On naval cannons like this I believe you can put in a new primer without opening the breach. Not sure if he has covered this before... Looked it up and the primer (which is a small rifle round blank) has its own small firing lock. You can keep putting in primers until the change ignites.
On the Iowa, we had a misfire in Turret One left gun where she misfired 6 times, meaning six primer cartridges were inserted, and the gun was fired. We left the gun in the elevated position for hours and eventually lowered the gun and opened the breech. The powder bag was not aligned right and there was a neat hole burned in the bag just to the left of the red ignition pad if my memory serves me correct.
quote> At close range the Johnston’s entire chorus of weaponry came to bear on the island. There was the sharp, ear-ringing bark of the five-inchers, the rhythmic thumping of the twin-mounted forty-millimeter machine guns, and the faster metallic chatter of the single-barreled twenties. Men from a damage-control party broke out rifles and made like Davy Crockett from the main deck. Lt. (jg) Ellsworth Welch took out his. 45-caliber pistol, outstretched his arm, and enfiladed the distant enemy with the handgun. From his perch in the gun director, Hagen spied a Japanese officer on the beach, waving a saber, rallying his troops to the fight, and thought, Why not? He put the officer in the sights of his slewing device. The fire-control computer clicked and whirred and zipped coordinates to the Johnston’s five main gun turrets. When Hagen closed the firing key, they all barked as one. The technology lived up to its brutal promise. The five-shell salvo obliterated the man. “Mr. Hagen, that was very good shooting,” called Captain Evans from the bridge. “But in the future, try not to waste so much ammunition on one individual.” James D. Hornfischer - Last Stand of the Tin Can Sailors
I always assumed that the guns were pretty much 100% reliable. Now I understand why they need so many guns, not just for volume of fire, but for redundancy.
Mr James i also thought the same thing that battleships heavy guns were 100% Reliable Well surprise surprise surprise they are not and not very accurate or Reliable 😢😢😢😢😢
I got to see the New Jersey fire her big guns, all I can say is, that on that occasion, they all worked perfectly. I must say that it was one of the most amazing spectacles I have ever witnessed in my life. The sheer power they generate when they fire is nothing short of staggering.
I was a Royal Navy gunnery officer in ships for 14 years. Never had a misfire. Misfires are no real problem, It is a hang fire that causes grey hairs. A misfire means that you pull the trigger, and nothing happens. A hang fire means that you pull the trigger and it doesn't go bang, but fizzles gently. It may go bang at any time, particularly if it is jerked or knocked. It is difficult to tell whether it is a misfire or a hang fire externally, so you always act as if it is a hang fire, and keep the weapon pointed safely down range for at least 30 minutes before unloading, and then immediately storing that cordite safely overboard!
Would some valves for injecting water into the chamber help, to extinguish any sparks that could still ignite something? They would need to be very pressure tight, of course...
Misfires are no joke. My grandfather was onboard the USS Mississippi (BB-41) when they had a full-on backblow during gunnery practice in 1924. A gun in the no. 2 turret exploded when a small ember from the previous shot was undetected as the power bags for the next shot were being loaded. Something like 40+ men died in the explosion, then several more died when a remaining bag detonated during the rescue attempt. Fortunately, my grandad was stationed up high as a rangefinder and was nowhere near the turrets. Very sad.
Prior to watching your videos, I would have never guessed that loading the shells/powder was such a labor intensive task. I certainly never would have guessed that there were so many men in each of the turrets.
The handling of 16" shells in US battleships always amazes me - just sliding the shells around - without any restraints! RN shell handling was by mechanical hoists from horizontal racking. Obviously, less crew fatigue, but more mechanism as a potential failure
Hi Ryan Great Video. If you notice in the link you included about the West Virginia there is also a navigation chart and time of the battle. About the time the number of shells fired drops she made a starboard turn. This would account for going from 8 to 7 then 3 to 2. At the time of the cease fire only her forward guns 4 barrels. Plus her rear turrets would need to swing around 180 degrees to the port for them to reengage on the port side. From 03:55 to 04:00 she was not broadside across the T but at an angle. I surmise that turret #3 right hand barrel stopped firing due to being too close to the superstructure. At 04:01 was the last turn to starboard. This was probably communicated to the gun crews and the rear turrets ceased firing leaving the forward 4 guns left till ceasefire at 04:02. So if you take the course changes into account the West Virginia was mostly using her full available battery during the battle.
@@rogerstlaurent8704 Yea, it would appear that there actually wasn't any problems with the equipment or the crew couldn't get certain barrels loaded fast enough, apparently it had to do with the ships and the turrets relationship to each other.
I had (mistakenly) assumed that, in a battleship vs. battleship engagement, the nonlinear behaviour of the Lancaster equations would so severely punish a ship for any loss of main battery fire that any ship that did suffer a misfire was almost certain to be destroyed. For that reason, I concluded ship designers had done everything in their power to prevent such misfires. As you point out, though, there are two missing pieces to that logic: first, all ships suffer from it, so in reality both battleships would have guns missing their salvo time; and second, a "misfire" only very, very rarely means something that disables a gun or turret for the rest of the engagement. Thank you for this very interesting video, and for the reminder not to forget about operational realities in conducting tactical analysis.
Great video Ryan. I am impressed, and not surprised about the raw data the Navy collects on the operation of these massive guns. Kudos to my brothers, the Gunners Mates that maintain and operate these systems. After watching many videos on the USS Iowa turret explosion and ensuing investigation about the cause, it becomes apparent that each step in the process of firing a gun turret, is important for success and safety. I was hoping in this video you would address the steps undertaken during a misfire. We have all had them will small arms, and they can be tricky. With a 16 inch gun, I personally would be terrified. With that said, I have no doubt that there are standard operating procedures and our GM's have knowledge on how to proceed when a misfire occurs. To this day, I am proud to say we operated with the New Jersey and made a port call together in Sasebo, Japan. What a sight to see those 16 inchers!
Exactly, I thought by the title we were going to learn about what happens when the powder doesn't light off and what they had to do to get the powder and the projectile out of the gun barrel.
@@dukecraig2402 With handguns asnd shoulder guns, they usually use the term misfire to talk about when the trigger is pulled and the gun either doesn't fire or doesn't chamber another bullet. And I was thinking "isn't a misfire in a battleship gun just going to be a massive explosion or a failed primer?" Now I see there are more options.
@@extragoogleaccount6061 Yea that's obvious AFTER watching the video but as I said when I clicked on it I thought that was going to be the gist of things, and I'd still like to know how they clear something like that, it's gotta be interesting since obviously you don't just drop the magazine and pull the charging handle to the rear and observe the chamber. I wanna know how they get a projectile that weights as much as a Volkswagen Beatle and a buch of powder bags that's been rammed in there by that massive hydraulic ram out of it, I'll bet that's a hair raising task, I don't know how happy I'd be about having to open the breach on that thing after it goes click.
Thanks Ryan - one of your best. Clearly failures increase over the length of the engagement. This gives much-needed context to the criticism you see on sites like navweapons of British 14” & 16” turrets during much longer engagements.
I never really gave it much thought, because there was not a lot of exposure about misfires on Battleships. I know that there have been accidents, and you have covered that huge device for dislodging a 16 " projectile from a gun. I guess we are all sort of spoiled by computer wargames where the only way a battleship's guns were silenced was either through a turret being struck by enemy fire or the magazines being flooded to prevent an explosion. My favourite game was Steel Ships, it gave a great simulation of battleship and torpedo action.
The Nowaki record is interesting. It is a stern chase, so the roll of the ship throws off aim, this is where the stable element input to keep the guns on target becomes important. Only turrets 1 & 2 bear, so they alternate salvos. The constant left and right adjustments show that Nowaki is evading by splash chasing. If the previous salvo landed to the left, you wait for the flash of the next salvo firing, then change course slightly to the left, as the shooter will have adjusted to the right. This is why destroyers at long range are impossible targets, no fire control system will hit a well handled dd at long range. Look at Commodore Goodenough at Jutland if you don't think this is true. As for casualty rates, on NAVWEPS there is the record of the time the USN fired out the entire magazine of a BB in one sitting just to learn how it worked trying to get every last round out of the magazines.
Hi Ryan, according to the post action gunnery report of the Prinz Eugen, after battle of the Denmark Straits, B-turret suffered a technical problem which caused it to miss a salvo with both guns, and the right barrel 13 consecutive salvos; A-turret missed four salvos during the action due to operational errors, while C and D-turrets each missed one salvo.
May not have been cost effective to use 16inch on a destroyer, but 2 or 3 hits should do the job. Talking board games, Panzerblitz limits you to 10 turns at best. You can go rapid fire, but they then consider the barrel lining worn out, and the unit tile is considered lost. You make a very logical argument. You might check with Drachinifel, IIRC about Jutland, a lot of the German and British ships didnt fire at times due to damage, out of range, or smoke obscured targets.
Pretty wild to find out that something that seems so critical on the ship is actually prone to a such a high rate of failure. I would have expected this to be a rare thing.
Part of what's surprised me most out of this is how much New Jersey was mostly a shore bombardment platform. Having one ship to ship engagement in it's entire life is wild.
This is very similar to what you can expect from a gun-howitzer battery in the field artillery. Long firemissions always start off rapidly, but then slow down as the crew has to move shells around.
Yeah 4 or 5 max gets down to that 2 sustained pretty quick. One of the bigger concerns is mistakes from fatigue. Correct settings from the fdc, right shell, right fuze, right fuze setting, right propellant....doesn't happen often, but when it does, it always seems make its way to friendly forces.
I have never before been given insight to this topic. This is new and very interesting. The strategy, the target, the worth of a target, conservation of ammo is not discussed much. More, more! 🙂
In the propulsion plant on my Destroyer (2 fire rooms, 2 engine rooms) I don't think we ever made it more than 2 days without something breaking down. A lot of moving parts that all depend on all the others to operate correctly. One simple failure in the system and it begins to cascade quickly.
Your definitely right about world of war ships is the best case scenario, but in the legends version of it, the longest action is 15 minutes so it’s pretty short engagements.
You should have defined the term “misfire”. In the Army, that means you go to fire, and no big boom. Ryan is defining it as not being ready to fire when the fire control computer wants to fire. Two separate definitions. His list did include a misfire when he mentioned one powder bag didn’t explode.
Yea, I thought it was going to be about that myself, and what it took to clear the gun afterwards, how to get the powder bags and projectile out of the barrel. This is the second time in two days I've watched a video from this channel that the title was misleading, I can't remember what the other one was about, or supposed to be about, but the subject was the main guns also.
Its more the case we don't have precise failure records. And your definition is exactly the one he used. Ship goes to fire, guns aren't ready. I think you're arbitrarily not counting the humans as part of the gun mechanism. You'd count feed issues, jamming, mistiming, etc with an automatic weapon i'm sure.
IIRC, the RN and the WW1 German navy didn't open fire with full broadsides - preferring to fire a salvo (typically half broadside - e.g. left guns in a 4x2 arrangement, modified by the later Nelson and KGV classes) at the estimated range, followed by another salvo at a different range before the first salvo landed. The spotting would determine if the range and line were correct. With a nominal reload of 30 seconds, time of flight about 60 seconds, this is a quicker way of getting on target. Once accurate radar range and fall of shot was available. the practice could change... HMS Duke of York fired broadsides at the Scharnhorst based on radar ranges from the onset
A ton of moving parts, and after listening to the Battleship Iowas podcast mentioning how often lights would be destroyed from the guns firing, not surprised mechanical failures would creep up. It’s a massive steel vessel pumping tons of explosives out with big hoists and mechanical systems at odd angles, and relies on men, it’s a guarantee.
Recommend the reports from the gunnery officers onboard Scharnorst and G in their engagement with Renown. Not only did the Germans experience the same sort of issues and troubles, the sisters also struggled more in bad weather. So this is not a British-US thing, it’s universal.
Wow, this is quite fascinating! Thank you for sharing this insightful information with me. I'm eagerly anticipating more of your enlightening insights.
Thanks for this interesting insight. To date I have only heard of the problems experienced by Prince of Wales and King George V against Bismark. I never had any account on the problems the US battleships had until now. Cheers!
GMG1(SW) ret. Misfire indicates that you initiated a firing but gun did not discharge. Mechanical failures that prevent gun loading aren’t considered misfires. An open breech explosion is just that and not a misfire. Modern naval guns have a very low misfire rate. Most misfires are caused by faulty ammo. Over 20 years and thousands of rounds fired only had 2 big gun misfires, one ammo, one mechanical failure. Have a few misfires from small arms ammo. If the ammo quality is high you see very few misfires.
While not really covering misfires (more of an overview of percentage of guns firing) still very interesting. I'd like to see instances of a loaded barrel failing to fire the loaded shell for whatever reason. Bad ignition patch or bad primer or primer connection.
I was expecting that there couldn't always be flawless execution, but I figured it was very rare. I wasn't aware how much crew performance affected this, and I'm surprised at the lack of reliability of the equipment. I've always thought the military had things fairly well polished when it comes to procedures like this.
You're more likely to hangfire than misfire, but even more than that when you're in a situation where you're putting ALOT of rounds down range you start getting into hot gun territory and that can get pretty hairy. clearing a misfire in a hotgun is probably one of the scariest thing you can have happen on the ship. You have to load a clearing charge aim and fire the dud round over the side before the barrels heats the round up to the point where it might detonate in the gun. which depending on the state of the inside of the mount and the magazine can cause all kinds of fun side effects.
I expected this answer. Due to my experiences, knowledge, and deductive reasoning, I figured that firing large caliber guns over any period of time can and will cause mechanical failures and crew exhaustion. Thank you for this video Ryan!!! P.S. When are you gonna cover the Casablanca-class carriers? 😉
It appears that he may have gotten this wrong. Someone who apparently knows what they're talking about posted a comment and pointed out that in the links is a report on the ship maneuvering during the engagement, he walks everything through step by step and at one point the ship turned, when the turrets turned to stay on target they'd have had a barrel or two that would have shot the superstructure if they'd have fired, that's what accounts for some of them not firing, it's not that something broke or the crews couldn't get them loaded in time.
@@dukecraig2402 If memory serves me right, Mr. Ryan did address some of the points you mentioned, i.e. other ships getting in the way. But yes, I agree with you, there are more causes than Mr. Ryan has listed that would prevent multiple guns not firing. :)
More or less confirmed my suspicion. But the disparity was greater then I imagined. Makes sense though, battle ships isn’t a real mass production item and test firing them at length to work out potentially issues, prohibitively expensive.
I would expect that from time to time there would be mechanical issues, but never to the extent described by Ryan. The only notable out of service gun that I've read about was when turret #1 on the USS South Dakota took a Japanese bomb hit on the roof. The bomb damaged a gun from turret #2 by making large gouges into the barrel, bad enough that it was decided to secure the gun and not use it. The bomb wasn't big enough to penetrate the turret roof, but apparently scarred the roof, and also destroyed the periscopes that poke up thru the roof.
Thanks for the info that was interesting, I would have thought there would be mechanical failures with more often positioning issues and not able to bring the gun to a target. But I never imagined it was that often and that soon in a battle for failures to start in, it's still amazing what they pulled off in the heat of battle because I'm sure just to fire and load 1 of those massive guns takes a lot of resources and manpower with massive fire support system's to maintain each single gun with lots of chances for mechanical failure. As the ship is aggressively maneuvering in high seas at times when engaged with enemy ships when not sitting firing in land. Those guys where no doubt real men inside those turret's
I wonder what the numbers looked like for the Des Moines Class rapid-fire autoloading 8 inch guns, much less human fatigue vs. mechanical issues. Just curious. 😊
Well, I had this question in my mind for a long time and it didn't come from a video game. It came from NavWeaps. In reading some guns theoretical firing rate, there's several that had caveats stating they didn't achieve this due to errors in equipment or drill. My research didn't prove conclusive.
“Destroyers don’t pose a danger” says Ryan. Destroyermen say otherwise. Say that to Johnson, Heerman Hoel, Samuel B Roberts, Dennis, Raymond and John C Butler. My Father served on USS Gambier Bay.
A misfire to me reflects either an out-of-round projectile or a powder bag that didn't ignite. We did have a out-of-round on one ship I was on, it was a 5" /.38, it took the gunnersmates a day to remove the round.
It never ceases to amaze me the amount of engineering that went into each of these ships, among the most complex things we've ever created, from start to finish in 2 years! Can you imagine even attempting such a thing today?
I've been reading about the German WW1 battlecruiser Von Der Tann. In the battle of Jutland all 4 of her turrets were out of action due to battle damage jamming the training ring or over heated barrels jammed in the recoiled position. yet all 4 turrets were brought back into action before the battle was over.
I can imagine that misfires happened in the past more times than not. Not just because of Bismarck or other vessels. Where I would think, Cruisers or Destroyers could have issues with the 5 inch weopons.
When you said you would discuss an older BB, my mind was screaming WV, WV. As a proud Mountaineer and future NJ visitor, hopefully this fall, thank you
Not surprised it isn't 100%, but up to 50-60%, that was surprising. But then again there's a large difference between a gun not being ready to fire at the moment the other guns are ordered to, and a misfire in the barrel that has to be cleared out.
Interesting video. The drop off in salvo 13 might have something to do with fact they began making something like a 120 degree turn to starboard at 0401 to come parallel to their original course prior to the first turn at 0356.
Where's the Kaboom? There's supposed to be an Earth-shattering Kaboom!?! PS - interesting that NJ suffered the same problem knocking out fwrd Radar with a salvo - same as Bismarck did in Denmark Straight.
The reliability was almost higher than I expected it to be; the figure I had in mind was Prince of Wales ending the fight against Bismarck with onle one gun operational, so the amount of full salvos after the first one sort of surprised me
The POW was very new when it engaged the Bismarck. I imagine that the increasing number of breakdowns was revealed by a much longer sequence of operation than ever practiced revealing more "fragile" parts of the system. Also it should be noted that there are problem guns, that misfire frequently but there are some guns that fire virtually every salvo. So its not just randomly distributed failures.
On World of Warships the West Virginia is a pretty good ship for a tier 6 I actually like it and given it's strong armament it can actually take on ships of higher tier. I wish the West Virginia could have been saved as a museum ship but oh well.
It looks like he may have gotten this wrong and there was nothing wrong with the guns that didn't fire. Someone who watched this that really knows what they're talking about pointed out that in the links there's a report or whatever on the ship maneuvering during this engagement, it turned so when the turrets turned to stay on target some of the barrels would have shot the superstructure and that accounts for why they didn't fire, it's not that something broke or the crews couldn't get them loaded in time.
@@dukecraig2402 I don't know of any ship that is capable of firing into it's own superstructure. Also when it comes to salvos if the commanders were not so impatient then they could delay each salvo until all barrels are actually loaded.
@@Sean-ot4zq I don't know if he meant actually fire into it or damage it from the blast, but he walks it through step by step and matches the turning of the ship with gun alignment and which one's fired and which one's didn't. Look down through the comments starting from the top and you'll find it.
@@Sean-ot4zq alexlincilum is the name on the post, scroll down from the first post in the video and not too far you'll see it, he matches the time stamps on the gun report that the curator has with the maneuver report and walks through everything and explains why certain barrels couldn't fire having been dangerously close to the superstructure. He's either a serious battleship enthusiast or he used to be on one because he apparently knows what he's talking about.
I was expecting that they would have the process worked out better, but it does make sense that mechanical mechanisms would break. furthermore, given the amount of work that people had to do it also makes sense that they would get tired. Games tend to be a low fidelity simulation, though some are better then others.
Yeah, from what I read on my own, this is pretty normal. Some guns are very reliable and some are always troublesome. Failures are not spread out evenly.
Bismarck fired 93 of 104 possible in the Battle of Denmark straight, Prinz Eugen fired 21 salvos and fired 150 or 152. However, the rate of fire was about 1 salvo a minute per gun as Bismarck and Prinz Eugen fired A+B and then C+D. I have read but have not seen or could not tell but in the actual footage of Denmark straight, Bismarck fires one 7 gun salvo.
The USS Constitution, oldest ship in the US navy, was on anti submarine patrol 19 miles off of Cape Cod in February 1942 when she fired 14 full broadsides from her cannons sinking U-G429. Only 3 misfires were recorded.
Interesting video. Would be interested to find out how New Jersey went in Vietnam with firing so many salvos for shore bombardment. If there is data on that it would make an interesting video.
I learned something today. While I'd heard of individual ships having teething issues (e.g. King George V when engaging the Bismarck) I didn't think it would've been nearly that common that most salvoes from most ships even in mostly good order could expect to have a misfire, or several.
I think something that needs to be emphasized is not all guns are always on target. Depending on where the target is they will need time to turn and acquire the target. Also rear guns can't shoot through the bridge of the ship.
That was not a misfire, it was an open breech unintended ignition of the 5-bag propellant charge. Strictly speaking, a misfire is when the propellant does NOT ignite.
Thanks Ryan & Crew for bringing the "WeeVees" activity in Leyte Gulf to light! 🫡 As for whether or not I knew of this Computerized Perfection Fallacy, I did not. I knew that the older equipment during this time period occasionally failed, but I did not know that this also applied to the guns (and gun crews), nor to the extent that it expanded as fatigue kicked in too. 🤔
I am actually quite surprised to hear it was so common. I knew Iowa was experiencing problems with her guns frequently in shooting exercises leading up to her turret explosion, but I assumed it was mostly because of her age and the Navy's lack of funding for the ship's maintenance. I do wonder now how much of it was actually commonplace, and how much was neglect.
Yeah, pretty much. Dreadnought-type battleships, broadly defined, went from prototype to the full limits of the system in approximately 35 years. Every one of them was experimental, even the Iowas, as were the pre-dreadnoughts before them. And the obsession with bigger or heavier shells and longer-range guns meant that ships weren't properly designed to withstand the concussions of their own guns. It seemed like a good idea at the time, they were tremendously "cool" and threatening, but they tended to hamper their own tactical effectiveness, and be more useful as strategic deterrents than actual combat weapons. Compare medieval castles...
the first salvo is always the most effective. as I remember Bismarck had already guns out of action, after receiving the first salvo. but that was a 15" and 16" salvo from 2 battle ships. going to hurt
Assuming they actually hit. The Italian navy had that problem in WW2 - right range, inconsistent ammunition. They frequently straddled the target with every salvo - one gun would go long and the one next to it short.
Bismarck was never firing full salvos She would fire two turrets, wait for the fall of shot, then fire the other two turrets. This was the German way of walking the shots on target
Gentlemen, I have a technical question. While playing BATTLE OF WARSHIP, which is a "bargin basement" version of WORLD OF WARSHIP, I noticed that the ships had two types of shells: armor piercing and incindiary. The game creators say that you should use the incendiaries to set the enemy battleship afire; before closing in and finishing her off with armor piercing shells. Now, I know about armor piercing and high capacitance shell, which were used for lightly armored ships. But we're there really any shell called incindiary used?
Small arms ammo has the word "incendiary" in its description and during WW2 the USAAF dropped incendiary bombs on Japan and the Brits used them heavily against German cities (eg Dresden), but I don't recall Ryan stating that there were 16" rounds with the word "incendiary" in the description. He did say there were White Phosphorous rounds for the main battery, and these are ostensibly used as smoke rounds, but in order to make smoke they have to burn, so in that sense the WP rounds do a pretty good job of lighting things on fire.
@@SomeRandomHuman717 Thanks for your response. I knew that I remember Ryan and some of the literature that I have read on battleship rounds, that only armor piercing and high capacitance shells were used. Armor piercing, as I am sure you well know, are used against heavily armored ships or fortifications. High Capacity shells, on the other hand, were used against lightly armored ships. High capacity shells were also not as hard on the rifling on your main guns. But thanks to your information, I know that this "incindiary shell," as used in BATTLE OF WARSHIP was a no thing. For the explosion 💥 of standard armor piercing shells would be more than enough to start fires 🔥 on an enemy battleship. Just ask the survivors of the BISMARCK.
My first engineering supervisor served on one of the Iowa class battleships ( I forget which one ☹️). He claimed that a full 9 gun broadside moved the ship sideways about thirty feet. Is that true? BTW: My dad worked at Midvale Steel in Philadelphia from 1943-1945 machining 50 caliber 16” naval cannon barrels. His section machined the outer surface, & prepared the bore for fitting the sleeve. He said those giant barrels would stack up beside the lathes, stacked like telephone poles, sometimes for several weeks - until one day they were gone! Nobody ever saw them moved. Talk about wartime secrecy…
I new about the problems Prince of Wales had against Bismark but she wasn't really ready for action with civilian contractors still on board completing the commissioning process. I didn't realise that gun reliability in general was so poor.
great vid Ryan, u might want to check out a hot vid on youtube of Missouri participating in Sink-Ex 89, impressive vid showing her slower rate of fire on her 16 inch guns but the 5 inch guns are maintaining a high rate of fire... I wonder if the firing stats are available for this exercise, the exercise I am assuming lasted longer than what was shown in the video... but the vid is impressive especially with the volume turned up...
205 218 Firing logs This brings up the question. During a battle engagement, is someone documenting problems / miss fires that occur in real time or is this something that is figured out later? Also, is there a firing counter on the guns to keep track of the number of times and at what time it was fired? I don"t recall seeing this in a prior vid.
recorded in real time - I believe the fire control system semi-automated this, spitting out a record of the time stamps the salvo went off, and what corrections were input as they were entered. Iowa's at least had a "times gun fired counter" per gun that fed back into the fire computer and was reset when barrels were replaced, with a cam set in the computer to adjust for the barrel wear.
Misfires with small arms can be nerve wracking enough - can’t imagine hearing *click* on 660 pounds of powder and 2,700 pounds of projectile 😅
Pucker factor for inexperienced crew would be so high, they'd be making diamonds.
On naval cannons like this I believe you can put in a new primer without opening the breach. Not sure if he has covered this before...
Looked it up and the primer (which is a small rifle round blank) has its own small firing lock. You can keep putting in primers until the change ignites.
On the Iowa, we had a misfire in Turret One left gun where she misfired 6 times, meaning six primer cartridges were inserted, and the gun was fired. We left the gun in the elevated position for hours and eventually lowered the gun and opened the breech. The powder bag was not aligned right and there was a neat hole burned in the bag just to the left of the red ignition pad if my memory serves me correct.
@@asertaeven experienced crew. Miss fires are never fun
considering the primer is basically a 357 blank, i assume it's just a matter of swapping out the dud and throwing the bad one overboard.
quote> At close range the Johnston’s entire chorus of weaponry came to bear on the island. There was the sharp, ear-ringing bark of the five-inchers, the rhythmic thumping of the twin-mounted forty-millimeter machine guns, and the faster metallic chatter of the single-barreled twenties. Men from a damage-control party broke out rifles and made like Davy Crockett from the main deck. Lt. (jg) Ellsworth Welch took out his. 45-caliber pistol, outstretched his arm, and enfiladed the distant enemy with the handgun. From his perch in the gun director, Hagen spied a Japanese officer on the beach, waving a saber, rallying his troops to the fight, and thought, Why not? He put the officer in the sights of his slewing device. The fire-control computer clicked and whirred and zipped coordinates to the Johnston’s five main gun turrets. When Hagen closed the firing key, they all barked as one. The technology lived up to its brutal promise. The five-shell salvo obliterated the man.
“Mr. Hagen, that was very good shooting,” called Captain Evans from the bridge. “But in the future, try not to waste so much ammunition on one individual.”
James D. Hornfischer - Last Stand of the Tin Can Sailors
Epic
😁👍
Every bit as good as Wisconsin's "Temper, temper" incident.
The Japanese officer's last words to his men:
"We will NOT retreat! The enemy's guns couldn't possibly reach us from this dist.........."
I always assumed that the guns were pretty much 100% reliable. Now I understand why they need so many guns, not just for volume of fire, but for redundancy.
Is there ever too much redundancy on a battleship? 🤷🏼♂️
Mr James i also thought the same thing that battleships heavy guns were 100% Reliable Well surprise surprise surprise they are not and not very accurate or Reliable 😢😢😢😢😢
Battleships were designed by the Bureau of Ships, but the Navy Department of Redundancy Department (Navy) had significant design input.
Honestly the WV getting five straight full gun salvos at 40 second increments sounds damned impressive to me.
Salvos 13 and 14 are just 15 seconds apart. I'm guessing that they could also be described as a single (very long) salvo?
I got to see the New Jersey fire her big guns, all I can say is, that on that occasion, they all worked perfectly. I must say that it was one of the most amazing spectacles I have ever witnessed in my life. The sheer power they generate when they fire is nothing short of staggering.
The would have sailors in reserve to fill if someone was injured or fatigued.
I was a Royal Navy gunnery officer in ships for 14 years. Never had a misfire. Misfires are no real problem, It is a hang fire that causes grey hairs. A misfire means that you pull the trigger, and nothing happens. A hang fire means that you pull the trigger and it doesn't go bang, but fizzles gently. It may go bang at any time, particularly if it is jerked or knocked. It is difficult to tell whether it is a misfire or a hang fire externally, so you always act as if it is a hang fire, and keep the weapon pointed safely down range for at least 30 minutes before unloading, and then immediately storing that cordite safely overboard!
I'm a retired US Army artilleryman. Wow! Same problems, much different ways of dealing with it.
Would some valves for injecting water into the chamber help, to extinguish any sparks that could still ignite something? They would need to be very pressure tight, of course...
Misfires are no joke. My grandfather was onboard the USS Mississippi (BB-41) when they had a full-on backblow during gunnery practice in 1924. A gun in the no. 2 turret exploded when a small ember from the previous shot was undetected as the power bags for the next shot were being loaded. Something like 40+ men died in the explosion, then several more died when a remaining bag detonated during the rescue attempt. Fortunately, my grandad was stationed up high as a rangefinder and was nowhere near the turrets. Very sad.
What you are talking about isn’t considered a misfire. Complacency for not swabbing the bore and just bad luck.
Prior to watching your videos, I would have never guessed that loading the shells/powder was such a labor intensive task. I certainly never would have guessed that there were so many men in each of the turrets.
The handling of 16" shells in US battleships always amazes me - just sliding the shells around - without any restraints! RN shell handling was by mechanical hoists from horizontal racking. Obviously, less crew fatigue, but more mechanism as a potential failure
One of the best videos on battleship I have ever watched.
Hi Ryan Great Video. If you notice in the link you included about the West Virginia there is also a navigation chart and time of the battle. About the time the number of shells fired drops she made a starboard turn. This would account for going from 8 to 7 then 3 to 2. At the time of the cease fire only her forward guns 4 barrels. Plus her rear turrets would need to swing around 180 degrees to the port for them to reengage on the port side. From 03:55 to 04:00 she was not broadside across the T but at an angle. I surmise that turret #3 right hand barrel stopped firing due to being too close to the superstructure. At 04:01 was the last turn to starboard. This was probably communicated to the gun crews and the rear turrets ceased firing leaving the forward 4 guns left till ceasefire at 04:02. So if you take the course changes into account the West Virginia was mostly using her full available battery during the battle.
Nice catch.
You're on top of that one.
@@dukecraig2402 100 % agreed Mr Alex is on it
@@rogerstlaurent8704
Yea, it would appear that there actually wasn't any problems with the equipment or the crew couldn't get certain barrels loaded fast enough, apparently it had to do with the ships and the turrets relationship to each other.
I was really excited to hear about New Jersey's engagement at Truk. Could we get a video about the history of the engagement? Thanks Ryan.
It was exciting. "More steam I can give you but the throttles are wide open!" or something similar.
I had (mistakenly) assumed that, in a battleship vs. battleship engagement, the nonlinear behaviour of the Lancaster equations would so severely punish a ship for any loss of main battery fire that any ship that did suffer a misfire was almost certain to be destroyed. For that reason, I concluded ship designers had done everything in their power to prevent such misfires.
As you point out, though, there are two missing pieces to that logic: first, all ships suffer from it, so in reality both battleships would have guns missing their salvo time; and second, a "misfire" only very, very rarely means something that disables a gun or turret for the rest of the engagement.
Thank you for this very interesting video, and for the reminder not to forget about operational realities in conducting tactical analysis.
Great video Ryan. I am impressed, and not surprised about the raw data the Navy collects on the operation of these massive guns. Kudos to my brothers, the Gunners Mates that maintain and operate these systems. After watching many videos on the USS Iowa turret explosion and ensuing investigation about the cause, it becomes apparent that each step in the process of firing a gun turret, is important for success and safety. I was hoping in this video you would address the steps undertaken during a misfire. We have all had them will small arms, and they can be tricky. With a 16 inch gun, I personally would be terrified. With that said, I have no doubt that there are standard operating procedures and our GM's have knowledge on how to proceed when a misfire occurs. To this day, I am proud to say we operated with the New Jersey and made a port call together in Sasebo, Japan. What a sight to see those 16 inchers!
Exactly, I thought by the title we were going to learn about what happens when the powder doesn't light off and what they had to do to get the powder and the projectile out of the gun barrel.
@@dukecraig2402 With handguns asnd shoulder guns, they usually use the term misfire to talk about when the trigger is pulled and the gun either doesn't fire or doesn't chamber another bullet. And I was thinking "isn't a misfire in a battleship gun just going to be a massive explosion or a failed primer?" Now I see there are more options.
@@extragoogleaccount6061
Yea that's obvious AFTER watching the video but as I said when I clicked on it I thought that was going to be the gist of things, and I'd still like to know how they clear something like that, it's gotta be interesting since obviously you don't just drop the magazine and pull the charging handle to the rear and observe the chamber.
I wanna know how they get a projectile that weights as much as a Volkswagen Beatle and a buch of powder bags that's been rammed in there by that massive hydraulic ram out of it, I'll bet that's a hair raising task, I don't know how happy I'd be about having to open the breach on that thing after it goes click.
Thank you for sharing your vast knowledge on this subject. I really enjoy listening to the stories of the inner workings of it all!
I never had given it must thought but it make sense that such a complicated system would have reliability issues.
Thanks Ryan - one of your best. Clearly failures increase over the length of the engagement. This gives much-needed context to the criticism you see on sites like navweapons of British 14” & 16” turrets during much longer engagements.
I never really gave it much thought, because there was not a lot of exposure about misfires on Battleships. I know that there have been accidents, and you have covered that huge device for dislodging a 16 " projectile from a gun. I guess we are all sort of spoiled by computer wargames where the only way a battleship's guns were silenced was either through a turret being struck by enemy fire or the magazines being flooded to prevent an explosion. My favourite game was Steel Ships, it gave a great simulation of battleship and torpedo action.
Very cool episode Ryan thank you.
The Nowaki record is interesting. It is a stern chase, so the roll of the ship throws off aim, this is where the stable element input to keep the guns on target becomes important. Only turrets 1 & 2 bear, so they alternate salvos. The constant left and right adjustments show that Nowaki is evading by splash chasing. If the previous salvo landed to the left, you wait for the flash of the next salvo firing, then change course slightly to the left, as the shooter will have adjusted to the right. This is why destroyers at long range are impossible targets, no fire control system will hit a well handled dd at long range.
Look at Commodore Goodenough at Jutland if you don't think this is true.
As for casualty rates, on NAVWEPS there is the record of the time the USN fired out the entire magazine of a BB in one sitting just to learn how it worked trying to get every last round out of the magazines.
Hi Ryan, according to the post action gunnery report of the Prinz Eugen, after battle of the Denmark Straits, B-turret suffered a technical problem which caused it to miss a salvo with both guns, and the right barrel 13 consecutive salvos; A-turret missed four salvos during the action due to operational errors, while C and D-turrets each missed one salvo.
I'm in the Midwest, next vaycay is to USS New Jersey. Love your content and your passion for naval history.
It never occurred to me to wonder about this, but the result is understandable.
I thought it was something like this where guns would go down but not that quickly. Very interesting Ryan
May not have been cost effective to use 16inch on a destroyer, but 2 or 3 hits should do the job.
Talking board games, Panzerblitz limits you to 10 turns at best. You can go rapid fire, but they then consider the barrel lining worn out, and the unit tile is considered lost.
You make a very logical argument.
You might check with Drachinifel, IIRC about Jutland, a lot of the German and British ships didnt fire at times due to damage, out of range, or smoke obscured targets.
Pretty wild to find out that something that seems so critical on the ship is actually prone to a such a high rate of failure. I would have expected this to be a rare thing.
Part of what's surprised me most out of this is how much New Jersey was mostly a shore bombardment platform. Having one ship to ship engagement in it's entire life is wild.
So wise , Thank You .
This is very similar to what you can expect from a gun-howitzer battery in the field artillery. Long firemissions always start off rapidly, but then slow down as the crew has to move shells around.
Yeah 4 or 5 max gets down to that 2 sustained pretty quick. One of the bigger concerns is mistakes from fatigue. Correct settings from the fdc, right shell, right fuze, right fuze setting, right propellant....doesn't happen often, but when it does, it always seems make its way to friendly forces.
Good topic Ryan. Thanks again
I have never before been given insight to this topic. This is new and very interesting. The strategy, the target, the worth of a target, conservation of ammo is not discussed much. More, more! 🙂
In the propulsion plant on my Destroyer (2 fire rooms, 2 engine rooms) I don't think we ever made it more than 2 days without something breaking down. A lot of moving parts that all depend on all the others to operate correctly. One simple failure in the system and it begins to cascade quickly.
Your definitely right about world of war ships is the best case scenario, but in the legends version of it, the longest action is 15 minutes so it’s pretty short engagements.
You should have defined the term “misfire”. In the Army, that means you go to fire, and no big boom. Ryan is defining it as not being ready to fire when the fire control computer wants to fire. Two separate definitions. His list did include a misfire when he mentioned one powder bag didn’t explode.
Yea, I thought it was going to be about that myself, and what it took to clear the gun afterwards, how to get the powder bags and projectile out of the barrel.
This is the second time in two days I've watched a video from this channel that the title was misleading, I can't remember what the other one was about, or supposed to be about, but the subject was the main guns also.
Its more the case we don't have precise failure records.
And your definition is exactly the one he used. Ship goes to fire, guns aren't ready. I think you're arbitrarily not counting the humans as part of the gun mechanism.
You'd count feed issues, jamming, mistiming, etc with an automatic weapon i'm sure.
IIRC, the RN and the WW1 German navy didn't open fire with full broadsides - preferring to fire a salvo (typically half broadside - e.g. left guns in a 4x2 arrangement, modified by the later Nelson and KGV classes) at the estimated range, followed by another salvo at a different range before the first salvo landed.
The spotting would determine if the range and line were correct. With a nominal reload of 30 seconds, time of flight about 60 seconds, this is a quicker way of getting on target.
Once accurate radar range and fall of shot was available. the practice could change... HMS Duke of York fired broadsides at the Scharnhorst based on radar ranges from the onset
A ton of moving parts, and after listening to the Battleship Iowas podcast mentioning how often lights would be destroyed from the guns firing, not surprised mechanical failures would creep up. It’s a massive steel vessel pumping tons of explosives out with big hoists and mechanical systems at odd angles, and relies on men, it’s a guarantee.
Recommend the reports from the gunnery officers onboard Scharnorst and G in their engagement with Renown. Not only did the Germans experience the same sort of issues and troubles, the sisters also struggled more in bad weather. So this is not a British-US thing, it’s universal.
Always nice to hear about BB48 great video about challenges of firing the main guns
Awesome !! James.
Thank you.
Wow, this is quite fascinating! Thank you for sharing this insightful information with me. I'm eagerly anticipating more of your enlightening insights.
Thanks for this interesting insight. To date I have only heard of the problems experienced by Prince of Wales and King George V against Bismark.
I never had any account on the problems the US battleships had until now.
Cheers!
I knew that it was common, I had no idea it was quite so prevalent even without damage from return fire. Great video!
This is an excellent use of data to illustrate reality compared to what we think life would’ve been like influenced by games and movies
GMG1(SW) ret. Misfire indicates that you initiated a firing but gun did not discharge. Mechanical failures that prevent gun loading aren’t considered misfires. An open breech explosion is just that and not a misfire. Modern naval guns have a very low misfire rate. Most misfires are caused by faulty ammo. Over 20 years and thousands of rounds fired only had 2 big gun misfires, one ammo, one mechanical failure. Have a few misfires from small arms ammo. If the ammo quality is high you see very few misfires.
Great job exploring an interesting question!
Must have been a hell of a day for all the fish in the target area of the Idaho test.
While not really covering misfires (more of an overview of percentage of guns firing) still very interesting. I'd like to see instances of a loaded barrel failing to fire the loaded shell for whatever reason. Bad ignition patch or bad primer or primer connection.
Yeah, I would have expected various kinds of misfires or other loading difficulties.
I was expecting that there couldn't always be flawless execution, but I figured it was very rare. I wasn't aware how much crew performance affected this, and I'm surprised at the lack of reliability of the equipment. I've always thought the military had things fairly well polished when it comes to procedures like this.
You're more likely to hangfire than misfire, but even more than that when you're in a situation where you're putting ALOT of rounds down range you start getting into hot gun territory and that can get pretty hairy. clearing a misfire in a hotgun is probably one of the scariest thing you can have happen on the ship. You have to load a clearing charge aim and fire the dud round over the side before the barrels heats the round up to the point where it might detonate in the gun. which depending on the state of the inside of the mount and the magazine can cause all kinds of fun side effects.
I was expecting the occasional misfire, but this is a lot more than i anticipated.
I expected this answer. Due to my experiences, knowledge, and deductive reasoning, I figured that firing large caliber guns over any period of time can and will cause mechanical failures and crew exhaustion. Thank you for this video Ryan!!!
P.S. When are you gonna cover the Casablanca-class carriers? 😉
It appears that he may have gotten this wrong.
Someone who apparently knows what they're talking about posted a comment and pointed out that in the links is a report on the ship maneuvering during the engagement, he walks everything through step by step and at one point the ship turned, when the turrets turned to stay on target they'd have had a barrel or two that would have shot the superstructure if they'd have fired, that's what accounts for some of them not firing, it's not that something broke or the crews couldn't get them loaded in time.
@@dukecraig2402 If memory serves me right, Mr. Ryan did address some of the points you mentioned, i.e. other ships getting in the way. But yes, I agree with you, there are more causes than Mr. Ryan has listed that would prevent multiple guns not firing. :)
More or less confirmed my suspicion. But the disparity was greater then I imagined. Makes sense though, battle ships isn’t a real mass production item and test firing them at length to work out potentially issues, prohibitively expensive.
I would expect that from time to time there would be mechanical issues, but never to the extent described by Ryan. The only notable out of service gun that I've read about was when turret #1 on the USS South Dakota took a Japanese bomb hit on the roof. The bomb damaged a gun from turret #2 by making large gouges into the barrel, bad enough that it was decided to secure the gun and not use it. The bomb wasn't big enough to penetrate the turret roof, but apparently scarred the roof, and also destroyed the periscopes that poke up thru the roof.
Thanks for the info that was interesting, I would have thought there would be mechanical failures with more often positioning issues and not able to bring the gun to a target. But I never imagined it was that often and that soon in a battle for failures to start in, it's still amazing what they pulled off in the heat of battle because I'm sure just to fire and load 1 of those massive guns takes a lot of resources and manpower with massive fire support system's to maintain each single gun with lots of chances for mechanical failure. As the ship is aggressively maneuvering in high seas at times when engaged with enemy ships when not sitting firing in land. Those guys where no doubt real men inside those turret's
I wonder what the numbers looked like for the Des Moines Class rapid-fire autoloading 8 inch guns, much less human fatigue vs. mechanical issues. Just curious. 😊
I love this channel. Thanks for another great video! 👍🏻
A detail I never thought about and I doubt these statistics are covered often is the reason I did not think about it.
Very informative. Love it.
Interesting ty
Well, I had this question in my mind for a long time and it didn't come from a video game. It came from NavWeaps. In reading some guns theoretical firing rate, there's several that had caveats stating they didn't achieve this due to errors in equipment or drill. My research didn't prove conclusive.
“Destroyers don’t pose a danger” says Ryan. Destroyermen say otherwise. Say that to Johnson, Heerman Hoel, Samuel B Roberts, Dennis, Raymond and John C Butler. My Father served on USS Gambier Bay.
A misfire to me reflects either an out-of-round projectile or a powder bag that didn't ignite. We did have a out-of-round on one ship I was on, it was a 5" /.38, it took the gunnersmates a day to remove the round.
It never ceases to amaze me the amount of engineering that went into each of these ships, among the most complex things we've ever created, from start to finish in 2 years! Can you imagine even attempting such a thing today?
best sound ever !
I've been reading about the German WW1 battlecruiser Von Der Tann. In the battle of Jutland all 4 of her turrets were out of action due to battle damage jamming the training ring or over heated barrels jammed in the recoiled position. yet all 4 turrets were brought back into action before the battle was over.
I can imagine that misfires happened in the past more times than not. Not just because of Bismarck or other vessels. Where I would think, Cruisers or Destroyers could have issues with the 5 inch weopons.
When you said you would discuss an older BB, my mind was screaming WV, WV. As a proud Mountaineer and future NJ visitor, hopefully this fall, thank you
Country roads, take me home!
USS MISSISSIPPI is a good example,they had a turret explosion in the middle of battle
I would love to see film from the bridge of Nowaki during her escape from Truk.
I would be very interested to know how the reliability of the autoloading eight inch guns on the Des Moines class stack up in comparison
same here
Honestly, a bit surprising but not as surprising as it should be to me when I sit and think about it critically. Fascinating nonetheless.
I’m tryin to collect them all. What a beautiful sea bird. I did sit on the guns and I’m sorry. I have such appreciation.
I always wondered how dyed shells work? As in how they stored the dye inside the shell and how much dye was used?
Not surprised it isn't 100%, but up to 50-60%, that was surprising. But then again there's a large difference between a gun not being ready to fire at the moment the other guns are ordered to, and a misfire in the barrel that has to be cleared out.
Interesting!
Interesting video. The drop off in salvo 13 might have something to do with fact they began making something like a 120 degree turn to starboard at 0401 to come parallel to their original course prior to the first turn at 0356.
Where's the Kaboom? There's supposed to be an Earth-shattering Kaboom!?!
PS - interesting that NJ suffered the same problem knocking out fwrd Radar with a salvo - same as Bismarck did in Denmark Straight.
The reliability was almost higher than I expected it to be; the figure I had in mind was Prince of Wales ending the fight against Bismarck with onle one gun operational, so the amount of full salvos after the first one sort of surprised me
The POW was very new when it engaged the Bismarck. I imagine that the increasing number of breakdowns was revealed by a much longer sequence of operation than ever practiced revealing more "fragile" parts of the system. Also it should be noted that there are problem guns, that misfire frequently but there are some guns that fire virtually every salvo. So its not just randomly distributed failures.
On World of Warships the West Virginia is a pretty good ship for a tier 6 I actually like it and given it's strong armament it can actually take on ships of higher tier. I wish the West Virginia could have been saved as a museum ship but oh well.
It looks like he may have gotten this wrong and there was nothing wrong with the guns that didn't fire.
Someone who watched this that really knows what they're talking about pointed out that in the links there's a report or whatever on the ship maneuvering during this engagement, it turned so when the turrets turned to stay on target some of the barrels would have shot the superstructure and that accounts for why they didn't fire, it's not that something broke or the crews couldn't get them loaded in time.
@@dukecraig2402 I don't know of any ship that is capable of firing into it's own superstructure. Also when it comes to salvos if the commanders were not so impatient then they could delay each salvo until all barrels are actually loaded.
@@Sean-ot4zq
I don't know if he meant actually fire into it or damage it from the blast, but he walks it through step by step and matches the turning of the ship with gun alignment and which one's fired and which one's didn't.
Look down through the comments starting from the top and you'll find it.
@@Sean-ot4zq
alexlincilum is the name on the post, scroll down from the first post in the video and not too far you'll see it, he matches the time stamps on the gun report that the curator has with the maneuver report and walks through everything and explains why certain barrels couldn't fire having been dangerously close to the superstructure.
He's either a serious battleship enthusiast or he used to be on one because he apparently knows what he's talking about.
I bet the German and British battleships and battlecruisers suffered numerous misfires during the Battle of Jutland.
Well, there was something wrong with their bloody ships that day
I was expecting that they would have the process worked out better, but it does make sense that mechanical mechanisms would break. furthermore, given the amount of work that people had to do it also makes sense that they would get tired.
Games tend to be a low fidelity simulation, though some are better then others.
Yeah, from what I read on my own, this is pretty normal. Some guns are very reliable and some are always troublesome. Failures are not spread out evenly.
Bismarck fired 93 of 104 possible in the Battle of Denmark straight, Prinz Eugen fired 21 salvos and fired 150 or 152.
However, the rate of fire was about 1 salvo a minute per gun as Bismarck and Prinz Eugen fired A+B and then C+D.
I have read but have not seen or could not tell but in the actual footage of Denmark straight, Bismarck fires one 7 gun salvo.
The USS Constitution, oldest ship in the US navy, was on anti submarine patrol 19 miles off of Cape Cod in February 1942 when she fired 14 full broadsides from her cannons sinking U-G429. Only 3 misfires were recorded.
Is this a joke?
Interesting video. Would be interested to find out how New Jersey went in Vietnam with firing so many salvos for shore bombardment. If there is data on that it would make an interesting video.
Ive read that at the end of the final battle with Bismarck that Rodney's guns were firing practically level they were so close.
I learned something today. While I'd heard of individual ships having teething issues (e.g. King George V when engaging the Bismarck) I didn't think it would've been nearly that common that most salvoes from most ships even in mostly good order could expect to have a misfire, or several.
I think something that needs to be emphasized is not all guns are always on target. Depending on where the target is they will need time to turn and acquire the target. Also rear guns can't shoot through the bridge of the ship.
Well the most wel well known turret misfire is the explosion in Iowa's number 2 turret
There was also the Newport News turret explosion.
That was not a misfire, it was an open breech unintended ignition of the 5-bag propellant charge. Strictly speaking, a misfire is when the propellant does NOT ignite.
7 years on 5"/54 it only happen 3 times , we always had clearing charges in the gun house .
Thanks Ryan & Crew for bringing the "WeeVees" activity in Leyte Gulf to light!
🫡
As for whether or not I knew of this Computerized Perfection Fallacy, I did not. I knew that the older equipment during this time period occasionally failed, but I did not know that this also applied to the guns (and gun crews), nor to the extent that it expanded as fatigue kicked in too.
🤔
I am actually quite surprised to hear it was so common. I knew Iowa was experiencing problems with her guns frequently in shooting exercises leading up to her turret explosion, but I assumed it was mostly because of her age and the Navy's lack of funding for the ship's maintenance. I do wonder now how much of it was actually commonplace, and how much was neglect.
Yeah, pretty much. Dreadnought-type battleships, broadly defined, went from prototype to the full limits of the system in approximately 35 years. Every one of them was experimental, even the Iowas, as were the pre-dreadnoughts before them. And the obsession with bigger or heavier shells and longer-range guns meant that ships weren't properly designed to withstand the concussions of their own guns. It seemed like a good idea at the time, they were tremendously "cool" and threatening, but they tended to hamper their own tactical effectiveness, and be more useful as strategic deterrents than actual combat weapons. Compare medieval castles...
the first salvo is always the most effective. as I remember Bismarck had already guns out of action, after receiving the first salvo. but that was a 15" and 16" salvo from 2 battle ships. going to hurt
Assuming they actually hit.
The Italian navy had that problem in WW2 - right range, inconsistent ammunition. They frequently straddled the target with every salvo - one gun would go long and the one next to it short.
Bismarck was never firing full salvos
She would fire two turrets, wait for the fall of shot, then fire the other two turrets.
This was the German way of walking the shots on target
Gentlemen, I have a technical question. While playing BATTLE OF WARSHIP, which is a "bargin basement" version of WORLD OF WARSHIP, I noticed that the ships had two types of shells: armor piercing and incindiary. The game creators say that you should use the incendiaries to set the enemy battleship afire; before closing in and finishing her off with armor piercing shells. Now, I know about armor piercing and high capacitance shell, which were used for lightly armored ships. But we're there really any shell called incindiary used?
Small arms ammo has the word "incendiary" in its description and during WW2 the USAAF dropped incendiary bombs on Japan and the Brits used them heavily against German cities (eg Dresden), but I don't recall Ryan stating that there were 16" rounds with the word "incendiary" in the description. He did say there were White Phosphorous rounds for the main battery, and these are ostensibly used as smoke rounds, but in order to make smoke they have to burn, so in that sense the WP rounds do a pretty good job of lighting things on fire.
@@SomeRandomHuman717 Thanks for your response. I knew that I remember Ryan and some of the literature that I have read on battleship rounds, that only armor piercing and high capacitance shells were used. Armor piercing, as I am sure you well know, are used against heavily armored ships or fortifications. High Capacity shells, on the other hand, were used against lightly armored ships. High capacity shells were also not as hard on the rifling on your main guns. But thanks to your information, I know that this "incindiary shell," as used in BATTLE OF WARSHIP was a no thing. For the explosion 💥 of standard armor piercing shells would be more than enough to start fires 🔥 on an enemy battleship. Just ask the survivors of the BISMARCK.
My first engineering supervisor served on one of the Iowa class battleships ( I forget which one ☹️). He claimed that a full 9 gun broadside moved the ship sideways about thirty feet. Is that true?
BTW: My dad worked at Midvale Steel in Philadelphia from 1943-1945 machining 50 caliber 16” naval cannon barrels. His section machined the outer surface, & prepared the bore for fitting the sleeve. He said those giant barrels would stack up beside the lathes, stacked like telephone poles, sometimes for several weeks - until one day they were gone! Nobody ever saw them moved. Talk about wartime secrecy…
I new about the problems Prince of Wales had against Bismark but she wasn't really ready for action with civilian contractors still on board completing the commissioning process. I didn't realise that gun reliability in general was so poor.
great vid Ryan, u might want to check out a hot vid on youtube of Missouri participating in Sink-Ex 89, impressive vid showing her slower rate of fire on her 16 inch guns but the 5 inch guns are maintaining a high rate of fire... I wonder if the firing stats are available for this exercise, the exercise I am assuming lasted longer than what was shown in the video... but the vid is impressive especially with the volume turned up...
205 218 Firing logs
This brings up the question. During a battle engagement, is someone documenting problems / miss fires that occur in real time or is this something that is figured out later?
Also, is there a firing counter on the guns to keep track of the number of times and at what time it was fired? I don"t recall seeing this in a prior vid.
recorded in real time - I believe the fire control system semi-automated this, spitting out a record of the time stamps the salvo went off, and what corrections were input as they were entered.
Iowa's at least had a "times gun fired counter" per gun that fed back into the fire computer and was reset when barrels were replaced, with a cam set in the computer to adjust for the barrel wear.