowa or any other Battleship. In 1972 they were in mothballs slumbering away. The only one that was operating even close to that time was the USS New Jersey.
For some reason I always expected the sound level and concussion at the breach would be a lot louder and more violent. I guess it speaks to the fact the barrel is 240,000lbs (120 tons) and is so efficient at directing that energy down range. Awesome footage though I always wanted to see this process in action during actual combat operations.
It would still be deafening irl (Over 130Db at 1 nautical mile and there is a reason nobody is ever on decks during firing operations, if you were to be on deck it could and would kill you), but yt compresses the hell out of the audio
Apparently the bore evacuator when the breech is first opened is louder than the actual firing. There’s another video where the crewman doesn’t put his hearing protection on until he’s opening the breech.
Those of the smiles of guys who’ve trained their entire career for that one specific task, knowing they’ll probably never get to do it in anger… getting to do it in anger.
Naval ships are loud. There is all sorts of machinery running around the clock, even tied off to the pier. What you were hearing was ventilation, hydraulics, and lord only knows what else. After being in the navy myself I literally cannot sleep if it is quiet. I have to have some level of mechanical noise to sleep, even to this day.
@@CAoffRoading Not to mention right below them is the electrical deck where the motors to train the turret and elevate the barrels is located. Those are the largest electrical motors on the ship.
Indeed they were. We had a RPV ( remote drone) sending back data, camera information. The Captain had the RPV crew sending back the live camera footage and it was on the ship’s television station. You could watch the action. I remember once when only the forward two turrets were firing and we were on a break, the RPV was sending footage of some Army Iraqis that had stopped in the desert to take a piss. About the time the guy unzipped, one of the turrets fired. A few seconds later that guy never finished his piss. The whole truck and small convoy was gone.
@@armastat also, consider that they were originally designed to fight other ships of a similar size and strength. Shooting a moving target from a moving platform is even harder.
I had the privilege of touring the Missouri earlier this year. Having seen the size of those guns one can only imagine what it was like on the receiving end of those projectiles. And there were nine of the monsters!!!
As knights of old in their shining armor and mounted on their immense battle steeds, their time has come and gone and we shall not see their like again.
From what I heard the military have been given the green light on a new breed of modern battle ship due to the immense amount of backlash on our destroyers being harassed and almost destroyed by local ships “accidentally” ramming them.
@@t5unami195 That makes no sense, destroyers already have more than enough firepower to protect themselves from ramming. You don't need anything close to the role of a battleship to prevent rams. Just need less restrictions on the RoE.
@@proximacentauri3627 Honestly that's what I've been wondering about myself. Destroyer can easily blow those bastards out of the water themselves. But that's what the article said. ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-nUDpaCbfPpc.html TBH it's probably false after looking back into it.
Well done, graycloud057. Thank you for your kind remarks about the RN, too. What some may not know is that the battleship was directed by a specialist British Naval Gunfire Liaison Officer, who sneaked out to the Gulf, without orders, was told to go home and went to the USN to see if he could help them. USN apparently did not have NGLOs so they took him up on his offer. On his return he received a reprimand from the Admiralty and a letter of commendation from Dick Cheney. No surprises there, then!
You and me both! I'll be telling MY age, when I point out that if I had served in Desert Storm in 91, it would've been my final year of enlistment as a US Marine(which I almost did after high school). I passed the ASVAB scoring highest in the class I was with, a score that allowed me to choose the top job available to a non-college graduate in 1986, an air traffic controller. But knowing myself as an 18 year old in 86, I'm pretty sure I did everyone a favor by NOT becoming an air traffic controller at that particular time! At 18, I had already worked at a machine shop for 2 years, but I was more interested in partying on Friday and Saturday nights than anything else!
Me too! I was on my way home from work when the news on the radio station I was listening to announced the war had started. The wife and I watched CNN coverage all night after I got home... Seems like only yesterday...
@@paulfly3121 You can bet that the next 28 years will go by even faster now that you are even older! Did you happen to catch CNN's Desert storm fake news, where they were claiming to be in theater just over the Saudi border, when a chemical attack siren went off, and the reporter had to rush to install his gas mask! Turns out they actually weren't even in the middle east! They were in studio in the US, lying about their situation, and trying to make themselves look heroic.... There's still video of it on RU-vid! Nope, things have not changed much at CNN, except that they are now more partisan and more dishonest. ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-isMtxbPdvzg.html
It's madness that both the Royal Navy and US Navy gave up their battleships. Even when not used in anger, their presence is enough to send a message for their enemy to think twice about starting shit.
Incredible to think that those Iowa battleships were designed using pen and paper and a slide rule or two. No computers and they were terrorizing to the enemies back then. Probably would still give our current enemies nightmares today if it were feasible to operate them still.
Getting to serve on one of the battleships in modern times must have been a real honor and coveted position, I imagine the battleship guys get to brag to the destroyer crews about getting to actually fire salvos and pound targets rather than occasionally launching a tomahawk, which the battleship could also do.
texascclp1445 - Hey buddy, battleship is king, but those 5"38cal are awesome in their own right and I'm proud of you for being there. I was Army myself, but collect WWII Naval ordnance and I have a 5" projectile and matching 5" Mark 5 38 cal brass(yes, BRASS} with a Navy anchor dated 3 1945. The projectile weights 53 pounds and is a precision piece of machining. All the WWII Naval Ordnance is highly collectable and EXPENSIVE. A 6"47 brass goes for over $800.
I rememeber when they recommissioned the New Jersey and Iowa. I was stationed in San Diego and volunteered to servie on either one. They were taking back Seaman (E3s) who were in their 50's to man some of the rates on the ship.
Have been lucky enough to be on board all the remaining BBs left in the world. Even the Mikasa in Japan. They are all quite amazing. Nice that so many have been preserved. Too many went for scrap.
I believe this was after the Explosion in the turret on Missouri's Sister ship USS Iowa. So that could be why they are taking longer to load the guns. Also this is Shore Bombardment so they are likely Spot firing where they watch for the rounds to hit before firing again.... Could be wrong on all of this though.
6:58 are those high capacity shells with poitn detonation fuses? The armor piercing rounds use a base fuse with a delay to allow the shell a chance to penetrate armor
I was able to watch both Wisconsin and Missouri firing. I was in USS Nassau (LHA 4) just over the horizon from them. At night even single guns would light up the sky.
@@derekrock3563 Iowa was not in Desert Storm. Only Missouri and Wisconsin. Iowa was already decommissioned due to her damage from the turret explosion and New Jersey was actually being decommissioned while Missouri and Wisconsin was in the Persian Gulf firing on Iraqi targets.
The guy operating at the breech of the gun is so frustrated by the slowness of the process. He knows they could so much more quickly without all the interference from the higherups.
It's not like they were pumping out armor piercing in a naval engagement. The targets they were shooting at weren't going anywhere. At least until the shell goes off. Then one chunk goes here. Another goes the other way. The Wisconsin off Korea took out a T-34with a direct hit with a 16" inch shell. One hell of an Anti-tank gun.
You want your junior enlisted people like that. Champing at the bit. Furiously frustrated to get engaged into the battle. That's exactly the temperament you want
Amazing to get to see how this whole process works of loading the gun. One month ago I was aboard the Iowa in San Pedro, CA. It looks in very good shape. The Missouri and the Wisconsin were the 2 battleships shooting off the coast of Kuwait in 1991.
I heard no Barrell was ever replaced due to wear, some spares were used to make bunker busters bombs, and that we couldn’t make more if wanted to cause no industrial capability left to make one
During DESERT STORM, We had the USS Wisconsin on call for fire support, Its one hell of a feeling when you go into battle, Knowing you got a battleship on call for fire support.
Now with self propelled shells that can now travel almost 80 miles it’s time to bring back these ships. Shells are cheaper than cruise missiles and cheaper than sending a drone or sending a pilot.
@@staleysnook8793 Yeah... Millions a day just to keep it crewed, not to mention constant overhauls.... Missiles are expensive, but they don't need 2000 personnel always on duty...
Current 'boosted' shells are at max 155mm. Current Naval guns don't have boosted shells. Rocket propellant compounds the risk of explosion/fire. That is why the electromagnetic rail guns are being researched. No propellant nor explosive warheads make Naval ships safer when not in action. Cruise missiles give a range edge over boosted shells anyway, by far. Even with max range rail gun shots, cruise missiles will have at least a 300 mile advantage. The next big leap is hypersonic cruise missiles. The hypersonic test vehicles we've had for some time has given us much info into that realm of flight, hell, the X-15 from the 60s gave us tons of data on the lower end of hypersonic.
You think we don’t know that? Besides, a good battleship can take a missile or two while just a good lil’ knock on a destroyer sends it to the sea floor.
