Inside the Boiler of The World's Fastest Battleship

Great video, and nightmare fuel for this old Boiler Technician.

The boiler he went in looks like shit, that is never coming on line again without retubing and all new firebrick/castable. Outside air casing and burners looked to be in good shape though.

Makes me shudder thinking I used to be the one crawling in every few months cleaning the boilers out. Water side and fire sides. Let alone running the things in the bottom of the ship, we didn't call it "the hole" for nothing.

Here's Texas in dry dock.  Looks like they have the outer hull removed.

That must be expensive as holy hell.

Mark Harden: A 1989 Gunner Remembers Turret II





One of the huge tanks on the outboard side of the vessel. This forty-foot-deep monster is one of sixteen fuel and ballast tanks along the midships waterline that helped hold IOWA's two-million-gallon load. Yep, you read that right: there are fifteen other tanks that look pretty much like this one.

It’s come a long way. We toured it yesterday. Couple more weeks and she is going back in the water.

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Perhaps Halsey was a blunter instrument than some, but he was very much a product of his time and most of the hate I ascribe to 20/20 hindsight.

Just the add on torpedo defense blisters. The original outer hull was under them.

Still a badass movie

Do I see concrete where steel should be?

Operating the Boiler isn't the issue. Complacency could be. 600 PSIG Steam will make you unrecognizable to your kin if it is unleashed on you.

It was Drach`s  TF 34 simulation that I saw. While I think it was good, I think he made some wrong assumptions. I think Alaska and Guam would have been present, which would have affected the cruiser fight. I also don`t recall why Indiana and North Carolina weren`t present. I know Indiana had been accidentally rammed by another BB and needed repairs. I`m unsure about the time frame.

Where is, repeat, where is Task Force Thirty Four? The world wonders.

Nimitz - The World Wonders

The Last Stand of the Tin Can Sailors is a fantastic read about this battle.

Yes, they used concrete patches when it was in the water. They had to demo that all out.
@6:40

How did the North Carolina Class ships compare to the Iowa Class?

Both rocked (9) x 16" guns.

Nah. Betcha they got some at Surplus City for about $20 apiece.

North Caroline Class was designed to meet the interwar naval treaty limit of 35k tons.  Iowa class said F that and they built the biggest ship that would fit in the Panama Canal.

I'm not an expert and I am betting there are entire books written by experts on the subject. This is just the opinion of an amateur, please feel free to tell me how wrong I am.

But you had three classes of American "fast battleships" the North Carolina, the South Dakota, and the Iowa classes.

Earlier battleships were much slower at something like 21 knots top speed, give or take. The North Carolina and South Dakota were able to go about 28 knots I believe. The Iowa was faster at 33 knots. (Of course how they were loaded and sea conditions made a big difference here.)

All had 9x16" guns with the Iowa class having slightly longer and slightly more powerful guns.

The North Carolina was not quite as well armored as the South Dakota or the Iowa classes, but it was still fairly well armored.

The North Carolina and South Dakota class were designed to meet treaty limits on the size of battleships. The South Dakota class was shorter than the North Carolina and a bit better armored, and I believe a touch heavier.

The Iowa class... Well it was much longer and 10,000 tons heavier roughly, but it wasn't really any better armored than the South Dakota's were. All that extra length and weight was there to get that extra 5 knots of speed. And if you look at the bow from the top down you will notice that it's thin, that is for speed but also, as I understand it, resulted in a ship that tended to be a bit wet. Was this a good tradeoff? Probably not from a purely battleship perspective but these were designed that way so they could stay with the carriers and from that standpoint it probably was. You aren't just gaining 5 knots for one ship, you are gaining 5 knots for your entire fleet.

My guess is that given equally updated fire control equipment, all three ships would be roughly equal in combat ability with the Iowa having a slight edge due to the longer guns.

Any of them would have been superior to the Bismarck due to more guns, heavier guns, and better fire control. Against the Yamato class... American fire control would give the edge and American armor was superior to Japanese armor, but the Yamato class had a lot of that armor and those 18 inch guns. So it wouldn't take much for the Yamato to get lucky.

Solid explanation, to my understanding of the topic. I recall the North Carolinas were armored to protect from 14” guns and the torpedo protection wasn’t as good as the South Dakotas or Iowas.

The North Carolina class was originally designed to carry 10 14nch guns like the King George V class in compliance with the Washington Naval Treaty. US battleships were designed to withstand shellfire from guns the same size they carried. They were designed to have their main armament upgraded to 16 inches if the Japanese didn`t renew their participation in the treaty. When the Japanese announced they  wouldn`t renew, the US informed other treaty participants it was invoking the "Escalator Clause" and upgraded the North Carolinas to 3 16 inch gunned triple turrets.

USS Iowa firing port gun in turret 1 (pyro shoot)

A modern BB would have a large compliment of its own missiles to launch. Big guns in support of amphib ops is a separate mission. Heck, the BB could probably field a squadon of attack drones easily.

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Serious question:

Was it possible to skip 16” HE shells off the surface of the water into the side of an enemy ship?

It was the Colorado class that had the shorter barreled 16 inch 45 caliber guns, the North Carolina and South Dakota got 16 inch 50 caliber guns. The Iowa's also had 16 inch 50 caliber guns but they were a new, lighter and physically smaller breech design that could fit the turret design - there was a disconnect between the turret design team and the gun design team.
None of these battleships had armor that could protect against their own guns, if they had been built the Montana class would have had enough armor to give protection from the same guns that the Iowa's had. In WWII all the U.S. 16 inch battleships fired the same super-heavy armor piercing 2700 lb shell that could penetrate any other battleship's armor, even the Yamato class ships. Normal weight 16 inch armor penetrating shells other navies used weighed 2000-2200 lbs. The lighter shells had a flatter trajectory, but the heavy U.S. shell maintained it's velocity better and hit much harder at typical battle ranges.



Possible - yes at short ranges the shell could hit the water at a shallow enough angle to skip - but you wouldn't want to skip the shell in as you would just be using some of the shell's energy to skip it off the water that would be better to expend on penetrating the target's armor. In practical terms I don't think WWII battleships would ever get close enough to each other to make skipping a shell possible. There was some testing done on shells hitting a little short of the target ship to penetrate the target ship beneath the water line. The main armor belt ends at the water line and the armor belt under it is thinner and easier to penetrate. Also a hole under the water line lets water into the ship, a hole above the waterline lets air in, letting water in works much better to sink the target ship.

A "modern BB" would get a bomb dropped on it and be done.

The North Carolinas had 16” 45 caliber guns, I have a photo from the ship that shows this. I’m pretty sure the South Dakotas did too. If I recall correctly Ryan, the New Jersey curator, has a video explaining the differences. I think I’ve also heard that while there was a heavier AP round that the newer battleship could fire, most of what was used was the lighter AP because of logistics and compatibility with the older battleships. The heavier shell was longer and the handling machinery on the older ship couldn’t handle the length.


ETA photos: apparently I got a photo of some of the 2700 lbers on North Carolina. I saw both North Carolina and Wisconsin last year. As a museum North Carolina was better, more access to more of the ship. I need to go see Alabama soon.



North Carolina’s guns




Wisconsin



Wisconsin’s guns