I served aboard USS Saratoga during Desert Storm and afterwards Wisconsin returned home with us in our battle group. I can't begin to tell you how pleased I am to have seen her riding stately and sedately across the open ocean. What a sight. I spent all the time I could watching her cut the waves. One of my best memories of my Navy career.
I was in the Army and I should've joined the Navy. I'd have loved to have served on one of those and seen those huge guns firing. Heck, I'm still finding sand on me in places after that experience. LOL
Dude that must’ve been awesome. If BBs were around when I joined up I would’ve gone Navy for sure. Alas though the bad asses of the sea are no more and shall rest from now on.
Shortly after Iowa joined the fleet, my ship (Caron) did exercises off the Virginia coast with her. Among other things we did "Leapfrogs," one ship would assume and hold course like an oiler would and the other would do practice approaches and then hold station as if doing a refueling. The approaching ship would then apply full power and pull away from the "oiler." Of course we would show off, come screaming in and 'hit the brakes' in position as if to pass lines, then pull away with the gas turbines screaming like a 747 on a takeoff roll and pull away like a 7800 ton speedboat. Iowa would then make her approach, trundling in looking huge and majestic. They slid into position at least as well as we did though not as quickly because she was so much bigger and much more massive. During "breakaway" she rang up Flank power just as we had, but with only about 3 times the engine power that we had (212,000 hp vs 80,000 hp) didn't pull away as quickly. At the end of the exercise we did an unofficial race ("run for the barn.") Caron took an early lead because of our smaller size, but we maxed out at about 32 knots. About halfway to Chesapeake Light the Iowa came powering past us, smoke from both funnels, big bow wave and MASSIVE roostertail from her props behind, a 50,000 ton speedboat.
@@ut000bs Please note ... this was my First Person observation from when my ship conducted exercises with the Iowa. Iowa was nearly fresh out of drydock so her hull would have been relatively clean. Our speed was 32 knots when she passed us, I ESTIMATE her speed was around 34 knots. Like a lot of the supercarriers her escorts would have an initial advantage as it would take time to build speed, but in the end her top speed was greater than ours. Modern US destroyers and cruisers are limited in their top speed due to that massive sonar dome under the bow. You CAN go faster but you risk damage to the dome because it is a "rubber" water filled balloon. Iowa class ships don't have that although they DO have a bulbous bow that helps her hydrodynamically where the sonar dome doesn't.
I have teak from the original deck that was repurposed for interior trim on a small 34' searay including a commemorative plac stating it's origin. Did some digging and dates with timelines all lead to being true. Real Wisconsin deck wood. That boat is now long gone which is how it ended up with me. No one else I know seemed to think it was cool but me. I still think this 8"x18" piece of teak Wisconsin deck board is amazing, the stories it could tell.
I got to see the Wisconsin right next to the Enterprise in Norfolk Virginia in 1990. We were looking down at the Wisconsin and way up to the Enterprise. Very blessed to see these two side by side.
I understand why the Navy decided the Iowa's were no longer reasonable to keep, but it still bums me out that Wisconsin was written off in 2009. As a native Wisconsinite it was always a point of pride for me growing up, that Wisky was ready to serve if needed. For years after 2009 many people still thought she would come back or was still in mothballs.
I served on her from 87-91 we had about 50 select guys come on board from Wisconsin! I became friend with a few of those guys in 3 division. I always thought that guys from Wisconsin and Michigan were a very different breed of guys, seemed like they all had high pain tolerance:) Great times on this ship
Petty officer 3rd class Ellis here served deck third division 87-91 I fought one your marines during a smokers there in Pascagoula we ended up being friends after that match! Became good friends with your sergeant Steve Kraft I think was his name!! Your Gunny was always talking to me about switching over to the marines:) LOL lots of great memories
@@Brumasterj That's awesome, we had Reiger (I believe was his name) and Williams were our boxers lol. Sgt Kraft was a man of God. Gunny was good guy and hilarious. Going to visit her pretty soon. Good to hear from you
@@tykit9230 sgt Kraft and I would do bible studies when we was under way in turret 5. Him and I got ripped by y’all’s LT because he overheard me call Sgt by his first name! LOL Take care good to hear from ya
@@Brumasterj Amazing you mention that, I talked to Sgt Sherbert last night and he said he'd go there and talk to Sgt Kraft. Small world, small Navy and Corps!
I grew up in Norfolk and worked at NOB for a few years. I've seen some really cool stuff over the years. My high school prom was at the Nauticus where the Wisconsin resides.
Well it’s a museum now so I highly doubt it. I’m sure you were mostly joking and in a lot of ways I agree with you, but you might be interested to know one of the new subs is getting that name. About time if you ask me.
Great representation of power but just cost too much to operate these old girls! But we will give billions of dollars to other countries! I served on her from 87-91 great memories
Liking the look of the new teak. Burman teak is the way to go. Can't wait to get back onboard the Big "J" for encampments and to see the progress first hand. Also the chapel is forward where we have berthing, and although Wisconsin is in excellent condition, she still does not to my knowledge have a functioning Mk 8 Range keeper targeting computer or a nearly intact Combat Engagement Center or 4 CWIS units!
Wisconsin tour guide here: yeah, I am quite disappointed that we don’t have any of our CIWS anymore. When Wisconsin decommissioned, she had the most modern CIWS mounts of any of the Iowas so the Navy took them to use on other ships. A few years ago we got our original harpoon computers back for the CEC so I hope that we can get our 4 CIWS back someday.
Ah yes.... The ship that was hit with a North Korean shell and responded with a full 16" salvo vaporizing the artillery site. Its rumored one of her escort destroyers signaled to her "Temper, Temper" as they were egressing the area.
Many in the Navy AND the Marine Corps wanted to keep at least two in mothballs ... just in case. But by 1990 all four were over 40 years old with very few spare parts available for maintenance. Refits to bring them fully into the 1990s or 2000s would have been incredibly costly and frankly wouldn't have been worth the money because the ONLY job an Iowa could do that other surface combatants couldn't was the kind of NGFS (Naval Gunfire Support) that only 16" guns could do and that only within 15 to 20 miles of the shoreline. That said, we had Wisconsin and Missouri doing exactly that NGFS mission during Desert Storm while the Amphibious Group I was part of was planning landings in Kuwait and Southern Iraq. As we learned about the defenses the Iraqi Army was preparing I was openly wishing we had all four battleships available. To the disappointment of our Marines we were never called on to do any of those landings.
While serving at sea I had the opportunity to exercise with or operate in combat with three of the sisters, Iowa (in exercises,) Missouri and Wisconsin (Desert Storm) and was able to watch all three fire their main armament, the latter two firing on Iraqi positions.
@@acester86 Actually USS NJ and Iowa are the same length was Wisconsin because they are both Iowa class destroyers. So USS NJ and Iowa , and Wisconsin are pretty much the same length
@@BattleshipNewJersey sorry sir no myth! I’m a plank owner who served from 87-91 on her! That was the thing that was always preached to us that we were serving on the worlds longest Iowa class!
Great presentation… Solid info… Thank you for taking your time in doing this. Do you happen to know what the total cost was to build USS Wisconsin at the time it was put into service on December 7th 1943?
Sir, One possible video series could be to follow a single system throughout the ship e.g. sewage, fresh water, electricity. firemain etc. I enjoy these videos very much.
Your highlights of ship variation in a class is a normal thing.. was on a cruiser that had a flag stateroom and full crypto sweet. Not all did.. my carrier was a Forrestal class the Independence that class was interesting.. first two were converted to angle decks while building while the last two were built as angle decks.. one big change was 3 hanger bay sections were reduced to 2… also only Forrestal had a 600 psi plant the other 3 were 1200.. All had their unique features like our suspended gym and 9th generator added near the end..
@1:50 Nauticus says there is no record of a fire having taken place on the Wisconsin while in storage at any point in time, and the she was in the best material condition of the four when they were reactivated in the 80s. And the only mention of said fire I have found from a "credible" source (since I cant find the battleship book everybody seems to quote) is this 1981 www.csmonitor.com/1981/0527/052752.html article where in one sentence they say the Navy debunks the claim. Of course the internet is crazy place to try finding something specific; any place specifically you would recommend that we could look for this information ourselves? Would the Library of Congress hold the battleship repair records from their time mothballs or is this something we would need to search the military archives?
I just visited the Wisky yesterday. They need to come up and take some notes from you all. There is no flow for the self-guided tour and very little of the interior spaces are open. You can't go up on the bridge or into the engineering spaces or gun turrets. I was very disappointed!
A good guy I knew, Sylvester, served on the Constellation, and he told a story once, that the entered dry dock and while having their refit, a shipyard worker came aboard and was getting annoyed about not having a machine shop closer. He then started looking around, and declared “behind that bulkhead is the machine shop I’m looking for”. Sylvester replied, sir, I’ve been aboard for 5 years, and there’s no machine shop there. The guy says I helped build this ship, so get me a torch. Sure enough, he cut a hole thru the steel, and inside was the machine shop! Still packed in grease, brand new. The Connie was 25 years old when that happened.
That story has been around since (I think) WWII, at one point or another the ship was Essex, Oriskany, one of the South Dakotas, Iowa, New Jersey(!), and so on.
@@robertf3479: Except Sylvester showed us poloriodes of them cutting thru the bulkhead. His story, his truth, his service to America, which was 30+ years. It’s ok. I’m sure it happen many a huge warship. I guarantee, it never happened on a submarine.
@@TERoss-jk9ny Ah, but you see you didn't mention the photos ... that changes things a little, wouldn't you agree? I've never served in a carrier, or 'Bird Farm' as us destroyer guys called them. I was Atlantic Fleet.
Is the reversal of the store and the library among sister ships really a difference though? Isn't that basically just a matter of what you put on the shelves?
The ships boats have batteries and the turrets have battery backups but the generators don't store power like on a submarine. Its tied into the ships systems through a circuit board just like the turbogenerators or a home diesel generator. For more on the generators: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-2cVDdFuA9AY.html
I’m a bit confused now. In the video, Ryan said Missouri was bombarding Iraqi troops when they surrendered to Wisconsins drone. But I did a tour on Wisconsin a month ago, and they said it was Wisconsin bombarding them which lead to them surrendering. Which is the truth?
When I toured New Jersey in the fall of 2015 they were in the middle of a funding drive to gen up the cash to buy enough teak to replace all her wooden decking. The total bill was supposed to run up to about $7mil. 3" or 4" thick teak lumber is EXPENSIVE stuff!
I served on her from 87-91 and all the teal wood was all new. We had enough left over teak wood to probably cover 5,000 sq ft I remember a chief had all his deck hands take it off the ship and haul it to his house! When the captain found out they brought it all back and I think that chief never made it to Sr after that!
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.
I served on her from 87-91 and during GQ I worked the lower powder elevator! If I remember right it was actually a 30.06 round or primered round that ignited 6 110 bags of powder!
If your ever back in town Ryan and want a waterside view of her give me a ring, it’s more than impressive to say the least, we’ll even teach ya how to say Nofolk correctly 😂
I served on her from 87-91 and when we went to philly for dry dock repairs I got to go down below her keel, got some great photos of her front to back!
I was wondering if a Iowa class battleship or any ship of war happened to get close enough to the mainland for an Abrams tank to shoot a depleted uranium round at it what kind of damage it would cause Could a group of tanks pose any kind of a threat is out of a threat to a ship
The Iowa class BB's were designed to take a direct hit from a 16" shell, and Wisconsin took a shot from a Korean 152mm round. The most a tank round could do is superficial damage to unarmored sections.
It's oil-fired steam turbines, bunker fuel and steam plants are still A Thing in ships. IDK if any still use both , but you get a guy that knows turbines (nuclear propulsion works the same way, with a different source of steam) and a guy that knows bunker fuel (cargo ships and oil tankers still use it), they'd be able to figure it out, and navigation is ... easier than the giant ships your engineering crew are used to. For casting the shells, I'd think any mill that makes structural stel could spin up to cast the shell bodies without much trouble.
Likely a ton of documentation on the processes. I'm sure things have changed, but we had pretty good checklists to follow for every procedure in the late 90's, and you'd get your ass chewed if you didn't have that checklist in hand while doing said procedure. Probably a few old guys here and there that could be paid to be instructors, while not doing any of the work.
North Koreans fires one shell that caused no damage except a hole in the wooden deck Uss Wisconsin so you have chosen annihilation fires a full salvo that would have pushed her 4 feet away from original position After words her escort uss buck radioed temper temper
