I was on the Sacramento and when we were in dry dock after Persian gulf war they found data plates on our power plant that was uss Kentucky also, Wow should of finished video before commenting didn’t know that they split the engines to the two of us
I find it amazing how they could design such complex ships without any computer aided design. Can you imagine having to think where every pipe and every electrical cable must go
I've seen CAD building prints that had the electrical/equipment trunk in a different corner on almost every other floor. The old designers put more thought into there work because they didn't have a computer to, hopefully, tell them if they were right or wrong.
@@Ghauster The good thing about 3D cad is it will show you if there’s a conflict. For example, two parts such as pipes taking up the same space or getting in the way of a moving part such as a door or a hatch. I imagine with a hand drawn 2D blueprint it’ll be more difficult. Unless the ship builders improvised and re-routed the pipes to a certain degree.
That's when engineers worked with draftsmen. Draftsmen drew the plans. Engineers did the math. Together they produced amazing things. Computers are nice, but they tend to make people mentally lazy.
Ryan, In 1968-1969 my late father was XO aboard USS Sacramento (AOE 1) and I remember very well his explanations of how battleship boilers and engines were used aboard his ship. He said the CO took delight in refueling destroyers, disconnecting the rigs and then accelerating away from the destroyers!
The ship’s bell is now the property of the University of Illinois Naval ROTC group. They display it on a trailer at home football games with the logo USS Iliinois - the Unsinkable Ship. A tongue in cheek reference to the fact the Illinois never touched water.
@@jamesdoyle5814 You know, one things college-aged humans are really good at - is finding a good joke in a subject too painful for others to even try to do that. Bless 'em! It's a shame they lose that as they get older. I had it once too.
As always nice video, very informative. I served on USS Camden (AOE-2) as a Signalman SMSN in early 1985 when she was assigned to USS Constellation (CV-64) Battle Group. Camden was based out of Bremerton Washington her entire career and the crew was extremely proud of the ship, with many crew members serving multiple sea tours onboard, some staying up to eight years. Camden's Engineering Department was top notch and the Boiler Techs (BT) and Machinists Mates (MM) were very protective of their old 650 PSI boilers from USS Kentucky. Camden crew members were heard to say their ship had the heart of a battleship. I can remember us doing an anti-submarine exercise with USS Camden, USS Hepburn(FF-1055), USS Fanning (FF-1076) and USS Worden (CG-18). A nuclear submarine was in the area and hunting for the Camden, which was a valuable target with her oil, ammunition and supplies. The Camden's Captain ordered up flank speed and did a zigzag pattern at 30 plus knots all night. The frigates were not capable of that speed and fell astern, going over the horizon after an hour or so. The cruiser Worden could keep up, and I remember her being on our port quarter all night with their active sonar pinging for submarines, with the sonar being heard for miles across the water. Camden could "30 knots , No Smoke!" all day , what an asset for the Navy from the battleship days. Lance Schoenbaum SMC(SW/AW) USN Retired.
What an amazing story. I love that guys who lived with these ships can come on here and share such a simple, but empowering tale. Thank you for your service and thank you for sharing
Yeah that'd be a bit of a shock for the sub crew. You don't often expect to have to engage an oiler that's faster than its escorts. No way even a diesel electric tin can could approach those speeds without making too much noise.
She woudnt make it past baton rouge, huey p long made sure of that in the 30s,when he put the bridge there,to keep all shipping on the Mississippi in Louisiana.
Story I heard is that when they were reactivating the Iowas they actually re-assigned some of the engineering crew from those oilers to help recommission the Iowas because they were already familiar with operating those steam plants and they could teach others how to run the plants.
Possibly, but it sounds doubtful. Steamship plants are broadly similar - there may be different turbine arrangements such as I.P. turbines in addition to H.P. and L.P., different reduction gearboxes, and so on - but nothing that would present a problem for a qualified and trained engineer . Each ship I served on was different - sometimes back pressure, sometimes de-superheated bled steam, even LNG fired boilers, but I received no additional training before going aboard them. The principles of operation were founded in theory that we'd studied at college, and so were quickly understood.
@@paulkirkland3263 In this case it was true the power plants from BB65 AND BB66 already built and put in new built oilers and on a side note where fast as hell and the new gun barrels from though unfinished ships were put in the older Iowa after the war they did make the best of all the new parts already made
@@fastone942 The machinery being transferred to the Camden and Sacramento is a matter of historical fact. My doubts lie in whether there was anything unusual about the steam plant that required engineering staff from those two auxiliaries to train their counterparts on the reactivated Iowas. There might have been some peculiarities, but overall, oil-fired steam turbine plant tends to be pretty generic. The engine room lay-outs will differ, but a day or two line-tracing with a torch and notepad will soon set you right on that. :)
@@paulkirkland3263 It's all Greek to me, which doesn't matter in the least, so long as the people who needed to understand - did. And it sounds like you are saying - it always was with steamship plants. Thank you for your service, sir, and your explanation, which if I ignored some of the terms was generally understandable. No specially trained person really can talk about their job without some of the most common jargon - it's just not done! Even in my line of work (when i worked).
@@julieenslow5915 What a thoroughly pleasant post. I did not serve in the USN - I am a British marine engineer, with most of my sea-going experience in steam ships ( three trips on motor ships, but we'll not mention those ). Yes, steam turbine ships, with water-tube boilers, are very similar as the basic principles are the same. Warships will differ from civilian ships because the demands are different, but really they only require familiarization rather than retraining. As an example, I went from a Bangkok-registered slops tanker in Singapore harbour to a liquefied-gas carrier running at high speed between Brunei and Japan - but no retraining needed, just on-board familiarization. The steam plant principles were exactly the same. :)
I would’ve loved to seen the USS Kentucky this is my home state. But my wife is from Wisconsin so if I ever visit the Wisconsin I could walk up front And stand on the USS Kentucky
The way I see it, there is still a piece of Kentucky still floating around on the Wisconsin. Still a shame the only thing named after the state is a lousy submarine.
One of the nick names for the battleship Wisconsin is "Wiskey" do to the fact the Kentucky's bow lives on as part of Wisconsin. I believe she is a little bit longer than her sisters.
They should use the Iowa’s as a template to make a new battlship with automated things to lower the amount of crew needed they would fit through the canal and get to a place quicker. The sight of them is intimidating. I love your content it’s is honest , interesting and very honest and spot on.🤘😎🤘🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸👏👏👏👏
Fitting through the Panama Canal isn't an issue any more. Panama built much larger locks for the supercontainer ships of today, and any of our supercarriers can do a transit.
Always interesting stories and history about the battleships. You mentioned the USS Nautilus in a comment. I toured that sub the year I toured the USS Massachusetts. Very interesting tour. I remember there was an actual crew assigned to the ship and the nuclear compartment is still classified today.
The USS Camden was my first duty station from 2001-2005 when we decommissioned her after a world cruise. Always loved the fact we had the heart of a battleship. After that I was on the USS Russel DDG-59 in Pearl Harbor. I got the privilege to look at the Missouri every day for 5 years just across the harbor. Unless I missed it, you should do a video on the Sacramento Class AOE’s.
My grandfather was a master welder in West Tennessee (Covington) at the beginning of WWII. He soon moved his family to Tampa Florida to work in the shipyards there, returning to Tennessee after the war.
Interesting about Sacramento and Camden. Many of us really appreciated these 2 ships being over in Vietnam. It meant that we only had to UnRep every 3rd day instead of 2 out of 3 days from the AOs and AEs. Sacramento was also there in April '69 when the North Koreans shot down an EC-121. We were alongside her for about 5 hours while she UnRepped other ships from her starboard side, St. Paul and Chicago among them.
When I was young I talked to my grandad about his experiences in the war. I remembered he said he worked at the Norfolk shipyard before he enlisted in the navy and that while he was there he worked on an Iowa class battleship. Years later I was looking at information on the 4 commissioned ships and none were built there so I wondered if maybe he was mistaken or I misheard him. Eventually I finally learned that was where Kentucky was being built.
Ryan, Two things my friend, first...have you ever considered enrolling in any Public Speaking Classes, you should...seriously. No disrespect Intended here, just educated observation from an English Major.....your stammering and broken/unfinished sentences in front of the camera does nothing but give the impression to the viewer that you're pulling all your information out of your kiester, PLUS, whoever is doing the choppy, unprofessional film editing isn't helping your cause either. Most Community Colleges offer some sort of Public Speaking / Advanced Public Speaking classes, it would improve your delivery. Secondly, the photo image you show of a black female and male while describing how the Navy went to an "all welded" vis riveted construction for BB-65 & 66 implies they are in the process of welding on the framing shown. This isn't so in this case, that is NOT a welders torch or "stinger" she's wielding, it is in actuality a "needle gun", which is a pneumatic surface scaling/chipping tool used to remove paint, rust & scale from metal surfaces in preparation for welding or painting. Bottomline: Whomever is doing your video filming and editing needs to get some training on how the professionals do it, theirs is sorely lacking...looks amateurish and "thrown together". Regards, M.A.Palmiere EMC(SW) USN(ret.) '75-'99 USS IOWA '83-'89
Just like the engines of Kentucky were used in other vessels, the engines from the carrier under development, USS United States, were supplied to the build of the passenger liner SS United States. The engines had been ordered and delivered well in advance of carrier lay-down. This is the reason the SS United States captured the cross-Atlantic speed record -- it had very powerful carrier engines in a ship that was largely constructed from light aluminum. For the gift of the engines, the Navy got dibs on use of the SS United States as a troop carrier, something it lacked during WW-2 and necessitated leasing the Queen Mary and other liners. The SS United States went out of service in the late 1960's due to competition from airlines who were now crossing the Atlantic in a few hours with jets. However, it sat at pier in Norfolk for many years and was never broken up because the Navy wouldn't permit it. It is currently at pier in Philadelphia where it has been for many years. Efforts have been made to do something with the hulk, like restore it to service or turn it into a floating hotel/restaurant, but nothing has ever come of those ideas, largely for excessive cost. It is a beautiful ship which was ahead of its time but with poor timing.
I knew Capt. John Tucker who commanded the SS United States in her last years at sea and for a while was caretaker at the dock. He told me they had two sets of props for the ship. They were swapped on a regular basis and one set could never match the other. The ship would loose about 4 knots with the slower set.
My Father was stationed at Brooks A.F.B. and went to the East Coast to obtain "battleship steel" to be used to encircle a human centrifuge to be used to train pilots and astronauts. The steel would form a barrier around the circular path of the centrifuge and would protect areas outside of the building should the centrifuge malfunction and break loose. He told me the steel he obtained came from the USS Kentucky. That was pretty interesting as my Grandfather was from Kentucky.
The USS West Virginia BB-48 should have been kept as a museum ship. She did something no Iowa class battleship ever did, she put the hurt on a Japanese battleship.
The Iowa class never even sank an enemy warship. Missouri and Wisconsin never saw enemy vessels, while New Jersey only sank a military fishing boat, while Iowa only sank the training ship Katori. People give Yamato a lot of flak, but hey, she sank actual warships, the escort carrier Gambier Bay and the destroyer Jonston specifically, something an Iowa class battleship never did.
My grandfather was on the Wisconsin when it collided with the Eaton. He was discharged shortly before the work was completed. He MOS was gunfire control of the gunfire control.
That is why the Wisconsin is the biggest Iowa class. Wisconsin is almost a foot longer than her sisters because of the Kentucky's added bow. That is maybe why they call her the WisKy sometimes.
It's unfortunate that Battleships Illinois & Kentucky could not be completed as guided missile ships since they would have been much more survivable than the WWII II era cruisers that did get such conversions like USS Little Rock and USS Boston. There was even the incomplete Super Cruiser USS Hawaii that could have been converted to a guided missile ship but was also never used for this program and wastefully scrapped.
Came down to costs. BBs are extremely labor intensive... far more than nuclear guided missile cruisers built 32 years later. Ships of that size, are intended to fight other ships of that size. There simply were no BBs after WW2, other than in maybe 2 or 3 allied navies. Nuclear power would not really show up for another 20 years. CB3 USS Hawaii, was closer to a battle cruiser, than a cruiser. 12" Guns of a Battleship, low protection of a cruiser. They were intended to hunt other cruisers, not protect the new carriers that were now the pinnacle of warfare after WW2. Few potential combatant nations even had ships of that size too. Even guided missile cruisers were still years away, and it was decided that the carriers (with longer 1000mile range strike capability) were more valuable than 20 mile range guns. Why spend money on a nearly 20+ year old hull (based on 1930s technology), that was not designed for missile launchers, verses Vertical launchers that were later put into Ticonderoga cruisers of the 1978-80s. Around 35 years later. It is similar to trying to put 1980s corvette engine into a 1948 chevy. Basically technology made the ship hulls like USS Iowa and USS Hawaii obsolete.. same as the HMS Dreadnought (1906) made pre-Dreadnought launched 1 or so years before it.. obsolete. It simply made it cheaper, and faster to build new Dreadnoughts, than rebuild Pre-Dreadnoughts. By 1914, nations had largely "reserved" their older ships.
@@jacobw446 it’s also cheaper to remove guns and turrets from an obsolete battleship to use as a testbed for missiles than it is to build a whole new ship around those same missiles. that ship isn’t going into battle, use it as a movable testbed and then retire it rather than spend millions on a test ship
@@bostonrailfan2427 I agree. The problem right now is the navy believes that it has to buy expensive, and experimental ships, enmass because the politicians of one party, refuses to recognize the need for funding the military vs welfare programs. So the Navy is afraid of not getting the budget LATER.
Even though Japan has a rich history in steel making, perhaps the newer welding technology, much thicker sections involved, and wartime shortages created too many limitations on their welded ships. It's known that the Yamato class BBs had substandard armor even if it was thicker that Iowa class ships.
@@davidb6576 Yamato's armor was only 5% less effective than British steel, the most effective battleship armor. Like, oh my god, a few millimeters taken of the effective thickness. That surely make's Yamato's armor equal, if not inferior the Iowa's armor
The "old" USS Illinois (BB-7) was decommissioned but still in use by the New York State Naval Militia as a floating barracks ship when the "new" USS Illinois (BB-65) was approved, so BB-7 had to be renamed (kind of like the original USS Texas (BB-1) which was renamed "San Marcos" and used as a target ship to make way for the USS Texas (BB-35). So the "old" Illinois was officially stricken and renamed "Prairie State" to make way for the "new" USS Illinois...which, of course was scrapped on the ways. As USS Illinois (BB-7), the "Prairie State" had been part of the "Great White Fleet." She was eventually scrapped in 1956...well after her proposed successor.
If we were to build a modern battleship, the foundries do not have the equipment to make the armor plates etc, all of that equipment was dismantled and or scrapped.
Illinois: We're like the rest of the Midwest, but we have a real city! Alternatively, Illinois: We're like Indiana, but not as much of a depressing shithole!
Hummm. I swear that when I was cross-polled on SACRAMENTO during RimPac 90 the engineers told me the plant was half of ILLINOIS' machinery, not KENTUCKY. Either way it was a very impressive plant, not the least being the 17ft diameter bull gear in the gearboxes with a telltale bulge in the gearbox case to cover it!
Welds have their place in shipbuilding but when they fail it's catastrophic for ships! The Liberty ships aka "Kaisser's Coffins" were infamous for weld failures and the hull just flexing too much. They finally had to put awful-looking bands around them to keep them from splitting! The Edmund Fitzgerald was purely welded. Earlier ore-carriers were riveted and they held up well in rough weather on the Great Lakes but according to a Fitzgerald crewmen who left well before the 1975 sinking the Fitz was showing signs of weld failures. I think the ship sank from poor maintenance (or lack of it; it sounds in retrospect like she needed a refit), bad construction methodology (she should have been riveted in the areas that flexed), and further stressing from re-rating the ship to care greater loads than what she was designed for! They broke up the Fitz's twin sister about 12 years after the sinking. The sister ship (SS Arthur B. Homer) had been extended (a refit that was intended to be carried out on Fitz along with maintenance that never happened) and I think they discovered some problems with the design. The sister ship was docked in 1980 and I don't think ever sailed again if I read and remember correctly. Sometimes, newer tech doesn't play out well. For the weight and drag penalties they impose, rivets can be better than welding in some cases. They still rivet in aviation, btw, and weight is even more critical in aircraft design! Speaking of new tech NOT playing out well, the EMAL catapult system in the aircraft carrier Ford still has bugs and that's been under development and testing for over a decade? And the US Navy wants to commission TWO MORE carriers with that system by the end of the decade? They were stupid not to include plans to install steam catapults in the second and third Ford-class carriers in case the system didn't work out in the Ford.
It's the same thing with bridges, especially railway bridges. Cyclical loading, heavy loads, poor welding details all lead to cracking. Especially in the steel bathtub style girders. Spans that are all welded tend to induce cracking. Welding details are hugely important in bridge design. We see a lot of cracks occurring in welded steel bathtub girder spans. A small crack at the end of a weld can propagates suddenly and without warning. In bathtub girders, you always need to carefully inspect for cracking where the internal braces connect to vertical gussest plates or intermediate stiffeners. The Vertical gussets need to go right to the bottom flange, welds need to be perfect and full penetration welds to the sides and bottoms of the bracing connection plates. And even then, you can get cracking. A lot of steel bridge spans from the 70's and 80's have fatigue prone connections. The beauty of bolted bridge spans is that there is just a bit of give in the bolted connections that you don't have near as many problems with cracking of steel.
I just saw another video where it was proposed to convert Illinois and Kentucky to anti aircraft battleships with 3 quadruple 8" gun turrets with the same rapid firing 8" guns that the Des Moines Class have. Do you have any more info on that?
There is a legend that because of the bow graft onto the Wisconsin, it actually came out 11-inches longer than her sister ships. Is there any substance to this tale?
One of the saddest museum ship losses occurred when the state of Oregon returned the USS Oregon BB3 to the US Navy. During WWII, it was stripped down to the hull, and served as an ammunition barge in the Western Pacific, then scrapped in Japan. I've wondered if one of the Montana class BB's would've been a replacement for the Oregon if the class hadn't have been cancelled.
I read somewhere that either Kentucky and/or Illinois was going to have an improved bulbous section to reduce drag and increase the speed up to 35 knots from 33 knots of the original Iowas. Is this true?
Technically there is just Nautilus and Constitution are owned by the navy but there are over 100 museum ships in the US hnsa.org will give you the full details.
@@BattleshipNewJersey Constitution isn’t owned, it’s still commissioned so that isn’t quite true. they hold the legal title as per international laws but it’s not the same officially, the Navy only owns the Nautilus, the X1, USS Utah, and the USS Arizona the latter two being owned out of permanent respect to those entombed in them
I think the profile view of the Iowa looks somewhat unbalanced with only one turret inn the back. It would have looked better with two in front and two in back.
The Panama Canal was not CRITICAL during the Korean Conflict. The BBs could've simply sailed the 'wrong-way' around to get to Asia. This is now a regular habit as all USN carriers are built on the East Coast -- and yet many are semi-permanently based in the Pacific. Nothing is truly permanent with oceanic ships as they can sail anywhere it's blue.
It's kind of funny when you hear that these 2 ships were cancelled due to the cost to finish them. (Quoted at 30 million dollars at 2:40.) Today, 30 million is nothing. I realize that I'm comparing 1945 dollars to 2021 dollars, but it goes to show you how things have changed. 30 million in 1945 dollars is 416 million today. 400 million is not a lot of money today. That's the cost of just 5 new F35s. It may be that even in 1945 (or even before) the navy knew that the age of the batleship was over. Bismark (crippled by WW1 biplanes), Turpitz, Yamato, Musashi all proved that air power was the future.
Not all of your followers are Navy or military. Some (like me) just love the Iowas and want to know more. That said - what are blisters? I'm sure what I am thinking of is not applicable!
Blisters are 'bulges' made of steel to create additional void (open) space on the flanks of the vessel added onto the main hull. The idea being to allow the torpedo to waste its energy on a portion of the ship that wasn't overly mission critical. Sure, it would have been rotten to have had to use it, but this way since there isn't anything particularly important in the added blisters they are somewhat expendable and keep the torps from exploding where the important stuff is inside the main hull and add additional buoyancy.
I forgot the link..sorry. Here is what they look like. Those proposed for the Iowas would have been much bigger and probably better steel.. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-torpedo_bulge#/media/File:HMS_Glatton_in_drydock_IWM_SP_2083.jpg
@@markmiller4971 Oh! OK. I retired from interior architecture. I can see that nautical design had a whole other level of issues - and I am not counting the multiple levels of issues regarding what a warship's primary purpose actually IS!
@@markmiller4971 It is such a horribly brilliant concept. Like a city with multiple rings of walls, all concentric to a castle or citadel, potentially including multiple moats, all of it fortified. As the outer ring is being breeched they retreat survivors into the next layer of safety. If done well and planned carefully, it worked for those cities. I'm guessing this version of it worked for ships too.
No, the numbers are assigned when the contracts for the orders are written up. The USS Wisconsin (BB-64) has a higher number than the USS Missouri (BB-63) even though the Wisconsin launched a month and a half earlier.
He has the content down pat, thats what counts. Id rather have a lot of steak vrs. Sizzzle not the opposite so to speak. Experience will smooth out his delivery.
