You know, I bet with lots and lots of takes and some camera trickery, you could make it look like there are 77 Ryans manning the entire gun turret simultaneously. :D
I work over at the USS Pampanito SS-383 museum in SF, it’s fascinating to see that it’s takes pretty much the same amount of crewmen to operate the whole turret system, as it does to operate our submarine
I have a small attachment to the Pampanito since she A: has virtually the same powerplant as my last ship (the Fairbanks) and of course B: Staring in one of the best naval documentaries ever 😂
Approximately similar tonnage as well from what I've read. Not belittling the Pampanito in any way, would love to check out the museum some time, just pointing out how unbelievably massive the Iowas' turrets are.
This is how we generally manned in the 1980’s. TO booth: no talkers, no local range Keeper operator, no range Finder operators. Just one sight setter, no other positions except on occasion a check sight officer at a sight pointer position. The reason for sights on both sides of the turret is because of where your LOS is in relation to the LOF. The TO had the job to designate which sights were to be used. 0:02 😊 Gun rooms as you said. Electric deck as you said. We generally did not have an electrician assigned, although we often needed one. (It was an ongoing battle with engineering dept.) Shell decks: We only manned one deck at a time. from a practical standpoint I don’t see how you could ever man them both at the same time. The upper deck hoists have a door that is lowered into the floor so the shells can be smoothly parbuckled into the hoist. If you were to move shells into a hoist at both levels at the same time I don’t believe you could then move that door out of the way so the shell from the lower deck could move up the hoist. Powder deck as you said.
@@MrJedi5150 There are six gypsy heads in each shell deck , one by each projectile hoist and three opposite the hoists. You have 4 parbuckling teams. One for each hoist, and one team that moves projectiles from outer storage to the inner ring. The team moving projectiles from the outer to inner ring has the hardest job, as it requires a senior PO to ensure that when the inner ring is moved the correct shells are in front of all three hoists at the same time. (Learned that the hard way!). Sometimes this team will use a pulley block to put the parbuckling line in the best place. The gypsy heads have slip clutches that are designed to move the 2700 lb AP’s with up to a 15 degree list of the ship.The polished steel deck is coated with mineral oil which of course reduces friction considerably. The hoist teams are just two men. The parbuckling line has a hook at one end. The hook is connected to a pad eye near the bottom of the hoist, then around the projectile below the rotating band, and two turns on the gypsy head. The second man disconnects the lashing chain and steadies and guides the projectile by holding onto the nose. If you have loaded the inner rotating ring properly the shell doesn’t have to move very far to enter the hoist. The hoist doors are spring loaded so once the shell moves through the doors it’s not going anywhere but up and out the barrel.
@@robertlian2009 didn't know the mineral oil coating, but it makes sense both from a friction and spark control. But then, I never was very trusting of comp B. The Forestfire wouldn't have escalated so badly, save for those leaking, unstable, thin skin comp B bombs that were on deck. (For those unfamiliar, Comp B, properly known as Composition B is a formable ("plastic") explosive that's 60% RDX and 40% TNT (subtract 0.5% of each to leave 1% for paraffin wax to stabilize it). When not properly stored or it gets ancient, the RDX degrades and becomes sensitive. Sensitive explosives are just evil. C-4, which is Composition C-4 (the 4th generation of C composition explosives) being 91% RDX and infamous for turning brown when ancient or improperly stored and well, ever see Star Trek TOS, when a red shirt kicked a rock and it blew up? Yeah. I saw Comp B leaking wax once, called EOD and nobody flinched, as when I called EOD, it was bad.) Curious though, wasn't fire control direction and ranging fed by radar as a preferred mode? If so, how did the radar data get sent to the computer? Oh, Army, retired here. Dec '81 to Dec 2009. Just started hurting too much to keep putting all that crap that kept me alive on in the morning. Huge respect for anyone working a gun that fires rounds with a 2 km danger close!
Back in the Sixties, the Royal Artillery was hosting a conference of NATO gunners. Part of the program was demonstrations out on the ranges of all teir various types of weapons. One of these was their 105mm Pack Howitzer. After it's performance, a German colonel raised his hand, "I understand what everyone does, except for the man who just stands at attention about 10 yards behind the piece and does nothing else. What is his purpose?" His British hosts looked at each other in confusion and had no idea. He stood there because the drill manual said he should. "We'll have to get back to you, Herr Oberst". The next morning, as the conference got going for the day, they announced they had the answer. He was there to hold the horses, of course.
@@retiredbore378In the 60's the Bundeswehr would probably no longer have any horses and why should the German know this if he wasn't already in the Wehrmacht? All that tells me is that these Brits do things without question, which isn't very smart.
I’ve been following this channel for some time and it has aged like a fine wine. Ryan speaks like teacher that everyone enjoys and each video this channel produces is always fascinating
We never had a full crew for a turret manup . But we handled our jobs and did them very well ..my 47 Brothers were lost because of a bad chain of command and who's blood is on the hands of Moosesally and Kelly. Never forget
I did a deep dive into that yesterday. What a travesty. The Navy should be ashamed not just of the incident but the attempted cover-up and character assassination. Thank you for your service.
I worked with a man who was a powder man. i can say that for his size and how old he would have been at the time those powder bags were nearly the same weight as him. That man well into his elderly years could stack hay bales better and faster then my college athlete cousin.
@@nicholascarpenter6682he was what was referred to in his youth as "stout". Vertically challenged and probably a bit bigger boned than the average 5 ft 3 in male. Also a bit more muscular.
I’m 5.8 @ 130 lbs. I have pitched my fair share of alfalfa bales. I think those 110 lb powder bags wouldn’t be to bad since you don’t have to pitch them up several feet on the trailer to be stacked although being round with no handles might be a bit challenging in itself. At almost 40, I’d rather camp out in the electronics bay and let all the younger bucks pitch the powder but I’d still be capable of jumping in if the moment calls for it.😂
My great uncle was a Royal Marine Colour Sgt on Hms Rodney. He was part of the Royal Marine 16" turret crew during WW2. Esp at Normandy. They fired so many rounds the breaches distorted..
I just want to say, that I LOVE this channel. I grew up in RI, and visited Battleship Massachusetts many times. Sadly she is currently in a sad state of repair, and the last time I was aboard, she needed a lot of repair both above and below decks. Keep creating this content. It is very much appreciated!
The job I wanted to do in the turret was the powder hoist operator. I became the Left Lower Powder Door Operator for Turret 3 instead. Another great video. Keep up the good work and sharing the greatest Battleship videos. And was, also, the greatest ship on which I served on.
I suspect that the duplication for sight setter, pointer, and trainer also has to deal with the required lead of targets. If the turret has to lead a target towards the port, the port side sight operators may have their line of sight to the target blocked by the turret itself, and vice versa for starboard.
The computer calculates the elevation and lead. We also had one advantage over the Japanese fleet, radar direction. They aimed purely by sight, we had radar, so smoke and fog didn't degrade our accuracy. But, we denied Japan as many fleet battles as possible. Initially, due to a shortage of ships after Pearl Harbor, but later, because such wasn't necessary, as air power did the job far more effectively, with fewer casualties than a naval dogfight would've brought.
Considering the massive amounts of money and time each world power dedicated to developing the fleets of battleships which they anticipated would be necessary, there certainly were not very many battleship-on-battleship match-ups in WW II, especially in the Pacific! @@spvillano
@@spvillano Plus, Japan had no answers. After Midway, they basically lost the naval battle, and it was a clean up operation from there on. They had to punch hard and win early, before the US production capacity ramped up to wartime levels, and get their wins through concessions. A victory at Midway, or destruction of fuel and repair facilities, as well as carriers at Pearl Harbour, could've done that for them... but most likely, the US would've kept the fight up anyways, and eventually outproduce Japan, even if at great costs.
The fact hood was able to fire her guns while blown in 2 and going down vertically amazes me. All those young men killed in those turrets but had the heart to still fire a salvo before slipping beneath the waves.
I just toured my first Battleship, the USS North Carolina and I'm very thankfull for your detailed explanation of where all the crew were. As I live in New England, I'm hoping to tour the USS Massachusetts and New Jersey sometime soon. Being a USCG vet and a US Army vet I was honored to walk the decks of one of our amazing Battleships.
As a fellow vet from VT when you go to Fall River, Ma you may want to take the time and visit the USS Joseph P. Kennedy Jr DD-850 which is also there. It is almost the same as the destroyer I was on as a FTG2 for 4 years. USS John R. Craig DD-885 that is now at the bottom of the ocean used as an artificial reef.
I was a G2 gunners mate on BB-63 during desert shield/storm. My GQ station was on the shell decks but I always wanted to be in the primer man’s spot for at least one shoot. According to my shipmate, he had “the best seat in the house”. When the gun fires, it recoils back ~6 ft right toward his face! Remember that when the gun elevates on the outside, its back end is dropping into the pit.
Very interesting, I often wondered what a complete "employment cycle" (for lack of a better term) would look like from beginning to end or something that large and complex, this plugs quite a few holes in my "missing knowledge". Thank you.
I’d love to see a more detailed version of this that went through all of the positions from the spotters right through to the person who fires the gun, to understand the whole sequence of how the gun was aimed and fired.
There are some period films that are used for training that explain everything. (This video includes tons of clips from that film, it's the black and white clips.)
Great video. It makes me want to renew my question of how the turret crews were trained by the Navy in WW2 and then when the Iowa class ships were recommissioned. I mean, I never heard of the Navy having a 16 inch gun turret on land at a naval base to allow trainees to learn the drills and practice them. That would mean, however, that turret crews would have to be trained in the turrets of their assigned ships. For the recommissioning that begs the question who did the initial training? And when replacements came in as people left how did they get trained?
@@johnmacdonald1878 Maybe so, however I just find it hard to believe that back when battleships were the capital ships of the Navy that there wasn't a complete turret and magazine built on land at a Training Facility to initially drill guncrews _before_ they reported to their ships. I've never heard of any facility like that in Naval history, though. When the Iowa class ships came out of mothballs how many of the senior crew knew how the turrets worked?
I just back from visiting USS Wisconsin over the weekend, number one turret's house was open and there was a video display inside that explained the internals of the turret. Unfortunately, there is no entrance into the turret beyond that point due to oil and grease that still needs to be cleaned up. But, now I can explain to my wife what the different seats we saw are. I would not want to be in any one of those positions, it reminds me of being inside of a tank and I was trained to kill tanks in the Army so I never felt comfortable to be inside anything like that. Thank you for the video and one day I will get up to New Jersey.
I visited the New Jersey not long after she arrived in Camden. A lot wasn't open yet. Still, just viewing that armor thickness impressed me with the sheer immensity of power that it took to shove it around! And those main guns had a danger close range for troops on the ground of 2 km. That's around one and a quarter miles from impact where you have a fair chance of getting killed if exposed and closer, to survive, you'll need a battalion of angels protecting you.
From the uk. That presentation was really informative. Not a Military person, but know a lot of people who have or are serving in our armed forces. As a civilian I struggle to get head around how the majority of those guys could be serving food/cleaning decks/ doing laundry one minute and the next they become part of a highly ‘efficient machine’ delivering the main purpose of the ship!
They have 2 jobs... Normal day to day job, then combat job.. So sailing in friendly waters here in the states would be like going from California to Hawaii where they could be scrubbing the decks and just keeping the ship in good shape. Then when it is time for actions, they go to there battle stations like the guns.... That is what I understand tho like you I am not in the military.
@@jonathanbair523 Jonathan, good point. Had a friend who was in the Royal Marines. While he did the full selection/training he was a bandsmen. But when it kicked off he was a highly trained medic.
660lbs (300kg) of powder shoots a 2700lb (1225kg) shell 1700mph (2750 km/h). It's basically throwing Toyota Corollas filled with explosives at targets.
Imagine the mad dash between your rack and your battlestation on the upper shell handling level when GQ is sounded. That's a whole lot of ladders to climb while the clock is running...along with being one of several dozen sailors going through the door at the bottom of the turret.
I'd render the ship NMC, due to slamming my head on hatch tops, preventing them from sealing again. ;) Probably why I stayed Army. Well, that and people didn't try to shoot me with shit that could chase me around.
It was!!!! there was only two entrances to turret 2 one under the rotating turret, another thru hatches from 2nd deck down ladders to the magazines by the at the bottom of the turret at the powder deck. had 4 minutes to do it. hit the top of an armored hatch 1Inch steel did not make my station in time as was found knocked out at the hatch, laying on the deck by the person who had the job to secure the hatch.
Sounds like a name intended to impress the women. How proud of you would your girlfriend be if your job was officially "guy who slides bullets around the floor with a rope'. 😂?
It was taken in 1986 on the USS Missouri during the Royal Australian Navy's 75th Anniversary Naval Review in Sydney. The Rear Admiral is Sir David Martin who was a very much respected (and loved) Naval Officer who then moved on to become the Governor of New South Wales before he died from Asbestosis. The Vice Admiral is Michael Hudson (Chief of Naval Staff). The officer in the background is Rear Admiral Ian Knox who was the Flag Officer Commanding HM Australian Fleet.
My gf and I love visiting naval shipyards. We saw the North Carolina and we thought it was pretty cool. The thing that struck me was that like two thirds of the personnel on board were devoted to the big guns. Of course, we were all up in the turrets & stuff. It’s amazing. Maybe we can check out the New Jersey one of these days. Until then - I just subscribed!
Few years back me & the family were in Gulfport on vacation, but had to drive thru Alabama around Mobile and swung in to see the USS Battleship Alabama and do the self guided tour, it was worth every penny, if your a history guy or gal or a ship person then this is a must see! The ship was amazing and massive and they also have a submarine on the premises that’s included with your ticket and was very cool! So if your ever in a area where one of the remaining Battleships rest and your allowed to walk around & explore on your own, then do it!
What brave guys! there’s no way I’d want to serve in a dangerous claustrophobic metal can that could sink anytime, massive respect for these boys who protect us by putting their own lives on the line.
Thank you for this demonstration, Ryan. So this was how the interior looked like for the poor 47 sailors lost in the destruction of Turret 2 on USS Iowa in 1989. All sailors on station in Turret 2 were killed. RIP.
I was assigned the IC/Gyro Room which was on the lowest deck and had only one way out, upward. I considered this billet as expendable since I had to destroy the system if instructed to. Unlike the Powder deck that had two ways of getting out.
Great video. Didn't seem to show loading the shells into the breach, tho it must be the same rammer as used to insert the powder. I'm visiting the Massachusetts in a couple of weeks, hope to get a turret tour.
Yes, it is. The shell cradle and spanning tray are that folded up device you see close to the end of the video when ryan is in the gun pit. The shell comes up into the folded up cradle/spanning tray. The cradle operator unfolds the cradle/spanning tray into the open breach of the gun, rotating the projectile to horizontal, and the rammer man rams the project into the breach. The rammer man then retracts the rammer, the powder elevator doors open and three bags roll out. The cradle operator and the gun captain push two bags forward and one bag back while the powder elevator changes position to release the other three bags. Those are lined up and the rammer man slowly rams all six bags into the breach. Breach is closed. Wham! See a decent video here: th-cam.com/video/MTW_xpK-Twc/w-d-xo.html
Off topic question for you Ryan. I am from the UK and was wondering what your opinion is off the war graves off HMS Prince of Wales and HMS Repulse wrecks being totally salvaged by third parties destroying the war graves and how protected are American war graves in the pacific having the same impact on them??
My first ship had a 5” 54 gun that had the gun mount on the main deck the carrier room directly below that and the ammo mag below that with the powder mag directly aft of the ammo handling room separated by a WTD of course. I still remember the thick smell of cordite in the powder mag.
(1:42) Thank you and cudos to Ryan and Battleship New Jersey, for mentioning the turret explosion on the USS Iowa. It is shameful piece of US Navy history that they tried to blame on the actions of one enlisted man, not the slightly more complicated truth (probables include ; the powder bag tearing or being "over rammed", stress of the extended training cycle the crew was on, over zealous "testing" of the main guns use and range by the gunnery officers, even bad mixing when the powder bags were "reloaded" for use after reactivation, etc...). This is a great video description of what the sailors did when manning the main gun turrets.
Thanks for making theae videos and thanks for all the time and effort in making the content. Thanks for another great video. I love learning about ww2 ships. I love American warships and im not able to visit battleship nj yet .i do live in nj i hope i can visit her sometime soon. Im really thankful that you make videos of the ship so we get to see the ship its so cool Its amazing how much cooperation you need from many sailers just to operate one barrel. Men from the powder room to the shell room to the range finders to the shell loaders plus the commanders and officers. Its so amazing getting so many men to cooperate and stay in time to the system keeps moving smoothly.
That thumbnail has the crew addressing (then) Australian Defence Minster Kim “Bomber” Beazley They called him Bomber because he was famously interested (obsessed) with military hardware lol Great video as always
As a Veteran of the USS Iowa BB-61 - Turret 2. I held the following jobs. 1) Powder Man - Left 2) Shellman 3) Parbuckler 4) Local Control - Rangefinder Operator Remember the Iowa 47
In the explosion on the Iowa, some of the men on the powder flat managed to escape from the bottom of the turret, so it wasn't all of those in the turret.
@@idontcare9797 I'm unclear on how many. There are multiple stops to prevent turret explosions from making it to the magazines. First are the doors at the top of the elevators. The explosion took at that one for sure. The second are the doors at the bottom of the elevator. I think those were damaged and some fire got out. The third is the pass throughs between the powder flat and the powder passing ring. It didn't get in there for sure. The fourth is the pass throughs from the passing ring to the magazines. Crew in the passing ring and magazines got out for sure. As you note, if it got in the magazine, the whole ship would have been lost.
No one in Turret 2 at the time of the explosion survived. The annular space shown by Ryan between 3:03 and about 4:12 is a narrow compartment that separates the adjacent magazine spaces from the powder flat, which is at the bottom level of the rotating turret assembly. There were powder men in the annular space and the magazines, and as soon as they realized that an explosion had taken place inside the turret, evacuated up the vertical ladder trunks to decks above. The first people to enter the lowest deck (aka powder flat) of Turret 2 saw several dead sailors lying very close to the hatches that seal off Turret 2 from the annular space. These sailors were trying to make their way to the hatches to escape but were overcome and died from inhaling the poison gas created by the explosion and the combustion of the modern-era polyurethane sleeves encasing the powder bags (see video at the 18:50 mark). Turret 1's Turret Officer was one of the first to enter Turret 2 from the bottom, and he saw several powder bags smoldering and off-gassing. It appeared that the powder flat crew decided to have the magazines send in all of the powder needed for that day's planned shoot, and they had stacked up the powder bags around the powder flat, which seemed to be a HUGE safety violation. Another HUGE safety violation observed was that the powder flat crew never connected the ship's fire main to the turret fire main----you can see what that is supposed to look like at the 4:45 mark of the video by noting the coiled but connected fire hose on the deck as the sailors in the training video enter the powder flat.
Great video. I know it's a stretch but I'm sure there are some volunteers that could have filled in as 'extras' as a demonstration. At least at each level so you wouldn't need all rought 80 people. Just a thought. I know that is easier said then done. Great video as always. Thanks!
I always worked in the ship's bakery. I did not have a separate general quarters station, because I was not ship's company: I was assigned to the air squadrons, my shoulder patch read "VF 161". So I just kept the crew fed as best we could. Each embarked squadron provided two cooks, and any number of mess cooks. Ships company personnel ran off to their GQ station, and we stayed behind to feed the ship.
How did the people on the lower level on the other side of the blast proof doors get blown up in the turret explosion? And you have other isolation of munitions from the source of the explosion that also didn't work, about all you can say is the magazine didn't go up.
@@kevinkilleen6375 I assume just plain overpressure, it would only take a spike of a few PSI tot really mess up a man's lungs in an enclosed space, for example.
I don't know if there is an official account, but based on the book "A Glimpse Of Hell," the sailors in the upper decks of the turret (gun house, electrical deck and maybe shell decks) were victims of blast and fire, while sailors in the powder flats (bottom deck of the turret) were victims of smoke and poisonous fume inhalation. The sailors working outside of the turret in the annular spaces (the place where Ryan started the video) survived with relatively minor injuries, some from poisonous gas inhalation when they entered the powder flats after the last explosion. There were at least two secondary explosions reported after the propellant bags ignited in the center gun room. All the safety features in the world aren't going to help if the people that are supposed to use them don't. For example, many of the compartments and deck levels have strong doors to isolate them from each other, but if no one bothers to close the doors, they aren't going to protect anyone or prevent the propagation of blast, fire, and fumes. There were supposed to be enough OBAs (Oxygen Breathing Apparatus) for each turret duty position, but if they are not there, or not working, they're not going to help anyone.
I believe I would have been qualified to be a medical corpsman in sick bay. Turret Captain actually used to be a rating of its own. My uncle was a Gunner's Mate 2nd Class then struck for and got Turret Captain 1st Class (TC1c) and then Chief Turret Captain (CTC). I believe he was a Chief on USS North Carolina. I know he later went Warrant Officer as Gunner and then was commissioned Ensign and eventually made Commander. I wish I'd really known him.
Your thumbnail picture is very cool! It includes RADM Sir David Martin(Royal Australian Navy), later governer of the Australian state of NSW, Kim Beazley (then Australian Defence Minister) and Vice Admiral Micheal Hudson (then Australian Chief of naval staff) on board the USS Missouri in 1986. RADM Martin was one of the most popular governers we had in NSW, but sadly, he died of mesothelioma in 1990, which he contracted due to asbestos exposure earlier in his naval career. Asbestos lagging was used as insulation around steam pipes on ships in our navy back in the day.
The “parbuckle,” a great old rope technique from the days of bringing cylindrical objects up a ramp onto a ship. If a cool word fits, use it!! Great episode here!!
In Iowa in the 1984 commissioning, we counted close to 100 people manning the turret because we counted the magazine people. As you noted, with time we began to use less people. We probably never used the pointer and trainer positions in either side of the gun house, or if we did it was only on one side. We never used the range finders in TII and TIII.
I would not be able to carry the powder bags. I literally would not be able to physically lift them at 110 lbs - that's over 2/3 of my weight (I'm about 160). As for what job I'd like to do, I think it would be cool to operate the shell hoist or the rammer.
I was able to lift the 110lb training bags onboard during my last visit without too much trouble at an out of shape 190, in shape im more 180, but I also have worked manual labor the majority of my life so 110 isn't much higher. A big part of it is just getting lots of training/exercise in on all your small supporting muscles/core/flexibility, and also learning how to use your whole body to move the things. Give it a few months time & honest effort & i bet all of you could do it :)
Back in my 20's, I often bought 1/2 barrel's of beer for parties, which weighed at least 160 lbs full, and I carried them myself, sometimes up to 100 ft from a car to the barrel of ice where they would be chilled in. I only weighed 160~170 lbs, so, its not impossible, but its definitely a young man's posting to take on that task.
I remember crawling into that last position on the port side of one of the forward turrets of the USS Massachusetts and looking through the periscope. Very cramped even when I was a kid.
So I'm curious on what the site setters do. In the big picture what information are they putting into the firing solution. Also how to the pointers know where to aim, they don't have sights or anything.
With the reduction in turret manpower I can’t help thinking it might be at least a partial cause for the turret explosion on Iowa. It’s been my experience in manufacturing jobs that when management tinkers with man power levels they fail to take into account the hidden tasks that aren’t readily apparent. When a position is taken away there’s confusion about who has each responsibility or task as the operation progresses. I’m thinking somewhere in the process there’s missing steps between cleaning the barrel and the order to fire. If due to a missing member it delays the normal order of operations then it exposes a vulnerability of an open breach. I’ve also learned that when you’re trained to follow a certain sequence you naturally follow it due to mental and muscle memory. When there’s a change in sequence someone may naturally revert to the previously learned sequence unintentionally. This would be especially dangerous with explosives or nuclear applications but could also be hazardous in even mechanical situations. Probably the only way to determine this is to observe the turret crews from the past and compare them to the crews of the explosion era and see if a step is possible to be missed. You’d also have to look at sequence by rates of fire as well. I think Iowa was at training level staffing, were they not? It would be nice for the crewmen being blamed to have closure and hopefully be exonerated. Great video Ryan even if it is rather technical.👍
I seen a video recently covering the incident on the Iowa. The most likely cause was the powder being over-rammed and/or to fast. The rammer being new along with no way to limit the rammers speed when switching between a shell and powder bags.
My uncle was a plank owner on BB 61 in 1943 to his dying day, he loved that ship. Seeing this video makes you realize just how dangerous these ships were for their crews.
It's incredible just how labour intensive these ships were to operate. I think if you were to build a battleship today, most of the shell handling would be automated.
I’m sure they could have reduced some of it, but part of the resilience of the design is that the mechanisms used are isolated and relativly simple. Additionaly all the sailors act as fuzzy logic points to deal with any issues that might arise in the handling process. If the whole thing was automated, it would be much easier for 1 failure to take down an entire turret.
@@andrewr2650 You could easily automate the entire loading process and therefore lose most of the crew involved. As each turret would still need three independent systems this risk is clearly trumpd by the benefits. My guess is that you could operate a modern version with maybe 10-15 people in a safer, more comfortable environment and the results would be even better.
I was thinking the powder door 3 people seemed entirely extra, if you did this at all recently it would be a button the person who pushed the powder in would push to close and they would open automatically, which would still be incredibly simple mechanisms. If you did it today you might required two buttons so you ensured no hands were ever caught and crushed without needing a somewhat more error prone in combat system to detect hands where they shouldn't be, just require both hands ho,ding in the buttons and you then know they can't be reaching in.
I participated in a complete battery alignment on that ship back in the 80s. I think it was. When it was in Long Beach. That was a pain in the butt. Took about a week at night all night. I actually had to climb up and lay on top of those 16 inch gun breeches. lol.
Ryan after visiting the Ship last week my friends and I went into the Turret and saw the large Horizontal cylinder across the turret. You can see in in video between 14:30 and 17:00 on the right. We had asked what it was but no one was sure what it was and what it did. Can you answer what it is Thanks.
All these people, multiplied by the number of turrets is mind boggling. Everything seems so solid and indestructible in the turret but it brings to mind when the HMS Hood blew up and only 3 people (I think) survived from that entire ships crew. It’s a very sobering thought.
Apparently the secondary battery was hit by Bismarck, the shell going through the hull below the armor belt. That magazine exploded, causing the adjacent turret magazine to explode, cutting Hood in two. That hit would have been just outside of the powder deck of that turret. Hood sank very quickly, with less than a handful of survivors, as you have noted.
The periscope sights are duplicated for the same reason rangefinders have two sights, to provide binocular vision and therefore more accurate range estimations (look at the FC rating badge for an historical example). They likely weren't manned in the 80s because range finding was dramatically improved with radar and therefore manual options were left for contingency only.
So the Iowa turret explosion killed the sailors way down there at the bottom of the turret? For some reason I always though it was confined to just the upper portion of the turret.
There are only two ways into the turret. One is through a hatch at the back of the turret gun house, entered from the main deck. The other is down a vertical ladder 4 decks to the powder flats. The guys on the projectile decks had to go down four and up two to get to their stations.
How did people move those heavy shells to the rotating ring? Using some kind of pulley system? How did the shells not fall over while moving during rough seas?
Thanks for the videos you post, vey accurate and explained well. I’m familiar with the Big J, I was a turret one gunner onboard the Missouri in Desert Storm, I was listening to your video and you questioned where the extra men would be., and why only 47 men inside T2 on the Iowa the day of the explosion..as men on the powder flats were manually loading the powder carts during combat it’s of the most heavy laboring job, so they’d have extra men there to alternate or allow some to take a break and the other guys would fill in. Bc in combat it’s a busy busy situation of constantly carrying these 110 pound sized powder bags, did I explain it to clarify the situation where extra men are?
Thank you, Ryan! The British were not fans of all the manual effort needed to load US BB guns. They had more power loading. What would be the maximum list that NJ's guns could still be loaded since you might be trying to load powder and shells 'up hill'?
It's really cool to see what duties all the sailors performed inside each of the batteries!!! Did they use the main hoists to transfer shells back and forth from the shell decks; would there ever be a need for them to transfer the shells between the shell decks? Also, was the projectiles loaded into the magazines from Broadway, or was there another way to load the shells (more efficiently)? 😊
Hey from Toronto…love your videos and have been watching since Day One… could you possibly do a video to demonstrate what it would sound like in a 16 inch turret during combat?
It would be interesting to see a modern redesign of the turrets with more automated mechanisms. How much smaller or lighter could the turrets be while retaining the same capabilities?
you should check out the movie Under Siege. there is a scene about 2/3rds of the way in the movie where they kind of show them loading and firing a couple of shells out of one of the turrets on the USS Missouri. it would be interesting to know how accurate it is compared to real life! I'm sure they got the Navy's support on filming this movie.
You know, I bet with lots and lots of takes and some camera trickery, you could make it look like there are 77 Ryans manning the entire gun turret simultaneously. :D
I think the camerawoman would have nightmares if she saw 77 Ryans.
Do it.
@@ghost307 or wet dreams
With clips of all of them trying to speak over one another per station cluster...
That would be so cool!
My left ear really enjoyed this.
I’m only watching with my left earphone in. Should I try with just the right?
And thank god my right headphone was running out of battery
I work over at the USS Pampanito SS-383 museum in SF, it’s fascinating to see that it’s takes pretty much the same amount of crewmen to operate the whole turret system, as it does to operate our submarine
I have a small attachment to the Pampanito since she
A: has virtually the same powerplant as my last ship (the Fairbanks) and of course
B: Staring in one of the best naval documentaries ever 😂
Approximately similar tonnage as well from what I've read. Not belittling the Pampanito in any way, would love to check out the museum some time, just pointing out how unbelievably massive the Iowas' turrets are.
Pampanito? I do believe her real name is *THE STINGRAY!* 😅
@@JoshuaTootell I came here to say this. 😂😂
@@TheTransporter007 The real SS-161 was USS S-50.
This is how we generally manned in the 1980’s. TO booth: no talkers, no local range Keeper operator, no range Finder operators. Just one sight setter, no other positions except on occasion a check sight officer at a sight pointer position. The reason for sights on both sides of the turret is because of where your LOS is in relation to the LOF. The TO had the job to designate which sights were to be used. 0:02 😊
Gun rooms as you said.
Electric deck as you said.
We generally did not have an electrician assigned, although we often needed one. (It was an ongoing battle with engineering dept.)
Shell decks: We only manned one deck at a time. from a practical standpoint I don’t see how you could ever man them both at the same time. The upper deck hoists have a door that is lowered into the floor so the shells can be smoothly parbuckled into the hoist. If you were to move shells into a hoist at both levels at the same time I don’t believe you could then move that door out of the way so the shell from the lower deck could move up the hoist.
Powder deck as you said.
Great to have things verified/tweaked by a first hand account. Love the added detail, it really helps to understand the logic behind it all.
Which BB were you on?
@@johnthomas2485 BB 62 Turret Two Officer October 1981 to November 1984.
@@MrJedi5150 There are six gypsy heads in each shell deck , one by each projectile hoist and three opposite the hoists. You have 4 parbuckling teams. One for each hoist, and one team that moves projectiles from outer storage to the inner ring. The team moving projectiles from the outer to inner ring has the hardest job, as it requires a senior PO to ensure that when the inner ring is moved the correct shells are in front of all three hoists at the same time. (Learned that the hard way!). Sometimes this team will use a pulley block to put the parbuckling line in the best place. The gypsy heads have slip clutches that are designed to move the 2700 lb AP’s with up to a 15 degree list of the ship.The polished steel deck is coated with mineral oil which of course reduces friction considerably. The hoist teams are just two men. The parbuckling line has a hook at one end. The hook is connected to a pad eye near the bottom of the hoist, then around the projectile below the rotating band, and two turns on the gypsy head. The second man disconnects the lashing chain and steadies and guides the projectile by holding onto the nose. If you have loaded the inner rotating ring properly the shell doesn’t have to move very far to enter the hoist. The hoist doors are spring loaded so once the shell moves through the doors it’s not going anywhere but up and out the barrel.
@@robertlian2009 didn't know the mineral oil coating, but it makes sense both from a friction and spark control.
But then, I never was very trusting of comp B. The Forestfire wouldn't have escalated so badly, save for those leaking, unstable, thin skin comp B bombs that were on deck.
(For those unfamiliar, Comp B, properly known as Composition B is a formable ("plastic") explosive that's 60% RDX and 40% TNT (subtract 0.5% of each to leave 1% for paraffin wax to stabilize it). When not properly stored or it gets ancient, the RDX degrades and becomes sensitive. Sensitive explosives are just evil. C-4, which is Composition C-4 (the 4th generation of C composition explosives) being 91% RDX and infamous for turning brown when ancient or improperly stored and well, ever see Star Trek TOS, when a red shirt kicked a rock and it blew up? Yeah.
I saw Comp B leaking wax once, called EOD and nobody flinched, as when I called EOD, it was bad.)
Curious though, wasn't fire control direction and ranging fed by radar as a preferred mode? If so, how did the radar data get sent to the computer?
Oh, Army, retired here. Dec '81 to Dec 2009. Just started hurting too much to keep putting all that crap that kept me alive on in the morning. Huge respect for anyone working a gun that fires rounds with a 2 km danger close!
Back in the Sixties, the Royal Artillery was hosting a conference of NATO gunners. Part of the program was demonstrations out on the ranges of all teir various types of weapons. One of these was their 105mm Pack Howitzer. After it's performance, a German colonel raised his hand, "I understand what everyone does, except for the man who just stands at attention about 10 yards behind the piece and does nothing else. What is his purpose?" His British hosts looked at each other in confusion and had no idea. He stood there because the drill manual said he should. "We'll have to get back to you, Herr Oberst". The next morning, as the conference got going for the day, they announced they had the answer. He was there to hold the horses, of course.
@@retiredbore378In the 60's the Bundeswehr would probably no longer have any horses and why should the German know this if he wasn't already in the Wehrmacht? All that tells me is that these Brits do things without question, which isn't very smart.
@@kasauerkrautimgulasch They do a lot of odd things just because it’s a tradition. Like standing or changing guard at the Palace.
I’ve been following this channel for some time and it has aged like a fine wine. Ryan speaks like teacher that everyone enjoys and each video this channel produces is always fascinating
I'd rather say Ryan has aaalll theeee tiiiimeee iin theee woooorld......You feel like "when is he gonna say it " all the time.
We never had a full crew for a turret manup . But we handled our jobs and did them very well ..my 47 Brothers were lost because of a bad chain of command and who's blood is on the hands of Moosesally and Kelly. Never forget
I did a deep dive into that yesterday. What a travesty. The Navy should be ashamed not just of the incident but the attempted cover-up and character assassination. Thank you for your service.
I worked with a man who was a powder man. i can say that for his size and how old he would have been at the time those powder bags were nearly the same weight as him. That man well into his elderly years could stack hay bales better and faster then my college athlete cousin.
My grandfather was a powder man. At a towering 5' 3" and 170 lbs I struggled to see how he could throw those bags all day long.
I hope you are listening as I will be asking questions later?
The elderly man probably had decades of experience hoisting hay Bales into place.
@@nicholascarpenter6682he was what was referred to in his youth as "stout". Vertically challenged and probably a bit bigger boned than the average 5 ft 3 in male. Also a bit more muscular.
I’m 5.8 @ 130 lbs. I have pitched my fair share of alfalfa bales. I think those 110 lb powder bags wouldn’t be to bad since you don’t have to pitch them up several feet on the trailer to be stacked although being round with no handles might be a bit challenging in itself.
At almost 40, I’d rather camp out in the electronics bay and let all the younger bucks pitch the powder but I’d still be capable of jumping in if the moment calls for it.😂
My great uncle was a Royal Marine Colour Sgt on Hms Rodney. He was part of the Royal Marine 16" turret crew during WW2. Esp at Normandy. They fired so many rounds the breaches distorted..
I just want to say, that I LOVE this channel. I grew up in RI, and visited Battleship Massachusetts many times. Sadly she is currently in a sad state of repair, and the last time I was aboard, she needed a lot of repair both above and below decks. Keep creating this content. It is very much appreciated!
I'd love to see 77 volunteers standing in their spots
The job I wanted to do in the turret was the powder hoist operator. I became the Left Lower Powder Door Operator for Turret 3 instead. Another great video. Keep up the good work and sharing the greatest Battleship videos. And was, also, the greatest ship on which I served on.
I suspect that the duplication for sight setter, pointer, and trainer also has to deal with the required lead of targets. If the turret has to lead a target towards the port, the port side sight operators may have their line of sight to the target blocked by the turret itself, and vice versa for starboard.
The computer calculates the elevation and lead. We also had one advantage over the Japanese fleet, radar direction. They aimed purely by sight, we had radar, so smoke and fog didn't degrade our accuracy.
But, we denied Japan as many fleet battles as possible. Initially, due to a shortage of ships after Pearl Harbor, but later, because such wasn't necessary, as air power did the job far more effectively, with fewer casualties than a naval dogfight would've brought.
Considering the massive amounts of money and time each world power dedicated to developing the fleets of battleships which they anticipated would be necessary, there certainly were not very many battleship-on-battleship match-ups in WW II, especially in the Pacific! @@spvillano
@@spvillano Plus, Japan had no answers. After Midway, they basically lost the naval battle, and it was a clean up operation from there on. They had to punch hard and win early, before the US production capacity ramped up to wartime levels, and get their wins through concessions.
A victory at Midway, or destruction of fuel and repair facilities, as well as carriers at Pearl Harbour, could've done that for them... but most likely, the US would've kept the fight up anyways, and eventually outproduce Japan, even if at great costs.
The fact hood was able to fire her guns while blown in 2 and going down vertically amazes me. All those young men killed in those turrets but had the heart to still fire a salvo before slipping beneath the waves.
It was most likley the turret cooking off inside and the flames exiting through open gun breaches.
I just toured my first Battleship, the USS North Carolina and I'm very thankfull for your detailed explanation of where all the crew were. As I live in New England, I'm hoping to tour the USS Massachusetts and New Jersey sometime soon. Being a USCG vet and a US Army vet I was honored to walk the decks of one of our amazing Battleships.
As a fellow vet from VT when you go to Fall River, Ma you may want to take the time and visit the USS Joseph P. Kennedy Jr DD-850 which is also there. It is almost the same as the destroyer I was on as a FTG2 for 4 years. USS John R. Craig DD-885 that is now at the bottom of the ocean used as an artificial reef.
I was a G2 gunners mate on BB-63 during desert shield/storm. My GQ station was on the shell decks but I always wanted to be in the primer man’s spot for at least one shoot. According to my shipmate, he had “the best seat in the house”. When the gun fires, it recoils back ~6 ft right toward his face! Remember that when the gun elevates on the outside, its back end is dropping into the pit.
Very interesting, I often wondered what a complete "employment cycle" (for lack of a better term) would look like from beginning to end or something that large and complex, this plugs quite a few holes in my "missing knowledge". Thank you.
I’d love to see a more detailed version of this that went through all of the positions from the spotters right through to the person who fires the gun, to understand the whole sequence of how the gun was aimed and fired.
There are some period films that are used for training that explain everything. (This video includes tons of clips from that film, it's the black and white clips.)
Thanks for all the work it took to put this video together!!!! It was great!!!
Great video. It makes me want to renew my question of how the turret crews were trained by the Navy in WW2 and then when the Iowa class ships were recommissioned. I mean, I never heard of the Navy having a 16 inch gun turret on land at a naval base to allow trainees to learn the drills and practice them. That would mean, however, that turret crews would have to be trained in the turrets of their assigned ships. For the recommissioning that begs the question who did the initial training? And when replacements came in as people left how did they get trained?
Probably the same way Navy always trained gun crews. On the job from the bottom up. On board by senior crew.
@@johnmacdonald1878 Maybe so, however I just find it hard to believe that back when battleships were the capital ships of the Navy that there wasn't a complete turret and magazine built on land at a Training Facility to initially drill guncrews _before_ they reported to their ships. I've never heard of any facility like that in Naval history, though. When the Iowa class ships came out of mothballs how many of the senior crew knew how the turrets worked?
I just back from visiting USS Wisconsin over the weekend, number one turret's house was open and there was a video display inside that explained the internals of the turret. Unfortunately, there is no entrance into the turret beyond that point due to oil and grease that still needs to be cleaned up. But, now I can explain to my wife what the different seats we saw are. I would not want to be in any one of those positions, it reminds me of being inside of a tank and I was trained to kill tanks in the Army so I never felt comfortable to be inside anything like that. Thank you for the video and one day I will get up to New Jersey.
I visited the New Jersey not long after she arrived in Camden. A lot wasn't open yet.
Still, just viewing that armor thickness impressed me with the sheer immensity of power that it took to shove it around!
And those main guns had a danger close range for troops on the ground of 2 km. That's around one and a quarter miles from impact where you have a fair chance of getting killed if exposed and closer, to survive, you'll need a battalion of angels protecting you.
From the uk. That presentation was really informative. Not a Military person, but know a lot of people who have or are serving in our armed forces. As a civilian I struggle to get head around how the majority of those guys could be serving food/cleaning decks/ doing laundry one minute and the next they become part of a highly ‘efficient machine’ delivering the main purpose of the ship!
They have 2 jobs... Normal day to day job, then combat job.. So sailing in friendly waters here in the states would be like going from California to Hawaii where they could be scrubbing the decks and just keeping the ship in good shape. Then when it is time for actions, they go to there battle stations like the guns.... That is what I understand tho like you I am not in the military.
@@jonathanbair523 Jonathan, good point. Had a friend who was in the Royal Marines. While he did the full selection/training he was a bandsmen. But when it kicked off he was a highly trained medic.
So complex and labour intensive. The advent of ship-borne guided missiles must have come as a blessing.
660lbs (300kg) of powder shoots a 2700lb (1225kg) shell 1700mph (2750 km/h). It's basically throwing Toyota Corollas filled with explosives at targets.
Imagine the mad dash between your rack and your battlestation on the upper shell handling level when GQ is sounded. That's a whole lot of ladders to climb while the clock is running...along with being one of several dozen sailors going through the door at the bottom of the turret.
I'd render the ship NMC, due to slamming my head on hatch tops, preventing them from sealing again. ;)
Probably why I stayed Army.
Well, that and people didn't try to shoot me with shit that could chase me around.
It was!!!! there was only two entrances to turret 2 one under the rotating turret, another thru hatches from 2nd deck down ladders to the magazines by the at the bottom of the turret at the powder deck. had 4 minutes to do it. hit the top of an armored hatch 1Inch steel did not make my station in time as was found knocked out at the hatch, laying on the deck by the person who had the job to secure the hatch.
Shellman Parbuckler. Sounds like a door to door vacuum salesman.
Sounds like the name of a 19th Century con man.
@@terrylong8894 same thing, mate. Lol
Sounds like a name intended to impress the women.
How proud of you would your girlfriend be if your job was officially "guy who slides bullets around the floor with a rope'.
😂?
@@ghost307 honestly, she would probably be pretty stoked, lol. She's just that kind of lady.
Looking forward to finding out what those very high-ranking foreign (I think Australian) officers do in a US battleship turret 🙂!!
Just doing an allied nation visit I expect
It was taken in 1986 on the USS Missouri during the Royal Australian Navy's 75th Anniversary Naval Review in Sydney.
The Rear Admiral is Sir David Martin who was a very much respected (and loved) Naval Officer who then moved on to become the Governor of New South Wales before he died from Asbestosis.
The Vice Admiral is Michael Hudson (Chief of Naval Staff).
The officer in the background is Rear Admiral Ian Knox who was the Flag Officer Commanding HM Australian Fleet.
The civilian in front is the Australian Minister of Defence at the time Kim Beazly
Who went on to be Australia's Ambassador to the United States from 2010 to 2016.
Aussie have one of the most important jobs on the ship. To make sure they do not run out of Foster beer.
My gf and I love visiting naval shipyards. We saw the North Carolina and we thought it was pretty cool. The thing that struck me was that like two thirds of the personnel on board were devoted to the big guns. Of course, we were all up in the turrets & stuff. It’s amazing. Maybe we can check out the New Jersey one of these days. Until then - I just subscribed!
Few years back me & the family were in Gulfport on vacation, but had to drive thru Alabama around Mobile and swung in to see the USS Battleship Alabama and do the self guided tour, it was worth every penny, if your a history guy or gal or a ship person then this is a must see! The ship was amazing and massive and they also have a submarine on the premises that’s included with your ticket and was very cool! So if your ever in a area where one of the remaining Battleships rest and your allowed to walk around & explore on your own, then do it!
What brave guys! there’s no way I’d want to serve in a dangerous claustrophobic metal can that could sink anytime, massive respect for these boys who protect us by putting their own lives on the line.
Wonderful ships. Too bad they are gone. Thank you for keeping the BB-61 Class alive.
All 4 BB 61s are museums. 61 is in LA, 62 right here, 63 in Honolulu, 64 in Norfolk. Apex of battleship design. Go visit one.
A very interesting episode! Thank you Ryan!
I love the recent comparison videos with WI. Can’t wait to see more comparisons with MO and IA.
Ryan, I’ve watched many dozens of your videos and loved them all. But, this video is the best! Thanks.
Thank you for this demonstration, Ryan. So this was how the interior looked like for the poor 47 sailors lost in the destruction of Turret 2 on USS Iowa in 1989. All sailors on station in Turret 2 were killed. RIP.
I was assigned the IC/Gyro Room which was on the lowest deck and had only one way out, upward. I considered this billet as expendable since I had to destroy the system if instructed to. Unlike the Powder deck that had two ways of getting out.
Really great info on how complicated it must have been to operate the guns. Thank you for what you do!
Very nice explanation of the various duty stations within the turret. Thank you!
Great video. Didn't seem to show loading the shells into the breach, tho it must be the same rammer as used to insert the powder. I'm visiting the Massachusetts in a couple of weeks, hope to get a turret tour.
Yes, it is. The shell cradle and spanning tray are that folded up device you see close to the end of the video when ryan is in the gun pit. The shell comes up into the folded up cradle/spanning tray. The cradle operator unfolds the cradle/spanning tray into the open breach of the gun, rotating the projectile to horizontal, and the rammer man rams the project into the breach. The rammer man then retracts the rammer, the powder elevator doors open and three bags roll out. The cradle operator and the gun captain push two bags forward and one bag back while the powder elevator changes position to release the other three bags. Those are lined up and the rammer man slowly rams all six bags into the breach. Breach is closed. Wham!
See a decent video here: th-cam.com/video/MTW_xpK-Twc/w-d-xo.html
Off topic question for you Ryan.
I am from the UK and was wondering what your opinion is off the war graves off HMS Prince of Wales and HMS Repulse wrecks being totally salvaged by third parties destroying the war graves and how protected are American war graves in the pacific having the same impact on them??
Personally anyone who messes with a war gave should suffer the full ramifications of that country.
Sounds like an episode for a naval channel ...
My first ship had a 5” 54 gun that had the gun mount on the main deck the carrier room directly below that and the ammo mag below that with the powder mag directly aft of the ammo handling room separated by a WTD of course. I still remember the thick smell of cordite in the powder mag.
4:37 - Ryan failing to conceal that he is actually a Terminator.
(1:42) Thank you and cudos to Ryan and Battleship New Jersey, for mentioning the turret explosion on the USS Iowa. It is shameful piece of US Navy history that they tried to blame on the actions of one enlisted man, not the slightly more complicated truth (probables include ; the powder bag tearing or being "over rammed", stress of the extended training cycle the crew was on, over zealous "testing" of the main guns use and range by the gunnery officers, even bad mixing when the powder bags were "reloaded" for use after reactivation, etc...). This is a great video description of what the sailors did when manning the main gun turrets.
You have inspired me to find somewhere that they explain how these turrets work and why they needed so many men. Thanks
Great video! All of this series has been informative and entertaining. Ryan, it's good to see you getting much more comfortable with the camera.
Ryan, I'm the corpsman waiting outside the turret for a med call. Great video, well done Sir.
Thanks for making theae videos and thanks for all the time and effort in making the content. Thanks for another great video. I love learning about ww2 ships. I love American warships and im not able to visit battleship nj yet .i do live in nj i hope i can visit her sometime soon. Im really thankful that you make videos of the ship so we get to see the ship its so cool
Its amazing how much cooperation you need from many sailers just to operate one barrel. Men from the powder room to the shell room to the range finders to the shell loaders plus the commanders and officers. Its so amazing getting so many men to cooperate and stay in time to the system keeps moving smoothly.
That thumbnail has the crew addressing (then) Australian Defence Minster Kim “Bomber” Beazley
They called him Bomber because he was famously interested (obsessed) with military hardware lol
Great video as always
Thanks for a great piece of coverage on WW2 turrets
As a Veteran of the USS Iowa BB-61 - Turret 2. I held the following jobs.
1) Powder Man - Left
2) Shellman
3) Parbuckler
4) Local Control - Rangefinder Operator
Remember the Iowa 47
The primer setter was cheerful-looking. That looks like a good job for me.
In the explosion on the Iowa, some of the men on the powder flat managed to escape from the bottom of the turret, so it wasn't all of those in the turret.
Did the men in turret 2 powder magazine survive? Iam guessing that they did otherwise the magazine would have gone up
@@idontcare9797 I'm unclear on how many. There are multiple stops to prevent turret explosions from making it to the magazines. First are the doors at the top of the elevators. The explosion took at that one for sure. The second are the doors at the bottom of the elevator. I think those were damaged and some fire got out. The third is the pass throughs between the powder flat and the powder passing ring. It didn't get in there for sure. The fourth is the pass throughs from the passing ring to the magazines.
Crew in the passing ring and magazines got out for sure. As you note, if it got in the magazine, the whole ship would have been lost.
Used to keep doors open in combat in WW2 very dangerous
No one in Turret 2 at the time of the explosion survived. The annular space shown by Ryan between 3:03 and about 4:12 is a narrow compartment that separates the adjacent magazine spaces from the powder flat, which is at the bottom level of the rotating turret assembly. There were powder men in the annular space and the magazines, and as soon as they realized that an explosion had taken place inside the turret, evacuated up the vertical ladder trunks to decks above. The first people to enter the lowest deck (aka powder flat) of Turret 2 saw several dead sailors lying very close to the hatches that seal off Turret 2 from the annular space. These sailors were trying to make their way to the hatches to escape but were overcome and died from inhaling the poison gas created by the explosion and the combustion of the modern-era polyurethane sleeves encasing the powder bags (see video at the 18:50 mark). Turret 1's Turret Officer was one of the first to enter Turret 2 from the bottom, and he saw several powder bags smoldering and off-gassing. It appeared that the powder flat crew decided to have the magazines send in all of the powder needed for that day's planned shoot, and they had stacked up the powder bags around the powder flat, which seemed to be a HUGE safety violation. Another HUGE safety violation observed was that the powder flat crew never connected the ship's fire main to the turret fire main----you can see what that is supposed to look like at the 4:45 mark of the video by noting the coiled but connected fire hose on the deck as the sailors in the training video enter the powder flat.
one of your best great work as always
Great video. I know it's a stretch but I'm sure there are some volunteers that could have filled in as 'extras' as a demonstration. At least at each level so you wouldn't need all rought 80 people. Just a thought. I know that is easier said then done. Great video as always. Thanks!
I always worked in the ship's bakery. I did not have a separate general quarters station, because I was not ship's company: I was assigned to the air squadrons, my shoulder patch read "VF 161". So I just kept the crew fed as best we could. Each embarked squadron provided two cooks, and any number of mess cooks. Ships company personnel ran off to their GQ station, and we stayed behind to feed the ship.
How did the people on the lower level on the other side of the blast proof doors get blown up in the turret explosion? And you have other isolation of munitions from the source of the explosion that also didn't work, about all you can say is the magazine didn't go up.
I assume that even though the hardware survived relatively unscathed, the soft and squishy men did not fare so well from the overpressure.
Was it a design flaw? Was it a work around to hurry things up? Or were the crew killed from the concussion or vacuum?
@@kevinkilleen6375 I assume just plain overpressure, it would only take a spike of a few PSI tot really mess up a man's lungs in an enclosed space, for example.
I don't know if there is an official account, but based on the book "A Glimpse Of Hell," the sailors in the upper decks of the turret (gun house, electrical deck and maybe shell decks) were victims of blast and fire, while sailors in the powder flats (bottom deck of the turret) were victims of smoke and poisonous fume inhalation. The sailors working outside of the turret in the annular spaces (the place where Ryan started the video) survived with relatively minor injuries, some from poisonous gas inhalation when they entered the powder flats after the last explosion. There were at least two secondary explosions reported after the propellant bags ignited in the center gun room.
All the safety features in the world aren't going to help if the people that are supposed to use them don't. For example, many of the compartments and deck levels have strong doors to isolate them from each other, but if no one bothers to close the doors, they aren't going to protect anyone or prevent the propagation of blast, fire, and fumes. There were supposed to be enough OBAs (Oxygen Breathing Apparatus) for each turret duty position, but if they are not there, or not working, they're not going to help anyone.
I believe I would have been qualified to be a medical corpsman in sick bay. Turret Captain actually used to be a rating of its own. My uncle was a Gunner's Mate 2nd Class then struck for and got Turret Captain 1st Class (TC1c) and then Chief Turret Captain (CTC). I believe he was a Chief on USS North Carolina. I know he later went Warrant Officer as Gunner and then was commissioned Ensign and eventually made Commander. I wish I'd really known him.
Your thumbnail picture is very cool! It includes RADM Sir David Martin(Royal Australian Navy), later governer of the Australian state of NSW, Kim Beazley (then Australian Defence Minister) and Vice Admiral Micheal Hudson (then Australian Chief of naval staff) on board the USS Missouri in 1986. RADM Martin was one of the most popular governers we had in NSW, but sadly, he died of mesothelioma in 1990, which he contracted due to asbestos exposure earlier in his naval career. Asbestos lagging was used as insulation around steam pipes on ships in our navy back in the day.
The “parbuckle,” a great old rope technique from the days of bringing cylindrical objects up a ramp onto a ship. If a cool word fits, use it!!
Great episode here!!
What a feet of engineering. That turret weighs almost the same as a ww2 destroyer, with almost the same crew compliment. Amazing.
In Iowa in the 1984 commissioning, we counted close to 100 people manning the turret because we counted the magazine people. As you noted, with time we began to use less people. We probably never used the pointer and trainer positions in either side of the gun house, or if we did it was only on one side. We never used the range finders in TII and TIII.
I can't stop watching these! I have to wonder about the climate inside while firing.
Reminds me oy '67-'68, at PNSY, when job was pocking the holes clear in the sprinkler piping. Pipe was galvo steel and rusted beyond repair
I would not be able to carry the powder bags. I literally would not be able to physically lift them at 110 lbs - that's over 2/3 of my weight (I'm about 160).
As for what job I'd like to do, I think it would be cool to operate the shell hoist or the rammer.
I'm 150 😂
I’m 170 lbs and I couldn’t lift that amount even when I was young.
I was able to lift the 110lb training bags onboard during my last visit without too much trouble at an out of shape 190, in shape im more 180, but I also have worked manual labor the majority of my life so 110 isn't much higher. A big part of it is just getting lots of training/exercise in on all your small supporting muscles/core/flexibility, and also learning how to use your whole body to move the things. Give it a few months time & honest effort & i bet all of you could do it :)
Back in my 20's, I often bought 1/2 barrel's of beer for parties, which weighed at least 160 lbs full, and I carried them myself, sometimes up to 100 ft from a car to the barrel of ice where they would be chilled in. I only weighed 160~170 lbs, so, its not impossible, but its definitely a young man's posting to take on that task.
Really highlights how much of a group effort it was.
Kinda wish I could see it in action!
There's a good training film on it on several TH-cam channels.
@@ghost307 Thanks! I'll have to look that up!
I remember crawling into that last position on the port side of one of the forward turrets of the USS Massachusetts and looking through the periscope. Very cramped even when I was a kid.
So I'm curious on what the site setters do. In the big picture what information are they putting into the firing solution. Also how to the pointers know where to aim, they don't have sights or anything.
With the reduction in turret manpower I can’t help thinking it might be at least a partial cause for the turret explosion on Iowa. It’s been my experience in manufacturing jobs that when management tinkers with man power levels they fail to take into account the hidden tasks that aren’t readily apparent. When a position is taken away there’s confusion about who has each responsibility or task as the operation progresses. I’m thinking somewhere in the process there’s missing steps between cleaning the barrel and the order to fire. If due to a missing member it delays the normal order of operations then it exposes a vulnerability of an open breach. I’ve also learned that when you’re trained to follow a certain sequence you naturally follow it due to mental and muscle memory. When there’s a change in sequence someone may naturally revert to the previously learned sequence unintentionally. This would be especially dangerous with explosives or nuclear applications but could also be hazardous in even mechanical situations. Probably the only way to determine this is to observe the turret crews from the past and compare them to the crews of the explosion era and see if a step is possible to be missed. You’d also have to look at sequence by rates of fire as well. I think Iowa was at training level staffing, were they not? It would be nice for the crewmen being blamed to have closure and hopefully be exonerated. Great video Ryan even if it is rather technical.👍
I seen a video recently covering the incident on the Iowa. The most likely cause was the powder being over-rammed and/or to fast. The rammer being new along with no way to limit the rammers speed when switching between a shell and powder bags.
My left ear loved this video.
Wow. Very complex and informative. The movie Battleship left *MOST* of that out. lol.
My uncle was a plank owner on BB 61 in 1943 to his dying day, he loved that ship. Seeing this video makes you realize just how dangerous these ships were for their crews.
Thanks for making the comparison to the NC class ships. I’m more familiar with BB55
It's incredible just how labour intensive these ships were to operate. I think if you were to build a battleship today, most of the shell handling would be automated.
I’m sure they could have reduced some of it, but part of the resilience of the design is that the mechanisms used are isolated and relativly simple. Additionaly all the sailors act as fuzzy logic points to deal with any issues that might arise in the handling process. If the whole thing was automated, it would be much easier for 1 failure to take down an entire turret.
@@andrewr2650 You could easily automate the entire loading process and therefore lose most of the crew involved. As each turret would still need three independent systems this risk is clearly trumpd by the benefits. My guess is that you could operate a modern version with maybe 10-15 people in a safer, more comfortable environment and the results would be even better.
I was thinking the powder door 3 people seemed entirely extra, if you did this at all recently it would be a button the person who pushed the powder in would push to close and they would open automatically, which would still be incredibly simple mechanisms. If you did it today you might required two buttons so you ensured no hands were ever caught and crushed without needing a somewhat more error prone in combat system to detect hands where they shouldn't be, just require both hands ho,ding in the buttons and you then know they can't be reaching in.
You made a very nice and interesting video. Thank you for upoading.
Thans for this interesting video! But the sound is difficult to hear😮
I participated in a complete battery alignment on that ship back in the 80s. I think it was. When it was in Long Beach. That was a pain in the butt. Took about a week at night all night. I actually had to climb up and lay on top of those 16 inch gun breeches. lol.
Ryan after visiting the Ship last week my friends and I went into the Turret and saw the large Horizontal cylinder across the turret. You can see in in video between 14:30 and 17:00 on the right. We had asked what it was but no one was sure what it was and what it did. Can you answer what it is Thanks.
That's a range finder.
The guns can be aimed from that if the main one elsewhere on the ship gets knocked out.
All these people, multiplied by the number of turrets is mind boggling. Everything seems so solid and indestructible in the turret but it brings to mind when the HMS Hood blew up and only 3 people (I think) survived from that entire ships crew. It’s a very sobering thought.
Apparently the secondary battery was hit by Bismarck, the shell going through the hull below the armor belt. That magazine exploded, causing the adjacent turret magazine to explode, cutting Hood in two. That hit would have been just outside of the powder deck of that turret. Hood sank very quickly, with less than a handful of survivors, as you have noted.
The periscope sights are duplicated for the same reason rangefinders have two sights, to provide binocular vision and therefore more accurate range estimations (look at the FC rating badge for an historical example). They likely weren't manned in the 80s because range finding was dramatically improved with radar and therefore manual options were left for contingency only.
This was my next request for a video! Can you show where the Iowa explosion took place and what areas were affected?
my left ear enjoyed this
Great video,I had no idea,it took so many men to do this.
when watching war movies,now I'll be looking at them differently
My father served during WWII as a gun captain in turret number one of the Battleship Washington.
So the Iowa turret explosion killed the sailors way down there at the bottom of the turret? For some reason I always though it was confined to just the upper portion of the turret.
There are only two ways into the turret. One is through a hatch at the back of the turret gun house, entered from the main deck. The other is down a vertical ladder 4 decks to the powder flats. The guys on the projectile decks had to go down four and up two to get to their stations.
On the USS Wisconsin BB-64, during Desert Strom turret 3 had 50 rounds off in 30 minutes.
Assigned to the 2nd shell deck as BM SN moving shells. Learned how to straddle between 2 shells and get some rest, LOL
How did people move those heavy shells to the rotating ring? Using some kind of pulley system? How did the shells not fall over while moving during rough seas?
Great video, thank you
Very interesting. Great video, subscribed!
Is it me or audio is only on left channel?
Left channel for me, as well.
Windows has a mono audio option if anyone watching wants to do that
Working with headphones
Thanks for the videos you post, vey accurate and explained well. I’m familiar with the Big J, I was a turret one gunner onboard the Missouri in Desert Storm, I was listening to your video and you questioned where the extra men would be., and why only 47 men inside T2 on the Iowa the day of the explosion..as men on the powder flats were manually loading the powder carts during combat it’s of the most heavy laboring job, so they’d have extra men there to alternate or allow some to take a break and the other guys would fill in. Bc in combat it’s a busy busy situation of constantly carrying these 110 pound sized powder bags, did I explain it to clarify the situation where extra men are?
Thank you, Ryan! The British were not fans of all the manual effort needed to load US BB guns. They had more power loading. What would be the maximum list that NJ's guns could still be loaded since you might be trying to load powder and shells 'up hill'?
The Brits defecate on ANYTHING American, so who cares! SMH. As for the question about the list, good one.
My father was a Turret Officer on the port side fwd 5in turret aboard the Mighty Mo in the early 50's, so that's where I would be.
My right ear loved this.
Could you give us a history of the MK56 gun fire control system, and maybe a walk through the control room?
It's really cool to see what duties all the sailors performed inside each of the batteries!!! Did they use the main hoists to transfer shells back and forth from the shell decks; would there ever be a need for them to transfer the shells between the shell decks? Also, was the projectiles loaded into the magazines from Broadway, or was there another way to load the shells (more efficiently)? 😊
Hey from Toronto…love your videos and have been watching since Day One… could you possibly do a video to demonstrate what it would sound like in a 16 inch turret during combat?
It's been described as similar to shotgun fire.
@@BattleshipNewJersey Interesting…thanks for answering and I’m looking forward to new upcoming vids! Keep up the great work!
sorry i missed this 2 days ago !
this was the best explanation I have ever seen
Donated an extra $$
It would be interesting to see a modern redesign of the turrets with more automated mechanisms. How much smaller or lighter could the turrets be while retaining the same capabilities?
you should check out the movie Under Siege. there is a scene about 2/3rds of the way in the movie where they kind of show them loading and firing a couple of shells out of one of the turrets on the USS Missouri. it would be interesting to know how accurate it is compared to real life! I'm sure they got the Navy's support on filming this movie.