What I find staggering is just how relatively clean the last active duty crew left these areas. I had the opportunity to visit some of the areas below decks that aren't in the tour. The cleanliness of the combat bridge and the area that controls the turrets showed the care and respect they had for this ship.
I found this video very cool, to be able to really see the whole gun pit and just how absolutely massive it is. Just blows my mind that these magnificent ships were built so long ago when computers as we know them today didn't exist. Absolutely love all the remaining battleships here in the US and I intend to someday be able to visit all of them. Being able to walk in the footsteps of the greatest generation and those who served after them is such an amazing experience. Museum ships are living history that absolutely deserve to be preserved forever.
Thank you for sharing this. The magnitude of these guns is astounding. I love that huge jack screw with the acme threads. The threads look like they might have been ground with such a high surface finish. Too bad the Navy didn't think to integrate a handwheel into the right angle gearbox at the top of that shaft you were turning. My respect also to the young lady who climbed that wall and turned the handwheel. It's obviously not an easy task.
Absolutely. That jack screw and the entire mechanism are so impressive. Still blows our minds. And no, the wheel isn't easy to turn, but getting up there to do it is kind of fun.
Very informative. It’s strange that there was not a manual mechanism of lowering / raising the barrels when it was originally built, rather than this bodgy way of doing it. They did design a lot of redundant backups originally.
They may have had an auxiliary hydraulic generation system. I assume that trying to raise and lower the gun between loading and firing position would have taken so long that it was deemed useless. Plus they’d have to rotate the turret too and operate the lifts for the shells and powder.
Such a tremendous sense of scale seeing how cavernous the pit is for just one of the guns, and the amount of effort required to manually move it. There's a video of Mo firing rounds while at sea and seeing just how much movement the barrel has while it remains trained on its target shows just how much machinery was involved in these things.
4:15 Grandfather was a Navy Reserve man, a chemical engineer and mechanic in civilian life, who was active duty during the world war. He mentioned more than once how odd he found it that most everything on most every Navy ship could be done by one man, but it was never wise to actually use only one man to do it. I can see what he means when you look at that device with the pin. The wheel can be turned by one man, sure, but it is an awkward position that one could easily slip out of and having a second man to steady the one doing the turning while watching to see the pin retract fully would definitely be wise and cut down on the risk of injury. Also explains why he preferred to always send the smallest person (often me) up ladders because it was a lot easier to catch a five-foot-six guy weighing 150 pounds than a six-footer weighing well over 200!
It's amazing how easily the gun moves all things considered. I might mention that Ridgid makes a pipe wrench with an aluminum handle with the same guarantee that is much, much lighter.
Regrettably never served. Even if i had served, I probably wouldnt have made it in time to serve aboard an Iowa. (I graduated school in 1990-i doubt I would have been sent to Missouri or Wisconsin right away..) However, i absolutely love these ships. Thank you for posting this video.
In 2003 wife and I got a tour of the Watervliet Arsenal from the director of the museum. There was no one else there so we got to see quite a bit more. The display of the 16 inch barrel was amazing.
As a mechanical engineer, these details were incredibly interesting to see, but I was afraid for the very likeable lady, as she could have fallen four meters unsecured. At the very least, she could have hurt herself very badly. Thanks again for this post.
I would imagine that you could easily machine a collar to clamp on the pipe you were wrenching on; then put a chain or belt around it with an electric motor to spin it. From the amount of force you seemed to be exerting and the fact that the pipe seemed to spin a little on its own after you had let go of the wrench with each turn - it would seem that it wouldnt take a particularly large or high-powered motor either to do the job so long as the belt / chain is properly tensioned, and you dont just try to crank it at full speed.
You could probably lift those guns with a small portable hydraulic unit. Even with one that can connect to a wall socket. Hydraulic motors aren't hard to turn, you just need to isolate the circuits to not pressurize the whole system.
So for this to be possible in turret 2 a lot of this stuff must be intact enough to still function. Does turret 2 still have a range finder in it, does anyone know?
The T2 rangefinder was removed from the turret post-accident and rebuilt in Louisville KY. It was kept in storage for many years, and acquired by the IOWA after the ship was donated. It sits in a custom storage container in our service yard.
@@dougthompson1598 Crew reports from the time of removal seem to indicate the range finder was taken out by removing a soft patch from the range finder hood on the side of the turret. To get it back in, we'd have to remove one as well, which would be a major job, and we're not sure we have all the parts required to reinstall the range finder even if we do get the hood open.
Likely no. Expense is part of it, but we also don't want to put too much wear on the 80 year-old equipment. It's irreplaceable, so we want to use it sparingly.
@@comradevlad7459 As we understand it, these barrels were replacements in the post-Korean War era. Five are from Watervliet, and the others are from teh Washington Gun Factory. No clue on where they may have been headed.
If the battleships had been reactivated for another generation of service, could the whole operation of the turret have been automated to the point where it was unmanned? Or would it have essentially had to be a brand new turret to accommodate all the necessary equipment changes?
Cost wise a whole new turret would be needed as well as the systems re ran into the ships main power plant to even ensure it was powered and did its job
The Battleship New Jersey channel has a clip about this subject. The short answer is that it would probably be less expensive to design and build from scratch a new BB than recommission one. The hydraulics, fuel bunkerage and powerplant in particular have not been subject to required maintenance for thirty years or so and would require total replacement, which in practical terms would be impossible to do.
@@dougthompson1598 They absolutely could recommission them. For Missouri, Iowa, and Wisconsin, it was about 30 years from when they were decommissioned in the 1950's to when they were recommissioned in the 1980's. Only New Jersey had been in service more recently. This is about the same amount of time. Beside that, they couldn't actually build one of these now. There no rolling mills that can produce the huge armored plates. Also, I believe the army maintained that last machine capable of relining the guns and they scrapped it years ago. There are probably hundreds of other things I'm not even thinking of that are no longer possible to build or maintain on these ships.
Not really. The thing that is hardest is lining up the pins to lock the guns in place. The rest is really just pretending you're on a rowing machine with a pipe wrench. 😆
I'm sure your insurance carrier would never allow it, but anytime you need to raise or lower the guns manually, I guarantee you could find several people willing to pay you for the privilege of doing that- maybe call it the azimuth tour to get it past the liability coverage folks and charge $100 and you'd be sold out so far into the future that there probably wouldn't even be tv shows anymore.
What I find staggering is just how relatively clean the last active duty crew left these areas. I had the opportunity to visit some of the areas below decks that aren't in the tour. The cleanliness of the combat bridge and the area that controls the turrets showed the care and respect they had for this ship.
On every US Navy ship every day is a cleaning day and once a week there is one supercleaning called "Field Day".
I found this video very cool, to be able to really see the whole gun pit and just how absolutely massive it is. Just blows my mind that these magnificent ships were built so long ago when computers as we know them today didn't exist. Absolutely love all the remaining battleships here in the US and I intend to someday be able to visit all of them. Being able to walk in the footsteps of the greatest generation and those who served after them is such an amazing experience. Museum ships are living history that absolutely deserve to be preserved forever.
Thanks, Matt. We think so, too!
I love how the gun was making ominous sound effects as it was being lowered.....
Thank you for sharing this. The magnitude of these guns is astounding. I love that huge jack screw with the acme threads. The threads look like they might have been ground with such a high surface finish. Too bad the Navy didn't think to integrate a handwheel into the right angle gearbox at the top of that shaft you were turning. My respect also to the young lady who climbed that wall and turned the handwheel. It's obviously not an easy task.
Absolutely. That jack screw and the entire mechanism are so impressive. Still blows our minds.
And no, the wheel isn't easy to turn, but getting up there to do it is kind of fun.
Very informative.
It’s strange that there was not a manual mechanism of lowering / raising the barrels when it was originally built, rather than this bodgy way of doing it.
They did design a lot of redundant backups originally.
They may have had an auxiliary hydraulic generation system. I assume that trying to raise and lower the gun between loading and firing position would have taken so long that it was deemed useless. Plus they’d have to rotate the turret too and operate the lifts for the shells and powder.
1+ like. I think you can thank Battleship New Jersey youtube page for this as this was recommended off their latest video.
Such a tremendous sense of scale seeing how cavernous the pit is for just one of the guns, and the amount of effort required to manually move it. There's a video of Mo firing rounds while at sea and seeing just how much movement the barrel has while it remains trained on its target shows just how much machinery was involved in these things.
Completely agree. The scale of pretty much everything on these ships is incredible, as is the machinery.
The "humpback" sound was the gun singing to you, maybe saying it was ready for some more shots that will never likely happen
4:15 Grandfather was a Navy Reserve man, a chemical engineer and mechanic in civilian life, who was active duty during the world war. He mentioned more than once how odd he found it that most everything on most every Navy ship could be done by one man, but it was never wise to actually use only one man to do it. I can see what he means when you look at that device with the pin. The wheel can be turned by one man, sure, but it is an awkward position that one could easily slip out of and having a second man to steady the one doing the turning while watching to see the pin retract fully would definitely be wise and cut down on the risk of injury. Also explains why he preferred to always send the smallest person (often me) up ladders because it was a lot easier to catch a five-foot-six guy weighing 150 pounds than a six-footer weighing well over 200!
It's amazing how easily the gun moves all things considered. I might mention that Ridgid makes a pipe wrench with an aluminum handle with the same guarantee that is much, much lighter.
He’s using aluminum. The steel ones are orange/red.
Regrettably never served.
Even if i had served, I probably wouldnt have made it in time to serve aboard an Iowa. (I graduated school in 1990-i doubt I would have been sent to Missouri or Wisconsin right away..)
However, i absolutely love these ships.
Thank you for posting this video.
Well done young lady
9:29 you should sound capture that noise. itd be perfect for a horror movie !
Ha! Right? Reminded us of humpback whale calls.
A valiant effort well done to all
In 2003 wife and I got a tour of the Watervliet Arsenal from the director of the museum. There was no one else there so we got to see quite a bit more. The display of the 16 inch barrel was amazing.
That's cool!
Excellent virtual fieldtrip!
Bravo Zulu Iowa Crew
What an amazing experience!
Thanks for sharing…!
As a mechanical engineer, these details were incredibly interesting to see, but I was afraid for the very likeable lady,
as she could have fallen four meters unsecured.
At the very least, she could have hurt herself very badly.
Thanks again for this post.
Glad you said what it was in Tons. That was a wow. For none Americans that's about 113,000kg! Or about the same as 80 large cars (2022 BMW 3 series).
That jack screw is the same technology still used today on large aircraft to move the flaps and adjust the horizontal stabiliser.
Cool.
Please don’t get me wrong, but that young lady is someone you would want on your team in a tight spot......
I would imagine that you could easily machine a collar to clamp on the pipe you were wrenching on; then put a chain or belt around it with an electric motor to spin it. From the amount of force you seemed to be exerting and the fact that the pipe seemed to spin a little on its own after you had let go of the wrench with each turn - it would seem that it wouldnt take a particularly large or high-powered motor either to do the job so long as the belt / chain is properly tensioned, and you dont just try to crank it at full speed.
It’s crazy to think about the amount of details in building and using this ship
Nailed it. Pretty mind-boggling!
You mentioned at the start that the film crew did not want to see the guns in shot. I wonder why?
You could probably lift those guns with a small portable hydraulic unit. Even with one that can connect to a wall socket.
Hydraulic motors aren't hard to turn, you just need to isolate the circuits to not pressurize the whole system.
But that wouldn't be nearly as good a workout... 😂
@@BattleshipUSSIowaLosAngeles that is true, also doesn't make such a good video idea 👍
So for this to be possible in turret 2 a lot of this stuff must be intact enough to still function. Does turret 2 still have a range finder in it, does anyone know?
The T2 rangefinder was removed from the turret post-accident and rebuilt in Louisville KY. It was kept in storage for many years, and acquired by the IOWA after the ship was donated. It sits in a custom storage container in our service yard.
@@BattleshipUSSIowaLosAngeles I appreciate your reply. Thank you guys for being so open with that information. I love the content keep it up!
@@BattleshipUSSIowaLosAngeles What would be involved in replacing it in the turret? I understand it won't ever be done, but what would the process be?
@@dougthompson1598 Crew reports from the time of removal seem to indicate the range finder was taken out by removing a soft patch from the range finder hood on the side of the turret. To get it back in, we'd have to remove one as well, which would be a major job, and we're not sure we have all the parts required to reinstall the range finder even if we do get the hood open.
Should not be a museum, period. A shame!!! Reactivate the Iowas! Well the Big Mo can rest everyone else, there’s work to be done!
my dad ship boarded 1942 December ,16 inch knocked by dad down they play a game with him told him stand certain place while they fired it
TIL you can move 125 tons with a wrench.
will power be setup so most operations of equipment can be done at some point? Or is switch a/c power from shore to shipboard too expensive?
Likely no. Expense is part of it, but we also don't want to put too much wear on the 80 year-old equipment. It's irreplaceable, so we want to use it sparingly.
lol of course they making the chick do the sketchy part
It's more like we have trouble stopping her.
imagine having to manually lift and lower the guns in the heat of battle in WW2, god that would be absolute hell
Definitely.
Now climb up to remove the pin in heavy seas
There is no other way to wrench on that shaft other than by using a pipe wrench?
Hypothetically speaking, would these guns ever be able to fire again?
Hypothetically? Probably. Obviously not the center gun in T2, but the others should be good to go.
Very cool. I wondered how that was done.
What movie is being filmed?
It was for parts of a few episodes of SEAL Team that aired at the end of their last season. Fun crew. We had a great time with them.
Boy is the NJ crew hot shots gonna opinionate this 🙄 keep it up!
With the recent rotation of turret 3, has the museum explored powering up the elevation motors?
Currently no plans to do so, but you never know!
@@BattleshipUSSIowaLosAngeleswould make a great video if yall did! Love to see some sort of life come back in these old ships!
What would you say the average time was to lower all the guns?
Really depends on who's doing it. Fastest is probably ten minutes or so per gun.
That barrel manufactured in 1944, hmmm. I wonder if it was originally intended for Illinois (BB-65) or Kentucky (BB-66).
Could have been, though extra barrels were made as replacements for the inevitable need of replacing the barrels
@@comradevlad7459 As we understand it, these barrels were replacements in the post-Korean War era. Five are from Watervliet, and the others are from teh Washington Gun Factory. No clue on where they may have been headed.
Is the machinery technically workable or is it just prohibited because the boilers and engines can never be fired up per agreement with the Navy?
All of the machinery was mothballed by the Navy during the late '90, early '91 era. Fluids have been removed and various components secured.
@@mikegetscher2165 I wouldn't say all fluids were removed, based on the oil leaks all the battleships seem to still have in odd locations.
If the battleships had been reactivated for another generation of service, could the whole operation of the turret have been automated to the point where it was unmanned? Or would it have essentially had to be a brand new turret to accommodate all the necessary equipment changes?
Brand new turret.
Cost wise a whole new turret would be needed as well as the systems re ran into the ships main power plant to even ensure it was powered and did its job
I'm sure some functions could be taken over by a modern PLC and operated from an Allen Bradley panel view.
Could the Iowa be re-commissioned if the Navy wanted it back in the fleet?
The Battleship New Jersey channel has a clip about this subject. The short answer is that it would probably be less expensive to design and build from scratch a new BB than recommission one. The hydraulics, fuel bunkerage and powerplant in particular have not been subject to required maintenance for thirty years or so and would require total replacement, which in practical terms would be impossible to do.
@@dougthompson1598 They absolutely could recommission them. For Missouri, Iowa, and Wisconsin, it was about 30 years from when they were decommissioned in the 1950's to when they were recommissioned in the 1980's. Only New Jersey had been in service more recently. This is about the same amount of time.
Beside that, they couldn't actually build one of these now. There no rolling mills that can produce the huge armored plates. Also, I believe the army maintained that last machine capable of relining the guns and they scrapped it years ago. There are probably hundreds of other things I'm not even thinking of that are no longer possible to build or maintain on these ships.
Amazing that the barrels still move after all of this time. How long did it take to lower each barrel?
Generally about 15 minutes per gun and a lot of that goes into lining up the slide securing pin.
What kinda film shoot ?
It was a few episodes of SEAL Team.
Is it harder to go back up?
Not really. The thing that is hardest is lining up the pins to lock the guns in place. The rest is really just pretending you're on a rowing machine with a pipe wrench. 😆
This is even pretty dangerous.
High up, unsecured, in an awkward position, working with 1 hand.
That’s what makes it fun. Can’t be afraid all the time
What kind of bone head wants to put a battleship in their movie, but doesnt want to see the guns!?!
Maybe it's for a specific scene that doesn't need em in shot and it's near the ship
The production company was using IOWA as a stand in for another type of naval vessel.
@@BattleshipUSSIowaLosAngeles so like what was done with USS Alabama during the filming of the USS Indianapolis movie?
@@americanpanzer4163 they filmed with her guns in the picture. I live 10 minutes from the Alabama and watched them film from a distance (by boat)
@@charlescollins9413 I can appreciate the fact they actually used a real ship for filming
We just don't build ships like this anymore
Truth. Which is why we're so determined to preserve this one.
I'm sure your insurance carrier would never allow it, but anytime you need to raise or lower the guns manually, I guarantee you could find several people willing to pay you for the privilege of doing that- maybe call it the azimuth tour to get it past the liability coverage folks and charge $100 and you'd be sold out so far into the future that there probably wouldn't even be tv shows anymore.
I'd sure pay for the priveledge.
Butcher.