This is doubly wonderful for me. I grew up in Alabama, and way back when, I remember seeing this space in the Alabama [I was fortunate that my parents made a number of trips to Mobile and Dauphin Island with always stops at the battleship] (seems like it was no-touch, view from outside the hatch). This is incredible. A working computer. And, I only learned just now that the guns on the Alabama are smaller (shorter barrels). LOVE IT.
Agree, the fact that they are discussing and comparing other museum Battleships ships to the NJ adds some depth to the discussion and educational experience.
As someone who lives close to USS Alabama I’d love to see them start a channel much like this one. Exploring parts of the ship that isn’t necessarily on the tour
You are becoming an addiction. Found you about 2 weeks ago as a recommendation for Drachinifel watchers. I could not be more pleased with your content or your personality.
What an amazing room - such wonderful old technology that was built to last and achieve it's objective; land a 16" shell on an enemy ship 23 miles away!
Love it Love It ... Love.It ! Great collab. If anyone hasn't been to the Alabama, add it to your bucket list. The ship is fantastic with much of it accessible. Also, most folks don't realize there is a pretty darn good aircraft museum right there ... with an A12 and a B52, among others. So, I was in Alabama on the 1st deck below the teak deck, and walking along one of the barbette walls, and I noticed a door going into the barbette that was slightly ... ajar. Well, It's wasn't closed, so that's open right? So I head inside, and there was this like catwalk with stairs going down. I went a little ways along the barbette wall and saw the powder scuttles far below. I got to explore a little before my wife made me go back. :-)
Man, I have to plan a trip to Camden just for a special tour of that room. I can remember cranking away at those wheels as a child touring North Carolina now I really want to see it all work in great detail. Keep up the good work.
So many different knobs, its incredible they operated those things the way they did. Also great to see Alabama operating a TH-cam page. Hopefully they become more active in the near future. So many places in their museum do due behind the scenes videos on.
I'm fascinated by the gyro and how it could predict the roll of the ship and when it would be level in order to fire the guns. I've always wondered how they took the effect of waves out of the firing solution as a very small roll could lead to huge errors.
@MRGRUMPY53 per Norman Friedman in his book on gunnery, the USN gyro ("stable vertical") was selected in 1918, first installed on the Colorado-class ships. Less sophisticated US versions were available in 1912.
Drachinifel has a VERY good and fairly detailed video on that topic, and "aming" in general. about 40 mins long, calld "rang finding", i think if i remember correctly.
Loved seeing the old Teletype machine. Long ago I was an intern in the product design dept at Teletype Corp. I still have some technical manuals in my attic someplace.
We've got an entire room full of teletype machines! We've got a volunteer working on restoring that space and getting all the equipment working, so once he's done we're looking forward to showing it off in another video.
Great video! I like the collaboration. I love watching the video on TH-cam with Jason Hall leading a tour group and showing them how it worked, such enthusiasm is hard to find. It would be awesome if other battleships could have such interactions on their tours.
Some additional content: By the middle of WWII, the orders to the guns were, in Remote/Director/Plot Control, no longer "Follow-the-Pointer", as had been used since such remote gunnery control was first introduced circa-WWI (different nations used different systems introduced at different time, of course). In this mode, the information from the range-finders and so forth was sent to the calculators in Plot either by voice from the people operating the equipment reading off dials or, in the more advanced systems, by indicators much like the controls on radios that sent various signals (like tuning the channel dial) to the calculators directly (though manual knobs and handles allowed the calculator control personnel to override the values when they had better data, such as from somebody with binoculars who had seen you last salvo miss and told you to correct by so-and-so yards range , for example). This direct information transmission was done to the gun mounts from the calculator in the same way, by moving an indicator on a dial in front of each person controlling a portion of the turret/gun motion and that person used his controls to move the gun mount part that he was in charge of. This manual control even when in remote control from the calculators meant that the person in the gun mount had to "eyeball" the indicator an match an indicator attached to his controls to overly the transmitted one, which might not be easy to do if the ship is pitching and rolling and turning or the target is a high-speed aircraft, or both. This data transmission problem was realized and attempts were made to remove the humans "from the loop", controlling the mounts completely by direct inputs from the calculators, with the people there only for backup in case of malfunction or when using the mount in local control for some reason. To do this, the power of the signals had to be strengthened from just the very small values needed to move a small indicator dial pip to strong enough to manipulate the controls that the person used (that is, internal to the mount, bypassing the human controls completely in remote control) with no loss of accuracy. A number of attempts to do this worked, more-or-less, when the mounts and guns only had to move slowly and, when firing against slow-moving enemy ships, the targets were moving slowly too, so some error could be tolerated and spotting adjustments from the guys with the binoculars would "take up the slack". However, as gunnery ranges increased and longer times-of-flight started happening and fast, maneuverable aircraft became more and more a target from the secondary mounts of the ships, this "slack" no longer cut it -- you needed accurate firing from the start and no matter what the sea state or target was. Now you had a problem, amplifying the signals from the directors and range finders/radars as inputs and as outputs from the calculators as outputs to the gun mounts to do the non-human-in-the-loop firing mode, also amplified the errors, too! Unsatisfactory! What to do? Back when power for electrical systems, both motors and electronic systems like radios (no radars yet) and internal telephone circuits, first became in use in warships around the turn of the 20th Century, the power was all DC. This worked for motors just fine and, with weak signals, for internal ship communications, including those follow-the-pointer dial pips. The human did the "heavy lifting" to operate the controls for all equipment in the ship, as noted. To get the electrical power in the weapon input/output control circuits, at least, up to a level to run things untouched by human hands, you needed to raise the power without increasing the error at the same time. What the US Navy did in the 1930s, with Germany doing something similar using different electronics, was to find a way to get precise data between electrical equipment all over the ship that could be, when required, amplified to a high-power signal that could do the direct-control function, what the Navy called "Remote Power Control" (RPC). First, before the amplification part and also well before the RPC was finally added to the latest ships and retro-fitted to older ships (such as after Pearl Harbor), all of the "kinks" had to be worked out -- this was done by the middle of WWII and most US Navy warships eventually got RPC as their main control system for at least their main weapons. What was done was to use the precise control that AC electrical power gave when put through transformers, something that DC power could not do. A transformer is a multi-loop coil of wire that, with AC power applied, is constantly forming a synchronized magnetic field around the coil. If you created a triangle of three such coils in a flat plane and put a permanent magnet compass-needle in the center, as you turn the compass needle, each of the three surrounding coils gets its voltage modified, each uniquely, so that if the AC power is strong enough, if you have an identical device on the receiving end, the force of those three coils will force its central needle to THE EXACT SAME ANGLE as the transmitter had. If the angle error was too sloppy between the two, then you can have a second transmitter/receiver of the same kind with a 36-to-1 gear ratio for that one, giving very precise values that, when added/subtracted from the 1-to-1 needle reading, could give you EXTRMELY precise data. You took any device that had a numerical value to send (sensors or the calculator), use electro-mechanical gearing to change it to an angle (one "coarse" 1-to-1 value and one "fine" 36-to-1 value), send it as this angle pair, then use the reverse gearing system to convert back to a value that you need (target range from the radar, for example), and directly input it into the calculator or gun mount by similar amplification, as needed. Vacuum tube amplifiers like in regular radios of the period could handle this very accurately. This AC-based data-transmission system -- requiring all ships using it to have at least part of their power systems switched to AC from DC and, eventually all of it to AC -- was called a "Self-Synchronization" (Selsyn or, alternatively, Synchro) data transmission system since both ends of the system worked together as one coupled set of wires and as long as it was kept aligned regularly by standard maintenance procedures like any other piece of equipment, it would give good results without worrying about it getting misaligned as most of the older DC-based attempts had easily been. THIS is one of the reasons that the US Navy fire-control systems worked so well in WWII.
@@drittal I am not sure about VANGUARD. Late in WWII the British, who were exposed to the US RPC system when it finally became more-or-less universal on US Navy warships (at least the modern ones and some of the older rebuilt ones), developed a hybrid RPC called "MAGSLIP" for their new battleships which had a person use the follow-the-pointer manual control to within 10 degrees of the ordered position and then throw a switch and this semi- RPC system would lock-on and control the turret and, maybe, the guns with the man merely keeping the gun aimed more-or-less in the center of the 10-degree arc. It was used for traverse control and, I think. elevation, but I am not sure about the latter, though it would not really work right if elevation was not included, I would think. This is essentially having the 36-speed fine Synchro signal, but not the Single-speed coarse Synchro signal, wired up for RPC. This required rewiring the turret controls and the calculator outputs, though I am not sure that it applied to the director/range-finder/radar inputs to the calculators, and adding AC power for this part of the ship's generators, since the rest of the ship remained DC-only ("Ring Main"), as before. If you are right, then MAGSLIP only controlled turret traverse in any of those ships. Anti-aircraft guns would have suffered compared to the US 5"/38 gun systems used by almost all new and many rebuilt US WWII warships which had complete Synchro systems for both traverse and elevation and, while some might still use follow-the-pointer with manual mount control, the output display needles of the pointers in the US systems were very accurate in matching the input signals at the other end in every case.
I thought I had seen RPC introduced during the 30s for the later "treaty" cruisers and then for the fast battleships, but that Salt Lake City predated that development and would be refitted with RPC following the Aleutians Campaign and the damage she took during the Battle of the Kommandorski Islands. Am I mistaken, or does the "by the middle of WW2" phrase above refer to RPC becoming widespread among the fleet combatants, including being refitted to the Pearl Harbor survivors and older ships like SLC?
How long would it take one person to fire one of the 16" guns from target acquisition to firing? That process would make for a fun video of running around the ship for an hour.
I watched the full video with your explanation and it blew my head. This is mighty impressive stuff for a hundred years ago and even today! If this was state of the art in the 1930, how has this progressed until today (except for being inside of a computer)?
From the location shown at the beginning the the video this gear is located just behind 16 inch turret #2. You showed only one set of triggers, but there are two turrets with a total of six barrels forward. Are there other sets of triggers for the other barrels? OR is there a master selector switch that will tie any of the forward barrels to this one trigger unit? OR does this one set of gear operate for all three turrets?
There are control switches that allow you to decide which gun and which director you are using. Each gun also has local control as well. There is a similar space in another part of the ship for redundancy that has identical equipment as well but there isn't one computer like this for each barrel or even each turret.
What's gone wrong with the audio. it was fine in the past now it's like one side, left or right has the phase button pressed and then they are both panned to center... or something like that... Two sources of the sound are opposing each other?
This was filmed by our friends at Alabama. They have a different set up than we do and lack our fancy new microphone. And unfortunately I wasn't there to loan them any gear. - Libby the editor
I don't know if you guys have done it, and if you haven't, I know it would be a massive undertaking, but What is like to see is an in depth step by step to fire control in the various positions, walking us through what actually occurred from the point where a target was spotted to the guns laid on target and fired. Actually I can think of several videos I'd like to see in this format, such as loading and firing the main and secondary guns, starting the ship, giving maneuvering orders in the ship, ect. I know in a few videos you have given a rundown on some of these topics, but getting to see all the stations and controls kind of in action would be awesome. Like I said, it's a big ask.
Here are a few videos I think you'll like: th-cam.com/video/8QiWoIwBhfw/w-d-xo.html th-cam.com/video/OgdGWw7Jpyo/w-d-xo.html th-cam.com/video/szxNJydEqOs/w-d-xo.html
took a trip to see the North Carolina. at the end of the tour/event I had to drag my husband from the turret. he was standing there with his eyes closed and breathing deep. not moving a muscle. for over 5 minutes. He was on the Jersey back in the '80's.... he said that with his eyes closed, even after the N.C. was decommed after all this time, it smelled EXACTLY like his ship. and for those five minutes, he was still there. Cordite, hydraulic fluid, grease, oil, sweat, fear, maybe some vomit, probably some pee and the souls of all the sailors from before. That is the smell from beyond time.
Wow..... I worked in TOP on the Eisenhower, just behind the captains Bridge (it was a backup navigation room). Anyway the green paint on the walls reminds me of hours and hours of painting over nicotine covered walls. Back when I in the Navy.... 50-60-% smoked cigarettes ( of me). Anyway after a year or two of smoke, the white was yellow, the green an old browned pea soup. So, I’m guessing you can find layers and layers of paint in some rooms. When you do.... if you were to test it, it would show a great deal of cigarette smoke.
Ryan slight correction on the MK-8. Once a firing solution was established, any of the variables the computer was tracking could change and it made no difference. The New Jersey could do figure 8's while changing speeds and the firing solution is still good. The enemy ship could also be doing figure 8's and changing speed and it would make no difference the MK-8 updated the firing solution in real time. The best example of how good the system was is the battle of the Surigao Straight. The rebuilt USS West Virginia had a MK-8 installed and as the Japanese Battleship Yamashiro approached the West Virginia got a firing solution at 42,000 yards. Admiral Oldendorf for some reason waited for the West Virginia to close within 22,800 before opening fire and hit Yamashiro on the first salvo and 5 out of the next 6 salvos rendering Yamashiro combat ineffective in a few minutes. If Oldendorf would have TRUSTED the technology he could have opened fire from 34,000 yards and it would have made no difference.
No difference in terms of getting the salvo centered on the target, but there are still random variations in the hardware, ammunition, and atmosphere that cause the shells to land some distance from the theoretical point of impact. The longer the range, the more likely you'll straddle the target without hitting it. So if you think the enemy hasn't detected you yet, it's usually correct to hold fire until you think they're just about to notice you, giving yourself the best possible chance to land a decisive hit before they have time to react.
@@BattleshipNewJersey What was the purpose of stripping parts from the Fire Control Computers? Were other ships still using the MK-8 when the NJ was mothballed? What happened to all the spares that would have been warehoused on shore?
U S S Iowa has some similar systems on display as well. There is a video here showing a tour. I've seen a video of 16" guns firing and re-loading, which shows the guns themselves moving to account for roll, wonder if that also comes from the gyro at the trigger station?
What an amazing piece of hardware. I'd love to see a video on how it works, not that I would understand it sure but still. And to think that was almost a hundred years ago
Was that radar muzzle velocity fed back into the fire control equation at some point? I'm curious where muzzle velocity (as a result of powder quality, powder charge, liner wear and projectile weight) are factored in? Is that done at the turret? Also, on a different subject, do you have any books you recommend as the definitive source for the technical details of the Iowas? Thanks and keep up the great work.
Thats some awesome technology there - but I wonder - what happens, if the main fire control get knocked out ? Is there a second one ? I remember that Bismarck in her last battle very quickly had to manually aim with her turrets - I wonder how effectiive this can be?
Do I recall correctly that the switches on the walls let you select any of the 16 inch or 5 inch guns on the ship to fire? Is there just the one computer on New Jersey?
Hey Ryan, did they have people on deck manning the AA guns while the main guns were firing? Or was there a separate general quarters for main battery vs. AA, so people wouldn't get hit with a 16" muzzle blast? Yes, I'm picturing Tommy Lee Jones getting blasted across the deck.
Now this is what I'm looking for.. I bet if you put a patron out to do a national grand tour of all the nation's museum ships it would fly. And along the way you could facalate a channel network... Just a idea 💡
So would the triggers fire all 9 guns? Was full broadside SOP?? When firing individually was that done from the turrets? The details of this is fascinating... Could probably spend a couple more vids on just the plotting/fire control/gun interface alone!! (please??😁)
The trigger will fire whichever guns are connected at that point, a switch is flipped and it tells the computer which guns to fire. Rarely a full broadside.
I Don't have a full breakdown for you, but gas and electric can run up over $1,000 a day, though there's a lot of variation with heat and AC so it's not the same every day year round. So if you think your home electric bill is high, try heating a battleship!
OH MY FUCKING GOD! bring it, Alabama. And you know what? Bring it Mikasa!. Everyone bring it ALL! We can take it. We would love to take it. Hard. Battleships. Yol
No way, they are old, obsolete, all the left over ammunition, powder, barrel liners have all been disposed of. They were obsolete at the end of WW2 and could only fill a niche mission of shore bombardment which other ships and guided munitions can do much more effectively and more cost efficient.
@@Bellthorian I wasn’t being serious, but on that thought I’m sure with some upgrades it could still pack a good punch. Take a massive hit unlike modern ships and still keep up with today’s ships. Can you imagine seeing that ship coming in the South China Sea? I know I’d run 🤔
@@footed16 You would have to gut the entire ship, remove the 16 inch guns and replace them with VLS cells, remove the 5 inch secondary battery. Replace the power plant and after all that you would still have a massive ship that requires a lot of crew to operate. It doesn't fit in with the Navy's distributed lethality theory.
The radar didn't just give the ships the ability to hit at night. Bearing accuracy was better with radar, and range was no comparison; radar completely beat optical range finders, particularly at long ranges. Optical range finders used parallax. They measured the angle the two ends had to be bent inwards to make the angles match. At long ranges, they are measuring an angle ever so close to 90° and taking the tangent times half the distance between the ends of the rangefinder. Miniscule errors meant huge distance errors at long range. On the other hand, radar error is constant with range. It's using a measurement of how long the pulse takes to get there and back. The best example was the battle of Surigao Strait. There were six battleships there: West Virginia, Maryland, Mississippi, Tennessee, California, and Pennsylvania. West Virginia, Tennessee, and California had the latest fire control computers. Maryland and Pennsylvania had earlier radar systems, while Mississippi had optical fire control. West Virginia fired the first salvo at 22,000 yards and got a hit. West Virginia, Tennessee and California, along with 8 cruisers pounded the Japanese ships. Pennsylvania never fired and Maryland and Mississippi only fired late in the battle.
@@BattleshipNewJersey I apologise Libby. I'm an ex BBC camera operator/editor/director and follow your work here. You are in some dark inaccessible places with horrible reverb, so I know it's not easy! So many people on YT make sound the last thing on their mind and the product suffers for it. Best of luck for future work. From the UK.
Definitely not. But he's got a pretty good idea of what everything does, but how to actually make it do the thing requires practice that we just don't get.
Couldn’t one get an extra kilometer or two of range if one used the roll of the ship to their advantage? Lets say the guns only elevate 32°, you could perhaps get an extra degree or two by using the ship’s roll. But then again, as you have stated in past videos, typical engagement ranges were no greater than 13 kilometers. Also I watched your video about torpedo defense, and a thought occurred to me. Outriggers. Couldn’t they have come up with some sort of outriggers to attach to the sides of the boat to act as a sacrificial torpedo defense that would fall away from the boat if damaged? Would make sense for it to be removable as well because of the Panama Canal.
thank you for the videos you doing! its a lot of time going in this, i know that. but something is wrong with your soundsettings. and i dont mean the microphone. its something with the codec in your cut software. check that you select atleast 128kb/s or higher
Nice to see a collaboration, but the masks were interfering with your microphones. I had to turn on closed captioning because I could barely understand you.
The flaws of a loud room. Fun fact: this was one of the first rooms to get air conditioning because of all of the electrical equipment. But thats also why it's so loud.
@@invadegreece9281 her electrical was not out for the entire battle. It failed early in the second part of the action, when engaging the cruisers and destroyers around Savo Island. About this time WA Radar was just picking up Kirishima and the bombardment force to the west of Savo. South Dakota had her electrical back up and running in a couple of minutes, although she did experience various isolated outages throughout.
I am surprised they didn't replace all these obsolete analog computers with an Apple II in the 1980s which can calculate all the solutions with the same 19 inputs far faster with keyboard inputs. Even a 1MHz computer can make about half a million arithmetic operations a second.
In the 80's it was easier using analog systems versus the Apple because their were sailors who were familiar with these analog systems. Tech wise your correct but from a training and getting the ship ready for deployment it is easier to use sailors already familiar with the analog rather than invest time and money taking out the old computers, putting in new systems to include rewiring your fire control system.
@@destroyer0685 Actually I think none of the sailors are familiar with any of the WWII gear. They would have been trained by some guy who read the manual or some old geezer they brought out of retirement. Remember, this is 40 years after whoever sailed on the ship in 1943. If they are in their 20s and 30s then, the people who originally operated this stuff are in the 60s and 70s in the 1980s.
@@dwightlooi true but the last operational deployments for these class of ships was during the Vietnam War. So the trainers were there and you have the equipment that still works so its more efficient and cost effective to use the existing system.
@@destroyer0685 Probably, but good luck fixing anything that broke. I mean, it is not like you can fabricate the intricate gears and splines on the mechanical computer at the ship's machine shop.
I think it is great that the Museum Ships work together to promote each other
This is doubly wonderful for me. I grew up in Alabama, and way back when, I remember seeing this space in the Alabama [I was fortunate that my parents made a number of trips to Mobile and Dauphin Island with always stops at the battleship] (seems like it was no-touch, view from outside the hatch). This is incredible. A working computer. And, I only learned just now that the guns on the Alabama are smaller (shorter barrels). LOVE IT.
Pretty incredible to think that this technology was being developed to this level of sophistication when we were barely out of the bi-plane era.
Love the collaboration. I took my 5 year old son to see the USS Alabama last month. The first of what I hope is many times and many ships.
Wow, now that is cool to see Alabama and Jersey collaborate. I´ve been on both ships while being stateside and love em both. Greetings from Germany
I'm sure lots of people have already said this, but I'm loving the collaborations.
Agree, the fact that they are discussing and comparing other museum Battleships ships to the NJ adds some depth to the discussion and educational experience.
As someone who lives close to USS Alabama I’d love to see them start a channel much like this one. Exploring parts of the ship that isn’t necessarily on the tour
You are becoming an addiction. Found you about 2 weeks ago as a recommendation for Drachinifel watchers. I could not be more pleased with your content or your personality.
That mark 8 is awesome, what an achievement for that time in history.
Took my son to the Big A last month for the first time! He loved every minute of it. Thank you both ,keep up the great work.
Fantastic, these collaborations are great!
What an amazing room - such wonderful old technology that was built to last and achieve it's objective; land a 16" shell on an enemy ship 23 miles away!
Love it Love It ... Love.It !
Great collab. If anyone hasn't been to the Alabama, add it to your bucket list. The ship is fantastic with much of it accessible. Also, most folks don't realize there is a pretty darn good aircraft museum right there ... with an A12 and a B52, among others.
So, I was in Alabama on the 1st deck below the teak deck, and walking along one of the barbette walls, and I noticed a door going into the barbette that was slightly ... ajar. Well, It's wasn't closed, so that's open right? So I head inside, and there was this like catwalk with stairs going down. I went a little ways along the barbette wall and saw the powder scuttles far below. I got to explore a little before my wife made me go back. :-)
Man, I have to plan a trip to Camden just for a special tour of that room. I can remember cranking away at those wheels as a child touring North Carolina now I really want to see it all work in great detail. Keep up the good work.
Outstanding video, gentlemen. Thank you. May your bucket of yoke always be full.
So many different knobs, its incredible they operated those things the way they did.
Also great to see Alabama operating a TH-cam page. Hopefully they become more active in the near future. So many places in their museum do due behind the scenes videos on.
Love the HP85 computer. We had a HP87.
They certainly went crazy with the lighting in the 80s. The AL, MA and NC are very dark.
I'm fascinated by the gyro and how it could predict the roll of the ship and when it would be level in order to fire the guns. I've always wondered how they took the effect of waves out of the firing solution as a very small roll could lead to huge errors.
@MRGRUMPY53 per Norman Friedman in his book on gunnery, the USN gyro ("stable vertical") was selected in 1918, first installed on the Colorado-class ships. Less sophisticated US versions were available in 1912.
Drachinifel has a VERY good and fairly detailed video on that topic, and "aming" in general. about 40 mins long, calld "rang finding", i think if i remember correctly.
Glad to see 1080p for content like this.Imagine this content being shot 10 years ago with 240p max quality.
There were 1080p cameras in 2011. 240p cameras are from the 90's.
@@hithere7382 I'm archiving firearm youtube channels because of drama over censorship.
Brownells used a lot of 240p footage.
@@jmd1743 That's because they were cheapskates. 1080p cameras in 2011 were expensive.
Loved seeing the old Teletype machine. Long ago I was an intern in the product design dept at Teletype Corp. I still have some technical manuals in my attic someplace.
We've got an entire room full of teletype machines! We've got a volunteer working on restoring that space and getting all the equipment working, so once he's done we're looking forward to showing it off in another video.
Great video! I like the collaboration. I love watching the video on TH-cam with Jason Hall leading a tour group and showing them how it worked, such enthusiasm is hard to find. It would be awesome if other battleships could have such interactions on their tours.
Some additional content: By the middle of WWII, the orders to the guns were, in Remote/Director/Plot Control, no longer "Follow-the-Pointer", as had been used since such remote gunnery control was first introduced circa-WWI (different nations used different systems introduced at different time, of course). In this mode, the information from the range-finders and so forth was sent to the calculators in Plot either by voice from the people operating the equipment reading off dials or, in the more advanced systems, by indicators much like the controls on radios that sent various signals (like tuning the channel dial) to the calculators directly (though manual knobs and handles allowed the calculator control personnel to override the values when they had better data, such as from somebody with binoculars who had seen you last salvo miss and told you to correct by so-and-so yards range , for example). This direct information transmission was done to the gun mounts from the calculator in the same way, by moving an indicator on a dial in front of each person controlling a portion of the turret/gun motion and that person used his controls to move the gun mount part that he was in charge of. This manual control even when in remote control from the calculators meant that the person in the gun mount had to "eyeball" the indicator an match an indicator attached to his controls to overly the transmitted one, which might not be easy to do if the ship is pitching and rolling and turning or the target is a high-speed aircraft, or both.
This data transmission problem was realized and attempts were made to remove the humans "from the loop", controlling the mounts completely by direct inputs from the calculators, with the people there only for backup in case of malfunction or when using the mount in local control for some reason. To do this, the power of the signals had to be strengthened from just the very small values needed to move a small indicator dial pip to strong enough to manipulate the controls that the person used (that is, internal to the mount, bypassing the human controls completely in remote control) with no loss of accuracy. A number of attempts to do this worked, more-or-less, when the mounts and guns only had to move slowly and, when firing against slow-moving enemy ships, the targets were moving slowly too, so some error could be tolerated and spotting adjustments from the guys with the binoculars would "take up the slack". However, as gunnery ranges increased and longer times-of-flight started happening and fast, maneuverable aircraft became more and more a target from the secondary mounts of the ships, this "slack" no longer cut it -- you needed accurate firing from the start and no matter what the sea state or target was. Now you had a problem, amplifying the signals from the directors and range finders/radars as inputs and as outputs from the calculators as outputs to the gun mounts to do the non-human-in-the-loop firing mode, also amplified the errors, too! Unsatisfactory!
What to do?
Back when power for electrical systems, both motors and electronic systems like radios (no radars yet) and internal telephone circuits, first became in use in warships around the turn of the 20th Century, the power was all DC. This worked for motors just fine and, with weak signals, for internal ship communications, including those follow-the-pointer dial pips. The human did the "heavy lifting" to operate the controls for all equipment in the ship, as noted. To get the electrical power in the weapon input/output control circuits, at least, up to a level to run things untouched by human hands, you needed to raise the power without increasing the error at the same time. What the US Navy did in the 1930s, with Germany doing something similar using different electronics, was to find a way to get precise data between electrical equipment all over the ship that could be, when required, amplified to a high-power signal that could do the direct-control function, what the Navy called "Remote Power Control" (RPC). First, before the amplification part and also well before the RPC was finally added to the latest ships and retro-fitted to older ships (such as after Pearl Harbor), all of the "kinks" had to be worked out -- this was done by the middle of WWII and most US Navy warships eventually got RPC as their main control system for at least their main weapons. What was done was to use the precise control that AC electrical power gave when put through transformers, something that DC power could not do. A transformer is a multi-loop coil of wire that, with AC power applied, is constantly forming a synchronized magnetic field around the coil. If you created a triangle of three such coils in a flat plane and put a permanent magnet compass-needle in the center, as you turn the compass needle, each of the three surrounding coils gets its voltage modified, each uniquely, so that if the AC power is strong enough, if you have an identical device on the receiving end, the force of those three coils will force its central needle to THE EXACT SAME ANGLE as the transmitter had. If the angle error was too sloppy between the two, then you can have a second transmitter/receiver of the same kind with a 36-to-1 gear ratio for that one, giving very precise values that, when added/subtracted from the 1-to-1 needle reading, could give you EXTRMELY precise data. You took any device that had a numerical value to send (sensors or the calculator), use electro-mechanical gearing to change it to an angle (one "coarse" 1-to-1 value and one "fine" 36-to-1 value), send it as this angle pair, then use the reverse gearing system to convert back to a value that you need (target range from the radar, for example), and directly input it into the calculator or gun mount by similar amplification, as needed. Vacuum tube amplifiers like in regular radios of the period could handle this very accurately. This AC-based data-transmission system -- requiring all ships using it to have at least part of their power systems switched to AC from DC and, eventually all of it to AC -- was called a "Self-Synchronization" (Selsyn or, alternatively, Synchro) data transmission system since both ends of the system worked together as one coupled set of wires and as long as it was kept aligned regularly by standard maintenance procedures like any other piece of equipment, it would give good results without worrying about it getting misaligned as most of the older DC-based attempts had easily been. THIS is one of the reasons that the US Navy fire-control systems worked so well in WWII.
Mr. Okun, I know Vanguard had “RPC” for training only. Was she wired AC or DC? If DC, did her RPC suffer as you described?
@@drittal I am not sure about VANGUARD. Late in WWII the British, who were exposed to the US RPC system when it finally became more-or-less universal on US Navy warships (at least the modern ones and some of the older rebuilt ones), developed a hybrid RPC called "MAGSLIP" for their new battleships which had a person use the follow-the-pointer manual control to within 10 degrees of the ordered position and then throw a switch and this semi- RPC system would lock-on and control the turret and, maybe, the guns with the man merely keeping the gun aimed more-or-less in the center of the 10-degree arc. It was used for traverse control and, I think. elevation, but I am not sure about the latter, though it would not really work right if elevation was not included, I would think. This is essentially having the 36-speed fine Synchro signal, but not the Single-speed coarse Synchro signal, wired up for RPC. This required rewiring the turret controls and the calculator outputs, though I am not sure that it applied to the director/range-finder/radar inputs to the calculators, and adding AC power for this part of the ship's generators, since the rest of the ship remained DC-only ("Ring Main"), as before. If you are right, then MAGSLIP only controlled turret traverse in any of those ships. Anti-aircraft guns would have suffered compared to the US 5"/38 gun systems used by almost all new and many rebuilt US WWII warships which had complete Synchro systems for both traverse and elevation and, while some might still use follow-the-pointer with manual mount control, the output display needles of the pointers in the US systems were very accurate in matching the input signals at the other end in every case.
I should elaborate, training only for her 15”/42. I believe the 5.25” were full RPC.
@@drittal Thank you for the info.
I thought I had seen RPC introduced during the 30s for the later "treaty" cruisers and then for the fast battleships, but that Salt Lake City predated that development and would be refitted with RPC following the Aleutians Campaign and the damage she took during the Battle of the Kommandorski Islands. Am I mistaken, or does the "by the middle of WW2" phrase above refer to RPC becoming widespread among the fleet combatants, including being refitted to the Pearl Harbor survivors and older ships like SLC?
Simply amazing. Well done video.
Barry
You made a nice video. Thank you for uploading.
This is a great presentation. Thank you .
Cool to see you guys went to the Alabama!
Actually Alabama came to us!
@@BattleshipNewJersey Oh nice!
But I’m pretty sure Alabama would love to host New Jersey. 😉
loving these collaborations!
I pass the Alabama everyday. She’s a beast
I live in loxley lol sorry I’m 2 years too late haha
Shae, you guys should start posting videos just like this about the Alabama!
Thanks for making this video.
Wow Ryan, thank you so much, I really was looking fwd to this!!!!
Just Amazing for that time.
How long would it take one person to fire one of the 16" guns from target acquisition to firing? That process would make for a fun video of running around the ship for an hour.
If they’re anything like me, it takes an hour just for the initial call for fire.
It would take me an hour just to find the first room to be in. Thanks for the link to the deck plans.
Sounds like a GTA mission. "Use the Battleship Alabama in a heist."
What's amazing is that the people operating these amazing machines were helpless against using a basic computer.
Very awesome! Thank you for showing thing.
I watched the full video with your explanation and it blew my head. This is mighty impressive stuff for a hundred years ago and even today!
If this was state of the art in the 1930, how has this progressed until today (except for being inside of a computer)?
Were they able to firstly track separate targets, and secondly engage separate targets with separate turrets?
I was at the Alabama Tuesday with my son!
toured this thing at least 5 times. one of which was during the filming of Under Siege and had access to every part of the boat.
From the location shown at the beginning the the video this gear is located just behind 16 inch turret #2. You showed only one set of triggers, but there are two turrets with a total of six barrels forward. Are there other sets of triggers for the other barrels? OR is there a master selector switch that will tie any of the forward barrels to this one trigger unit? OR does this one set of gear operate for all three turrets?
There are control switches that allow you to decide which gun and which director you are using. Each gun also has local control as well. There is a similar space in another part of the ship for redundancy that has identical equipment as well but there isn't one computer like this for each barrel or even each turret.
@@BattleshipNewJersey GREAT!! Thank you.
What's gone wrong with the audio. it was fine in the past now it's like one side, left or right has the phase button pressed and then they are both panned to center... or something like that... Two sources of the sound are opposing each other?
This was filmed by our friends at Alabama. They have a different set up than we do and lack our fancy new microphone. And unfortunately I wasn't there to loan them any gear. - Libby the editor
I don't know if you guys have done it, and if you haven't, I know it would be a massive undertaking, but What is like to see is an in depth step by step to fire control in the various positions, walking us through what actually occurred from the point where a target was spotted to the guns laid on target and fired.
Actually I can think of several videos I'd like to see in this format, such as loading and firing the main and secondary guns, starting the ship, giving maneuvering orders in the ship, ect. I know in a few videos you have given a rundown on some of these topics, but getting to see all the stations and controls kind of in action would be awesome. Like I said, it's a big ask.
Here are a few videos I think you'll like:
th-cam.com/video/8QiWoIwBhfw/w-d-xo.html
th-cam.com/video/OgdGWw7Jpyo/w-d-xo.html
th-cam.com/video/szxNJydEqOs/w-d-xo.html
@@BattleshipNewJersey thank you.
I like big ships and I cannot lie.
That was patented in 1938. Still work great today.
took a trip to see the North Carolina. at the end of the tour/event I had to drag my husband from the turret. he was standing there with his eyes closed and breathing deep. not moving a muscle. for over 5 minutes. He was on the Jersey back in the '80's.... he said that with his eyes closed, even after the N.C. was decommed after all this time, it smelled EXACTLY like his ship. and for those five minutes, he was still there. Cordite, hydraulic fluid, grease, oil, sweat, fear, maybe some vomit, probably some pee and the souls of all the sailors from before. That is the smell from beyond time.
Wow..... I worked in TOP on the Eisenhower, just behind the captains Bridge (it was a backup navigation room). Anyway the green paint on the walls reminds me of hours and hours of painting over nicotine covered walls. Back when I in the Navy.... 50-60-% smoked cigarettes ( of me). Anyway after a year or two of smoke, the white was yellow, the green an old browned pea soup. So, I’m guessing you can find layers and layers of paint in some rooms. When you do.... if you were to test it, it would show a great deal of cigarette smoke.
This was featured in the sci fi movie battleship , glad that it was accurate as described , awesome to see that she's still capable ...
Ryan slight correction on the MK-8. Once a firing solution was established, any of the variables the computer was tracking could change and it made no difference. The New Jersey could do figure 8's while changing speeds and the firing solution is still good. The enemy ship could also be doing figure 8's and changing speed and it would make no difference the MK-8 updated the firing solution in real time. The best example of how good the system was is the battle of the Surigao Straight. The rebuilt USS West Virginia had a MK-8 installed and as the Japanese Battleship Yamashiro approached the West Virginia got a firing solution at 42,000 yards. Admiral Oldendorf for some reason waited for the West Virginia to close within 22,800 before opening fire and hit Yamashiro on the first salvo and 5 out of the next 6 salvos rendering Yamashiro combat ineffective in a few minutes. If Oldendorf would have TRUSTED the technology he could have opened fire from 34,000 yards and it would have made no difference.
No difference in terms of getting the salvo centered on the target, but there are still random variations in the hardware, ammunition, and atmosphere that cause the shells to land some distance from the theoretical point of impact. The longer the range, the more likely you'll straddle the target without hitting it.
So if you think the enemy hasn't detected you yet, it's usually correct to hold fire until you think they're just about to notice you, giving yourself the best possible chance to land a decisive hit before they have time to react.
Is it possible to get more of those fire control computers operational based off of that one and surviving documents?
A lot of the machines had many parts removed so it would be very tough to do
A lot of machining I’m assuming
Yeah. Also, we haven't heard from you in a while, welcome back!
@@BattleshipNewJersey What was the purpose of stripping parts from the Fire Control Computers? Were other ships still using the MK-8 when the NJ was mothballed? What happened to all the spares that would have been warehoused on shore?
Parts break, get pulled from other machines. For example, NJ only has 1/2 of her machines with all its parts.
The perfect crossover does not exis....
U S S Iowa has some similar systems on display as well. There is a video here showing a tour.
I've seen a video of 16" guns firing and re-loading, which shows the guns themselves moving to account for roll, wonder if that also comes from the gyro at the trigger station?
What an amazing piece of hardware. I'd love to see a video on how it works, not that I would understand it sure but still. And to think that was almost a hundred years ago
Ay I’ve been to the USS Alabama the only museum ship I’ve ever been to
Great video !
Was that radar muzzle velocity fed back into the fire control equation at some point? I'm curious where muzzle velocity (as a result of powder quality, powder charge, liner wear and projectile weight) are factored in? Is that done at the turret?
Also, on a different subject, do you have any books you recommend as the definitive source for the technical details of the Iowas? Thanks and keep up the great work.
Was the gyro-driven delay trigger used instead of gun stabilization?
What are the walls of t-handled brass controls?
Thats some awesome technology there - but I wonder - what happens, if the main fire control get knocked out ? Is there a second one ? I remember that Bismarck in her last battle very quickly had to manually aim with her turrets - I wonder how effectiive this can be?
Do I recall correctly that the switches on the walls let you select any of the 16 inch or 5 inch guns on the ship to fire? Is there just the one computer on New Jersey?
Hey Ryan, did they have people on deck manning the AA guns while the main guns were firing? Or was there a separate general quarters for main battery vs. AA, so people wouldn't get hit with a 16" muzzle blast? Yes, I'm picturing Tommy Lee Jones getting blasted across the deck.
The AA guns on and around the forward turrets were not manned when those guns were fired but the aft AA guns could be used while that was happening.
Thank you all .
how is enemy ship speed and heading estimated without having visual contact with the enemy?
super awesome
Very good
How did accuracy compare between the big gun ships of the various navies?
As I recall, the USS Florida went on a shoot in the 20s and landed 7% of its shot at range. I'd have to do some digging for some others.
Very interesting. Can you show/film also the internals of the computer (when it is calculating/producing a solution)?
Where can we get those awesome masks
www.battleshipnewjersey.org/shop/apparel/battleship-new-jersey-gray-blue-logo-face-covering/
@@BattleshipNewJersey sweeeet
@@BattleshipNewJersey just ordered one
Now this is what I'm looking for.. I bet if you put a patron out to do a national grand tour of all the nation's museum ships it would fly. And along the way you could facalate a channel network... Just a idea 💡
So would the triggers fire all 9 guns? Was full broadside SOP?? When firing individually was that done from the turrets? The details of this is fascinating... Could probably spend a couple more vids on just the plotting/fire control/gun interface alone!!
(please??😁)
The trigger will fire whichever guns are connected at that point, a switch is flipped and it tells the computer which guns to fire. Rarely a full broadside.
What is the monthly electric bill on USS New Jersey?
I Don't have a full breakdown for you, but gas and electric can run up over $1,000 a day, though there's a lot of variation with heat and AC so it's not the same every day year round. So if you think your home electric bill is high, try heating a battleship!
TODAAAY
OH MY FUCKING GOD! bring it, Alabama. And you know what? Bring it Mikasa!. Everyone bring it ALL! We can take it. We would love to take it. Hard. Battleships. Yol
It was a solid effort to use the noise reduction software, but I think I'd rather have the noise.
This was filmed by our guests who didn't have the mic we prefer to use
@@BattleshipNewJersey fair point.
We need them back one one each coast
Another good one! How about an Iowa vs South Dakota or NC?
We will have a lot of Massachusetts content in the coming weeks!
With everything that’s going on right now we might need these ships brought back
No way, they are old, obsolete, all the left over ammunition, powder, barrel liners have all been disposed of. They were obsolete at the end of WW2 and could only fill a niche mission of shore bombardment which other ships and guided munitions can do much more effectively and more cost efficient.
@@Bellthorian I wasn’t being serious, but on that thought I’m sure with some upgrades it could still pack a good punch. Take a massive hit unlike modern ships and still keep up with today’s ships. Can you imagine seeing that ship coming in the South China Sea? I know I’d run 🤔
@@footed16 You would have to gut the entire ship, remove the 16 inch guns and replace them with VLS cells, remove the 5 inch secondary battery. Replace the power plant and after all that you would still have a massive ship that requires a lot of crew to operate. It doesn't fit in with the Navy's distributed lethality theory.
Discuss the difference between the two ships and the first uss Alabama before world war 2 the BB8
The radar didn't just give the ships the ability to hit at night. Bearing accuracy was better with radar, and range was no comparison; radar completely beat optical range finders, particularly at long ranges. Optical range finders used parallax. They measured the angle the two ends had to be bent inwards to make the angles match. At long ranges, they are measuring an angle ever so close to 90° and taking the tangent times half the distance between the ends of the rangefinder. Miniscule errors meant huge distance errors at long range. On the other hand, radar error is constant with range. It's using a measurement of how long the pulse takes to get there and back.
The best example was the battle of Surigao Strait. There were six battleships there: West Virginia, Maryland, Mississippi, Tennessee, California, and Pennsylvania. West Virginia, Tennessee, and California had the latest fire control computers. Maryland and Pennsylvania had earlier radar systems, while Mississippi had optical fire control. West Virginia fired the first salvo at 22,000 yards and got a hit. West Virginia, Tennessee and California, along with 8 cruisers pounded the Japanese ships. Pennsylvania never fired and Maryland and Mississippi only fired late in the battle.
Can we get a tour of the CIWS systems?
Check this out
th-cam.com/video/NomQHvm8RBE/w-d-xo.html
Is it time to buy some radio mics?
We have some. Unfortunately I wasn't there to provide them for this one. We rarely do videos without me for this reason. - Libby the editor
@@BattleshipNewJersey I apologise Libby. I'm an ex BBC camera operator/editor/director and follow your work here. You are in some dark inaccessible places with horrible reverb, so I know it's not easy! So many people on YT make sound the last thing on their mind and the product suffers for it. Best of luck for future work. From the UK.
@@BattleshipNewJersey easy on the new kids. 😉
Has Ryan figured out how to operate every system on the battleship?
Definitely not. But he's got a pretty good idea of what everything does, but how to actually make it do the thing requires practice that we just don't get.
The modern USN battleships had full remote power control, the trainers and gun layers didn’t have to follow the pointer.
Couldn’t one get an extra kilometer or two of range if one used the roll of the ship to their advantage? Lets say the guns only elevate 32°, you could perhaps get an extra degree or two by using the ship’s roll. But then again, as you have stated in past videos, typical engagement ranges were no greater than 13 kilometers.
Also I watched your video about torpedo defense, and a thought occurred to me. Outriggers. Couldn’t they have come up with some sort of outriggers to attach to the sides of the boat to act as a sacrificial torpedo defense that would fall away from the boat if damaged? Would make sense for it to be removable as well because of the Panama Canal.
Potentially. At Normandy, the crew of USS Texas intentionally flooded tanks to list the ship 2 degrees for extra range.
I'm really surprised they had a range finder but using VHF instead of laser like today.
thank you for the videos you doing! its a lot of time going in this, i know that. but something is wrong with your soundsettings. and i dont mean the microphone. its something with the codec in your cut software. check that you select atleast 128kb/s or higher
This one was made on completely different equipment than our usual equipment, its just a loud room.
Nice to see a collaboration, but the masks were interfering with your microphones. I had to turn on closed captioning because I could barely understand you.
The flaws of a loud room. Fun fact: this was one of the first rooms to get air conditioning because of all of the electrical equipment. But thats also why it's so loud.
So which is really better, the modern A-10's brrrrrt, or the older Iowa's POW...
😅👍
Audio is not good
Can we debate who should have gotten the kill on Kirishima... Washington or South Dakota
There is no debate.
@@drittal then who should have gotten the kill?
@@invadegreece9281 the ship that actual hit Kirishima, WA
@@drittal exactly, SoDak’s electric derped and was useless for the entire fight so why in the hell was she given the kill
@@invadegreece9281 her electrical was not out for the entire battle. It failed early in the second part of the action, when engaging the cruisers and destroyers around Savo Island. About this time WA Radar was just picking up Kirishima and the bombardment force to the west of Savo. South Dakota had her electrical back up and running in a couple of minutes, although she did experience various isolated outages throughout.
I am surprised they didn't replace all these obsolete analog computers with an Apple II in the 1980s which can calculate all the solutions with the same 19 inputs far faster with keyboard inputs. Even a 1MHz computer can make about half a million arithmetic operations a second.
In the 80's it was easier using analog systems versus the Apple because their were sailors who were familiar with these analog systems. Tech wise your correct but from a training and getting the ship ready for deployment it is easier to use sailors already familiar with the analog rather than invest time and money taking out the old computers, putting in new systems to include rewiring your fire control system.
@@destroyer0685 Actually I think none of the sailors are familiar with any of the WWII gear. They would have been trained by some guy who read the manual or some old geezer they brought out of retirement. Remember, this is 40 years after whoever sailed on the ship in 1943. If they are in their 20s and 30s then, the people who originally operated this stuff are in the 60s and 70s in the 1980s.
@@dwightlooi true but the last operational deployments for these class of ships was during the Vietnam War. So the trainers were there and you have the equipment that still works so its more efficient and cost effective to use the existing system.
@@destroyer0685 Probably, but good luck fixing anything that broke. I mean, it is not like you can fabricate the intricate gears and splines on the mechanical computer at the ship's machine shop.
Can't hear you well,
interesting topic though!
Stable vertical
What are all the repetitive looking switch things on the wall?
Basically it decides which director is telling which gun where to fire
@@BattleshipNewJersey many thanks.
Can not tell what you saying
Alabama and New Jersey are not sister they are a like but of different class
LOL Do I know my way around the Alabama :)
Great video, shame about the masks and the sound.
Sounds like you are on Das-Boot
The authentic sound of the battleship. Fun fact, this space has bad AC since day 1, so its been this loud in here since WWII
They are on das verdammt große Boot.
Take the damn masks off so
I can understand you
Lose that mask....
BREAKING NEWS: Curator shells city during TH-cam video!