The USN sold off a bunch of their stockpiles of those 16 inch powder bags starting back in the late 50's and continued until the early 60's, I know of several people who bought the bags and then reground the black powder down to FFFFg, FFFg, FFg, and Fg sizes, reapplied graphite and then sold it in bulk to Black Powder shooters. My father, being a competition back powder shooter, bought and stored well over 500 lbs of it over a few years time and had them stored in numerous different powder magazines among his rural properties. When I began to get serious about shooting in the 90's, I shot that powder made for the USN in the 40's for the first 3 or 4 years, this after he had been using it since the late 60's going through around 50 lbs a year. To this day, I have yet to be able to find a more consistent shooting powder for matches than that old DuPont reground stuff.
@@tabcreedence6553 Unfortunately he had bought it already ground down and sifted. I heard stories of the size of the grains but never saw one myself. I do however still have a bunch of dads old DuPont powder cans that some of it was stored and shipped in. Very cool pieces of history.
It absolutely amazes me that this amount of engineering was possible over 100 years ago. Not this ship specifically, but the basic operation since WWI ships.
Yeah like how did we have fully functioning massive guns on ships since early 19th century but never came to the idea of tanks or armored vehicles until ww1???
I’m not an engineer, but comparisons were made between the 16 and 18 inch guns. Both had their advantages and disadvantages. At the end of the day though, it’s not always about the size of your guns but rather what you do with them😉
I am just stunned by the level of engineering and precision in these gun systems... no CAD, no calculators, just a pencil and a slide rule, and the skill of the men manufacturing these parts....I suddenly feel inadequate as a man in 2023....
They actually did have calculators, mechanical ones. Real fascinating devices. They also had abacuses. For example, the IJN calculated their fuel usage using an abacus. You might also like @machinethinking here on youtube, they talk about how people in the past made precise things.
For those wondering about 16"/50, it means that the gun diameter is 16 inches ( " is the symbol for inches) and that the barrel is 50 diameters, or 800" (66' 8", or ≈ 20m) long. So a 14"/50 gun would be 14 inches in diameter and 700" (58' 4", or ≈ 18m) long, and a 16"/100 gun would be 16 inches in diameter and 1600" (133' 4", or ≈ 40m).
During Desert Storm, I was the naval gunfire liaison officer for 1stBn/1stMarines Taskforce Papa Bear and had Missouri (BB-63) firing in direct support for me. I have some 16 inch shrapnel which I dug out of a 20' deep hole at Kuwait Airport.
(and I'll tell you a little secret. on Iowa at least, with the exception of turret #2 which was destroyed in an explosion accident, the other six guns are fully operational in the sense they have not been de-activated in any way)
My Dad was a Gunners Mate on the Missouri for a reserve cruise in 1945-1946. His duty station was in the Gun House for the #1 Turret. We had the opportunity to go inside the Gun House when we toured the MO when we visited Pearl Harbor. I have observed the firing of a 16" at the Naval Proving Ground in King George, Va. (Now NSF Dahlgren). And I have physically stood beside a 16" projectile. There is no question, I would not want to be anywhere near the impact zone of one of those projectiles.
Fingers? Try your whole spine, get your shoulder blade caught under that breach as it returns to firing position and your done! "SWABBY WITH A MOP TURRET 2!"
Really incredible the amount of analog mechanized steel that was mobilized during that war, the scope of manufacturing this beast and then the whole operation of it is just unreal
The gun directors are amazing. First, there are the enormous gyrocompasses used to determine the ship heading, then an almost unbelievable amount of analog electromechanical computers for doing ballistic equations to determine where the guns should be pointed to make the shells fall on target. And I've heard/read that at the extreme ranges of the guns the shell spin rate and Earth coriolis (spinning) effects were included, though I don't have any definitive references for those claims.
THOMAS81Z That's a very good question. They did inform us that the powers was from the 1940s and could be unstable. In other words, Don't drop any bags. In the explosion on the USS Iowa was proof that it was a bad decision to use the old powder (they are actually little pellets about the half the size of a AA battery.) What I know now, I'm so lucky that I didn't die firing off many practice rounds and a few in the Persian Gulf.
Captain Jack Such unstable old powder was a very unacceptable risk. In a way, the Iowa was 'lucky' to have the powder go off in the turret. Imagine what would happen if it went off in the magazine instead.
Jonathan Tan Actually it was safer to be in the magazine because the powder was chilled. The magazines were refrigerated and compartmentalized to prevent the spread of fire. So one magazine could explode killing who ever was in there, but that would only be the one mag. What you didn't see in the film was the other layer of shuttles. There is another wall and a set of shuttles. The guys in the mag would grab a bag and load it into the shuttle. Then a second guy on the other side would take that bag from the shuttle then load it into the next one. Then a third guy (which you see in the film) pulls the bag out of the shuttle and loads the bag into the car. So other than dropping a bag, we were relatively safe. Loading of the gun is the most dangerous area because of the force put on the bags by the ram and the possibility of hot embers inside the gun. Each time the gun is fired it's cleaned out with compressed gas (CO2 maybe?) and it's ready for the next load. In the 1940's the ship's turrets were designed to reduce the number of deaths if an accidental burn happened. Remember the ships were built for war time and that itself is risky. Today we are getting close to being able to send robots (Drones if they are aircraft) into the battle field. I think in the next 10-15 years, we could fight a war without humans going into the front line. The day of boots on the ground are obsolete.
Was a US Navy Fire Control Tech in Nam. Had the dubious distinction of being a Gun Fire Support Spotter in Nam. Had an occasion to call in fire from the USS New Jersey. They let loose with a staggered salvo of 3 16” on a bunker I called in . I wasn’t very far from the impact point. The sound of 3 Cadillac size projectiles yards away
I just went on a tour of the uss Wisconsin bb 64 where the loading chamber is there is a red line painted on the side wall on both sides of the room I also read that it was about 4 feet back but considering that you're shooting a 2500 lbs + shell backed by 500-660 lbs of powder it'd make sense that the recoil would be considerably large still gives me alot of respect for anyone who was aboard these ships
This video was edited at 6:54 - the portion related to the closing of the breech was deleted, what are they trying to hide? April 19th related by chance? Closing the breech is kind of important. Why would you cut that out of a training video???
Throughout the armed services, that's what constant practice drills are about. It becomes ingrained, a literal part of you. You could think the same thought about firefighting on a ship. You have done things thousands of times in practice, and when the real thing comes along it is almost, though not exactly, just like another drill. The tell is the announcement "This is not a drill !" I had been home from 'Nam for about a year, and driving down a busy street I came upon an accident. A girl running across the street had been hit by a car. I did not see it happen, but cars were still pulling to the curb. That's when training kicked in. I was on complete autopilot. People were standing around her (she had an obvious broken leg) not knowing what to do. I started the first thing, doing as much anti-shock0 things as I could, like getting her covered and barking orders about calling police and ambulance. Police were there quickly and I immediately got out of the way, helped a cop put out some road flares, and faded away. As I drove away, I was thinking "where the hell did that come from?" Before the arrival of the cops, not a single thing I did was a voluntary decission/action, all fully automatic.
Easy to see in this video how the IOWA suffered that fatal overram back in 1989 which set off the turret explosion. There are no separate settings for ramming the projectile and ramming the powder.
Very informative clip on turret operation. Even though as a battleship buff, I had a pretty gd idea on how battleship guns worked, it was still mind boggling to actually see how incredibly complex it was to fire a major calibre gun. Not hard to imagine how easy it would be for the whole system to break down because of its complexity. Many thanks for the great upload.
My son served on the Missouri during the Gulf War. He said to experience a full broadside was like none other. The concussion knocked him flat on the floor on the O-11 deck!
daniel moran very true, especially if consider that everything down to the most insignificant detail was done with the slide rules but what really amaze me is that the engineers included in the project also the enormous pressure and heat expansion! I find it amazing....
Oh yeah, just have a look at the design blueprints for the iowa and her gun turrets, then take a second to remember that those blueprints were made with nothing more than a slide rule and brainpower.
Supposedly, the Iowa's explosion was the result of high-speed ramming of unstable powder to the projectile position. It happened during a training exercise off Puerto Rico. When it happened I was riding out to the battle group in an ERA-3B Skywarrior, on my way to play little games with everybody's radar.
They system was really very safe. Most likely the Iowa incident was either an over ram or a mis handling issue. The only 3 explosions the Navy ever had with its Battleships were Iowa, and 2 on the Mississippi. Both of which were different situations. For the 16" guns, they were on 3 Colorado class, 2 North Carolinas, 4 South Dakotas and 4 Iowas.....tens of thousands of rounds fired with only one mishap like that, ever.
I was thinking they added a wet wipe ramming step in there to extinguish any smoldering residue that would cause a premature detonation. Not sure though.
I could NEVER be assigned to work inside of one of those gun turrets! Im far too claustrophobic to be inside of one of those beasts! MAD RESPECT for those men for what they did and more so given wartime footing. God Bless them ALL!!
H ? That’s why they would put you in a claustrophobic position to break you free of that claustrophobia.. the military in it’s entirety is literally 95% small spaces lol.. thanks to my military years i can now successfully sleep standing up
@Andre McGoo what the fuck is wrong with you that you feel the need to insult a random stranger on the internet like that? Be a better person yourself.
Actually, those 16" turrets you see are at least half the size of a house. Besides, when you're on a firing run, you don't really have time to think about anything other than getting the next round into the chamber.
Except in BFG, makro cannons are shooting projectiles in the tens of tons or higher class, using hundreds of sailors to haul them around. Also, Torpedoes are the size of small skyscrapers. It's just borderline bonkers, 40k...
Global hawk... bah Shooting a projectile that is about the same weight as a VW on to a target at ~25 miles is pretty fucking hip no matter what year it is or what year it may be.
***** Of course, when they designed it there were no micro computers. The computer they used is called a slide rule. The VW was around then so that is why I mentioned it. Many sailors will use that vehicle as an example of the projectile weight.
***** We did have computers onboard to fire the guns. They were mechanical like swiss watches. They were about the size of a washer machine you have at home. They had little glass windows so you could peer inside and watch all the gears move as it did its computations. As the ship rolled it would even keep the guns level to the horizon. It was pretty amazing to watch it do its thing. I was a computer programmer when I left high school (1984) hopping to get a job programming computers in the Navy. The only computers I could find that needed programming where Zerox 860's in the supply department. The only other computer onboard was the Snap II and it was also used for supply functions.
RooFx Yeah it was freaking awesome. We could hit a target the size of a football field from 26 miles away. We could get the shot between both gold posts. Oh something you haven't seen. We even had colored shells. They were for demonstrations. The shells would explode releasing colored dyes into the air. We even made three shots of Red, White, and Blue explode in the ocean. We also had orange, green and blue. So why do colored shells for demos? It was a deterrent. Our world cruise had one purpose. To show the world we have big boom sticks! So don't mess with us. The USS Missouri was just a big showboat. Well it worked. The cold war remained cold.
+Captain Jack The colored shells were developed back in the days when battleships were intended to fight in a line against an opposing line of battleships. Each US battleship was assigned a different color for its shells so that when observing shell splashes they could tell which salvos belonged to which ship so that the right corrections could be sent to fire control. Otherwise the potential was for mass confusion trying to figure which shell splashes were your shell splashes. I remember reading back in 1968 when the New Jersey was recommisioned for Vietnam how they didn't replace the old mechanical/analog gunnery computers with electronic digital ones because the speed and accuracy of the old ones were so good that going digital would not have been an improvement. Of course, that was back in 1968 when almost all computers were huge main frames that were far far slower and far far FAR more stupid than any smart phone.
Yes, we have her here in Camden NJ. I took the tour and got into the gunhouse of one of the main batteries. At the time you couldn't get any further than that. There might be more areas opened to the public now. A word of advice: if you should decide to visit BB62 in Camden, don't stray beyond the waterfront tourist area as this city is a cesspool of criminal activity.
About 1200 shells and 7500 powder bags. Equates to about 130 rounds per gun. Shells weighed 2700 lbs (AP) and 1900 lbs (HE). A full charge of powder was 660 lbs.
If you want to see the hardware for real, a good example is the Battleship North Carolina (BB-55) kept as a museum ship in Wilmington, North Carolina, USA. There is a self-guided tour path that goes through mess, galley, crew quarters, machinery spaces (including steering), c-and-c, some electronics, the turret houses (with views into the gun pits), the 16-inch gun turret ammo handling rings, 16-inch powder handling and storage, and officer quarters and working spaces. If you like that kind of thing, it is really accessible and immersive. I have never experienced any pressure to move along. I understand that they have or have had occasional stay-aboard experiences, but have never tried them. If that involves the use of the heads (which are also part of the self-guided tour path), no thank you.
After HMS Rodney had fired over 200 16 inch shells at the Bismarck it was found that there was not one unbroken piece of crockery in the whole of the ship
Hey Guns, You are 100% right. I have seen the rammer controls on the USS NJ and they are just like you described and shown in the video. I can see if your pucker factor went up you could make one heck of a mistake. Now, I'm a bird farm sailor (Former USS America when she was CVA66) and a rate which no longer exists (RM1) but the NJ really impressed me with her capability. Personally, I would have enjoyed being in a turret for at least one shoot (without the scared GMG2) ;-)
this is nearly 80 year old tech and its still impressive. makes me feel, that we didnt made much progress.. to me, this feels like, we had the mp3 in the 50s already and the only progress we made, was improving the codec to be even more loseless
I walked through a 16'' turret, projectile rooms & powder room of the North Carolina (BB-55) in Wilmington. It's fascinating to see here how those guns were operated. The Iowas had greater speed and presumably greater protection.
It was rather boring. We practiced a lot with dummy loads. What got our adrenaline running was the threat of being fired back upon and what would that feel like. We always joked about holding sweepers after being hit with a few missiles. Combat in the Gulf was laid back on the ship as we had tons of armor and we could take out many targets very quickly overpowering the enemy. We joked about going on the aft deck getting a suntan and drinking beer while taking out a few targets. It was very laid back to say the very least. :)
The USS Missouri BB 63 was not in WW2 until Jan 1945. The older battleships & older cruisers did the majority of the Island bombardment in the Pacific. My dad who is 92 years old now was a S1c on a 20 mm twin mount on the USS Louisville CA 28 which had 13 battle stars for her WW2 service. I toured the mothballed USS Missouri BB 63 and saw the USS New Jersey BB 62 in Bremerton, Wash. in 1978.
USS IOWA entered service 22 Feb 1943. USS NEW JERSEY entered service 23 May 1943. USS MISSOURI entered service 11 June 1944. USS WISCONSIN entered service 16 April 1944.
The unsung heroes of the Amphibious landings. For all the ooh ahh of the Marines, without naval gunfire they'd have been pretty well screwed. CAS was a fair weather game back then, and nights were out. When a shoreline has to be blown to hell anytime, anyplace and in any weather, naval gunfire rules the day
@@traveller4790 After trials off New York and shakedown and battle practice in the Chesapeake Bay, Missouri departed Norfolk, Virginia on 11 November 1944, transited the Panama Canal on 18 November and steamed to San Francisco for final fitting out as fleet flagship. USS Missouri first saw action in Feb - March 1945 - Iwo Jima and April - June 1945 - Okinawa. She did not enter the Pacific until Nov. 1944 and did not see action til 1945.
@@tonytrotta9322 She entered service on 11 Jun 44; that's the date she was listed on the Navy's Roster of Active Vessels, and that's the date that she entered wartime service. And with that, I'm done.
@@traveller4790 She did not enter the Pacific until Nov. 1944 and did not see action til 1945. (3) battle stars - check the other ships for WW2 service battle stars and war ended Sept. 2, 1945.
Absolutely fascinating, the engineering of these wonderful pieces is phenominal. Hopefully there are some still in existance (now missiles seem to have taken over) that are there for people to see.
@@derekstocker6661 All 4 Iowas preserved. 2 South Dakotas, the Alabama and Massachusetts. 1 North Carolina, the NC herself. Also the WWI era USS Texas is preserved. She fought in both wars.
Also imagine being in full combat knowing that a bomb could crash thru the deck over your head at any moment, or a torpedo could leave you sealed in a room rapidly filling with water. Fuck that.
@@mcallenbell2279 A bomb isn't getting through that armor. The South Dakota had a bomb hit the top of its turret in WWII. Didn't hurt the turret all. A torp isn't getting through the armor and flooding the magazine, either. There's the outer hull with 1.5" of STS armor, torp will hit that, then there's a void, then there's the 12.1" of side armor. Torp will hit the outer hull and put a hole in that, flooding will be contained in the void area.
The analogue fire control computer is amazing, it's so awesome to see without those guns would not have been so effective in battle, I saw one of those analog computers on board HMS Belfast a museum cruiser tied up in river Thames in London.
@Cobradriver99...you forgot the noise. I've seen car alarms a mile away from a blank firing 20 lb smoothbore bronze field piece set off. That was only 5 lb of black powder!!!
@@RaulBailey I was just going to write that basic junior high school grammar rule. Now we know who was pulling Peggy Sue's pigtails and throwing spitballs in class.
Just got home from visiting the USS Iowa. It’s an amazing ship and in my opinion a vital role in US Naval history. There’s only one thing wrong....these damn RAdm and above still think a battleship is a bad idea... I disagree, I could have used a lot of the firepower of one of these when I was in Kosovo in 1999, Iraq 2003-2008 and if it was possible Afghanistan from 2011-2014. Now that I’m retired, I can only say that as a Marine, this is what the Navy really needs in its Arsenal. Why not build a modern version of one? Less people to operate and quicker? Ok, so it costs a lot.....then why decommission my ship I spent a lot if time on....USS Bonnehomme Richard.... Semper USMC / Retired
Nice! I am making a short film about the "Battle of Samar" one of the biggest Naval battles in History. using this as a reference on how japanese navy men load on the Yamashiro and the Yamato.
Did you do those wonderful "from the Japanese perspective" videos? Those were really great and accomplished so much with so little. Hats off to ya', if you're the one.
Very interesting short film; the complexity of firing a weapon of that size is nothing short of amazing. Of course, some of the comments are the exact opposite of complex...more on the order of moronic.
It's a training film. It has simplistic descriptions that 30's and 40's farmboys needed to ease into learning the complex technical and geometrical mathematics inherent in naval gunfire.
Just living and working in those conditions is difficult enough. But imagine adding the stress and fear of combat. Knowing that if an enemy shell gets lucky, that turret is now your coffin. Imagine being down in the powder room. Some 30 feet below the waterline, tons of powder all around you. The courage of those men was incredible.
When you work as a close knitted team, when the team spirit and morale is high in the heat of battle there is no time to fear, just to do your assigned duty as soon as possible, to get max output, and finally victory.
You are behind the thickest armor on the ship. The turret faces were 19.5" thick. Nothing was getting through those. The barbettes were 17.3" up top tapering down to 11.6"below, and down below there was also 12.1" of side armor to contend with before a shell got to the barbette. VERY unlikely a shell was going to penetrate in that location. But the time this training film was made, there was no gun in service that could do it.
@@SealofPerfection Okay, then a torpedo or something else that causes damage. My point was not about armor thickness, my point was the courage of the men fighting in that environment.
@@valuedhumanoid6574 Oh, I got it, just saying that they were in probably the safest place on the ship. For the guys down below the waterline, the armor still protected them, there was no danger of a torp reaching them, either. It's not impossible that a long-range, plunging shot could penetrate and blow up the ship, but those were very rare. When you've trained for months or years and you're in action, you're just doing your job at that point, not even thinking about the danger. You're young and confident in your ship and never think it could be destroyed. So in a way, I guess that IS the courage you're talking about.
@@oldfatandtired6406 yeah but this is not a fair statement since the Yamato was sunk by US torpedo bombers. Not much it could have done against those with its main guns. Which of course once more showed what everybody knew by then: The age of the battleship as the master of the seas was over, the aircraft carrier had become king. A one-on-one engagement by the against a US battleship, without air support, might have been a different story, but that's purely academic. The Missouri or Iowa, all alone against superior air power would have had "their asses handed to them" just as well, as you put it.
+anthony runkel Uhm, the Iowas did get modern upgrades. I KNOW they did get equipped with cruise missiles and I can't see them without the CWIS, which would be great for anti-missile defense. Oh, and an Exocet missile would barely dent the armor of an Iowa class. I remember the Captain of one of those behemoths talking about it during a news segment. The battleship's original role of sinking other capital warships has fallen by the wayside. IF the Iowas are ever called into service again, they'd be used for shore battery, cover for infantry along the coast and as a cruise missile platform. THAT'S the strength of the Iowas, they can loiter off the coast indefinitely providing heavy gunfire to support infantry. Aircraft can't supply IMMEDIATE close support and can't loiter 24/7.
Completely wrong. During Desert Storm there were fears about the Missouri hitting mines and sinking her. Modern shaped charge anti ship missiles may not sink a battleship but would completely render them combat ineffective. Which is essential the same as sinking one. If it was for a hail Mary from a British ship shooting down an incoming missle in the Persian Gulf we would have seen what happens when a battleship gets hit by a missle.
Amazing film. - For those who like to argue that the USN had super-advanced technology during 1941-45, they did, but not much more than everyone else. It was very good. But, as for the insistence amongst some that these ships had an effective & workable 'live balancing' feature built into the gun-laying system - *they did not* and the sequence at 7:42 shows this clearly: Whilst 'continuous aiming' may have been the ideal from BuOrd's perspective - and while the fabled 'stable vertical element' is cited by many as a gun stabiliser - the truth of the matter is shown here; the guns are locked in at the firing angle and as the horizon moves in relation to the ship, so it moves in relation to the gun barrels. A phenomenal mechanical achievement, the entire gun and fire control system built into these ships, but the guns fired on the roll and did not oscillate relative to the deck in order to stay pointed at the target as the ship rolled. USN crews obviously found the older method much more practicable, for whatever reason. Superb footage.
You're wrong on almost every count. The IOWA class has a combination of armored and unarmored rangefinders. The fast battleships have absorbed major hits to their turrets with no ill effect. Carriers are irreplaceable. But battleships can still perform missions that carriers can't, at much lower cost. And, despite your implications, they are much tougher, more survivable than any carrier.
They are more survivable from shelling and bombing eg death from above.. but BB's are no different from CV's when it comes to floating on water and hull design. Anti Ship Cruise Missiles and Torpedoes will take em both out just as easily, the BB's aren't stronger or tougher then CV's in that respect. Since hardly anybody is doing Sea battles with dive bombers or artillery.. I'de say the BB's as such are way to big for what they can do this day and age, they just present a bigger target then they are worth. The guns lack the reach out and touch capability that the planes do have.. sure they can add Cruise missiles.. but a frigate can carry those cheaper with less crew.. and represent a much smaller target.
Die schon auf Kiel gelegte "Kansas Klasse "hätte vier Drillings Türme 40,6cm L/50 Mark 7 gehabt, aber durch das ende des 2.Weltkriegs wieder abgebrochen. Die 16 Zoll/Inch Granaten (40,6cm.)hatten als Panzersprenggranate ein Gewicht von 2500 Pounts =1224 Kg.und eine Reichweite bei großer Ladung von 25 Meilen/40 Kilometern,und waren mit Torpex einem super Sprengstoff gefüllt, mehrfach stärker als TNT pur,und deswegen wie Tests nach dem Krieg ergaben, viel Effektiver als die 18 Zoll/Inch (45,7cm.)aufgebohrte 46cm.mit 1420Kg. der Yamato Klasse deren Geschosse nur mit TNT gefüllt waren sowie eine schnellere Feuergeschwindigkeit. Dennoch wäre ein Zweikampf dieser Giganten auf Hoher See alleine, ohne Flieger und U-Boote sehr Intressant gewesen. Habe mich oben geirrt, meine nicht die Kansas Klasse, sondern die "Montana Klasse " !
Out of curiosity, once the shell and propellant charges were rammed into the breech, what would happen if there was no order to fire or the target was neutralised ? Is there a way to unload or extract the bags and shell, same with a dud charge or failure to fire?
squeak83uk2 They would aim the gun into a 'safe' direction, and fire. It's *exceptionally* dangerous to even attempt to unload a shell from one of these guns, so it's best to just waste a shell... you can always get more shells and powder bags.
+Jonathon “Tank50us” Davonger That is correct. However, if the projectile was an inert round used for training (BL&P), then it could be removed from the gun by using a "backing out rammer". This was a large hunk of steel that was loaded into the muzzle. First the powder bags were unloaded. Then a heavy cushion was placed in the breech for protection. Then the gun was elevated to the max. The rammer slid down the barrel and impacted the inert projectile, dislodging it from the gun. It would travel about 15 feet until it hit the breech. Then the breech was opened and the projectile was unloaded from the gun. This process was ONLY used for inert "Blind Loaded and Plugged" BL&P projectiles.
Your right draco, all these can be done, but for sheer naked brutal power I would not want not to be on the recieving end of these guns, stay clear.................30
Even tied up in dock and serving as a museum these battleships project awesome power. I am convinced that we should have retained one or two for show of force. Aircraft sitting on a carrier simply do not have the same fear factor as a big naval rifle pointing right at you!
Not to a layman, no. But to experts and actual military considerations it does the opposite. It would make you like a fool. A fool who cares more about image than substance ... perfect for today's fascist no? Maybe our former president would have supported such a "brilliant" idea. Aircraft sitting on a carrier are what experts fear and rightfully so. Aircraft taking off and landing is a lot scarier than a museum ship that won't ever fire again. Only fools and children would think we need more weapons of intimidation when our weapons can already kill anything from the other side of the planet.
Unless the carrier deck is destroyed which is easier than it is to destroy a Battleship main gun. If the carrier deck is taken out, then the planes quickly become inert for battle unless there is another carrier or land runway in the area. The Battleships also had redundant controls that were fully internal in the ship.
The USS Alabama has a working hoist with shell and you actually can hit the lever to raise and lower it but when you look at the bottom of the shell there was nothing bracing it from the bottom.
I have visited the USS Alabama and seeing these monsters in person is simply unreal. What I found really interesting was most of the barrels on these were made in Germany
I've on the USS Alabama as well. It's absolutely insane how big these ships are and how intricate they are with the incredible amounts little machines, levers, and all other types of mechanical things are all over these monsters from top to bottom. How did those men know exactly what each thing on the ship did? Just mind boggling that technology was that sophisticated 80 years ago
When the USS Iowa had the misfire all you see on the video is the boot sealing between the gun and turret blow off. I've always wondered how deep that explosion got into the turret itself as 47 men died in the explosion.
The USN sold off a bunch of their stockpiles of those 16 inch powder bags starting back in the late 50's and continued until the early 60's, I know of several people who bought the bags and then reground the black powder down to FFFFg, FFFg, FFg, and Fg sizes, reapplied graphite and then sold it in bulk to Black Powder shooters. My father, being a competition back powder shooter, bought and stored well over 500 lbs of it over a few years time and had them stored in numerous different powder magazines among his rural properties. When I began to get serious about shooting in the 90's, I shot that powder made for the USN in the 40's for the first 3 or 4 years, this after he had been using it since the late 60's going through around 50 lbs a year. To this day, I have yet to be able to find a more consistent shooting powder for matches than that old DuPont reground stuff.
Thanks for that cool story!
Great story 👌🏼
I’m astonished that was ever legal!
Outstanding! Hope you have a few of the original large cylinder shaped grains around just for nostalgia's sake. Very cool
@@tabcreedence6553 Unfortunately he had bought it already ground down and sifted. I heard stories of the size of the grains but never saw one myself. I do however still have a bunch of dads old DuPont powder cans that some of it was stored and shipped in. Very cool pieces of history.
It absolutely amazes me that this amount of engineering was possible over 100 years ago. Not this ship specifically, but the basic operation since WWI ships.
Yeah like how did we have fully functioning massive guns on ships since early 19th century but never came to the idea of tanks or armored vehicles until ww1???
@@Jan_._. they had ideas, but until internal combustion engines became practical they couldn’t build them. Can’t put a steam engine on a tank
Just think how the Japanese had guns that were even bigger than these.
@@clacicle
Bigger guns doesn't equate to more advanced engineering.
I’m not an engineer, but comparisons were made between the 16 and 18 inch guns. Both had their advantages and disadvantages. At the end of the day though, it’s not always about the size of your guns but rather what you do with them😉
Knowing the broad strokes of the process to get a gun loaded now it seems like a miracle that it could fire once every 30 seconds
Training and adrenaline does that
It's hard but simple, press button, shell in gun, press other button (DO not press first button, or go boom boom)
Close breech, FIREEEEEEEEE!!!!!!
I am just stunned by the level of engineering and precision in these gun systems... no CAD, no calculators, just a pencil and a slide rule, and the skill of the men manufacturing these parts....I suddenly feel inadequate as a man in 2023....
They actually did have calculators, mechanical ones. Real fascinating devices. They also had abacuses. For example, the IJN calculated their fuel usage using an abacus. You might also like @machinethinking here on youtube, they talk about how people in the past made precise things.
Remember, at tat time Americans were Americans. Before America's Democrat enemies replaced it with "diversity".
For those wondering about 16"/50, it means that the gun diameter is 16 inches ( " is the symbol for inches) and that the barrel is 50 diameters, or 800" (66' 8", or ≈ 20m) long. So a 14"/50 gun would be 14 inches in diameter and 700" (58' 4", or ≈ 18m) long, and a 16"/100 gun would be 16 inches in diameter and 1600" (133' 4", or ≈ 40m).
You are correct.
During Desert Storm, I was the naval gunfire liaison officer for 1stBn/1stMarines Taskforce Papa Bear and had Missouri (BB-63) firing in direct support for me. I have some 16 inch shrapnel which I dug out of a 20' deep hole at Kuwait Airport.
rfsnglo314 Ahh, truly nothing better than such American badassery
ANGLICO.
Lmao
Liar
Amazing, 80 years later and these ships and this gun mechanism still looks state of the art
(and I'll tell you a little secret. on Iowa at least, with the exception of turret #2 which was destroyed in an explosion accident, the other six guns are fully operational in the sense they have not been de-activated in any way)
"An outstanding case of, it's better to give than receive." 😂
Word...
Hell yeah !! Lol
You're absolutely right the firstest with the mostest from a fistfight to a ship fight
It's that warm fuzzy feeling, that one gets when giving that one seeks in that moment. 😆
Sharing is caring they say
My Dad was a Gunners Mate on the Missouri for a reserve cruise in 1945-1946. His duty station was in the Gun House for the #1 Turret. We had the opportunity to go inside the Gun House when we toured the MO when we visited Pearl Harbor. I have observed the firing of a 16" at the Naval Proving Ground in King George, Va. (Now NSF Dahlgren). And I have physically stood beside a 16" projectile. There is no question, I would not want to be anywhere near the impact zone of one of those projectiles.
I imagine these rooms had some nasty pinch points to keep fingers away from.
Fingers? Try your whole spine, get your shoulder blade caught under that breach as it returns to firing position and your done! "SWABBY WITH A MOP TURRET 2!"
Probably not an OSHA-approved gun turret...
@@SwordOfApollo Hard to get approved by something 30 years before it exists.
Yea, look at the 14" gun rooms on earlier battleships, even more scary.
LMGDAO @ Pinch points !! I'm afraid if you get pinched by any part of that thing on the recoil, you're gettin fucked up
I love these old training films. Just awesome!
Really incredible the amount of analog mechanized steel that was mobilized during that war, the scope of manufacturing this beast and then the whole operation of it is just unreal
The gun directors are amazing. First, there are the enormous gyrocompasses used to determine the ship heading, then an almost unbelievable amount of analog electromechanical computers for doing ballistic equations to determine where the guns should be pointed to make the shells fall on target. And I've heard/read that at the extreme ranges of the guns the shell spin rate and Earth coriolis (spinning) effects were included, though I don't have any definitive references for those claims.
I served aboard the USS Missouri BB-63 from 1984-88. I worked where the power bags were loaded into the cars.
Cspt jack maybe you can answer this why after spending the money to upgrade & recommisson the iowa class , why didnt they manufacture new powder? ??
THOMAS81Z That's a very good question. They did inform us that the powers was from the 1940s and could be unstable. In other words, Don't drop any bags. In the explosion on the USS Iowa was proof that it was a bad decision to use the old powder (they are actually little pellets about the half the size of a AA battery.) What I know now, I'm so lucky that I didn't die firing off many practice rounds and a few in the Persian Gulf.
Captain Jack Such unstable old powder was a very unacceptable risk. In a way, the Iowa was 'lucky' to have the powder go off in the turret. Imagine what would happen if it went off in the magazine instead.
Jonathan Tan Actually it was safer to be in the magazine because the powder was chilled. The magazines were refrigerated and compartmentalized to prevent the spread of fire. So one magazine could explode killing who ever was in there, but that would only be the one mag. What you didn't see in the film was the other layer of shuttles. There is another wall and a set of shuttles. The guys in the mag would grab a bag and load it into the shuttle. Then a second guy on the other side would take that bag from the shuttle then load it into the next one. Then a third guy (which you see in the film) pulls the bag out of the shuttle and loads the bag into the car. So other than dropping a bag, we were relatively safe. Loading of the gun is the most dangerous area because of the force put on the bags by the ram and the possibility of hot embers inside the gun. Each time the gun is fired it's cleaned out with compressed gas (CO2 maybe?) and it's ready for the next load.
In the 1940's the ship's turrets were designed to reduce the number of deaths if an accidental burn happened. Remember the ships were built for war time and that itself is risky. Today we are getting close to being able to send robots (Drones if they are aircraft) into the battle field. I think in the next 10-15 years, we could fight a war without humans going into the front line. The day of boots on the ground are obsolete.
Captain Jack , many thanks for the inside info!!! I am a huge fan of the iowa class
Greatest time of my life. USS Missouri BB63. Turret 2 powder magazine. Nice and cool in the Persian Gulf.
Was a US Navy Fire Control Tech in Nam. Had the dubious distinction of being a Gun Fire Support Spotter in Nam. Had an occasion to call in fire from the USS New Jersey. They let loose with a staggered salvo of 3 16” on a bunker I called in . I wasn’t very far from the impact point. The sound of 3 Cadillac size projectiles yards away
Still lives with me today. The whole hootch area was obliterated
@@bobrunge7594 Blessings for healing any PTSD you may have. I'm ex 'Nam navy, Yankee Station '72, and Iowa museum staff from 2012/Covid.
I would love to see the recoil from inside the turret, it must be insane to see such a massive piece of machinery get thrown back so quickly
Look at where the primer man has to stand, he has a front row view for sure.
4 feet of recoil. There's a video of it from the 80's if you look for it
Recoil at 50 seconds, here: /watch?v=MTW_xpK-Twc
I just went on a tour of the uss Wisconsin bb 64 where the loading chamber is there is a red line painted on the side wall on both sides of the room I also read that it was about 4 feet back but considering that you're shooting a 2500 lbs + shell backed by 500-660 lbs of powder it'd make sense that the recoil would be considerably large still gives me alot of respect for anyone who was aboard these ships
czcams.com/video/MTW_xpK-Twc/video.html
I've been looking for this video since it was deleted from another channel. So glad I found it here. The introduction music gets me every time.
This video was edited at 6:54 - the portion related to the closing of the breech was deleted, what are they trying to hide? April 19th related by chance? Closing the breech is kind of important. Why would you cut that out of a training video???
Man, I can't even imagine what it must be like to do all this process under the stress of battle.
Throughout the armed services, that's what constant practice drills are about. It becomes ingrained, a literal part of you. You could think the same thought about firefighting on a ship. You have done things thousands of times in practice, and when the real thing comes along it is almost, though not exactly, just like another drill. The tell is the announcement "This is not a drill !"
I had been home from 'Nam for about a year, and driving down a busy street I came upon an accident. A girl running across the street had been hit by a car. I did not see it happen, but cars were still pulling to the curb. That's when training kicked in. I was on complete autopilot. People were standing around her (she had an obvious broken leg) not knowing what to do. I started the first thing, doing as much anti-shock0 things as I could, like getting her covered and barking orders about calling police and ambulance. Police were there quickly and I immediately got out of the way, helped a cop put out some road flares, and faded away.
As I drove away, I was thinking "where the hell did that come from?" Before the arrival of the cops, not a single thing I did was a voluntary decission/action, all fully automatic.
Easy to see in this video how the IOWA suffered that fatal overram back in 1989 which set off the turret explosion. There are no separate settings for ramming the projectile and ramming the powder.
yeah i agree, you would think there would be some kind of travel stop for both the projectile and the powder
that was really neat. I'd never thought about the inner workings of a gun crew in a battle ship.
One of those babies can throw a projectile that weights like a large car up to 24 miles like nothing... incredible
Very informative clip on turret operation. Even though as a battleship buff, I had a pretty gd idea on how battleship guns worked, it was still mind boggling to actually see how incredibly complex it was to fire a major calibre gun. Not hard to imagine how easy it would be for the whole system to break down because of its complexity. Many thanks for the great upload.
I could watch 1950s instructional videos all day long. I don't even care what the topic is!
That transatlantic accent gives it the touch 👌🏻
My son served on the Missouri during the Gulf War. He said to experience a full broadside was like none other. The concussion knocked him flat on the floor on the O-11 deck!
Wow.... I have a book about the YAMATO, pretty much says that when the main guns fired on that ship they had to ensure no one was on deck.
@@danielmarshall4587 The 0-11 deck is on the main mast, 100 feet or so above the teak deck!!
@@CoCo021096 WOW.
@@danielmarshall4587 I was on a heavy cruiser with 8" guns and they didn't allow anyone on deck when they were firing.
@TheHound Complete BS, there's a well-known pic of New Jersey with both front turrets firing to opposite sides.
1940s techology is still incredible.
daniel moran very true, especially if consider that everything down to the most insignificant detail was done with the slide rules but what really amaze me is that the engineers included in the project also the enormous pressure and heat expansion! I find it amazing....
30s actually
@@Burhanontheranch Designed in '39, built in the 40's
They still sailed the iowa class ships in the 90s
Oh yeah, just have a look at the design blueprints for the iowa and her gun turrets, then take a second to remember that those blueprints were made with nothing more than a slide rule and brainpower.
It really is amazing that there weren't more premature explosions like the one that hit the Iowa. Having powder bags being carried back and forth.
Supposedly, the Iowa's explosion was the result of high-speed ramming of unstable powder to the projectile position. It happened during a training exercise off Puerto Rico. When it happened I was riding out to the battle group in an ERA-3B Skywarrior, on my way to play little games with everybody's radar.
They system was really very safe. Most likely the Iowa incident was either an over ram or a mis handling issue.
The only 3 explosions the Navy ever had with its Battleships were Iowa, and 2 on the Mississippi. Both of which were different situations.
For the 16" guns, they were on 3 Colorado class, 2 North Carolinas, 4 South Dakotas and 4 Iowas.....tens of thousands of rounds fired with only one mishap like that, ever.
I was thinking they added a wet wipe ramming step in there to extinguish any smoldering residue that would cause a premature detonation. Not sure though.
One of the issues was that the powder bags weren't stored properly off the ship during refit
@@redbovine actually, they had a gas system to blow out embers and debris
What an impressive effort of work and ingenuity
to punch holes into others.
More like blow things to smithereens.
I could NEVER be assigned to work inside of one of those gun turrets! Im far too claustrophobic to be inside of one of those beasts!
MAD RESPECT for those men for what they did and more so given wartime footing.
God Bless them ALL!!
H ? That’s why they would put you in a claustrophobic position to break you free of that claustrophobia.. the military in it’s entirety is literally 95% small spaces lol.. thanks to my military years i can now successfully sleep standing up
@Andre McGoo what the fuck is wrong with you that you feel the need to insult a random stranger on the internet like that? Be a better person yourself.
Actually, those 16" turrets you see are at least half the size of a house. Besides, when you're on a firing run, you don't really have time to think about anything other than getting the next round into the chamber.
@@mikecorleone6797 With both eyes open, right? (-;
In the powder room there is no fire extinguisher, just a sign that says, "In case of fire, bend over and kiss your ass goodbye"
although I'm willing to bet you would get your ass kicked for trying to smoke in the powder room
There is, however, a flooding system. Which tells us that the priority was NOT the crew's safety...
the turret alone would be like an Apartments Complex, wow wee.
Still cramped af inside, I toured one, 90% of the inside is taken up by machinery.
My left ear enjoyed this...
Shaddup
LOL
@@mayamanign What? I only have one speaker...
I must have my headphones on backwards.
now I know I have my speakers hooked up right.
My GQ Station was the Sight Station/Local Control, in Turret 2. USS Iowa.
Respect.
Was it as claustrophobic in real life as it was watching this video?!?
OMG! I'd be catatonic just trying to get into the bowels of that area!!
Where you there for the explosion?
I would have re enlisted if these werent bein put out of service
Just how loud is that thing inside the turret?
the dudes loading these things are hardcore, this is some battlefleet gothic shit
Except in BFG, makro cannons are shooting projectiles in the tens of tons or higher class, using hundreds of sailors to haul them around. Also, Torpedoes are the size of small skyscrapers.
It's just borderline bonkers, 40k...
@@MrZauberelefant Still, when people are saying how wasteful loading shells by hand was, this was what actually loading a gun looks like
@@MrAsaqe true. Bfg just turns it up to 11
Going to the "powder room" has a whole different meaning here.
Imagine beating your face with a 100lb bag of powder.
My type of powder
Snowflakes need not apply lol
I have NEVER seen this kind of detail... Good stuff!
Thank you so much for offering these instructional videos on CZcams! I grew up on stories of my father's WWII experiences.
So when this thing is firing at full capacity, it's losing minimum 45,000 lbs per minute.
That’s just the weight of the projectile. each will use is 660 pounds of powder bags
46080 pounds per minute when firing HC/HE and 60480 pounds per minute when firing APC.
Lee Schumaker now that’s a weight loss program
@@jyshot yes it is 😂
And that means that over the course of an Engagement, you have to Account for the Change in depth.
Global hawk... bah
Shooting a projectile that is about the same weight as a VW on to a target at ~25 miles is pretty fucking hip no matter what year it is or what year it may be.
***** Of course, when they designed it there were no micro computers. The computer they used is called a slide rule. The VW was around then so that is why I mentioned it. Many sailors will use that vehicle as an example of the projectile weight.
***** i agree it wasso much more work but these guys were hardened men thatsfor sur
***** We did have computers onboard to fire the guns. They were mechanical like swiss watches. They were about the size of a washer machine you have at home. They had little glass windows so you could peer inside and watch all the gears move as it did its computations. As the ship rolled it would even keep the guns level to the horizon. It was pretty amazing to watch it do its thing.
I was a computer programmer when I left high school (1984) hopping to get a job programming computers in the Navy. The only computers I could find that needed programming where Zerox 860's in the supply department. The only other computer onboard was the Snap II and it was also used for supply functions.
RooFx Yeah it was freaking awesome. We could hit a target the size of a football field from 26 miles away. We could get the shot between both gold posts. Oh something you haven't seen. We even had colored shells. They were for demonstrations. The shells would explode releasing colored dyes into the air. We even made three shots of Red, White, and Blue explode in the ocean. We also had orange, green and blue. So why do colored shells for demos? It was a deterrent. Our world cruise had one purpose. To show the world we have big boom sticks! So don't mess with us. The USS Missouri was just a big showboat. Well it worked. The cold war remained cold.
+Captain Jack The colored shells were developed back in the days when battleships were intended to fight in a line against an opposing line of battleships. Each US battleship was assigned a different color for its shells so that when observing shell splashes they could tell which salvos belonged to which ship so that the right corrections could be sent to fire control. Otherwise the potential was for mass confusion trying to figure which shell splashes were your shell splashes.
I remember reading back in 1968 when the New Jersey was recommisioned for Vietnam how they didn't replace the old mechanical/analog gunnery computers with electronic digital ones because the speed and accuracy of the old ones were so good that going digital would not have been an improvement. Of course, that was back in 1968 when almost all computers were huge main frames that were far far slower and far far FAR more stupid than any smart phone.
Yes, we have her here in Camden NJ. I took the tour and got into the gunhouse of one of the main batteries. At the time you couldn't get any further than that. There might be more areas opened to the public now. A word of advice: if you should decide to visit BB62 in Camden, don't stray beyond the waterfront tourist area as this city is a cesspool of criminal activity.
About 1200 shells and 7500 powder bags. Equates to about 130 rounds per gun.
Shells weighed 2700 lbs (AP) and 1900 lbs (HE). A full charge of powder was 660 lbs.
@@mikehalsey4545 More accurate but less area of effect damage?
Thank you so much for sharing this video with us!
Simón Tavo 😎
Excellent video! Thank you for posting this!
A very ineresting film of historical interest. Interesting to see what it was like working in one of those gun turrets. Thank you.
If you want to see the hardware for real, a good example is the Battleship North Carolina (BB-55) kept as a museum ship in Wilmington, North Carolina, USA. There is a self-guided tour path that goes through mess, galley, crew quarters, machinery spaces (including steering), c-and-c, some electronics, the turret houses (with views into the gun pits), the 16-inch gun turret ammo handling rings, 16-inch powder handling and storage, and officer quarters and working spaces.
If you like that kind of thing, it is really accessible and immersive. I have never experienced any pressure to move along. I understand that they have or have had occasional stay-aboard experiences, but have never tried them. If that involves the use of the heads (which are also part of the self-guided tour path), no thank you.
Absolutely impressive and incredible.
After HMS Rodney had fired over 200 16 inch shells at the Bismarck it was found that there was not one unbroken piece of crockery in the whole of the ship
Any relation?
D.M.
@@kristjanmartin9883 YES
I don’t think that was much consolation to the 2,000 odd men who went down with her 😉
@@matthewduckworth7563 HMS Rodney was sold for scrap in March 1948.... what do you mean "Went down with her"?
@@kristjanmartin9883 I am a direct descendant from his younger brother.. The man who you refer to only had daughters
Just amazing to be able to fire a shell of that size and weight!..
Truly a different era...
Here you can see Pete the Powder Passer in the powder room, placing powder up the powder hoist into the powder car.
How much powder could a powder Pete pass if a powder Pete could pass powder?
Hey Guns, You are 100% right. I have seen the rammer controls on the USS NJ and they are just like you described and shown in the video. I can see if your pucker factor went up you could make one heck of a mistake. Now, I'm a bird farm sailor (Former USS America when she was CVA66) and a rate which no longer exists (RM1) but the NJ really impressed me with her capability. Personally, I would have enjoyed being in a turret for at least one shoot (without the scared GMG2) ;-)
In my opinion battleships are the perfect example of man and machine melding together to create one symbiotic war fighting vessel
Excellent observation.
This gotta be the most entertaining video
this is nearly 80 year old tech and its still impressive. makes me feel, that we didnt made much progress.. to me, this feels like, we had the mp3 in the 50s already and the only progress we made, was improving the codec to be even more loseless
We’ve made progress, it’s just not as exciting as these guns. Missiles fired from US Navy destroyers/cruisers/subs are very very high tech.
@@oski1990 but, but different tech all together. its not this one, but improved
@@oski1990Interesting none of those missiles could even penetrate the armor on this ship.
@@amywolfe6100 The nuclear submarine in the distance: 🗿
I walked through a 16'' turret, projectile rooms & powder room of the North Carolina (BB-55) in Wilmington. It's fascinating to see here how those guns were operated. The Iowas had greater speed and presumably greater protection.
just imagine, sitting in one of those guns and you are in action all the adranaline you get and you need to load a shell every 30 seconds
It was rather boring. We practiced a lot with dummy loads. What got our adrenaline running was the threat of being fired back upon and what would that feel like. We always joked about holding sweepers after being hit with a few missiles. Combat in the Gulf was laid back on the ship as we had tons of armor and we could take out many targets very quickly overpowering the enemy. We joked about going on the aft deck getting a suntan and drinking beer while taking out a few targets. It was very laid back to say the very least. :)
@@CaptainJack63 Wow sounds interesting ! thanks for the reply ! :)
Wow! That's quite the procedure to fire those big guns!
With all his battle time experience, the rammer man must have had a happy marriage after the war.
It's crazy to think how fast the tiny men in my M1911 have to work to keep it firing.
Finally, a video where i get to see my fav battleship firing a lot
The USS Missouri BB 63 was not in WW2 until Jan 1945. The older battleships & older cruisers did the majority of the Island bombardment in the Pacific. My dad who is 92 years old now was a S1c on a 20 mm twin mount on the USS Louisville CA 28 which had 13 battle stars for her WW2 service. I toured the mothballed USS Missouri BB 63 and saw the USS New Jersey BB 62 in Bremerton, Wash. in 1978.
USS IOWA entered service 22 Feb 1943.
USS NEW JERSEY entered service 23 May 1943.
USS MISSOURI entered service 11 June 1944.
USS WISCONSIN entered service 16 April 1944.
The unsung heroes of the Amphibious landings. For all the ooh ahh of the Marines, without naval gunfire they'd have been pretty well screwed. CAS was a fair weather game back then, and nights were out. When a shoreline has to be blown to hell anytime, anyplace and in any weather, naval gunfire rules the day
@@traveller4790 After trials off New York and shakedown and battle practice in the Chesapeake Bay, Missouri departed Norfolk, Virginia on 11 November 1944, transited the Panama Canal on 18 November and steamed to San Francisco for final fitting out as fleet flagship.
USS Missouri first saw action in Feb - March 1945 - Iwo Jima and
April - June 1945 - Okinawa. She did not enter the Pacific until Nov. 1944 and did not see action til 1945.
@@tonytrotta9322 She entered service on 11 Jun 44; that's the date she was listed on the Navy's Roster of Active Vessels, and that's the date that she entered wartime service.
And with that, I'm done.
@@traveller4790 She did not enter the Pacific until Nov. 1944 and did not see action til 1945. (3) battle stars - check the other ships for WW2 service battle stars and war ended Sept. 2, 1945.
Absolutely fascinating, the engineering of these wonderful pieces is phenominal.
Hopefully there are some still in existance (now missiles seem to have taken over) that are there for people to see.
All four Iowa class battleships have been preserved as museum ships.
@@mitchyoung8791 Thanks Mitch, appreciated.
@@derekstocker6661 All 4 Iowas preserved. 2 South Dakotas, the Alabama and Massachusetts. 1 North Carolina, the NC herself. Also the WWI era USS Texas is preserved. She fought in both wars.
@@SealofPerfection Thank you so much for this, well done US for preserving these fabulous historic ships.
Talk about bravery. These young guys were tops. Much appreciated.
I was in Beirut on shore when the New Jersey fired their 16-in guns over our heads rock and roll baby.
Beautiful!
Imagine trying to load these guns under way in heavy seas in full combat operations
Hard work I am sure, though not as bad as been "down range" of all that hard work.
I think a six mans of 90kg can move the ammo to the turret
Also imagine being in full combat knowing that a bomb could crash thru the deck over your head at any moment, or a torpedo could leave you sealed in a room rapidly filling with water. Fuck that.
@@mcallenbell2279 A bomb isn't getting through that armor. The South Dakota had a bomb hit the top of its turret in WWII. Didn't hurt the turret all.
A torp isn't getting through the armor and flooding the magazine, either. There's the outer hull with 1.5" of STS armor, torp will hit that, then there's a void, then there's the 12.1" of side armor. Torp will hit the outer hull and put a hole in that, flooding will be contained in the void area.
What was amazing was, all this was done in 30 seconds.
It definitely got the job done.
Amazing.
My left ear enjoyed this video a lot !
WOW! I had no idea how complicated this process was. I wonder how different it is today with modern guns and ships.
Naval Gunfire is totally different today now they use missiles, Dang.
These ships and guns are still in use. If you really want to be impressed, look up the aiming "computer" it is a analog gear set.
The analogue fire control computer is amazing, it's so awesome to see without those guns would not have been so effective in battle, I saw one of those analog computers on board HMS Belfast a museum cruiser tied up in river Thames in London.
Even more complex was to maintain and upkeep of the complicated sequential systems, and keep it battle ready
The modern 5in gun is largely automated but there is some provision for manual loading in the event of failure or battle damage
3:34 Those powder bags weigh 110 pounds, at least the ones on the USS Iowa weighed that much. And they lifted those suckers by hand.
@Cobradriver99...you forgot the noise. I've seen car alarms a mile away from a blank firing 20 lb smoothbore bronze field piece set off. That was only 5 lb of black powder!!!
My dad was a "roving electrician" on BB46 during WWII.
This is very appealing to my left ear.
it is better to give than to recieved lols.
I dare all the girls to push cool whip pies in their face and put the video on youtube!!
'i' before 'e' except after 'c'. received.
@@RaulBailey I was just going to write that basic junior high school grammar rule. Now we know who was pulling Peggy Sue's pigtails and throwing spitballs in class.
( o ͡ ͜ʖ ͡ o )
Mr. Ken ,wtf that comment is from 2014
Just got home from visiting the USS Iowa. It’s an amazing ship and in my opinion a vital role in US Naval history. There’s only one thing wrong....these damn RAdm and above still think a battleship is a bad idea...
I disagree, I could have used a lot of the firepower of one of these when I was in Kosovo in 1999, Iraq 2003-2008 and if it was possible Afghanistan from 2011-2014.
Now that I’m retired, I can only say that as a Marine, this is what the Navy really needs in its Arsenal. Why not build a modern version of one? Less people to operate and quicker?
Ok, so it costs a lot.....then why decommission my ship I spent a lot if time on....USS Bonnehomme Richard....
Semper
USMC / Retired
I was staff until covid, and am a Navy vet. Semper Fi, marine. Bravo Zulu.
Man...these were thunder that hammered The beaches! God Bless these brave men and women
It would be so cool if they had something like this still. Cool video
Nice! I am making a short film about the "Battle of Samar" one of the biggest Naval battles in History.
using this as a reference on how japanese navy men load on the Yamashiro and the Yamato.
Did you do those wonderful "from the Japanese perspective" videos? Those were really great and accomplished so much with so little. Hats off to ya', if you're the one.
Very interesting short film; the complexity of firing a weapon of that size is nothing short of amazing. Of course, some of the comments are the exact opposite of complex...more on the order of moronic.
It's a training film. It has simplistic descriptions that 30's and 40's farmboys needed to ease into learning the complex technical and geometrical mathematics inherent in naval gunfire.
@@CavZippo are you implying that scooping horse shit is somehow less complex than Newtonian physics?
@@sebione3576 do you have nothing better to do than troll over youtube?
now I can use my 16" gun, thanks. Very helpful video
Just living and working in those conditions is difficult enough. But imagine adding the stress and fear of combat. Knowing that if an enemy shell gets lucky, that turret is now your coffin. Imagine being down in the powder room. Some 30 feet below the waterline, tons of powder all around you. The courage of those men was incredible.
When you work as a close knitted team, when the team spirit and morale is high in the heat of battle there is no time to fear, just to do your assigned duty as soon as possible, to get max output, and finally victory.
You are behind the thickest armor on the ship. The turret faces were 19.5" thick. Nothing was getting through those. The barbettes were 17.3" up top tapering down to 11.6"below, and down below there was also 12.1" of side armor to contend with before a shell got to the barbette.
VERY unlikely a shell was going to penetrate in that location. But the time this training film was made, there was no gun in service that could do it.
@@SealofPerfection Okay, then a torpedo or something else that causes damage. My point was not about armor thickness, my point was the courage of the men fighting in that environment.
@@valuedhumanoid6574 Oh, I got it, just saying that they were in probably the safest place on the ship. For the guys down below the waterline, the armor still protected them, there was no danger of a torp reaching them, either.
It's not impossible that a long-range, plunging shot could penetrate and blow up the ship, but those were very rare.
When you've trained for months or years and you're in action, you're just doing your job at that point, not even thinking about the danger. You're young and confident in your ship and never think it could be destroyed.
So in a way, I guess that IS the courage you're talking about.
Now I wonder how they did it with the Yamato's huge guns
Japanese magic
Not very well I assume,as the Yamato got its ass handed to it
@@oldfatandtired6406 yeah but this is not a fair statement since the Yamato was sunk by US torpedo bombers. Not much it could have done against those with its main guns. Which of course once more showed what everybody knew by then: The age of the battleship as the master of the seas was over, the aircraft carrier had become king. A one-on-one engagement by the against a US battleship, without air support, might have been a different story, but that's purely academic. The Missouri or Iowa, all alone against superior air power would have had "their asses handed to them" just as well, as you put it.
+anthony runkel Uhm, the Iowas did get modern upgrades. I KNOW they did get equipped with cruise missiles and I can't see them without the CWIS, which would be great for anti-missile defense. Oh, and an Exocet missile would barely dent the armor of an Iowa class. I remember the Captain of one of those behemoths talking about it during a news segment.
The battleship's original role of sinking other capital warships has fallen by the wayside. IF the Iowas are ever called into service again, they'd be used for shore battery, cover for infantry along the coast and as a cruise missile platform.
THAT'S the strength of the Iowas, they can loiter off the coast indefinitely providing heavy gunfire to support infantry. Aircraft can't supply IMMEDIATE close support and can't loiter 24/7.
+Mcrusher Soviet battleship killer: c2.staticflickr.com/4/3608/3439664556_3b05dca23d.jpg
20,000 pounds of fun.
Completely wrong. During Desert Storm there were fears about the Missouri hitting mines and sinking her. Modern shaped charge anti ship missiles may not sink a battleship but would completely render them combat ineffective. Which is essential the same as sinking one. If it was for a hail Mary from a British ship shooting down an incoming missle in the Persian Gulf we would have seen what happens when a battleship gets hit by a missle.
Great video.Thanks for uploading.
Amazing film.
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For those who like to argue that the USN had super-advanced technology during 1941-45, they did, but not much more than everyone else. It was very good.
But, as for the insistence amongst some that these ships had an effective & workable 'live balancing' feature built into the gun-laying system - *they did not* and the sequence at 7:42 shows this clearly:
Whilst 'continuous aiming' may have been the ideal from BuOrd's perspective - and while the fabled 'stable vertical element' is cited by many as a gun stabiliser - the truth of the matter is shown here; the guns are locked in at the firing angle and as the horizon moves in relation to the ship, so it moves in relation to the gun barrels.
A phenomenal mechanical achievement, the entire gun and fire control system built into these ships, but the guns fired on the roll and did not oscillate relative to the deck in order to stay pointed at the target as the ship rolled. USN crews obviously found the older method much more practicable, for whatever reason.
Superb footage.
Better to give than to receive. Ohhhhh you!
You're wrong on almost every count. The IOWA class has a combination of armored and unarmored rangefinders. The fast battleships have absorbed major hits to their turrets with no ill effect. Carriers are irreplaceable. But battleships can still perform missions that carriers can't, at much lower cost. And, despite your implications, they are much tougher, more survivable than any carrier.
They are more survivable from shelling and bombing eg death from above.. but BB's are no different from CV's when it comes to floating on water and hull design.
Anti Ship Cruise Missiles and Torpedoes will take em both out just as easily, the BB's aren't stronger or tougher then CV's in that respect.
Since hardly anybody is doing Sea battles with dive bombers or artillery.. I'de say the BB's as such are way to big for what they can do this day and age, they just present a bigger target then they are worth.
The guns lack the reach out and touch capability that the planes do have.. sure they can add Cruise missiles.. but a frigate can carry those cheaper with less crew.. and represent a much smaller target.
Totally agrees with LGTheOneFreeMan.....a 16 inch gun is hard to beat.it is magnificent for its sheer naked power....
Die schon auf Kiel gelegte "Kansas Klasse "hätte vier Drillings Türme 40,6cm L/50 Mark 7 gehabt, aber durch das ende des 2.Weltkriegs wieder abgebrochen. Die 16 Zoll/Inch Granaten (40,6cm.)hatten als Panzersprenggranate ein Gewicht von 2500 Pounts =1224 Kg.und eine Reichweite bei großer Ladung von 25 Meilen/40 Kilometern,und waren mit Torpex einem super Sprengstoff gefüllt, mehrfach stärker als TNT pur,und deswegen wie Tests nach dem Krieg ergaben, viel Effektiver als die 18 Zoll/Inch (45,7cm.)aufgebohrte 46cm.mit 1420Kg. der Yamato Klasse deren Geschosse nur mit TNT gefüllt waren sowie eine schnellere Feuergeschwindigkeit. Dennoch wäre ein Zweikampf dieser Giganten auf Hoher See alleine, ohne Flieger und U-Boote sehr Intressant gewesen. Habe mich oben geirrt, meine nicht die Kansas Klasse, sondern die "Montana Klasse " !
Out of curiosity, once the shell and propellant charges were rammed into the breech, what would happen if there was no order to fire or the target was neutralised ? Is there a way to unload or extract the bags and shell, same with a dud charge or failure to fire?
squeak83uk2 They would aim the gun into a 'safe' direction, and fire. It's *exceptionally* dangerous to even attempt to unload a shell from one of these guns, so it's best to just waste a shell... you can always get more shells and powder bags.
+Jonathon “Tank50us” Davonger That is correct. However, if the projectile was an inert round used for training (BL&P), then it could be removed from the gun by using a "backing out rammer". This was a large hunk of steel that was loaded into the muzzle. First the powder bags were unloaded. Then a heavy cushion was placed in the breech for protection. Then the gun was elevated to the max. The rammer slid down the barrel and impacted the inert projectile, dislodging it from the gun. It would travel about 15 feet until it hit the breech. Then the breech was opened and the projectile was unloaded from the gun. This process was ONLY used for inert "Blind Loaded and Plugged" BL&P projectiles.
interesting info , thanks
@Jonathan Davonger...Yes, My dad told me they would "request permission to unload through the muzzle".
Makes me wonder how the Yamato turrets operated.
6:40 "... rammed slowly ..." sends a chill down my spine, considering one of the hypothesis on the cause of the disaster of turret 2 on Iowa.
The glove is to wipe down the "mushroom" with his left arm to clean any residue from it.
The pants tucked into the socks is an anti-flash protection.
i thought they also wore wool booties over their shoes??
Your right draco, all these can be done, but for sheer naked brutal power I would not want not to be on the recieving end of these guns, stay clear.................30
They were called 'swimming pool makers' for a reason.
Even tied up in dock and serving as a museum these battleships project awesome power. I am convinced that we should have retained one or two for show of force. Aircraft sitting on a carrier simply do not have the same fear factor as a big naval rifle pointing right at you!
Not to a layman, no.
But to experts and actual military considerations it does the opposite. It would make you like a fool. A fool who cares more about image than substance ... perfect for today's fascist no? Maybe our former president would have supported such a "brilliant" idea.
Aircraft sitting on a carrier are what experts fear and rightfully so. Aircraft taking off and landing is a lot scarier than a museum ship that won't ever fire again.
Only fools and children would think we need more weapons of intimidation when our weapons can already kill anything from the other side of the planet.
Unless the carrier deck is destroyed which is easier than it is to destroy a Battleship main gun. If the carrier deck is taken out, then the planes quickly become inert for battle unless there is another carrier or land runway in the area. The Battleships also had redundant controls that were fully internal in the ship.
Very, very impressive systems and firepower.
I wonder what makes the projectile hoist work, is it magnets or some kind of strap?
It's a lug the projectile sits on that is then raised (I think) with a heavy cable. If not cable then a big chain.
The film shows a cable and mentions cable , not far into the film.
The USS Alabama has a working hoist with shell and you actually can hit the lever to raise and lower it but when you look at the bottom of the shell there was nothing bracing it from the bottom.
Long, Hard, and Full of Seamen!!! Thanks to all who served!!!
I have visited the USS Alabama and seeing these monsters in person is simply unreal. What I found really interesting was most of the barrels on these were made in Germany
I've on the USS Alabama as well. It's absolutely insane how big these ships are and how intricate they are with the incredible amounts little machines, levers, and all other types of mechanical things are all over these monsters from top to bottom. How did those men know exactly what each thing on the ship did? Just mind boggling that technology was that sophisticated 80 years ago
The barrels on all US Battleships where made at the Washington Gun Barrel factory.
When the USS Iowa had the misfire all you see on the video is the boot sealing between the gun and turret blow off. I've always wondered how deep that explosion got into the turret itself as 47 men died in the explosion.