Favorite Battleship Part 2: Uberships!

[m0ngoose]

XPAV- Our speed gage in CIC read 39.8 kts and we maintained this top speed around approx 20 minutes.

Keep in mind that this was a SPEED TRIAL.

The captain ordered engineering to pull all the stops and get every knot of speed out of the 8 boilers. They were pushed beyond normal SOP and we never did it again.

Our typical max speed was 32-34 knots. And we rarely did that because at that speed we sucked fuel like like my ex drained my bank account.

RAWINK- You hit the nail on the head. We were a PR ship. Diplomats were always on board and we were always showing the flag. The rest of you were right. Firepower to $$ you could do better with more modern smaller ships.

But we still kicked butt!

[XPav]

Originally posted by tanjman
XPav,

Before you insert more of your foot in your mouth I suggest you check out the United States Naval Fire Support Associaton web site at:

http://www.usnfsa.org/

You might want to read some of the articles posted there which are written by experts and not armchair generals

USNFSA? Hah! HAH! I tell you. Their ideas are based off pipe dreams tech and require a willful suspension of disbelief!

I may be an armchair colonel, but I've read many, many threads on sci.military.naval where the battleship comes up, and many people that DO this stuff for a living are pretty **** tired of pointing out that the BBs are useless.

You want fire support for troops? A modern rapid firing 5-inch gun is a better idea. The forthcoming DD(X) family of ships will have, among its many gizmos, 2 rapid-fire 155mm guns firing 12 rounds per minute (http://www.uniteddefense.com/prod/ags.htm).

You don't need 16" guns to support troops.

update: here's a nice usenet post detailing just how full of brown organic matter USNFA is.

[Mr.Frag]

The last great naval battle occured May 31-June 1, 1916.

It was called the Battle of Skagerrak.

Now that was a collection of ships to behold!

Now we talk about 1 Battleship like it is a big thing :rolleyes:

For those interested heres the Order of Battle from the mother of all slugfests!

[XPav]

Originally posted by m0ngoose
XPAV- Our speed gage in CIC read 39.8 kts and we maintained this top speed around approx 20 minutes.

Keep in mind that this was a SPEED TRIAL.

Aren't you supposed to preface that with "This ain't no <brown smelly organic matter>..." ?

If you've got a source saying you went 40 knots, well, can I have it so I tell lots of people that they're wrong? Until then, I'm still chalking this up as a sea story.

RAWINK- You hit the nail on the head. We were a PR ship. Diplomats were always on board and we were always showing the flag. The rest of you were right. Firepower to $$ you could do better with more modern smaller ships.

But we still kicked butt!

Agreed! Big guns guns are indeed, rather more scary to look at than a VLS.

[XPav]

Originally posted by Mr.Frag
The last great naval battle occured May 31-June 1, 1916.

It was called the Battle of Skagerrak.

Now that was a collection of ships to behold!

Now we talk about 1 Battleship like it is a big thing :rolleyes:

For those interested heres the Order of Battle from the mother of all slugfests!

I always thought it was called the Battle of Jutland, and no, I think the last great naval battle occured at Surigao Strait... (You've got more ships though....)

[rawink]

as far as speed goes. the fastest I have "Seen" published for the Iowa's were 30-32 knts. however, it has been listed that each ship attainted well over 35 knts after their 80's reactivations. Of course the true top speed of ships, aircraft and the like and not made public due to the fact these are warships.

Norman Polmars "Ships and Aircraft of the US Fleet" listed each Iowa as being capable of well of 35 knots each.

as an aside, my best friend served on the R.K. Turner (CG20) during the gulf war. He has told me several times ,he loves the story, that while in the southern gulf, he was following a Nimtz class CVN. the CVN was ordered north, at all possible speed.

the R.K. Turner was capable of around 32knots.. and he says the CVN just tossed up a rooster tail and LEFT them behind. Within an hour you couldnt even see the ship anymore. The CVN must have been making well over 43-45 knots!

I questioned him the fact that the CVN couldnt have go that fast, he just laughed at me. He asked with the stats were for the Standard SM's that he was a FCO for.. I read them to him, and he laughed again. He then went on to remind me, not to believe everything you see written.. since the data these books use, is the data the military gives out publically.. and things like weapons ranges, and speeds, as well as armor and the like are almost always underated for the public.

I think an Iowa doing nearly 39 knots is a tough pill to swallow.. but, I wont say it isnt possible, especially if the guy serving on the ship says it happened.

[mbatch729]

Originally posted by XPav

If you've got a source saying you went 40 knots, well, can I have it so I tell lots of people that they're wrong? Until then, I'm still chalking this up as a sea story.

As the story starts, "This is a no-sh*tter!" 32-34 knots was max operational speed. In an emergency, or speed trial, the Iowa class could make around 40 knots. Be there, done that, got the tee-shirt.

In UV terms, running that over 15-20 minutes would put about 20 system damage on the ship. Most ships, on speed trials, exceed their published maximum speed.

As for the 60+ knot carriers, well some information is still classified. But on the day Turret Two exploded, a carrier(I forget the name) was the first ship to arrive and render assistance. Rooster tail well above the flight deck. Our fire control radar didn't track her, so we didn't get an exact speed reading, but it was over 50 knots.

[Mr.Frag]

I always thought it was called the Battle of Jutland

As with all great debates, the winner gets to name it. While the British claim the victory, at a tactical level they engaged a smaller force with far greater numbers and firepower yet failed to inflict greater losses. In my book, thats a loss. The fact that the politicians stepped into the mix and prevented the Germans from ever sailing forth on the chance they might loose does not make for a British victory as they would claim :rolleyes:

[m0ngoose]

Yeah, I can confirm that. All the nuke ships can move so fast it makes you sick.

And so can surfaced nuke subs. We were along side one of the LA attack subs doing about 28 kts and it accelerated and LEFT us behind! One of the bridge officers said they can do about 45 kts on the surface (in an important situation) but that particular instance was between 35-40 kts.

Yeah, you see all kinds of crazy stuff that never gets published...

[XPav]

You know, the nuke carriers making 40+ kts, I can buy. Long ship, lots of power, off they go.

The BBs, with 40 year old machinery, I can't. Now, since I don't know the right questions to ask, but can you go over to sci.military.naval, post your story, and ask for people to poke holes in it?

There's a guy out there now who is claming in the "fastest ships in other navies" thread where USS Edson (DD946) went 50kts, but his story has some holes.

If you've got a 40-kt BB, well, that'd at least be interesting.

[rawink]

Originally posted by XPav
You know, the nuke carriers making 40+ kts, I can buy. Long ship, lots of power, off they go.

The BBs, with 40 year old machinery, I can't. Now, since I don't know the right questions to ask, but can you go over to sci.military.naval, post your story, and ask for people to poke holes in it?

There's a guy out there now who is claming in the "fastest ships in other navies" thread where USS Edson (DD946) went 50kts, but his story has some holes.

If you've got a 40-kt BB, well, that'd at least be interesting.

I think the operative word his Xpav, is that it "CAN" do the speed.

but it is caveated with: it will tear things up for prolonged periods of time.. but it CAN do it. My car has a top speed of 160mph.. it will get their easily enough, but if I held it there for 2 hours, it would do damage more than likely. Big difference between the occasional romp up to 160mph, and daily driving at 80mph..

I dont think anyone is saying a BB or CVN is going to go across the Atlantic at full power the whole way. In fact these numbers were done in trials usually, where they push the ships to a max power setting to check for things breaking. it's called a shakedown cruise for a reason

[Von_Frag]

Originally posted by m0ngoose
Well when I served on the USS New Jersey BB-62 (Iowa class) we did a speed trial and hit 39.8 knots at max speed.

You shoulda seen the rooster tail on that baby...!

Granted it was in '89 and I suspect the boilers might have been upgraded since WWII but that's still **** fast for such a monster!

I was an OS in the Navy from 89 to 93, served on a frigate and the Virginia, CGN-38. An officer and I were in CIC discussing the Iowa's one day. Wisconsin ran aground during or shortly after WWII, which broke her keel. After the extensive repairs she could only make about 27 knots. Can anyone verify this?

Just an off topic aside. 2 years before I transfered to Virginia, we were just outside GITMO when Virginia came out, she poured on the coal and I tracked her on radar doing around 40 knots. Just like Mongoose said, you shoulda seen the rooster tail. She was a beautiful ship. the last pictures I saw of her she was at Bremerton with her sisters, cut down to the main deck, awaiting disposal of her reactors, sad.

Von Frag

[XPav]

Originally posted by Von_Frag
I was an OS in the Navy from 89 to 93, served on a frigate and the Virginia, CGN-38. An officer and I were in CIC discussing the Iowa's one day. Wisconsin ran aground during or shortly after WWII, which broke her keel. After the extensive repairs she could only make about 27 knots. Can anyone verify this?

http://www.hazegray.org/navhist/battles ... htm#iow-cl

"Operational: It has often been reported that Missourisuffered severe, permanent damage from her 1950's grounding, and that she was restricted to 15 knots when reactivated in the 1980's. These reports are untrue; the damage caused by the grounding was minor, confined mainly to some torn bottom plating, and was repaired immediately after the grounding. All four ships reached 30+ knots during their 1980's reactivations."

This is why I don't believe sea stories.

[Feinder]

My brother (Knavey) was a nuke on the TR (CVN-71) from about 1989 - 1992, including the Gulf Conflict.

A while ago, I asked him just how fast they could go.

...

Can't say. Suffice to say we're the fastest ship in the fleet.

You're kidding, faster than the Aegis guys?

Yep.

But don't they go like 35 kts?

The Aegis cruisers? Yeah, something like that.

And y'all are faster than that?

Yep.

How fast did you say?

I didn't. In your book it says we go 32+ knots. That little "+" means we go "really, really, fast". Believe it.

...

-F-

[XPav]

Originally posted by Feinder
My brother (Knavey) was a nuke on the TR (CVN-71) from about 1989 - 1992, including the Gulf Conflict.

A while ago, I asked him just how fast they could go.
Can't say. Suffice to say we're the fastest ship in the fleet.

Without any public figures, of course everyone on a 30+ kt ship is going to declare their ship the fastest ship in the fleet.

http://www.warships1.com/W-Tech/tech-028.htm

edit: Waitaminute, shp for the nukes isn't public. Ok, fine, 40kts.

[Feinder]

It seems to me Xpav, that anyone with

18 F-14s Tomcats
54 F/A-18 Hornets
4 EA6B Prowlers
4 E2C Hawkeyes
6 S-3 A/B Vikings
2 ES3A Shadows
8 SH60 F Seahawk Helicopters

at their disposal can say they anything they want, and it becomes truth.

(* grin *)
-F-

[XPav]

Well, I won't argue with them.

One last thing: On sci.military.naval, there is a guy who was a chief engineer in the South African Navy. He tells of many times where he had a hard time convincing that "no, this ship can't go that fast".

And he was talking to his own crew.

If the crew doesn't on a ship doesn't believe the chief engineer, then nothing I say will convince the people on this forum that these ships aren't going as fast as some of these claims.

[rlc27]

Mongoose,

hey now, I want the credit for saying Iowa was a PR ship first--I quote (myself :rolleyes: )

I think that the battleships remain, as they were in their own age, most important *symbols* of national power. Destroyers might cost much less to build and man, but they simply do not such elicit such emotional reactions from the public as Mighty Mo and others. In Japan they're still bemoaning the loss of Yamato, but does anyone care about Yukikaze?

[m0ngoose]

Actually, the ship that got all the press was the Missouri BB-63 who was moored on the other side of the pier from us.

Those pussies got all the attention! Cher even shot her video there.

The Jersey and the Iowa did all the work. You guys had the east coast and we had the west coast.

We laughed when they ran an article on the Missouri about "tearful farewells" for a 40 day deployment.


We had just come back from a six month west-pac.

Yeah, those wimps.....

And you shoulda seen our stack of ribbons! Most decorated ship in the Navy...

Gotta luv it.

[Knavey]

A little clarification on the Nimitz class carriers. As Feinder said, I was stationed on the TR for a few years.

Speed was not really an issue, and truthfully, we NEVER tested in the 4 years I was on it, how fast we could go. Oh, thats not to say that we didn't want to. Do you know any teenager that HASN'T put the pedal to the metal in the family car?

We had many "limits" affecting how fast we were able to go.

Reactor Power (100%) - but we could very easily taken that set of reactors to pressures and temperatures above what we were allowed in the book. After all, if there is a torpedo in the water after your ***, the book goes out the window. There was a Battleshort switch that would disable many protective features. By enabling the BS switch (and this is no BS) you could push a lot more juice out of the reactors in into the turbines which are attached to the shaft which is attached to the screws, which move that pile of metal.

The main number that limited us, was actually the torque applied to the shaft. The number was needless to say, quite high. In the MILLION FOOT LBS of TORQUE range. I forget the exact length of the shaft, but at flank speed (>30 knots) the shaft twisted around it self over 2 times. Condidering that the shafts were several hundred feet long, that is a considerable stress on those things. The rumor was that at one time the Big E decided to see just how fast she could go (before they put shaft torque limits in place) and she busted one of the shafts. Don't know if its true, but if one of those things let loose, it would probably be just like a big bomb going off in respect to damage done.

So, I suppose my point is, TR could go really fast, you can probably find the number on the web somewhere, but its sorta fun knowing something that my brother doesn't (hehehe fein), and if you REALLY WANT TO KNOW, join the Nav, become a nuke, stand a few watches as throttleman, and look at the indicator posted just to the starboard side of the EOS door on the TR when they ring up a Flank 171 bell, but just don't forget to watch that shaft torque.

Gawd that post brings back some memories...hope you fellow EX squids don't mind.