This is excellent! Even as a Gunner's Mate during the 1980s, I had to understand the steam cycle on our 600 lbs boilers on my ship, the USS Austin (LPD-4) Thank you for adding a new book to my Amazon wishlist. Cheers, - Wright Sublette
There are three issues: 1. Did the high pressure ships have shorter ranges than expected? A) due less efficiency v low pressure or just less than planned B) due to more than anticipated high speed usage C). USN didn’t know how much fuel they were using! (This is inexcusable.) 2. The gearing bottleneck. This was well known during the war! 3. Admiral Bowen’s CYA book. Brilliant Drac keeping the guys on topic and out of rabbit holes! Just my cup of tea (steamed with fuel oil)
More importantly, did the 600psi plants have better energy density than 350psi? The answer is yes. And with the tyranny of the treaty limits, weight was critical. Every ton of machinery was less armor, stores, armament...and fuel.
Drach and Rick on the podcast!! How good does it get? Steam Engineer, grade 2 paid an extra $5/hrs in addition to houly wage. People don't realize a boiler is a potential bomb if the safeties fail. On ships, there are other nasty things that factor into the tea kettle going POP.
So I have a long winded comment because I do want to have a discussion on this as I have been trying to research the development of USN high pressure plants of the interwar and WWII period. First caveat is I have yet to buy the book which I am going to because books about powerplants are rare and awesome. But I feel as if in this podcast there was no real defense for the USN machinery, which was overall lighter, had very good reliability for that pressure, and did produce fuel economies when cruising long distances. What wasn't considered in my opinion when it came to the operational ranges of the high pressure machinery was that wartime additions in weights. All ships in the USN got much more weight added to them as wartime progressed such that I'd argue every single USN ship got more AA guns and more radars and sensors than initially designed in lets say the mid to late 30's. This would explain the discrepancy between the advertised fuel savings and the real wartime economy of these ships. But I suspect that there was a decent amount of fuel savings with the high pressure plant as Bowen does mention in his book Ships Machinery and Mossback (granted that is his own personal biography so dose of salt here). I am as Othias from C&Rsenal says a determined idiot with internet access and not a proper archive and researcher but I do want to try and unravel the full story of USN machinery, which while it was not perfect or the one trick wonder the USN needed to win the war I still believe that it was not a hinderance but something that did help the USN win the war against Japan and also laid the foundations for the USN post war to have the best steam plants full stop. If you made it this far in this comment, give yourself a cookie because you earned it
Terrific episode! This change by the USN definitely affected the war and beyond as high pressure steam was used for USN ships above and below the waves. The outside look by Drach was important too. Do some more of these!
Great discussion. But perhaps without actually reading the book, the answer can be... boiled... down to : "It was wartime, it is what it is." Regarding turbo electric, it often gets a bad rap IMO. Comparing the Standard BB's from the late 1910's with technology 18 or 20 years years later, is hardly fair or accurate. Improvements in both motors, generators, and electrical drives did increase efficiency and durability. Today the improvements are very dramatic (although they are generally only paired with Diesels now). If the ship that destroyed the Keyes Bridge near Baltimore had D-E drive, that simply never would have happened. That disaster brought to light a dirty secret: Those failures are very common and it was only a matter of time it happened at just the wrong time and place..There are several maintenance and reliability advantages to having multiple smaller engines verses a giant one with pistons so large two men could stand inside them. The difference in fuel economy verses direct drive is slight. But despite the reliability and safety advantages, most ships are built the cheaper way. If we want America building ships again... Perhaps we should start insisting on only allowing D-E ships in our ports for safety... And then build them ourselves There are some very good designs for PM motors and drives done for the US Navy, that give us a technology edge.
I steamed 1200 psi steam plants when I was a boiler technician in the Navy 🎉 they were very efficient in my opinion, we didn’t need a extra burnerman to operate the superheated side of the boiler because it was a internal part of the boiler which took the heat ahead of the generating tubes after the screen wall tubes which saved on manpower to operate a boiler
I was chief engineer on Manley DD940… staying on top of maintenance was key to reliability. Fuel economy was greatly affected by the anticipated speed demands. If on a straight line ocean crossing we would be able to make 18 kts with half of the auxiliaries secured …ie one feed pump one forced draft blower on each of two boilers. If the XO wanted 27 kts available for training, the fuel economy was crap… it all depends on how hard you run the greyhound.
The high pressure plants may not have been "as advertised" but they did a job. If Essex class carriers were immediately scrapped 1:1 as new carriers were built like B-36s to B-52s, that would show a immanent deficiency.
How you folks managed to film two videos over the October 26th weekend and run a seminar on the Leyte Gulf battle I will never know. I suppose that you were filming while I was touring and photographing New Jersey both before and after the seminar. What a great weekend it was to meet you all and all the author's you had aboard. Thanks for the video !
20:15 the other problem with single reduction gears in trying to do anything in a single stage is gear wear. The driving gear would have to do so much work, it would wear out long before the driven gear would show any signs of wear. Manual transmissions in cars are double reduction for that reason. The counter shaft is reductive before going into gear on the output shaft
I think one thing that was missed in the discussion is what happened with post war capital ships. The large super carriers after the war all increased in their steam pressure as did other navies ships. So it wasn’t viewed as too much of a hinderance and most of the plants on those ships would go on to do many more miles of peacetime steaming.
Diesel electric propulsion for rail was still very much so early stages in the late 30s. Large medium speed diesels like the Alco 239/240, EMD 567 and others were having lots of teething problems. Everything from large blocks being made at scale with ever changing materials to gasket materials being changed resulting in water and oil mixing.
I was a BT2 from 87-93 and going to Persian Gulf we burned 68k gallons of fuel in 3 days...we had fore and aft fire rooms and had 1200lb Foster Wheeler boilers in each FR
Helical cut gears of that era were hobbed. A hob can cut a straight gear or about any helix angle desired. Straight cut gears can be made on a variety of machines, including shapers. Hobbing machines are specialized tools.
52:00 Good grief. No, you don't perform endurance trials by burning every drop of fuel oil to see how far it will go. You run the trial for several hours to get accurate speed and fuel burn numbers. It gets compared to the model test resistance data and the plant design data to correlate the theoretical curves and actual consumption. These guys should know this.
The Germans had massive problems with their high-pressure propulsion systems, compared to which the USA's problems were merely teething problems. It is a stroke of luck in history that the German engineers were perfectionists, but the hasty rearmament of Nazi Germany before World War II, the circumstances of the war and the lack of skilled workers prevented them from producing fully developed weapons. Airplanes and tanks in particular were often "bananas" that were delivered green and only ripened in use. With the large warships, even that was not possible. As an German I am lucky that back than the Allied Forces had the better functioning equipment to bet an actual Empire of Evil. For me as a not entirely "Aryan" German a German Victory in WW2 is the darkest nightmare I can imagine.
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Thanks for watching! Let us know below if there’s a topic you’d like us to cover in a future episode.
SS United States update, how we got it wrong in part 1 😁
A South Dakota class battleship versus Bismark.
I remember when no one even knew Drach's voice. Now he seems to be there every time I open my internets. Well done. 😁
This is excellent! Even as a Gunner's Mate during the 1980s, I had to understand the steam cycle on our 600 lbs boilers on my ship, the USS Austin (LPD-4) Thank you for adding a new book to my Amazon wishlist. Cheers, - Wright Sublette
I enjoyed the format and discussion! It was enjoyable to pull up a chair and listen to the discussion.
There are three issues:
1. Did the high pressure ships have shorter ranges than expected?
A) due less efficiency v low pressure or just less than planned
B) due to more than anticipated high speed usage
C). USN didn’t know how much fuel they were using! (This is inexcusable.)
2. The gearing bottleneck. This was well known during the war!
3. Admiral Bowen’s CYA book.
Brilliant Drac keeping the guys on topic and out of rabbit holes! Just my cup of tea (steamed with fuel oil)
More importantly, did the 600psi plants have better energy density than 350psi? The answer is yes.
And with the tyranny of the treaty limits, weight was critical. Every ton of machinery was less armor, stores, armament...and fuel.
Drach and Rick on the podcast!!
How good does it get?
Steam Engineer, grade 2 paid an extra $5/hrs in addition to houly wage. People don't realize a boiler is a potential bomb if the safeties fail. On ships, there are other nasty things that factor into the tea kettle going POP.
The algorithm brought this up. Interesting. Thanks.
as a retired usn 1520...idk shite bout ships but dang this vid is super fun to watch. thanks )))
The elephant in the room are the treaty displacement limits which played a bigger role in machinery selection than trans-Pacific logistics.
So I have a long winded comment because I do want to have a discussion on this as I have been trying to research the development of USN high pressure plants of the interwar and WWII period. First caveat is I have yet to buy the book which I am going to because books about powerplants are rare and awesome. But I feel as if in this podcast there was no real defense for the USN machinery, which was overall lighter, had very good reliability for that pressure, and did produce fuel economies when cruising long distances. What wasn't considered in my opinion when it came to the operational ranges of the high pressure machinery was that wartime additions in weights. All ships in the USN got much more weight added to them as wartime progressed such that I'd argue every single USN ship got more AA guns and more radars and sensors than initially designed in lets say the mid to late 30's. This would explain the discrepancy between the advertised fuel savings and the real wartime economy of these ships. But I suspect that there was a decent amount of fuel savings with the high pressure plant as Bowen does mention in his book Ships Machinery and Mossback (granted that is his own personal biography so dose of salt here). I am as Othias from C&Rsenal says a determined idiot with internet access and not a proper archive and researcher but I do want to try and unravel the full story of USN machinery, which while it was not perfect or the one trick wonder the USN needed to win the war I still believe that it was not a hinderance but something that did help the USN win the war against Japan and also laid the foundations for the USN post war to have the best steam plants full stop. If you made it this far in this comment, give yourself a cookie because you earned it
Great conversation guys. Thanks.
Terrific episode! This change by the USN definitely affected the war and beyond as high pressure steam was used for USN ships above and below the waves. The outside look by Drach was important too. Do some more of these!
Great discussion. But perhaps without actually reading the book, the answer can be... boiled... down to : "It was wartime, it is what it is."
Regarding turbo electric, it often gets a bad rap IMO. Comparing the Standard BB's from the late 1910's with technology 18 or 20 years years later, is hardly fair or accurate. Improvements in both motors, generators, and electrical drives did increase efficiency and durability. Today the improvements are very dramatic (although they are generally only paired with Diesels now). If the ship that destroyed the Keyes Bridge near Baltimore had D-E drive, that simply never would have happened. That disaster brought to light a dirty secret: Those failures are very common and it was only a matter of time it happened at just the wrong time and place..There are several maintenance and reliability advantages to having multiple smaller engines verses a giant one with pistons so large two men could stand inside them. The difference in fuel economy verses direct drive is slight. But despite the reliability and safety advantages, most ships are built the cheaper way. If we want America building ships again... Perhaps we should start insisting on only allowing D-E ships in our ports for safety... And then build them ourselves There are some very good designs for PM motors and drives done for the US Navy, that give us a technology edge.
I steamed 1200 psi steam plants when I was a boiler technician in the Navy 🎉 they were very efficient in my opinion, we didn’t need a extra burnerman to operate the superheated side of the boiler because it was a internal part of the boiler which took the heat ahead of the generating tubes after the screen wall tubes which saved on manpower to operate a boiler
I was chief engineer on Manley DD940… staying on top of maintenance was key to reliability. Fuel economy was greatly affected by the anticipated speed demands. If on a straight line ocean crossing we would be able to make 18 kts with half of the auxiliaries secured …ie one feed pump one forced draft blower on each of two boilers. If the XO wanted 27 kts available for training, the fuel economy was crap… it all depends on how hard you run the greyhound.
Thank You.
Great plants and overall very successful. And, they were more efficient than the older lower pressure plants.
The high pressure plants may not have been "as advertised" but they did a job. If Essex class carriers were immediately scrapped 1:1 as new carriers were built like B-36s to B-52s, that would show a immanent deficiency.
How you folks managed to film two videos over the October 26th weekend and run a seminar on the Leyte Gulf battle I will never know. I suppose that you were filming while I was touring and photographing New Jersey both before and after the seminar. What a great weekend it was to meet you all and all the author's you had aboard. Thanks for the video !
I didn't expect that this video would demonstrate to me yet again that I suck at AoE II, but here we are.
This is getting out of hand, now there are four of them!
Surely the gears were made with hydraulic set-ups and divider heads specifically so you don't have to freehand it?
No, gear hobbing machines. Which is not free-handing like they made it sound.
20:15 the other problem with single reduction gears in trying to do anything in a single stage is gear wear. The driving gear would have to do so much work, it would wear out long before the driven gear would show any signs of wear. Manual transmissions in cars are double reduction for that reason. The counter shaft is reductive before going into gear on the output shaft
I think one thing that was missed in the discussion is what happened with post war capital ships. The large super carriers after the war all increased in their steam pressure as did other navies ships. So it wasn’t viewed as too much of a hinderance and most of the plants on those ships would go on to do many more miles of peacetime steaming.
Diesel electric propulsion for rail was still very much so early stages in the late 30s. Large medium speed diesels like the Alco 239/240, EMD 567 and others were having lots of teething problems. Everything from large blocks being made at scale with ever changing materials to gasket materials being changed resulting in water and oil mixing.
I was a BT2 from 87-93 and going to Persian Gulf we burned 68k gallons of fuel in 3 days...we had fore and aft fire rooms and had 1200lb Foster Wheeler boilers in each FR
Helical cut gears of that era were hobbed. A hob can cut a straight gear or about any helix angle desired. Straight cut gears can be made on a variety of machines, including shapers. Hobbing machines are specialized tools.
I should add that there were also specialized helical gear shapers. There's videos of both processes on TH-cam.
Drachs.... 😍
And Navy type locked train double reduction gears are even harder to make !
52:00 Good grief. No, you don't perform endurance trials by burning every drop of fuel oil to see how far it will go. You run the trial for several hours to get accurate speed and fuel burn numbers. It gets compared to the model test resistance data and the plant design data to correlate the theoretical curves and actual consumption. These guys should know this.
The Germans had massive problems with their high-pressure propulsion systems, compared to which the USA's problems were merely teething problems. It is a stroke of luck in history that the German engineers were perfectionists, but the hasty rearmament of Nazi Germany before World War II, the circumstances of the war and the lack of skilled workers prevented them from producing fully developed weapons. Airplanes and tanks in particular were often "bananas" that were delivered green and only ripened in use. With the large warships, even that was not possible. As an German I am lucky that back than the Allied Forces had the better functioning equipment to bet an actual Empire of Evil. For me as a not entirely "Aryan" German a German Victory in WW2 is the darkest nightmare I can imagine.
Ryan really needs to grow a proper naval historian's beard. The goatee and stubble just does not work.
Till you go- 1200 psi ,steam It's a useless discussion.