What Plans Were There To Improve the Iowa Class Battleships? 

me too 3rd div. what's his name?

Steve Grubbs was also aboard at that time

😂😂😂

that's just a smolensk with extra steps

Yes

I think that's a representation of the rather odd "Wedgamaran" hull design created by eccentric, yet brilliant polymyath, Hector J. Peobody

The Chinese would flee in terror at the New-Iowa!

Biggest problem would be self defense. I’d want nuclear power with backup gas turbines, and a couple of nuclear powered cruiser escorts.

Not really a good plan. VLS doesn't fit. And other ships and subs do the role.

@@WALTERBROADDUS As designed now, yes. Not a good fit. I’m talking if it was designed from the outset for it… Like the ship version of the cruise missile carrying 747 the air force once toyed with….

In today's jargon it would be more of an arsenal ship today. The funny thing about today's thinking, a battleship must be able to resist or be proof against all offensive weapons. Even before dreadnought no ships had absolute protection. The argument against battleships is flawed. A battleship is just as resistant to damage as the Ford-class and the Nimitz-class.

@@danielsummey4144 nuclear or CODOG. CODOG would be cheaper to build. I would also consider electric drive. This would allow one engine to power two or more shafts. Twin rudders is a must. Turn off the diesels run off the turbines and she could be sneaky quiet. Yes I have given this some thought over the years.

One of the reasons we designed "Surface Action Groups" around the BBs in the 80s - they were the HVU being escorted, and they would deploy alongside ARGs, as one of the Navy missions was (And still is) gunfire support for Marine amphibious assault.

About a third of the late WWII crew complement on US battleships was there to man the anti-aircraft guns. The 40mm and 20mm mounts were removed from NJ in 1968 and from the other Iowas in the 1980s, which is why the crew numbers dropped drastically. However, they were still very manpower-intensive ships since the 16” guns, 5” guns, and steam turbines still required a lot of men to operate them.

Check out the Texas, North Carolina, or Massachusetts then. Texas has the weird charm of being a WW1 dreadnaught gone full flackbarge. NorCal is probably the best BB museum I've been to, even if the area lacks much else to see. Also has a 1.1 inch Chicago Piano. Mass is a SoDak class with full late-war flackbarge AA. It's a nice ship, and the location is even better. Battleship Cove, USS Salem, Charleston Navy Yard, and USS Nautilus are all an easy drive from each other, plus Springfield Armory, New England Air Museum, and Boston in general.

@@MandolinMagi I've been on North Carolina. She's beautiful! I may to Massachusetts this weekend if I can trick the wife into it. I saw Iowa and Wisconsin at Philly in the early 80s but they weren't open for "tourists". I'm also planning to go see Salem.

@@johndougan6129 I've been to Wisconsin in the early 2000s at Newport news, but it was still in reserve and all you could do was walk around the main deck. Been meaning to go back now that its a proper museum.

Saw the Iowa this summer, the midway too. They are both in good shape in so cal. Texas is in for a refit, if she doesnt break when they tow her to fix her torpedo buldges. heres hoping she makes it.

@@worndown8280 Seen Midway years ago, great ship. Really hope they can fix Texas up, she's a wonderful bit of history

You're wrong, the nature of war at sea changed, and according to doctrine developed and adopted during WW2, the primary power at sea was air power, i.e. the aircraft carrier. There was no need for massively armored and armed giant ships such as battleships, because a cheap and small submarine/destroyer or an aircraft, or later - missiles, were becoming more and more precise and powerful due to advancements in technology, and could seriously threaten such huge capital ships. This danger, taken in consideration with the fact that it took a massive amount of time, money and manpower to build these battleships, sealed their fate as a class of ships.

@@s.majstorovic5598 In WW2 the aircraft carrier was weak and USN anti-air was a force to be reckoned with, incapable of delivering much firepower in comparison to Battleships. It took 8 aircraft carriers to sink the Yamato in nearly the same amount of time it took 2 Battleships to sink the Bismarck, and the CVs took more causalities at Ten-Go then Force H, which sustained no loss of life. Once Japan declared war on the US, they failed to sink a single US Battleship. At the Battle of Midway, the most elite formation with the most elite crew had their flagship CV destroyed by a single hit and their Fleet Admiral couldn't command until Nagumo found another ship. CVs were floating bombs, capable of long range destruction but unable to take the hits, a cheap and small submarine/destroyer or an aircraft could destroy them and a laundry list of carriers were lost in WWII. The massive amount of time, money and manpower to build these capital ships, these fleet carriers did not seal their fate as a class of ships because CVs were especially good at countering the Jeune Ecole style fleet the Soviets had. Submarines and light surface ships would have a devil of a time trying to avoid being harassed and hunted by aircraft. Forcing the Soviets to sail in large formations for mutual AA cover would defeat the concept of the Jeune Ecole and that suited the USN just fine. Against Soviet submarines and light surface ships, a Battleship would have nothing to shoot at expect perhaps port facilities and coastal targets. If for whatever reason, the Royal Navy and United States Navy went to war in 1945, Battleships on both sides would be used. Battleships were the hardest ships to sink so they'd make excellent command ships and they could deliver a tremendous amount of ordinance in a short span of time.

Back in the day they made so much off the cuff and by hand that it was too difficult to document it all. And that's what they probably did there. For another example see curious droid's video about the Saturn F1 engine it's kind of the same thing.

The plans were destroyed with Hillarys emails.

@@thoughtfulhistorytoday7214 Oliver North shredded them.

The Iowas were not but since my post was eliminated you will now never know who had them.

The changes to the torpedo defense Ryan described would not have extended that far forward. The structures matched up very well.

US fast BB: Looks at Kongo… Kongo: blows up.

@@loh1945 None of the US Fast BBs could catch up to a Kongo was the problem until the Iowas were completed.

The Kongo Class was originally a battlecruiser. Japan upgraded them to fast battleships during their reconstruction.

@@josephmichuda6447 Nah, they were still battlecruisers. They upgraded the turret armor somewhat (only to about 10”) and made some deck armor improvements, but they still only had an 8” main armor belt, which puts them firmly in the battlecruiser category. That won’t even stop 8” heavy cruiser rounds under 10,000 yards, as Hiei discovered.

@@bluemarlin8138 while she sank to the bottom.

The Interdiction Assault Ship concept for the Iowas was basically that. The rear turret was to have been replaced by a 320-cell VLS, as well as a flight deck for up to twelve Harriers.

Imagine a converted carrier with multiple 64 cell mk41 VLS fitted into flight deck into the hanger, from stem to stern.

One concern with building VLS into the hull is that you would have to remove the main armor deck and would have unarmored machinery spaces sitting right under a bunch of explosives. Removing the aft barbette might also cause structural issues. However, you could trunk all the engine exhaust into the first funnel, remove the aft funnel and superstructure, and construct a short lightweight superstructure above the main armor deck housing a bunch of VLS cells running from the first funnel to the rear of where turret 3 would be. That way a hit to the VLS cells wouldn’t doom the ship and you wouldn’t have to compromise the hull structure, but you’d still get as many VLS cells as a couple of cruisers.

It would have had to sit in mothballs for a few decades while someone got around to inventing VLS. We used swing arm launchers for about 20 years prior to the launch of the VLS equipped Ticonderogas in 1976. The first VLS-equipped surface ships didn't launch until the late 60's. Even more interesting is that about a decade after decommissioning the Iowas, the navy came up with VLS tubes that were able to be mounted around the periphery of the ship. So they could have gone all around the edge of the deck and covered the ship with VLS without removing any guns. If the navy had that technology in the 80's I bet the refit would have been substantially different. No box launchers, but perhaps dozens of 8-cell VLS magazines all down the length of the ship.

I believe it was the main engines for the first two Sacramento class ships came out of the incomplete Kentucky hull

Which shipyard? The only known alleged to be complete set of plans is scheduled to be destroyed.

@@colosseumbuilders4768 Norfolk Naval. At the time I was there they were in the process of digitizing the hard copies of the plans contained in the tech library. It was really cool to see some of these very old drawings on vellum. Some of them which showed the whole layout of the ship were probably 12 feet long.

@@johnjensen2217 You wouldn't know how to contact them, would you?

And the new ram jet projectiles. Watch out China!

The blueprints for BB-34 to BB-66 were sent to the US Navy Historical Warehouse in Memphis and appear to have been destroyed about 15 years ago.

@@colosseumbuilders4768 Wow, what a loss. Thank you for the reply.

I have this book and it is awesome! (I am a USNI member.. and they shipped this edition a month early. ) Be prepared though.. Friedman conveys an incredible amount of information in a very dense package!

You'd figure that and any removed 16 inch turrents

The Iowas didn’t really have topweight problems per se since they were large enough to absorb the WWII upgrades, but they might have been able to mount more AA guns without causing topweight problems if the armored conning tower were deleted.

Same here !!

The Japanese converted a few of their battleships into battleship-carrier hybrids late in the war.

Shinano was actually not as effective as other carriers, carrying a smaller flight group. Still, might have been much more survivable.

@@harrykoppers209 Would have been more survivable if A) she were finished construction; and B) they trained the Shinano's crew in fire and damage control. They failed on both counts and that ship's fate was sealed! The location of the Shinano's wreck is one of the last major mysteries of World War II naval graves unless rumors about her being located already are true. Who knows? With the scrap metal looting of WWII wrecks off the waters of several Asian nations it's possible the Japanese might want to keep the wreck location secret. Converting ships from one function to another during building doesn't seem to have ever worked out well in the end. The Forrestal class was compromised by deck layout and conversion to angled deck during building. They finally got the deck layout right with the JFK (CV-67). I'm convinced the deck layout is a large part of why the Forrestals were retired early. The USS Enterprise (CVN-65) in the end had a horrible compromise with being forced to use submarine reactors (8 of them!!!) instead of the 2 larger, more efficient reactors the Nimitz and Ford-class carriers used. The 8-reactor design probably sealed Enterprise's fate (no museum ship for a hull that drilled out like Swiss cheese to remove so many reactors) and I'm amazed they kept that ship in operation past the 1980s. They was supposed to be retired after 25-30 years use originally.

If I were Secretary of the Navy I would have to be careful not to get fired. The battle carrier looks like something the Marine Corps would love. Great sea control ship for air defense and anti submarine operations.. A whole lot of expensive capabilites in one very expensive to operate basket . A big war or the Cold War might justify doing it . Expensive. But it is good to have these ships operated a museums.

It would be a big target.

@@Inspadave - Especially for Mr. Putin's nuclear drone submarines that can travel near the ocean floor in all but the deepest parts of the ocean (making then very difficult to detect by sonar), then pop up and detonate with a yield of at least 2MT (value given in press conference).

@@tominiowa2513 Nobody said it would be a good idea...just that Congress decides them. Based on the politics of the past 50 years the reason could just be that the companies that made battleships need work.

Macks... absolutely disgusting

When the Union Pacific Railroad operated gas turbine powered locomotives, they originally used Bunker C and had to install heaters in the fuel tanks to heat the fuel to 200°F before it could be fed to the turbines. They later switched to No. 6 heavy fuel oil which was less dirty.

​@@VigilanteAgumon Iowas boilers also use fuel pre-heaters. As do all boiler-fired ships that use oil.

Extended range 5 inch and 16 inch were researched.

@@WALTERBROADDUS Excalibur isn't just extended range also improved accuracy.