If they had to do it TODAY, I’d guess 10yrs minimum simply because much of the tooling and infrastructure needed to build a BB are no longer around. What’s the lead time for a lathe and foundry big enough to build a 16” rifled barrel?. Iowa’s were built relatively quickly because all that infrastructure and knowledge was pre existing and actively being used at the time.
I agree. Building the hull is one thing, the components - guns, armor, turbines, boilers, etc. - that is another. If those components cannot be produced quickly then the build time from keel laying to commission will be slow. If you have a large industrial plant used to turning out all of those items in large quantities, then it goes fast.
I don't think we could build the ships like how they did back then in 10 years or really in any amount of time. One challenge is like you said infrastructure, but even that wouldn't give us the expertise that had to be built up over decades. The only way we could attempt a new battleship would be with newer modern process's that would have to be figured out while building the ships.
It’s weird to hear that. And it’s even harder to believe we’ve regressed in so many ways yet come so far. These ships are truly marvels of human history.
@@ggletsplay5041 not quite, aircraft carrier hulls are still being made and can be adapted for BB's. It's the cranes for the 16" that don't exist but I guess missiles are better cost wise than very large guns.
Back in the very early stages of dreadnought era, ships like Texas started out as a skeleton frame built up around the keel, and then they added the armor and steel plates as they worked their way up the frame which required mules to haul the steel up ramps along the skeleton frame to install them, once the hull is finished it is launched, and then completed in the dockyards. Compared to some of the ww2 Era ships were built in sections, many pieces of the hull of the ships were built separate and then assembled together, which is the same process the allowed us to crank out so many liberty ships and even the Iowas were built in this way.
@@dogloversrule8476 It is, look at Cruise ships. The sections are already premade, they just attach the peices together like legos and weld them together.
One thing you didn't consider as you note that the later battleships took longer to build was that they weren't needed as much. The earlier battleships, started before America entered the war, were built at a time that the Navy was a battleship Navy. For decades the mightiest ships were battleships. Pearl Harbor proved that aircraft carriers were the most important asset. Six months later, Midway proved it again. Battleships primarily served as shore bombardment batteries -- important but not as strategic as sea-borne air power.
Note that the belt armor was added AFTER launch on the WWI era ships. It’s only when you get to ships that have internal armor (NELSON, SOUTH DAKOTA, IOWA) or pre-installed bulges like HOOD that you are getting armor belts installed before launch.
Golden period of US ship building and manufacture in general. Plenty of resources and manpower, really good management and facilities - simply inspirational. Missouri & Wisconsin would have been way quicker if they had been given priority. The Japos did really well with Yamato IMO pretty well as good as the Americans. Another couple of fast builds not touched upon was Renown & Repulse, something like 20 months each during the great war when the UK was the best. Hood would have been way quicker as well except for the re-designs and lack of priority.
If interested, you can see the dry dock where Yamato was built at the former Kure Arsenal, which is still active as a private shipyard. Kure was created as a navy town and still is proud of its heritage as a shipbuilder.
As with everything related to WW2, the US had the immense advantage of being self sufficient in terms of resources prior and during the war, as well as insulated from attacks on its industrial capacity during the war. So everything could be built in larger quantities and quicker even with the war in full swing. Contrast that to European nations who rely on importing resources such as iron ore to even make steel. Germany springs to mind and it explains why they were so eager to invade Norway, because there was ore there.
In the book “Warship Builders”; “The original armor schedule called for delivery of the lower belt armor to begin in October 1940, but the first plates actually arrived only a year later as a result of the Navy’s decision to prioritize the completion of aircraft carriers and cruisers “. 246 armor plates for each Iowa with each plate weighing at 110 tons.
I built a Tamiya model of USS Missouri once when I was eleven. It took me two weeks, not including paint and decals. The real Missouri took a lot longer, but to be fair, they did a lot better job than I did.😁
It would be cool to see modern ship building methods such as modular construction being used to produce battleships. If you account for inflation a modern day destroyer costs more than the iowas.
Yeah, and what would the 2023 price of a pack of cigarettes buy in 1940? Maybe a very good meal in a very good restaurant? Maybe a week of groceries for a family?
One of the problems with comparing WWII battleship (or aircraft carriers) build times to modern times is the huge increase in size and technology. It's really like comparing Apples to iPads. They were also prototyping new technology with the Ford Class carriers, and even political reasons delaying build times for budget reasons. There were also significant delays building the Teddy Roosevelt Nimitz Class carrier in the late 70s and early 80s while the Navy contemplated building smaller cheaper "Sea Control" carriers.
One thing that I think impacted it was the reports coming back from the fronts. I'm sure there were some changes being made on the fly to the later ships due to battlefield lessons.
Very much so on the Essex class carriers; they would make design changes and improvements in response to battle damage and incident reports to ships on the building ways , if they could make the changes without causing delays to complete the carrier.
Although obviously the keel laying to commission date interval is a good reference, since those dates are easily looked up, if you look a little deep the time difference for IOWA vs MISSOURI - both built at same yard - are maybe not as different as it looks. Photos of the commissioning ceremony for IOWA show she is lacking equipment at commissioning- missing the catapults, some of the 40mm mounts, her Mk 4 antennas, her aircraft crane. By comparison the commission photos of MISSOURI seem to show her essentially complete, with catapults and all radars. On the other hand IOWA did start trials within a couple of days after commissioning according to her DANFS, so clearly she was seaworthy.
A big part of the question is how much money and how many workmen and how many work shifts are being dedicated? If you want it fast, the costs will necessarily go up. The next question starts with the ship systems. As time goes on the propulsion plant gives more power and speed for a smaller boiler and turbine size and weight. But again, that savings comes at a cost in the design and tooling for those systems as they require finer tolerances. Same for the electronic sensors and then the fire control systems. A modern warship hull isn't really all that expensive - then start adding an Aegis sensor suite and whoa momma, watch the cost and construction time skyrocket.
Dreadnought was built so fast because the gun turrets intended for 2 pre-Dreadnought battleships were diverted to her. Main gun turrets are usually the longest lead time components of a battleship.
As I recall the late Naval Historian David Brown discussed this in one of his books - The Grand Fleet I think Dreadnought was a special case prioritised for PR reasons. The critical path was the production of main battery turrets and guns.
The first thing to remember about WWII was that FDR was ramping up American industry to supply Europe and the US with war materials. This no doubly helped in the speeding up of construction. I am sure many long-lead time parts were on order when the time came to build her were available. But I am surprised that the first in class US ships were so fast because there are always design problems to be worked out. With that being said, did the Missouri and the Wisconsin spend extra time in the yard getting upgrades (beside the material shortages)? For example radar was improving everyday during the war. Japanese tactics were understood as the war went on. Both the Iowa and New Jersey had yard time during the last year of the war. I am sure that was to fix stuff as well as to get the upgrades. I have to do a lot of homework to follow those time lines and what was done.
FALL RIVER. (I love your channel and hope to visit the New Jersey some day! But I'm from Massachusetts and I used to be an organist in a Fall River church. Keep up the good (mostly!) work!) OOPS! I stand corrected! Fore River Shipyard in Quincy, Massachusetts built her. That's why you're the expert...
The North Carolina had significant problems with vibration in its propulsion plant. It had extensive builders trials, sailing in and out of New York Harbor for repeated tests. This is one of the reasons it got the nickname "Showboat". They never did completely solve the vibration issue that continued to crop up at high speed. Was this extra time included in your build time?
It is my understanding that all the US fast battleships, including the the Iowa class, had some problems with vibration. I understand that it was all about fluid resonances between props and the hull, or something like that.
Ryan does your ‘build time’ include the long-lead time components like guns and armor? As you know many of these are started long before the keel is laid.
Ryan, you probably have answered this question at some point. Can you have gotten a battleship into the great lakes? I wondered why the Dakota class Indiana BB never got converted into a museum. It would have been cool to have in the Chicagoland area. We do have the Gearman sub at the museum of science and industry and it's amazing to see. We used to have a US sub at navy pier when I was a kid. Got the chance to tour that when I was kid with my dad. It was amazing too.
The Indiana’s beam at 108 feet was too wide to traverse the St. Lawrence Seaway. The maximum width of a vessel that can pass through the St. Lawrence Seaway is 78 feet. However, the Baltimore-class cruiser USS Macon did sail in the Great Lakes during Operation Inland Sea in 1959.
I would say an important reason for especially later European constructions is simply that they weren't at war yet. Bismarck was already launched when the war began, similarly to KGV, Richelieu and Littorio, meaning the bulk of construction time was already over by the time a real need to speed it up was present. Richelieu meanwhile had the problem of not exactly having time to finish construction in France after launching while all of them are way larger than the WW1 ships. It's pretty interesting that the most capable WW1 era ship in WW2 constructed under similar conditions has a similar build time, especially since the most crucial aspect at the time, speed, was her biggest weapon. I checked it out of interested a while ago: Only the Richelieus were faster than Hood at the time she was launched. And most likely would have returned to, if she had the time for a refit. It's a shame she was sunk. At least I got the Cobi model
I checked for BB-26 South Carolina, 1,169 days. If my numbers and days are correct. No turbines, but she did use superfiring turrets and was designed and laid before Dreadnought.
To be fair, Dreadnought should NOT be on the list. She was worked on around the clock. Some parts were destined for other ships. Those were routed to to Jacky Fisher's girl instead.
Yeah Ryan, got to raise the major point that the United States never had its shipyards getting bombed by the Luftwaffe night after night It really grinds my gears that people forget this
It is amazing how our geography, our timing, and our resources all coincided with WWII. As the rest of the world destroyed each other (with our help) our nation did not encounter any meaningful damage on its shores. Thus, when all was done, we were literally the winners of a very unusual situation. I would even say we blew this giant lead this gave us. We rested on our laurels being the only surviving industrial nation and we failed to maintain our momentum. We took it easy while the rest of the world had to rebuild. But their rebuilding gave them momentum we had lost. Thus.. in the 80's, when we began to realize that we had been asleep, we were unable to flip the switch and, in many instances, markets that we once dominated were largely taken over by other nations. Now, we have to share space with the other countries when it comes to sales & markets.
@@BrianHoff04 Doesn't that prove that the MAGA movement is hankering after the impossible? Unless they can find a way to push every other nation on earth back into the bankrupt & broken state that existed after WWII.
Well, according to Admiral Cunningham at the Battle of Crete with no air cover and faced with heavy Luftwaffe bomber presence "It takes the Navy three years to build a ship. It will take three hundred years to build a new tradition. The evacuation will continue."
Interesting discussion. Even the definition of start day and end day can be a lengthy discussion. Start day could be the day long lead time elements are ordered up to the day the first piece is laid on the ways. The end day is just as moveable. Last construction event? Load out? Sea trial? Delivery and Acceptance? Operational? There could be months or years difference right there.
I'd use the KG5 and Yamato as a baseline, as they both used non standard guns. That is the guns had to built specifically for the ship and not taken from stock.
I have to wonder if part of our speed is attributed to the lack of attacks on American soil. Japan and Brittan were often under seige and ship yards are a HUGE target for bombing raids. I have no basis of fact just speculation.
It is that and uninterrupted suppliers and supplies lines + bills essentially pre paid by the unlimited dollar cheat of the US government. And even then US gov had to prioritise oil/steel/etc to the war effort ie all the rationing measures and warbonds initiatives. I can guarantee you german/japanese/etc shipyards had stoppages due to supplies not coming in for one reason or the other and many ignore it but germany didn't fully switch to a wartime economy until 1943 when the eastern front started really going off the rails.
Material Supply. Waiting for a new technology or radar or guns. I believe the longest turn around on battleships were the big guns. One of the things is pig iron production and then turning it into steel. Forging machines etc. The other thing that could slow construction down is the machines used to build the ships. Wear and tear and maintenance on these machines (cranes, welders, supplies for welding etc).
It would be interesting to know the safety records during the construction of all of these ships. Did safety improve with time, stay the same, or falter. Vary from country to country.
I'm sure the number of missing limbs during construction is something no one likes to talk about. Much like what is going on in a lot of manufacturing today.
Impressive for Yamato class considering top secret it was plus everything have to be specially designed and built to even move the massive ship parts and the dock. The turrets alone weigh more then a destroyer so moving that from factory to the shipyard was Impressive along other things. Bismarck class surprised me but not much considering its built where there many shipyards to build in and plenty of resources raided from other countries. At the time, but yes when a country has the resources and plants to build the armor and stuff plus the many shipyards to build in, it can be done very quickly. Plus Franklin Roosevelt like having the impossible done
Not only that, but the Japanese were very picky on the armor plates for Yamy. There's a photo of a turret built for Shinano used as target practive, that's a armor plate that was rejected for Yamato's construction.
It is said that time mentioned was days from keel laying. What was the time taken for the design and drawing up the plans before actual construction started? What was the commissioning time covering launch , fitting out, trials, etc. before actual delivery to the customer? This should be the time it takes to build a ship, not just the assembly time in the yard.
I can't see a spot of rust on the underside of those guns, if you mean the tan part on the loading end, thats painted on to mimic where it was greased to allow for movement, but its pretty crisp lines so I assume thats not what you mean.
The USA's steel making capabilities are much less now than in the 30's and 40's, even things like welding the ship's thick armor plates would potentially be much harder now due to a loss of technique/process understanding on how to do it without cracking the armor (a materials scientist from MIT told me about this back in the late 90's). Many lessons to re-learn, many basic structures (shipyards, steel mills, large hardening furnaces, etc.) would have to be recreated to come close to what we had back then.
not to take anything away from the american personell that were involved in building the ships, but maybe working in a shipyard that wasnt been bombed may have helped the production schedual a little
Industrial base is obvious a huge factor in determining completion time but labor policy is also an tremendous factor in ultimate completion time. Industrial policy is influenced by political considerations. The various governments who constructed these ships (especially during the interwar period) likely saw these ships as jobs programs as much as strategic systems.
Riveting versus welding. Older ships were put together w rivets. By WWII welding was far more common. Saved much weight. Faster. Less manpower intensive. Stronger joins between metal, so you can use less material in some circumstances.
HMS Hood was also paused and redesigned at least twice. This was because the British realized that there was something wrong with "Speed is the best protection" Battlecruisers!
Ryan, perhaps a little out of your bailiwick, but looking at the slow production increases for things like 155mm shells for US howitzers being used in Ukraine, how prepared is the US for a major war at this point? Much of our heavy manufacturing is gone, would we be able to turn out airplanes and missiles in large numbers if the need arose? Even explosive and propellant fills are scarce. Might make a good topic for a future video...
Currently, the shipyards we do have are missing their target dates by a year or more. We don't have enough shipyards, we don't have big enough shipyards. Our Navy is as small as, or smaller than it was in the seventies. While China and Russia add to theirs. The Navy budget, adjusted for inflation, is *down* from last year.
Missouri and Wisconsin both suffer from being afforded a lower priority for completion due to the losses in aircraft carriers. I don’t know that you can actually use any number for Richelieu given that she was sent to North Africa before she was even completed.
Rather than length of time - how about man-month (or Day or year) at shipyard for the measure? (then is that a flat 40 hour work week or more) - Just at shipyard -don't count subcomponent manufacture at another location.
Are you sure that Dreadnought was not in a "building race"? I could've sworn reading somewhere that at least one other turbine-powered, all big-gun ship was laid down before it, and that the Brits raced it's construction to finish theirs before the other nation's ship.
I think the US and France, and possibly others, had come up with the all big gun idea too, so yes, Britain rushed it out to be 'first', giving it guns made for a pre Dreadnought, as it were, to save time. Not sure about the turbine engine though, quite a few other nation early Dreadnoughts still had triple expansion engines.
There was an interesting story about an internal building race within Britain. The Dreadnaught used the same main battery turrets as the last "Pre-Dreadnought" King George Vth class. The Dreadnaught needed five of the turrets, instead of just two for each KGVs. The story goes that one of the reasons the Dreadnaught was completed so quickly was they stole turrets from the uncompleted KGVs. Even though they were now considered "Pre-Dreadnoughts" all of the KGVs were not completed until well after the Dreadnaught was.
I think the main reason the US built them faster is in general the reason we won the war and had the strongest economy coming out of the war: Massive industrialization (and secondarily resources). Also, after Perl Harbor, you had a very motivated workforce.
Jean Beart, the sister ship of Richelieu - laid down 12 December 1936 Commissioned 8 January 1949 = 4,410 days Of course she had some unusual difficulties as she had to be towed from France to Casabalanca to avoid the Nazis in 1940. Then she was shelled by USS Massachusetts and bombed by USN carrier aircraft. She didn't get back to a proper shipyard until 1945.
It is written that Dreadnought's building time was faster because 12" guns were taken from other construction. Would it have been possible to reduce the building time of the Iowa class if they could have used the post WWI 16"/50 guns of the Lexington and South Dakoda classes?
14:22 I wonder how fast we could do this today if given an equal desire to do so. I assume it would take longer given we haven't done this in so long coupled w/ the fact we would add some new toys to it. I know we dont do BB's anymore but if we did for X reason. Personally if i were having any discussion on future weapons platforms id put a chunk of it into submersible drone carriers. Right?! A sub capable of launching and retreiving drones on a level of a current aircraft carrier in weapon delivery, coupled with stealth. But I'm just some fool.
The next question is how long did it take to work out all of the bugs post build. With such a project there are always odd and ends that need tidying up.
What is not considered, and to be fair, would be a LOT of extra research. How much time does the construction of the long lead time items like engines and main gun barrels add on.
That was kool love these stats i think due to the over all war effort rouind the world and projects such as the mahatton project mdae the ship building time vary Say how long was the turn aroud for the averege rebuild time of the perl habor Veteren Battleships?
Why were American shipyards more efficient in WWII than Europe? Because the steel mills weren't being bombed. Supply chains work by everything meshing together perfectly, and when the ball bearing plant or whatever gets bombed, that cascades to the shipbuilding.
When I visited the USS Alabama (South Dakota Class) in Mobile Bay 20-some years ago, the retired Navy sailors manning her were proud to say they maintained her in as close to seagoing condition as possible. They had one of their propellers detached and sitting on the fantail, which they said the Navy insisted on when they converted her to a museum. They said it was ready to sail again with minimal recommissioning time. By now, the condition, both of the ship and its volunteer crew, has most probably deteriorated.
Ryan's covered this before, and said it's be faster to just build new ships. They just haven't been maintained to keep them operational, their power plants/generators/wiring hasn't been touched, there's been bits modified and altered, the Navy doesn't have anyone who knows how to use such ancient engines etc. Plus battleships are incredibly vulnerable to missiles/modern attacks, and there's just not enough need for shore bombardment to justify the insane costs of using battleships. It's way easier, faster, more accurate, and safer (and likely cheaper once you factor in the billions it would cost to get an Iowa class moving again) to just use a missile.
I;d like to know how long it took to manufacture her main weapons. I heard that the length of time was a limited factor in the numbers of ships able to be built.
That was actually interesting. But basing it solely on time does not give the true whole story. It would have been nice to also have how much manpower each project had. And the other issue material would be a lot easier to source for some countries than for other countries. If you take all that into account I wonder how much those figures would then change if that was taken into account..... for example if say a ship was built in 1500 days but its manpower had say 1000 workers on it, material easily sourced. another project similar size in another country was built in 1600 days but its manpower was only 600 workers, material not easily sourced, then really which one was actually the most efficient.
Just a guess the competence was there in american society so I guess when they ramped up production they could transfer civilians to work in the yard when they suddenly needed to build more faster then they usually do. just a guess. I think it helped filling the hull with everything that was designed to go in there faster. Working around the clock also helps to fit all the workers in there. These numbers do not tell how hard a nation tried when building these. Also that Littorio ship must a lot spare windows cause how long do all those last in battle.
I would suggest that part of the US production speed may have something to do with availability of materials. I’m really spitballing, I have no solid fact here, I’m speculating. The US basically has half a continent worth of resources, and doesn’t have to import materials to build anything. Having Canada as a producer likely plays into that as well, just as Canada’s navy during WW2 was the largest grower(we were 3rd largest navy by the end of the war), likely for the same reason of having such massive resources while have a friendly neighbour to provide goods on with they were short. Neither of the allied countries in N America need to import materials to build. When you look at the size of other combatant countries, and the availability of resources, no one outside N America could provide as much raw material in as short of time without importing. Again pure speculation. Perhaps the USSR, but they didn’t NEED to cross an ocean to get to the conflict, so they could focus their efforts on ground forces, whereas Canada and the US had to cross, therefore we had to build. We(Canada and US) were lucky enough to be 100% self sufficient, and not directly in harm’s way(Pearl Harbour exempt of course).
I don't think we will ever see the rate and speed of production in peace or God forbid future wartime that we saw in WW2. Took just under 3 years to build an Iowa class ship, takes the same or longer to build a Burke Destroyer. I know apples to oranges, but I can't see the US cranking out ships that fast anymore its a shame. As far as the Iowa class, they should still be considered relevant - hull and armor are a great platform already - automate, modernize them, and send them back out there.
Think goes to the engineering Part is of a certain size and made of x material Just have columns of numbers to add up If to heavy redraw it Use to have staffs of engineers redrawing parts to make them lighter
If they had to do it TODAY, I’d guess 10yrs minimum simply because much of the tooling and infrastructure needed to build a BB are no longer around. What’s the lead time for a lathe and foundry big enough to build a 16” rifled barrel?. Iowa’s were built relatively quickly because all that infrastructure and knowledge was pre existing and actively being used at the time.
I agree. Building the hull is one thing, the components - guns, armor, turbines, boilers, etc. - that is another. If those components cannot be produced quickly then the build time from keel laying to commission will be slow. If you have a large industrial plant used to turning out all of those items in large quantities, then it goes fast.
I don't think we could build the ships like how they did back then in 10 years or really in any amount of time. One challenge is like you said infrastructure, but even that wouldn't give us the expertise that had to be built up over decades. The only way we could attempt a new battleship would be with newer modern process's that would have to be figured out while building the ships.
It’s weird to hear that. And it’s even harder to believe we’ve regressed in so many ways yet come so far.
These ships are truly marvels of human history.
I would blame the 35h week😂
@@ggletsplay5041 not quite, aircraft carrier hulls are still being made and can be adapted for BB's. It's the cranes for the 16" that don't exist but I guess missiles are better cost wise than very large guns.
Back in the very early stages of dreadnought era, ships like Texas started out as a skeleton frame built up around the keel, and then they added the armor and steel plates as they worked their way up the frame which required mules to haul the steel up ramps along the skeleton frame to install them, once the hull is finished it is launched, and then completed in the dockyards.
Compared to some of the ww2 Era ships were built in sections, many pieces of the hull of the ships were built separate and then assembled together, which is the same process the allowed us to crank out so many liberty ships and even the Iowas were built in this way.
I’m pretty sure this is how ships are built today as well.
@@dogloversrule8476 It is, look at Cruise ships. The sections are already premade, they just attach the peices together like legos and weld them together.
One thing you didn't consider as you note that the later battleships took longer to build was that they weren't needed as much. The earlier battleships, started before America entered the war, were built at a time that the Navy was a battleship Navy. For decades the mightiest ships were battleships. Pearl Harbor proved that aircraft carriers were the most important asset. Six months later, Midway proved it again. Battleships primarily served as shore bombardment batteries -- important but not as strategic as sea-borne air power.
Note that the belt armor was added AFTER launch on the WWI era ships. It’s only when you get to ships that have internal armor (NELSON, SOUTH DAKOTA, IOWA) or pre-installed bulges like HOOD that you are getting armor belts installed before launch.
Golden period of US ship building and manufacture in general. Plenty of resources and manpower, really good management and facilities - simply inspirational. Missouri & Wisconsin would have been way quicker if they had been given priority. The Japos did really well with Yamato IMO pretty well as good as the Americans. Another couple of fast builds not touched upon was Renown & Repulse, something like 20 months each during the great war when the UK was the best. Hood would have been way quicker as well except for the re-designs and lack of priority.
If interested, you can see the dry dock where Yamato was built at the former Kure Arsenal, which is still active as a private shipyard. Kure was created as a navy town and still is proud of its heritage as a shipbuilder.
It would be interesting to see this relative to the building speed of the carrier fleets.
yes! I'd love to see that too.
As with everything related to WW2, the US had the immense advantage of being self sufficient in terms of resources prior and during the war, as well as insulated from attacks on its industrial capacity during the war. So everything could be built in larger quantities and quicker even with the war in full swing. Contrast that to European nations who rely on importing resources such as iron ore to even make steel. Germany springs to mind and it explains why they were so eager to invade Norway, because there was ore there.
In the book “Warship Builders”; “The original armor schedule called for delivery of the lower belt armor to begin in October 1940, but the first plates actually arrived only a year later as a result of the Navy’s decision to prioritize the completion of aircraft carriers and cruisers “.
246 armor plates for each Iowa with each plate weighing at 110 tons.
I built a Tamiya model of USS Missouri once when I was eleven. It took me two weeks, not including paint and decals.
The real Missouri took a lot longer, but to be fair, they did a lot better job than I did.😁
My brother served on USS Missouri during the first Gulf War
@@RetiredSailor60 He must have been glad they welded it together instead of using glue like
@christineshotton824
did on her model
@@stvdagger8074 LOL. I'm sure he was!
It would be cool to see modern ship building methods such as modular construction being used to produce battleships. If you account for inflation a modern day destroyer costs more than the iowas.
Yeah, and what would the 2023 price of a pack of cigarettes buy in 1940? Maybe a very good meal in a very good restaurant? Maybe a week of groceries for a family?
One of the problems with comparing WWII battleship (or aircraft carriers) build times to modern times is the huge increase in size and technology. It's really like comparing Apples to iPads. They were also prototyping new technology with the Ford Class carriers, and even political reasons delaying build times for budget reasons. There were also significant delays building the Teddy Roosevelt Nimitz Class carrier in the late 70s and early 80s while the Navy contemplated building smaller cheaper "Sea Control" carriers.
A modern day destroyer is also MUCH more capable and effective than a battleship, even after the 1980s refit.
@@cf453 I actually think that the secondaries with modern guided shells are more useful in a shore bombardment role than 16inch guided shells.
One thing that I think impacted it was the reports coming back from the fronts. I'm sure there were some changes being made on the fly to the later ships due to battlefield lessons.
Very much so on the Essex class carriers; they would make design changes and improvements in response to battle damage and incident reports to ships on the building ways , if they could make the changes without causing delays to complete the carrier.
Although obviously the keel laying to commission date interval is a good reference, since those dates are easily looked up, if you look a little deep the time difference for IOWA vs MISSOURI - both built at same yard - are maybe not as different as it looks. Photos of the commissioning ceremony for IOWA show she is lacking equipment at commissioning- missing the catapults, some of the 40mm mounts, her Mk 4 antennas, her aircraft crane. By comparison the commission photos of MISSOURI seem to show her essentially complete, with catapults and all radars. On the other hand IOWA did start trials within a couple of days after commissioning according to her DANFS, so clearly she was seaworthy.
A big part of the question is how much money and how many workmen and how many work shifts are being dedicated? If you want it fast, the costs will necessarily go up.
The next question starts with the ship systems. As time goes on the propulsion plant gives more power and speed for a smaller boiler and turbine size and weight. But again, that savings comes at a cost in the design and tooling for those systems as they require finer tolerances. Same for the electronic sensors and then the fire control systems. A modern warship hull isn't really all that expensive - then start adding an Aegis sensor suite and whoa momma, watch the cost and construction time skyrocket.
Dreadnought was built so fast because the gun turrets intended for 2 pre-Dreadnought battleships were diverted to her. Main gun turrets are usually the longest lead time components of a battleship.
As I recall the late Naval Historian David Brown discussed this in one of his books - The Grand Fleet I think Dreadnought was a special case prioritised for PR reasons. The critical path was the production of main battery turrets and guns.
The main guns and turrets were already in production - HMS Nelson and HMS Agamemnon had their main armament reallocated to speed the Dreadnought…
It was HMS Lord Nelson as HMS Nelson was in use at the time
The first thing to remember about WWII was that FDR was ramping up American industry to supply Europe and the US with war materials. This no doubly helped in the speeding up of construction. I am sure many long-lead time parts were on order when the time came to build her were available.
But I am surprised that the first in class US ships were so fast because there are always design problems to be worked out. With that being said, did the Missouri and the Wisconsin spend extra time in the yard getting upgrades (beside the material shortages)? For example radar was improving everyday during the war. Japanese tactics were understood as the war went on.
Both the Iowa and New Jersey had yard time during the last year of the war. I am sure that was to fix stuff as well as to get the upgrades. I have to do a lot of homework to follow those time lines and what was done.
I would be interested to compare labor hours, rather than calendar days to build….
FALL RIVER. (I love your channel and hope to visit the New Jersey some day! But I'm from Massachusetts and I used to be an organist in a Fall River church. Keep up the good (mostly!) work!)
OOPS! I stand corrected! Fore River Shipyard in Quincy, Massachusetts built her. That's why you're the expert...
The North Carolina had significant problems with vibration in its propulsion plant. It had extensive builders trials, sailing in and out of New York Harbor for repeated tests. This is one of the reasons it got the nickname "Showboat". They never did completely solve the vibration issue that continued to crop up at high speed. Was this extra time included in your build time?
It is my understanding that all the US fast battleships, including the the Iowa class, had some problems with vibration. I understand that it was all about fluid resonances between props and the hull, or something like that.
That’s part of shakedown
According to Drach, they resolved the vibration issue from the screws by avoiding lingering around at offending prop rpms. Never fixed it.
It's still a problem with today's carriers. You will never design out the resonate frequencies. They just need to stay away from those specific RPMs.
Ryan does your ‘build time’ include the long-lead time components like guns and armor? As you know many of these are started long before the keel is laid.
Ryan, you probably have answered this question at some point. Can you have gotten a battleship into the great lakes? I wondered why the Dakota class Indiana BB never got converted into a museum. It would have been cool to have in the Chicagoland area. We do have the Gearman sub at the museum of science and industry and it's amazing to see. We used to have a US sub at navy pier when I was a kid. Got the chance to tour that when I was kid with my dad. It was amazing too.
The Indiana’s beam at 108 feet was too wide to traverse the St. Lawrence Seaway. The maximum width of a vessel that can pass through the St. Lawrence Seaway is 78 feet.
However, the Baltimore-class cruiser USS Macon did sail in the Great Lakes during Operation Inland Sea in 1959.
@@cassidy109 Thank you I always wondered why.
@@cassidy109 If you ever get to visit the U-505 submarine its amazing.
I would say an important reason for especially later European constructions is simply that they weren't at war yet. Bismarck was already launched when the war began, similarly to KGV, Richelieu and Littorio, meaning the bulk of construction time was already over by the time a real need to speed it up was present. Richelieu meanwhile had the problem of not exactly having time to finish construction in France after launching while all of them are way larger than the WW1 ships. It's pretty interesting that the most capable WW1 era ship in WW2 constructed under similar conditions has a similar build time, especially since the most crucial aspect at the time, speed, was her biggest weapon. I checked it out of interested a while ago: Only the Richelieus were faster than Hood at the time she was launched. And most likely would have returned to, if she had the time for a refit. It's a shame she was sunk. At least I got the Cobi model
I checked for BB-26 South Carolina, 1,169 days. If my numbers and days are correct.
No turbines, but she did use superfiring turrets and was designed and laid before Dreadnought.
The differences probably had a lot to do with which shipyard was doing them. Might be interesting to know more about each's capacity
To be fair, Dreadnought should NOT be on the list. She was worked on around the clock. Some parts were destined for other ships. Those were routed to to Jacky Fisher's girl instead.
Yeah Ryan, got to raise the major point that the United States never had its shipyards getting bombed by the Luftwaffe night after night
It really grinds my gears that people forget this
You mean that US shipyards plus all associated industries & transport weren't geting the cr@p bombed out of them? Who knew?
It is amazing how our geography, our timing, and our resources all coincided with WWII. As the rest of the world destroyed each other (with our help) our nation did not encounter any meaningful damage on its shores. Thus, when all was done, we were literally the winners of a very unusual situation.
I would even say we blew this giant lead this gave us. We rested on our laurels being the only surviving industrial nation and we failed to maintain our momentum. We took it easy while the rest of the world had to rebuild. But their rebuilding gave them momentum we had lost. Thus.. in the 80's, when we began to realize that we had been asleep, we were unable to flip the switch and, in many instances, markets that we once dominated were largely taken over by other nations. Now, we have to share space with the other countries when it comes to sales & markets.
@@BrianHoff04 Doesn't that prove that the MAGA movement is hankering after the impossible? Unless they can find a way to push every other nation on earth back into the bankrupt & broken state that existed after WWII.
My Grandfather was a plank owner and laid the original keel on the Jersey.
😊
Well, according to Admiral Cunningham at the Battle of Crete with no air cover and faced with heavy Luftwaffe bomber presence "It takes the Navy three years to build a ship. It will take three hundred years to build a new tradition. The evacuation will continue."
Interesting discussion. Even the definition of start day and end day can be a lengthy discussion. Start day could be the day long lead time elements are ordered up to the day the first piece is laid on the ways. The end day is just as moveable. Last construction event? Load out? Sea trial? Delivery and Acceptance? Operational?
There could be months or years difference right there.
I'd use the KG5 and Yamato as a baseline, as they both used non standard guns. That is the guns had to built specifically for the ship and not taken from stock.
I have to wonder if part of our speed is attributed to the lack of attacks on American soil. Japan and Brittan were often under seige and ship yards are a HUGE target for bombing raids. I have no basis of fact just speculation.
That has to be a factor. Not only the shipyards but the foundries, machine shops, railroads, etc, were all able to function unmolested.
It is that and uninterrupted suppliers and supplies lines + bills essentially pre paid by the unlimited dollar cheat of the US government. And even then US gov had to prioritise oil/steel/etc to the war effort ie all the rationing measures and warbonds initiatives.
I can guarantee you german/japanese/etc shipyards had stoppages due to supplies not coming in for one reason or the other and many ignore it but germany didn't fully switch to a wartime economy until 1943 when the eastern front started really going off the rails.
Material Supply. Waiting for a new technology or radar or guns. I believe the longest turn around on battleships were the big guns.
One of the things is pig iron production and then turning it into steel. Forging machines etc.
The other thing that could slow construction down is the machines used to build the ships. Wear and tear and maintenance on these machines (cranes, welders, supplies for welding etc).
It would be interesting to know the safety records during the construction of all of these ships. Did safety improve with time, stay the same, or falter. Vary from country to country.
I'm sure the number of missing limbs during construction is something no one likes to talk about. Much like what is going on in a lot of manufacturing today.
Impressive for Yamato class considering top secret it was plus everything have to be specially designed and built to even move the massive ship parts and the dock. The turrets alone weigh more then a destroyer so moving that from factory to the shipyard was Impressive along other things. Bismarck class surprised me but not much considering its built where there many shipyards to build in and plenty of resources raided from other countries. At the time, but yes when a country has the resources and plants to build the armor and stuff plus the many shipyards to build in, it can be done very quickly. Plus Franklin Roosevelt like having the impossible done
Not only that, but the Japanese were very picky on the armor plates for Yamy.
There's a photo of a turret built for Shinano used as target practive, that's a armor plate that was rejected for Yamato's construction.
@@ottaviobasques very true and they were also took time designing the hull for effective speed. To badd there fire control and aa guns doomed the ship
Always amazed they could make the Liberty ships in less than a week
It is said that time mentioned was days from keel laying. What was the time taken for the design and drawing up the plans before actual construction started? What was the commissioning time covering launch , fitting out, trials, etc. before actual delivery to the customer? This should be the time it takes to build a ship, not just the assembly time in the yard.
Not to take away from the video. The underside of the 16inch guns are needs some attention rust
I can't see a spot of rust on the underside of those guns, if you mean the tan part on the loading end, thats painted on to mimic where it was greased to allow for movement, but its pretty crisp lines so I assume thats not what you mean.
The difference between Iowa & New Jersey, and Missouri and Wisconsin is immense!
I seem to recall that at least one of these two had a different armor plate supplier.
The USA's steel making capabilities are much less now than in the 30's and 40's, even things like welding the ship's thick armor plates would potentially be much harder now due to a loss of technique/process understanding on how to do it without cracking the armor (a materials scientist from MIT told me about this back in the late 90's).
Many lessons to re-learn, many basic structures (shipyards, steel mills, large hardening furnaces, etc.) would have to be recreated to come close to what we had back then.
I would think once we got down to just two carriers in the Pacific, there was a reshuffling of priorities!
not to take anything away from the american personell that were involved in building the ships, but maybe working in a shipyard that wasnt been bombed may have helped the production schedual a little
If I'm not mistaken, there was talk of converting Missouri and Wisconsin to aircraft carriers. Maybe that slowed their construction somewhat?
Industrial base is obvious a huge factor in determining completion time but labor policy is also an tremendous factor in ultimate completion time. Industrial policy is influenced by political considerations. The various governments who constructed these ships (especially during the interwar period) likely saw these ships as jobs programs as much as strategic systems.
15:10 You were spot on in your original statement in that resources were being directed towards CVs vs BBs. Id argue that's the end of the story.
Riveting versus welding. Older ships were put together w rivets. By WWII welding was far more common. Saved much weight. Faster. Less manpower intensive. Stronger joins between metal, so you can use less material in some circumstances.
5:00 LOL its because they are Italians! Always having a good time...the work suffers.
Your times reference time to build from keel to launch. Does that include fit and finish?
Brian said that the times are from keel laying to commissioning so that would include fit and finish
Really awesome video! I’d love to see a chart that shows the ratio between tonnage and or feet in length to days.
HMS Hood was also paused and redesigned at least twice. This was because the British realized that there was something wrong with "Speed is the best protection" Battlecruisers!
Very interesting Video and statistic
Ryan, perhaps a little out of your bailiwick, but looking at the slow production increases for things like 155mm shells for US howitzers being used in Ukraine, how prepared is the US for a major war at this point? Much of our heavy manufacturing is gone, would we be able to turn out airplanes and missiles in large numbers if the need arose? Even explosive and propellant fills are scarce. Might make a good topic for a future video...
Currently, the shipyards we do have are missing their target dates by a year or more. We don't have enough shipyards, we don't have big enough shipyards. Our Navy is as small as, or smaller than it was in the seventies. While China and Russia add to theirs. The Navy budget, adjusted for inflation, is *down* from last year.
Missouri and Wisconsin both suffer from being afforded a lower priority for completion due to the losses in aircraft carriers.
I don’t know that you can actually use any number for Richelieu given that she was sent to North Africa before she was even completed.
Building the carriers and repairing the damaged battleships had to tax materials to build the heavyweights
Rather than length of time - how about man-month (or Day or year) at shipyard for the measure? (then is that a flat 40 hour work week or more) - Just at shipyard -don't count subcomponent manufacture at another location.
You should look at how fast Newport News turned out Essex class carriers and even the Midway that barely missed the end of WWII.
Interesting , Thank You
Leadership and politics makes the difference. Who can get me what and who I need the fastest comes down to that.
Very excellent video.
1128 days to build and Lee sunk it in 205 minutes.
Do these built times include the long lead items' construction?
Im playing HOI4 so this is great to know.
I wonder if the game accounts for this? I usually play as Japan.
Wasn't Missouri delayed by a labor dispute/strike that was hushed up?
Are you sure that Dreadnought was not in a "building race"? I could've sworn reading somewhere that at least one other turbine-powered, all big-gun ship was laid down before it, and that the Brits raced it's construction to finish theirs before the other nation's ship.
I think the US and France, and possibly others, had come up with the all big gun idea too, so yes, Britain rushed it out to be 'first', giving it guns made for a pre Dreadnought, as it were, to save time.
Not sure about the turbine engine though, quite a few other nation early Dreadnoughts still had triple expansion engines.
There was an interesting story about an internal building race within Britain. The Dreadnaught used the same main battery turrets as the last "Pre-Dreadnought" King George Vth class. The Dreadnaught needed five of the turrets, instead of just two for each KGVs. The story goes that one of the reasons the Dreadnaught was completed so quickly was they stole turrets from the uncompleted KGVs. Even though they were now considered "Pre-Dreadnoughts" all of the KGVs were not completed until well after the Dreadnaught was.
Lord Nelson Class Semi -Dreadnoughts actually
I think the main reason the US built them faster is in general the reason we won the war and had the strongest economy coming out of the war: Massive industrialization (and secondarily resources). Also, after Perl Harbor, you had a very motivated workforce.
Jean Beart, the sister ship of Richelieu - laid down 12 December 1936 Commissioned 8 January 1949 = 4,410 days
Of course she had some unusual difficulties as she had to be towed from France to Casabalanca to avoid the Nazis in 1940. Then she was shelled by USS Massachusetts and bombed by USN carrier aircraft. She didn't get back to a proper shipyard until 1945.
How long to build a Nimitz class and how much time to break them in, work out the faults and put into service?
Should have put displacement up with time for completion. Just so we could any correlation.
But are there any stats on how many defects there were? The iron triangle: scope, cost, speed...
It is written that Dreadnought's building time was faster because 12" guns were taken from other construction. Would it have been possible to reduce the building time of the Iowa class if they could have used the post WWI 16"/50 guns of the Lexington and South Dakoda classes?
And how long to design one? Did they design the small details after the bigger parts were already under construction?
You forget that a worker strike delayed work on the Missouri and by extension the Illinois
did ryan once work for the national canal museum in easton pa?
Maybe NY shipbuilding is in NJ for the same reason the NY jets and NY Giants are in NJ
14:22 I wonder how fast we could do this today if given an equal desire to do so. I assume it would take longer given we haven't done this in so long coupled w/ the fact we would add some new toys to it. I know we dont do BB's anymore but if we did for X reason. Personally if i were having any discussion on future weapons platforms id put a chunk of it into submersible drone carriers. Right?! A sub capable of launching and retreiving drones on a level of a current aircraft carrier in weapon delivery, coupled with stealth. But I'm just some fool.
Are these build times or from keel laying to commissioning?..maybe you mentioned it and I missed it
Yes, he did mention that build times are from keel laying to commissioning.
The next question is how long did it take to work out all of the bugs post build. With such a project there are always odd and ends that need tidying up.
Could you explain how they get the completed hauls to slide into the water.
gravity plays a large role
Ryan, you and your video team are doing an amazing job for the New Jersey. Well done!
What is not considered, and to be fair, would be a LOT of extra research. How much time does the construction of the long lead time items like engines and main gun barrels add on.
That was kool love these stats i think due to the over all war effort rouind the world and projects such as the mahatton project mdae the ship building time vary Say how long was the turn aroud for the averege rebuild time of the perl habor Veteren Battleships?
I can imagine it could take 3 to 5 years. Mainly because of the time to design then build a ship. It's also not accounting a refit.
Why were American shipyards more efficient in WWII than Europe? Because the steel mills weren't being bombed.
Supply chains work by everything meshing together perfectly, and when the ball bearing plant or whatever gets bombed, that cascades to the shipbuilding.
Didn’t Dreadnought have things like the main gun turrets already built?
How long would it take to reactivate a battleship (or 4)? It seems like we should be getting them ready for a new shore bombardment mission...
When I visited the USS Alabama (South Dakota Class) in Mobile Bay 20-some years ago, the retired Navy sailors manning her were proud to say they maintained her in as close to seagoing condition as possible. They had one of their propellers detached and sitting on the fantail, which they said the Navy insisted on when they converted her to a museum. They said it was ready to sail again with minimal recommissioning time.
By now, the condition, both of the ship and its volunteer crew, has most probably deteriorated.
Been discussed in other videos
And it's never going to happen
Ryan's covered this before, and said it's be faster to just build new ships. They just haven't been maintained to keep them operational, their power plants/generators/wiring hasn't been touched, there's been bits modified and altered, the Navy doesn't have anyone who knows how to use such ancient engines etc.
Plus battleships are incredibly vulnerable to missiles/modern attacks, and there's just not enough need for shore bombardment to justify the insane costs of using battleships. It's way easier, faster, more accurate, and safer (and likely cheaper once you factor in the billions it would cost to get an Iowa class moving again) to just use a missile.
I;d like to know how long it took to manufacture her main weapons. I heard that the length of time was a limited factor in the numbers of ships able to be built.
Also, I;d like to state for the record that I am someone, and that Texas is NOT my favorite battleship. Period. Full stop. End of sentance.
That was actually interesting. But basing it solely on time does not give the true whole story. It would have been nice to also have how much manpower each project had. And the other issue material would be a lot easier to source for some countries than for other countries. If you take all that into account I wonder how much those figures would then change if that was taken into account..... for example if say a ship was built in 1500 days but its manpower had say 1000 workers on it, material easily sourced. another project similar size in another country was built in 1600 days but its manpower was only 600 workers, material not easily sourced, then really which one was actually the most efficient.
Fastest fast Battleship build champs!
It would take a decade to build one now. The skills needed to build one are severely atrophied. Look at building a carrier. 5-6 years and increasing.
Just a guess the competence was there in american society so I guess when they ramped up production they could transfer civilians to work in the yard when they suddenly needed to build more faster then they usually do. just a guess. I think it helped filling the hull with everything that was designed to go in there faster. Working around the clock also helps to fit all the workers in there. These numbers do not tell how hard a nation tried when building these.
Also that Littorio ship must a lot spare windows cause how long do all those last in battle.
😎
Didn't they keep making changes to the North Carolina class? I figured that always makes it take longer to build.
Dreadnought used the guns from the two Lord Nelson's, so her building time is a fluke. Anthony Bachelor called it typical Fisher bombast.
I would suggest that part of the US production speed may have something to do with availability of materials. I’m really spitballing, I have no solid fact here, I’m speculating. The US basically has half a continent worth of resources, and doesn’t have to import materials to build anything. Having Canada as a producer likely plays into that as well, just as Canada’s navy during WW2 was the largest grower(we were 3rd largest navy by the end of the war), likely for the same reason of having such massive resources while have a friendly neighbour to provide goods on with they were short. Neither of the allied countries in N America need to import materials to build. When you look at the size of other combatant countries, and the availability of resources, no one outside N America could provide as much raw material in as short of time without importing. Again pure speculation. Perhaps the USSR, but they didn’t NEED to cross an ocean to get to the conflict, so they could focus their efforts on ground forces, whereas Canada and the US had to cross, therefore we had to build. We(Canada and US) were lucky enough to be 100% self sufficient, and not directly in harm’s way(Pearl Harbour exempt of course).
How many days were spent on the Montana Class ship before they stopped?
If I remember correctly no Montana class BB was ever laid down, but I am sure they spent a "day or 2" on the drawings.
I don't think we will ever see the rate and speed of production in peace or God forbid future wartime that we saw in WW2. Took just under 3 years to build an Iowa class ship, takes the same or longer to build a Burke Destroyer. I know apples to oranges, but I can't see the US cranking out ships that fast anymore its a shame. As far as the Iowa class, they should still be considered relevant - hull and armor are a great platform already - automate, modernize them, and send them back out there.
How do they accurately determine the weight of a ship? Surely there's no scale that you can sit a ship on.
The weight can be determined by the amount of water that the hull displaces.
Think goes to the engineering
Part is of a certain size and made of x material
Just have columns of numbers to add up
If to heavy redraw it
Use to have staffs of engineers redrawing parts to make them lighter
Did it matter how long by other ships being built in the same yard at the same time
@Ryan, why is NY Shipping in NJ?
A deal between the Lupertazzi and Soprano families about no-show dockyard jobs,
@@stvdagger8074 that sounds interesting, I hope we get a video on it.
It would be funny to have included Jean Bart in the list..
Maybe Missouri was taking longer to see whether they were going to make modifications like more anti-aircraft armament.
Think material shortages