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ORIGINAL: wegman58

You make me feel old. I remember sharing a pier with USS NEW JERSEY. It is BIG. Not as big as a super-carrier, but BIG!

Sorta like this big? (USS Iowa pictured; note guy under battle ribbons for scale)




It must have been especially neat seeing one of these while in commission. Closest I got was a glimpse of the Missouri in dock at San Diego just before she made the journey to Pearl.

I wonder what the AA value for this upgrade variant would be... considering the multiple CIWS mounts aboard. [:D]

NM the AA value, what is the anti-ship value of a Tomahawk missile (with a conventional anti-ship warhead). [:)]

The other amazing thing about battleships like this is the craftsmanship that went into their construction. They were built with next to no electronics by today's standards, yet they were very, very mechanically sophisticated. For instance, I was told on board that the steel industry of the US has deteriorated to such a degree that we couldn't rebuild the armored conning tower of the Iowa class again, absent significant capital re-investment in steel plants. The mechanical Mark 1A Fire Control Computer and Mark 8 Rangekeeper were sights to behold in their own right. By touring a ship like this, you definitely gain a new appreciation for the skilled trades which kept them afloat and operational, not to mention under wartime conditions.

The Iowa is dwarfed by the huge container cargo vessels which pass by it on a regular basis; however, it's worth considering that pretty much all ships larger than the Iowa class are cavernous. Carrier hull space is significantly consumed by the hangar deck and cargo vessels their cargo holds. The Iowa is jam-packed with machinery; very few internal areas are what I'd call 'spacious' - even the bridge isn't that spacious... the center of it is consumed by the aforementioned armored conning tower. The boiler rooms, mess halls, and Admiral's quarters are some of the few areas that come to mind that give any impression of spaciousness... and a 5" turret were removed to make room for the Admiral's quarters. The rest of the ship is jam-packed with machinery and steel.

As museums, only a fraction of these vessels are open to the public - yet it takes the better part of an afternoon just to take a cursory glance at what is available to be seen. I can easily imagine that crew stationed on opposite ends of the ship probably rarely if ever saw each other on months-long cruises - they perhaps only had the opportunity to see each other when the ship's crew was mustered before/after a tour.

EDIT: to get a hint of the amount (and thickness) of steel on board a ship like this... see that minor dent that needs an arrow to point it out? That's the effect of a 6" (light cruiser main battery equivalent) shell from a shore battery during the Marshall Islands campaign. No bothers given.

I read about the manufacture of armour plate some time ago. IIRC, the difficult part was having an oven large enough to create the slab of armour, a place to douse one surface with fine carbon particles to face-harden the metal, and a temperature controlled room that would keep the steel from cooling too quickly and cracking. Essentially, the room was an oven and cooling took months.

I think the outer barrels for large naval guns went through a similar cooling process after the hot outer steel was placed over the tensioned wire core and shrunk in place. There was of course a rifled replaceable liner fitted inside the gun barrel after it cooled.

ORIGINAL: Korvar

ORIGINAL: wegman58

You make me feel old. I remember sharing a pier with USS NEW JERSEY. It is BIG. Not as big as a super-carrier, but BIG!

Sorta like this big? (USS Iowa pictured; note guy under battle ribbons for scale)




It must have been especially neat seeing one of these while in commission. Closest I got was a glimpse of the Missouri in dock at San Diego just before she made the journey to Pearl.

I wonder what the AA value for this upgrade variant would be... considering the multiple CIWS mounts aboard. [:D]

I was on a reserve KNOX class frigate. Saturday morning, changing over duty sections. We knew USS NEW JERSEY had six section duty (we had four).

Muster a 100 man working party on the pier...

We look around - we could have everyone on board - as working parties are normally E6 and below we're wondering if we had 100 E6 and below. They could do it with only one sixth of the crew onboard.

ALSO - 16 inch guns are impressive. Gun line with USS NEW JERSEY. They fire ONE shell. After counting to determine it is two miles away we feel, as much as hear, the shot. Do NOT want to think about being on the receiving end of nine of those.

EDIT: to get a hint of the amount (and thickness) of steel on board a ship like this... see that minor dent that needs an arrow to point it out? That's the effect of a 6" (light cruiser main battery equivalent) shell from a shore battery during the Marshall Islands campaign. No bothers given.

I recall when the vessels were re-commissioned during the 80's(?). The Faulklands War was going on at about that time and the Sheffield was sunk. Well people (OK reporters [:D]) went bonkers calling the BB's dinosaurs. In an interview with one of the CO's, questions to that effect were asked ad nauseam, and after a while you could see the commander was visilby annoyed. Finally he interrupted the 'gathering' and said (paraphrasing a bit as it was a while back) "unless I was in the vacinity of the strike I would not know that we'd been hit until one of my crewmen had so informed me." [:D] Tough old buckets.[:'(]

ORIGINAL: rustysi

EDIT: to get a hint of the amount (and thickness) of steel on board a ship like this... see that minor dent that needs an arrow to point it out? That's the effect of a 6" (light cruiser main battery equivalent) shell from a shore battery during the Marshall Islands campaign. No bothers given.

I recall when the vessels were re-commissioned during the 80's(?). The Faulklands War was going on at about that time and the Sheffield was sunk. Well people (OK reporters [:D]) went bonkers calling the BB's dinosaurs. In an interview with one of the CO's, questions to that effect were asked ad nauseam, and after a while you could see the commander was visilby annoyed. Finally he interrupted the 'gathering' and said (paraphrasing a bit as it was a while back) "unless I was in the vacinity of the strike I would not know that we'd been hit until one of my crewmen had so informed me." [:D] Tough old buckets.[:'(]

Showing my age again - I was in Portsmouth for the Naval Review for Elizabeth's 25th Anniversary as Queen (1977 - I was 18 at the time). USN sent a few smaller ships (an LPA and a CGN were the big ships - didn't send a carrier which would have made the Royal Navy look bad). ARK ROYAL was still in commission. But the touristy 'cruise books' (I wish I hadn't lost that over the years) did NOT have the carrier on the cover, they had HMS SHEFFIELD. SO I few years later when I'm bobbing around the Indian Ocean on top of 6,000 tons of munitions that news was a bit of a shock.

Real navies stopped designing new ships with aluminum superstructures at that point. The TICONDEROGA class was already designed, but the BURKE class has steel superstructures.

AND some kamikaze damage on battleships was repaired with paint.

From what I could tell from the original photo, it appeared that a paint job was about all the Iowa needed after the 6" shore battery strike - at least for the turret. It's hard to tell, but it looks like there was some deflection damage... or maybe it was just scorching (to the lower right of the impact point).