Somewhere in the Pentagon a small red light and a buzzer turned on when he turned those keys. "Sir!" "What is it?" "The... the New Jersey just armed their Tomahawk launchers..!"...
I worked on that Display in the 1980's at Raytheon. The funny thing that I found was that the bottom of that display shelf had 2 captive screws that could be opened with a dime, and you could literally jump across the solder connections to the key. I did not see any interlock that would prevent that method from working
I love that there are people still around that know cool details like that. For every visitor who sees "history", there's someone who knows "Yeah, I made that. On a Tuesday in 1983."
Reminds me of a movie I saw as a kid - Twilight's Last Gleaming - where a group manage to take control of a Titan battery's launch control facility and bypass all the physical safeguards and threaten to start WW3. Pretty scary flick for a 7th grader.
Aren’t the keys spring loaded to prevent one person from completing multiple steps of the arming/firing process alone? For instance, having to hold the key in the on position prevents you from walking to the terminal and entering the codes, or whatever the other steps might be. You have to physically stand there and just hold the key, while someone else does the next step. That way one rogue person can’t launch nukes or tomahawks at somebody without proper authorization, and multiple people being given the order to fire.
The keys aren’t there to prevent you, they are there so things don’t happen by accident. You can’t say my elbow hit the nuke button by accident. If someone is opening the panel without authorization there’s a sidearm protocol 😅
As a kid, I went on a school field trip to a Minuteman III launch training facility. It was deep underground and mounted on HUGE shock absorbers. I was one of two kids who got to turn the pair of keys to "launch" an ICBM.
I'm a volunteer on WISCONSIN, and there are two, dual-combination lock safes in and near CEC that could hold the Nuclear Permission to Fire keys. The dual-combination locks are required for the NUKE keys to ensure two person integrity is maintained. WISKY also has both sets of keys, and I use them during my Command and Control Tour. I always start my discussions on NUKES with the "I cannot neither confirm nor deny the presence of nuclear weapons on Board USS WISCONSIN..." The Fire Inhibit/Enable key is used for all TOMAHAWK missions while the NUKE PTF keys are used in conjunction with the Inhibit/Enable key to fire a nuke.
I'd say Ryan would have better returns threatening Philadelphia, demanding Pat's and Geno's cheesesteak sandwiches for the entire museum crew, because as good as Camden's Campbell's Soup is, fresh and hot cheesesteaks are better!
It's great to see the childlike wonder when he finds something new and unexpected. We don't get that feeling very often as we get older. I love living vicariously through this channel.
please do a collab with the lock picking lawyer or some other physical security expert, it'd be interesting to see how pick resistant these systems were (guessing not at all)
The high security locks like on arms rooms in the army have a few keys. One of which is a maintenance Key that you can pull the guts out of the lock body. It took me a few minutes to pick mine one day, but that was after looking at the guts. Years later and many more practice sessions with the lock on my arms room, I made a bet with my 1st Sergent that I might be able to pick the lock on the arms room. He had no idea what I did before and, 4 minutes later it was open. He was shocked, I felt Luckey. Then someone, a former squad leader informed him of my hobby with no lock picking tools.
To be fair I think anyone trying to pick these is less worried by the lock and more worried about the location being a constantly occupied room of trained personnel.
I do not really think that it really mattered. Tomahawks incorporated a permissive action link (PAL) system so you need to input a code to the warhead for them to be operational. I would say that the keys are an extra step you need to do so you do not launch them by mistake. Requiring a key for a launch, to begin with, is a way so any training and simulation of the system can't result in a weapon launch. You need to actively get a key and turn it around that is not something that you do by mistake. Add an extra key for the nuclear variant so no one launches one by mistake when a conventional one should be launched. Even if the warhead does not detonate it would very bad thing to do.
I can imagine Ryan being all smug and dangling these keys going nah-nah-nah at the annual battleship museum curator's meeting! So nice to see him light up because of a find like that!
@@Simon-ho6ly dev is the one to go to. He is trained and certified to work on government safes. LPL does locks as a hobby, most of his safe work is simple bypassed, not enough for a real safe.
@@phillyphakename1255 Those simple bypasses are often on real safes you would find containing valuables... modern govt safe standards are somewhat better but for anything small enough to be mobile and especially something that small and age is not going to be a particularly fancy locking mechanism.. dev is certainly the better option but we are still looking at an old and somewhat basic safe
@@phillyphakename1255 hes done a few more secure ones and has talked about being able to manipulate safes to some extent before, hes not at the same level as dev but theres a good chance he could open that safe since it looks to be pretty basic and cheap
The smaller safe is the Electronics Warfare (EW) publications safe that held the NWPs (Naval Warfare Publications) and EPLs (ELINT Parameters List) and other classified material including the programming and maintenance tapes for the AN/SLQ-32.
It would definitely be the smallest safe! 2 man rule. One opens the safe the other opens the inner safe. Both would present the keys after authentication procedure.
Ya know I’ve pressed those buttons on the Battleship Wisconsin before. It’s nice to see the Navy left you guys some gifts. It’s like finding the keys to a brand new car except with more spicy world ending neutrons. Edit: I went back and found the picture I took of the Nuclear Perm To Fire buttons on USS Wisconsin and not only are they identical in looks but the keyholes also match those seen on New Jersey. Whether the keys would still work between the ships is still a mystery but they do in fact look identical
What's even more important is that if the keys match between decommissioned battleships there's no reason they wouldn't work on commissioned serving and armed ships/submarines.
Ryan, I have been told by B-52 crewman that each crewman's enable switch to arm the nukes was in a very awkward position to insure that it could not be accidentally used.
Speaking as a former assistant RPS custodian on a Gearing class destroyer. In the first safe you indicated with the safe inside probably held the authentication cards to authenticate a message to use nuclear weapons. It would require two officers to open the two safes to get the cards.
Were those in those snap-in-half envelopes? I've always thought those were cool, and wanted to know what they were called (the envelopes). Can you buy them?
Everyone always talks about their use... What I always wondered... what was the process to generate the recipe (codes), create the biscuits, and put them in the oven (safe)? Then keeping track of this biscuit is on this vessel/station with this key set... knowing the DoD / Gov't - probably handled by the GSA under a sub-contract to the lowest bidder - who handles all the documentation with a paper spreadsheet kept in their notebook (Trapper Keeper?) they used high school. I don't need the codes - I need the notebook.
I just started working at the USS Hornet a couple months ago, and just was brought up to Radio Central yesterday, in fact. It's where all of the ships radios are located and operated (as the name might suggest...). That includes communications at all levels of classification, from "in the clear" all the way up to Top Secret. It's cool that the main door has both a key and a combo lock just to get into the room. The door's top half can open partially, and has bars over it. Behind the door is a curtain. That way, someone inside can close the curtain and open the top half of the door to talk to some out outside, and they can't see in. Even once you are inside, the TS compartment is locked again with different keys and a combo lock. There is vacuum tubes to send communications around the ship (kind of like at the bank or post office). They go to, I think, PriFly (Primary Flight Control), CIC, bridge, and the admiral's bridge.
It would seem the Nuke key is spring loaded so that you have to purposely hold it in position in order to launch. Reduces the "oops" factor I imagine. why do I picture Ryan being shown the keys, then he says, "OOO! I know where these might fit!" and runs out of the room with staff asking "Should someone follow him??"
I would ask "Are we sure they took all the missiles off of this thing?" followed by "Are we sure that we didn't acquire any after the Navy gave it to us?"
possibly it's for the same reason they're spring-loaded in Launch Control Centers for the ICBM force, it prevents somebody from turning more than one of the keys to the launch position. Now, I'd be very surprised if somebody could take over the weapon stations that controlled the nukes all on their own, but if they did, and the two consoles needed were far away enough from each other, then that might prevent a single person from kicking off WW3.
@@bentuttle9170 Yeah need at least two launch officers to go mad to start WW3. It's funny after the war they let West German pilots fly FA 86's with atom bombs. That was pre two man rule. One of them could have easily thought fuck the allies and nuked West Berlin.
The FZ (Magazine Intrusion) alarm panels should have covers and require two keys to open. There should be two of the little 6X6 combo safes somewhere in the compartment or close by which contained the panel keys. Two-man rule applied, so it took two of us to get at the keys. No one person would ever know the combo to both safes. Most of the small junction boxes for FZ would be safety-wired and sealed using the hand press which you found in a previous video. The larger junction/terminal boxes would have had padlocks installed. On our ship, the FZ tech manuals, seal press, and J-box keys were kept in the safe in the Chief Engineer's stateroom. Standard 2-man rule applied here as well, so two FZ-Certified techs needed to be present (plus the Cheng, obviously) to get any of the above. There may be keys for the PBX cabinet, if it is an AT&T Dimension 2000 system. As the D2000 PBX was 100% commercial equipment, it was not classified. However, locking the cabinet did keep it secure during heavy seas. The terminal boxes on the weather decks where the cables to the pier for phone service connected may have also been padlocked. The only other thing that I can think of in the IC Shop which required a special key would have been the shop's Flammables Locker where we kept small quantities of alcohol, solvents, and oils required for PMS.
So Cool. Over 40 years ago, as an intern, I worked on a display system that looked just like this console and I was told it was for firing cruise missiles on the recommissioned battleships. I designed the fonts in dot matrix format, but I remember amber display.
What kind of system is it? The vintage computers I play with are mainly 80's and early 90's. If that's a 5.25" drive, maybe late-70's? That's the kind of system I'd imagine CuriousMarc and his team of nerds would love to fix up.
Thank you and your people for not just pocketing and keeping these keys. It would have been soooooo easy to just slip these in your pocket and pretend they were never found. Amazing
You should check to see if you have the keys to the locks on the main reduction gears. It would also make a good video to talk about the procedures followed when the main reduction gears were actually open. Cool to know there are still discoveries to be made after all these years!
Ditto that. On the ships that I served on the main reduction gear covers were securely locked. Otherwise it would have been very easy to sabotage the very high precision gears with foreign objects or other very bad things. The keys were under the control of the Chief Engineer. This actually happened on the USS Ranger in believe 1973, and disabled the ship for perhaps three months.
@HVAC Quality Assurance the Navy doesnt own most if not all of the MRG's on its current ships. They are leased and removed when decommissioned. If the MRG's are onboard the New Jersey, then I absolutely agree that they were bought outright by the Navy. Definitely interested to know if they are or are not still onboard. They would have to have been cutout for sure if leased or the Navy paid them off so they didnt have to cut them out lol.
@@rickthorp8363 The ship was built around the MRGs. There's no removing them, particularly the bull gear. They are simply too large to pass through any of the available hatches even if removed from the housing.
@@BattleshipNewJersey I really can't... It sank in for me a little over a year ago... when Alaina was aghast at my comment of just zip-wheeling the locks off. I never thought to view the locks themselves as artifacts... they were just obstacles to my mind.
The key to the wardroom icebox, naturally. You've got to keep the strawberries somewhere. Now, if you find a duplicate key to that icebox, why, you'd really be on to something.
When Dad was on the Ranger, they would take on cargo that was heavily guarded by Marines. While they were there, parts of the ship would become restricted access. It was always presumed by the crew that this was nuclear material. Dad was once told by one of these Marines with a shotgun to about face and beat feet when he encountered them.
Nice knowing you Ryan. Enjoy your visit from the NSA any minute now, they're only like a 30 minute helicopter ride away lol. Coming Tuesday: "Hi I'm Kelly Ann Rogers curator on the battleship New Jersey and i'm here to talk about how our plans for the spring season are going!!"
I was looking at videos from the Wisconsin, and I think they found their "nuke keys". Also, for the Desert Storm/Desert Shield Anniversary, they interviewed a TAO from the ship, and he talked about, when they got the orders to deploy to Desert Shield, they suddenly had a problem, because the ships being deployed were to be not carrying any nukes, but they had some aboard, so they had to offload them, before they could deploy.
Remember it was an thing after the cold war that the US would stop carry nuclear weapons on surface ships. Now it could be carriers only as you could fly in new bombs and air launched missiles anyway.
@@magnemoe1 Actually, at the time, late 1990-early 1991, that "directive/order" hadn't been given, yet. The USS JFK, I think, even still had it's "W Company" aboard, which was the weapons handlers who handled the nuclear bombs on the ship. The "directive" removing nuclear weapons from the surface navy wasn't issued until after the end of Desert Storm. Heck, there was congressional outrage over the B-1Bs not participating in Desert Shield/Desert Storm, but they were fulfilling their mission, still sitting nuclear pad alert at the SAC Bases in the US, and were still nuclear weapons, only. They hadn't received the ability to carry and employ conventional munitions, yet.
@@magnemoe1 Cannot confirm nor deny. was the training nuke a dummy or real. When it was swapped was it another dummy or real. Treat it as real, hope it was a dummy. Talking in the early 70's. Offload and forget about it. Onload and pretend or was it real? I don't know who had the keys and if anyone onboard could confirm or deny.
There’s a scene in the beginning of Damnation Alley, where a minuteman crew go through the launch procedure from authentication to firing. At the part where the “turn the keys” the senior launcher officer says “ 3…2…1…turn. 1…2…3…release.” From my understanding, it looked liked the locks were spring loaded to not stay on the “fire” setting. Maybe that’s what happening to your tomahawk keys, this is former government property we’re talking about.
Other than weapons the most secret place on warships is the communications suite so I imagine there are many keys and safes there. After the Falklands War Navy divers entered the safes in the wrecks to recover documents and code-books and it is said, expensive spare parts, from HM Ships Coventry, Ardent and Antelope all resting in shallow water.
On the topic of other keys, I recall seeing a picture of the padlocks installed on the access covers to the combining gears on one of the Iowas. Apparently, the locks were put in place to prevent someone sabotaging the ship by dumping a bunch of metal shavings or other debris into the gears. If I remember right, the locks went in during the Vietnam War because other ships had been damaged that way. Not sure if the photo was from New Jersey.
I concur that is standard (from 702-80s) _ I call then Reduction Gears instead. Also _ I have heard comments that those used to actually only be Long term lease by Navy, not owned.
It's so cool not only that they found those, but that Ryan's standing there like a kid at Christmas going look what I have! This is awesome! Also, the Ryan snark lives large. Love the snark.
@Ryan, Very cool find and great video as always. The small safe is most likely the EWs safe and definitely not where those keys would've been kept. This is where we would keep our large operational specific publication some of which were classified Secret and above. The EW Logo on the front of the safe gives it away. The secondary safe inside would be for the most highly sensitive materials which typically would require two people to access. This would mean that two people to knowingly be accountable for any loss or leak of that highly sensitive information. Incidentally, EWs merged with CTTs on 1 Oct 2003. Finding an FC that served on the ship may be a good start on finding the answer on the keys.
@@MiddKnightAlphaOmega Mergers can be good, and mergers can be bad. I was a submarine FT, we had a chief who was actually trained as a DS, but at some point in time they decided to merge sub DS's into the FT rate because the DS's pretty much just handled OTH data (which we had to be at PD or surfaced to work with) and didn't have maintenance on their own equipment (FT's did). But in the wonderful logic of the navy in personnel matter they took decided to take any DS's E-5 and below and send them back to school to crossrate to FT's; but for E-6's and above someone at bupers waved a magic rating wand and they fell asleep as a DS one day and woke up as a FT the next. That chief was a DS1 when it happened. I never had to spend so much time explaining to someone what we needed to do.
Museum Curator discovers National Treasure! Or historically significant artifacts, at least! Brilliant! I’m so happy for you, Battleship New Jersey, and all the future generations who will benefit from learning about our past! Hooyah, Ryan! Hooyah!
On boomers, the Captain carries the permission to fire key. I think he keeps it in a safe until the order to go to 1SQ. The Captain has a missile status console in the conn, which takes the key. The Weapons officer has a safe with a trigger, and there are crew to set the PAL (permissive action links). The tactical stuff has a lead seal on it (there are training versions). Burnt umber is the official color of tactical stuff. On the BB, it wouldn't be a surprise to require two officers to launch missiles. Although thinking about it, because the Tomahawk is a versatile weapons system unlike the Trident II, they may be required for normal launches (I wouldn't be surprised if they wanted two person integrity even for regular strikes, because of rules of engagement, even conventional they can start a war). There would have been additional equipment I imagine to set the PALs, and also the targets would probably have been defined in a SIOP package. I'm not sure how skimmers get EAMs, but that directs the crew to enter targeting info based on the order. If they used the same weapons package (like the W88 warhead, but not in an reentry body), they would need the PAL package. That stuff was probably removed. I think the Captain has a safe in his room (on British boomers they do) where the key is kept. Everything is together at that console, which makes me think it isn't for the nukes, especially for each launcher. The AF puts the launch keys in the EAM boxes. Crimson Tide in my opinion was accurate in regards to the launch procedure, but the Captains dog would have gotten TDU'ed at the first opportunity, especially if he took a leak in Sherwood Forest... I can say the 'button' on a submarine looks like a pistol grip, with a old-school phone cord, and burnt umber for the tactical trigger, black for training.
I have been is several Minuteman ICBM Launch Crew Capsules. I have seen the Red Ammo box with two combination locks on it. Inside are the launch consoles keys. I did not see the keys. My job was to maintain the 465L SACCS equipment that was one of several means of passing the Presidential Emergency War order.
For tactical nukes like the TLAM-N's actually they didn't use a two-person system, primarily because these are not weapons that can really lunched on a whim and are intended to be potentially used anywhere, and so unlike strategic missiles, these things are deployed dumb (no mission data what-so-over) and need to have mission data uploaded to them prior to launch. Assuming we carried one on a fast attack, if we were to launch one we would need an appropriate mission data package to upload to the weapon, a permissive interlock for the TLAM-N installed in the tube control panel and finally the CO's rom key. So on a fast attack to launch on you would at minimum need three people, at least one FT, the Strike Officer or Weapons Officer and the CO.... FT+ Strike or WEPS for the retrieval and upload of mission data, and CO for the rom key, if not more when relying on transmitted data, because then you have whoever many people were involved in making the new mission data package for it, lol. Mission data can be sent to us.... but usually they have several potential packages stored on a drive held in a two-combination safe in the CSES the safe combinations top one was had by the WEps and Strike, and the bottom by all qualified FTOW's
@@tekcomputers The CAPT was in the con, and he just had to put in a key to launch all missiles. The missiles aren't necessarily programmed with strike information, and people aren't necessarily aware of the target. The XO was only involved in authentication of the EAM (Emergency Action Message). WEPS had the trigger. The FTB's (now MT's I suppose) had to denote and prepare the missiles. There was a target list, but it was using ID's and not names. Computations were constantly run as the boat's position was updated. Funny they used FORTRAN libraries over the C ones because of accuracy.
What people are saying is to look for a red label safe. It'll still be grey, black or parchment colored. But the label will have red lettering. But that depends on what years the ship was active. Red label safes were not put into use until the early 90s. Before then, there were several generations of safes used for storing classified material. The keys alone would not have allowed a nuclear launch. You need codes as well, and only the captain and XO would have had access to the codes.
The tomahawk launch console is common among many types of ships. Since the tomahawk was nuclear capable, the controls had to be built into the console even if the specific ship did not carry nuclear tomahawks.
Red Safe likely refers to the contents and not the exterior color. Red is a reference to classified materials. Another example of this would be black phones and red phones. Black being nonclassified telephone systems and red being phones made safe to convey classified conversations.
Observation windows and service ports on the ships reduction gears had pad locks. Small arms magazines would be locked. The captains mess food lockers and refrigerators. Ships mail room
Speaking as a former cold war Gunner's Mate, many of the extra keys you have would be for mags both below decks and top side. When I can make it up for a visit, I would be happy to take a look to see if I could help ID anything.
Was in the Gulf War when Missouri and the Whiskey were in the gulf. Grateful as a Marine to see both of these ships. Wisconsin was in the PG and Missouri I toured in Subic
If I found them I would definitely run immediately to the launch station and insert them just for the fun of it! That’s so awesome and very cool to see.
So Ryan puts the two keys into the panel, turns them in sequence, and from a previously unexplored part of the ship an odd rumbling sound is heard. The deck opens, missiles appear, and there is a massive cloud of smoke. “Quick, get the Pentagon on the phone! The Navy left us more than just the keys!”
That would totally be "Shut up and take my money!" territory! :D We have a secure keybox at work to control access things like the campus master key sets and state vehicle keys. I'm always disappointed when I return a key to the locker and I turn the "carrier" key into the slot. A little LED goes out, but I never hear a missile launch or a space laser fire or anything. :P
The Battleship New Jersey Museum gets funding from the State of NJ because we threaten them with Nuclear weapons... may be the most NJ Thing I've ever heard Ryan say. I'm glad we're getting the Maryland niceness out him :).
"Now witness the power of this fully armed and operational battleship!" Engineering keys? Main reduction gear inspection ports, maybe lube oil strainer (I forgot whether the spray shield was locked on my lowly ammunition ship), and LOTS of spring bearing fill, dipstick, and drain ports. My ship had 9 spring bearings and a single shaft, Iowa class has 4 shafts so it may be 36, but the outboard shafts are slightly shorter.
Awesome find! I wonder how hard it would be to make a simulator add-on like in the Titan Museum where turning the key does a simulated (we hope!) launch sequence....
In 1990 I toured the Titan Missle Museum south of Tucson. I was a Museum director at the time and got the 25 cent tour. Her and I turned the keys, very very cool and thinkonable. She took me into the bottom of the launch tube where we could look up the skirt of the Shepard AFB training missile which they have loaded in the tube. Hair raising, literally.
Just a strong suggestion - With that many keys, look into lishi lock pick tools. You can use one of these tools to decode the bitting for that lock. With the keyway and bitting information any locksmith can easily cut missing keys for you. You could also catalog the keys and their bitting, and use the lock's bitting information to easily look up the right key.
Have to love Ryan. Like a kid in a candy store . Such a smart hard working young man. Have to get him as a presenter on Jeopardy for clues on the New Jersey or anything on Naval ships.
What an incredible find, i would suspect they were left behind by someone who wanted the history preserved, as you said the capability was removed, but these are huge in the cold war history of the ship!❤
You should consider making copies of those keys - if for no other reason than you have a "disposable" set you can test on, or gift to, the other Iowa-class museums whenever you all go out for drinks or something.
Can you imagine the person at the counter's reaction though. Having Ryan waltz in asking to get a couple of keys copied, "yeah, no trouble". Then watching their face as they read the tags on what the keys are for. Absolutely needs to video that interaction.
@marth6271 I actually used to work at Home Depot and at least the store near me that I worked at they were certain keys that we were not able or allowed to copy, mostly because we couldn’t carry every blank under the sun so if we didn’t have the blank we couldn’t copy it but there were certain restricted access keys that we just would refuse to copy because we wouldn’t want the copies falling into unauthorized hands, one of the big ones was medico keys that say do not copy or anything with Yale 1103 as those are used for peco service area locks for things like powerline switching, CT cabinet locks and even substation access
The brass handles on those safes, are exactly like the ones on my railroad safe from the 1880's (bought at auction 30 years ago when an old caboose was decommissioned), the combo dials look almost identical too.
Do those combo locks start off counter-clockwise, I wonder? Modern combo locks go the other way. On my antique, you then need to go around *twice* clockwise. I have long since forgotten the combo, because I had a locksmith teach me how to crack it... all I have to remember is the pattern, and do the rest by feel. I just find it cool that my railroad safe appears to have the same mechanism as the safes on a battleship commissioned many decades later.
I worked in the armory the last few months in the USMC. We had a small safe just like that. The main part of the safe had the duty pistols and some other stuff that I can’t remember. The inner safe held the ammo to the duty pistol.
Could you post photos of the keys and key fobs showing front and back? It would be fun to try to make my own replicas of these. I'll bet you could sell copies in the museum store for a nice chunk of change!
The nuclear you generally speaking has to have two key locks turns It's spring loaded so one person cannot enable both, there's a distance between them.
Thank God they were never used in warfare. Really cool that you found them. One day I just have to get up there to see the ship in person. Nice! Keep up the good work!
From the picture of the other keys those are definitely Medeco keys to the big Sargent & Greenleaf padlocks such as the ones on the reduction gear. Be careful guys.
There are HP computers on ebay that are similar to the one in the console to your right, which can provide a set of replacement key caps for that computer on your right. They don't cost a lot.
Being PRP with a US Navy A7 squadron was crazy interesting when we would do a "LoadEx". Marines everywhere! Really brought the seriousness of what we were doing to the forefront...
Good Presentation. Reminds when a German F-104G Flashed by me while I was sitting at the edge of cliff waiting for a buck to walk by. He pulled vertical then curved back over the top and went back the way he had flown in. Uphill two miles away was a fenced in "Weather Station" that I later ID as a bomb release training beacon used to measure drop accuracy when practice releases are done. Target in this case was the Glenrock Wyoming power station. In this case no practice bombs are used just the radiotelemetry to the beacon.
In USAF the panels for nuke keys to fire missiles are different for each panel. Panels are far enough apart that two people are required to turn the keys.
there's probably a different here because the nukes in question would be nuclear tomahawk's TLAM-N... these are tactical nuclear weapons as opposed to strategic nuclear weapons. We have similar controls in the navy to what you speak of employed in launching strategic weapons, but for tacticals it was different. Our TLAM-N's also were not as powerful as the tactical nukes employed by the airforce in their tactical nuclear cruise missiles. Some of the yield was sacrificed because these missiles would be stored in the torpedo room in close proximity to the crew, and as such measures were taken to reduce gamma emitions by the warhead unlike the airforce ones.
You should consider making replica key chains to sell. I suspect a lot of people would buy replicas allowing them to pretend their house keys are nuclear permission keys. I at least would.
Somewhere in the Pentagon a small red light and a buzzer turned on when he turned those keys. "Sir!" "What is it?" "The... the New Jersey just armed their Tomahawk launchers..!"...
🤣
Highway to the Dangerzone starts playing
@@pcnetworx1would you say we would be entering into a zone? One that was dangerous?
I worked on that Display in the 1980's at Raytheon. The funny thing that I found was that the bottom of that display shelf had 2 captive screws that could be opened with a dime, and you could literally jump across the solder connections to the key. I did not see any interlock that would prevent that method from working
I love that there are people still around that know cool details like that. For every visitor who sees "history", there's someone who knows "Yeah, I made that. On a Tuesday in 1983."
Reminds me of a movie I saw as a kid - Twilight's Last Gleaming - where a group manage to take control of a Titan battery's launch control facility and bypass all the physical safeguards and threaten to start WW3. Pretty scary flick for a 7th grader.
Somehow it feels like the appropriate place to bring that up would have been back then, and not on RUclips, in case some lunatic sailor gets ideas.
Aren’t the keys spring loaded to prevent one person from completing multiple steps of the arming/firing process alone? For instance, having to hold the key in the on position prevents you from walking to the terminal and entering the codes, or whatever the other steps might be. You have to physically stand there and just hold the key, while someone else does the next step.
That way one rogue person can’t launch nukes or tomahawks at somebody without proper authorization, and multiple people being given the order to fire.
The keys aren’t there to prevent you, they are there so things don’t happen by accident. You can’t say my elbow hit the nuke button by accident. If someone is opening the panel without authorization there’s a sidearm protocol 😅
It'd be cool to offer a special tour to visitors where you pay extra for the privelege of turning the nuclear consent keys.
Like IRL Patreon.
Some people just want to watch the world burn, and now so can you for 5.99!
I'd pay for that!!
As a kid, I went on a school field trip to a Minuteman III launch training facility. It was deep underground and mounted on HUGE shock absorbers. I was one of two kids who got to turn the pair of keys to "launch" an ICBM.
@@theyzforme An place there you don't want to confuse going to lunch with going to launch.
I'm a volunteer on WISCONSIN, and there are two, dual-combination lock safes in and near CEC that could hold the Nuclear Permission to Fire keys. The dual-combination locks are required for the NUKE keys to ensure two person integrity is maintained. WISKY also has both sets of keys, and I use them during my Command and Control Tour. I always start my discussions on NUKES with the "I cannot neither confirm nor deny the presence of nuclear weapons on Board USS WISCONSIN..." The Fire Inhibit/Enable key is used for all TOMAHAWK missions while the NUKE PTF keys are used in conjunction with the Inhibit/Enable key to fire a nuke.
Staffer: "Hey, I've found some k-"
Ryan: "I am become death, destroyer of worlds!"
Only Ryan could keep a straight face while describes “Under Siege” as a “Documentary”…
ROFL!!😅
He’s a master of deadpan delivery.
*Ryan:* "Alright City of Camden, here are my demands."
Approximately 1 million people. Will reach 10,000 degrees fahrenheit in less than 1 second.
Camden called said fire away
@@dw-bn5ex 😂🤣😂
I'd say Ryan would have better returns threatening Philadelphia, demanding Pat's and Geno's cheesesteak sandwiches for the entire museum crew, because as good as Camden's Campbell's Soup is, fresh and hot cheesesteaks are better!
Newark NJ, Trenton....
It's great to see the childlike wonder when he finds something new and unexpected. We don't get that feeling very often as we get older. I love living vicariously through this channel.
Great start to my day because of Ryan’s enthusiasm and memories that were brought back
The childlike wonder of having found a nuclear weapon launch key. Ah, good memories.
It’s crazy that you guys are still discovering new things on the battleship
Think of all the buildings out there with stuff we have never thought of, hidden in the walls, the attics 😮
@@kuartz. Or cracking open an old void that is suppose to be empty and find another treasure trove of items.
It's not that crazy when you think about just how big she is, and, just how many compartments there are.
Wonder if there are any bring back guns in the insulation.
Wouldn't be surprised if they regularly found porn stashes.
The scene of Ryan pulling the keys out of his pocket and saying "somebody gave me the nuclear permission to fire keys!" Is absurdly ominous.
please do a collab with the lock picking lawyer or some other physical security expert, it'd be interesting to see how pick resistant these systems were (guessing not at all)
The high security locks like on arms rooms in the army have a few keys. One of which is a maintenance Key that you can pull the guts out of the lock body. It took me a few minutes to pick mine one day, but that was after looking at the guts. Years later and many more practice sessions with the lock on my arms room, I made a bet with my 1st Sergent that I might be able to pick the lock on the arms room. He had no idea what I did before and, 4 minutes later it was open. He was shocked, I felt Luckey. Then someone, a former squad leader informed him of my hobby with no lock picking tools.
I was thinking the same thing. He definitely needs a invitation
Click on one.. False set... second pass... And we have it. The video is 2 minutes long.
To be fair I think anyone trying to pick these is less worried by the lock and more worried about the location being a constantly occupied room of trained personnel.
I do not really think that it really mattered. Tomahawks incorporated a permissive action link (PAL) system so you need to input a code to the warhead for them to be operational.
I would say that the keys are an extra step you need to do so you do not launch them by mistake. Requiring a key for a launch, to begin with, is a way so any training and simulation of the system can't result in a weapon launch. You need to actively get a key and turn it around that is not something that you do by mistake. Add an extra key for the nuclear variant so no one launches one by mistake when a conventional one should be launched. Even if the warhead does not detonate it would very bad thing to do.
I can imagine Ryan being all smug and dangling these keys going nah-nah-nah at the annual battleship museum curator's meeting!
So nice to see him light up because of a find like that!
Hopefully he brought them to Hawaii, she had a whole missile until recently :P
You should try 50-25-50 on the small safe(assuming it's locked). That is the DOD's standard out of service combination
If not i imagine deviant ollam or LPL would open it just for the experience if approached
@@Simon-ho6ly dev is the one to go to. He is trained and certified to work on government safes. LPL does locks as a hobby, most of his safe work is simple bypassed, not enough for a real safe.
@@phillyphakename1255 Those simple bypasses are often on real safes you would find containing valuables... modern govt safe standards are somewhat better but for anything small enough to be mobile and especially something that small and age is not going to be a particularly fancy locking mechanism.. dev is certainly the better option but we are still looking at an old and somewhat basic safe
@@Simon-ho6ly maybe I'm wrong. I thought he only really did "look, these dumbasses left the screws to the hinge on the outside" type safes.
@@phillyphakename1255 hes done a few more secure ones and has talked about being able to manipulate safes to some extent before, hes not at the same level as dev but theres a good chance he could open that safe since it looks to be pretty basic and cheap
The smaller safe is the Electronics Warfare (EW) publications safe that held the NWPs (Naval Warfare Publications) and EPLs (ELINT Parameters List) and other classified material including the programming and maintenance tapes for the AN/SLQ-32.
It would definitely be the smallest safe! 2 man rule. One opens the safe the other opens the inner safe. Both would present the keys after authentication procedure.
I like how when Ryan is sitting at the launch station, it looks a little like someone has handed a local hobo a set of nuclear launch keys.
Yes
He looks better with his beard grown out a little. He looked more like a hobo when he had a "5 o'clock shadow".
This gotta chuckle outta me 🤣
I like the beard. Being in that dark cramped space is giving me Jürgen Prochnow from Das Boot vibes.
Beard is great, but hair’s gotta go. Simon Whistler should be a role model
Ya know I’ve pressed those buttons on the Battleship Wisconsin before. It’s nice to see the Navy left you guys some gifts. It’s like finding the keys to a brand new car except with more spicy world ending neutrons.
Edit: I went back and found the picture I took of the Nuclear Perm To Fire buttons on USS Wisconsin and not only are they identical in looks but the keyholes also match those seen on New Jersey. Whether the keys would still work between the ships is still a mystery but they do in fact look identical
Kind of makes you wonder if the guy was smiling when he left the key there wondering how long it would take someone to find it.
Link to the picture?
What's even more important is that if the keys match between decommissioned battleships there's no reason they wouldn't work on commissioned serving and armed ships/submarines.
I can't imagine for procurement reasons the keys wouldn't be different
@@adamnouiguer3430 For the longest time the launch codes were all zeros, so there is a distinct possibility for the keys to still work...
Ryan, I have been told by B-52 crewman that each crewman's enable switch to arm the nukes was in a very awkward position to insure that it could not be accidentally used.
Speaking as a former assistant RPS custodian on a Gearing class destroyer. In the first safe you indicated with the safe inside probably held the authentication cards to authenticate a message to use nuclear weapons. It would require two officers to open the two safes to get the cards.
“Turn your key Sir!”
Were those in those snap-in-half envelopes? I've always thought those were cool, and wanted to know what they were called (the envelopes). Can you buy them?
@@hoilst265 I think they're called nuclear biscuits/cookies
@@highdesertutah "And if you don't, I'll shoot you and destroy this silo's ability to launch its missiles" XD I love WarGames.
Everyone always talks about their use... What I always wondered... what was the process to generate the recipe (codes), create the biscuits, and put them in the oven (safe)? Then keeping track of this biscuit is on this vessel/station with this key set... knowing the DoD / Gov't - probably handled by the GSA under a sub-contract to the lowest bidder - who handles all the documentation with a paper spreadsheet kept in their notebook (Trapper Keeper?) they used high school. I don't need the codes - I need the notebook.
I just started working at the USS Hornet a couple months ago, and just was brought up to Radio Central yesterday, in fact. It's where all of the ships radios are located and operated (as the name might suggest...). That includes communications at all levels of classification, from "in the clear" all the way up to Top Secret. It's cool that the main door has both a key and a combo lock just to get into the room. The door's top half can open partially, and has bars over it. Behind the door is a curtain. That way, someone inside can close the curtain and open the top half of the door to talk to some out outside, and they can't see in. Even once you are inside, the TS compartment is locked again with different keys and a combo lock. There is vacuum tubes to send communications around the ship (kind of like at the bank or post office). They go to, I think, PriFly (Primary Flight Control), CIC, bridge, and the admiral's bridge.
It would seem the Nuke key is spring loaded so that you have to purposely hold it in position in order to launch. Reduces the "oops" factor I imagine. why do I picture Ryan being shown the keys, then he says, "OOO! I know where these might fit!" and runs out of the room with staff asking "Should someone follow him??"
I don't think they would say "should someone follow him", it would be "quick, after him before he does something crazy".
I would ask "Are we sure they took all the missiles off of this thing?" followed by "Are we sure that we didn't acquire any after the Navy gave it to us?"
possibly it's for the same reason they're spring-loaded in Launch Control Centers for the ICBM force, it prevents somebody from turning more than one of the keys to the launch position. Now, I'd be very surprised if somebody could take over the weapon stations that controlled the nukes all on their own, but if they did, and the two consoles needed were far away enough from each other, then that might prevent a single person from kicking off WW3.
@@bentuttle9170 Yeah need at least two launch officers to go mad to start WW3. It's funny after the war they let West German pilots fly FA 86's with atom bombs. That was pre two man rule. One of them could have easily thought fuck the allies and nuked West Berlin.
The FZ (Magazine Intrusion) alarm panels should have covers and require two keys to open. There should be two of the little 6X6 combo safes somewhere in the compartment or close by which contained the panel keys. Two-man rule applied, so it took two of us to get at the keys. No one person would ever know the combo to both safes. Most of the small junction boxes for FZ would be safety-wired and sealed using the hand press which you found in a previous video. The larger junction/terminal boxes would have had padlocks installed.
On our ship, the FZ tech manuals, seal press, and J-box keys were kept in the safe in the Chief Engineer's stateroom. Standard 2-man rule applied here as well, so two FZ-Certified techs needed to be present (plus the Cheng, obviously) to get any of the above.
There may be keys for the PBX cabinet, if it is an AT&T Dimension 2000 system. As the D2000 PBX was 100% commercial equipment, it was not classified. However, locking the cabinet did keep it secure during heavy seas. The terminal boxes on the weather decks where the cables to the pier for phone service connected may have also been padlocked. The only other thing that I can think of in the IC Shop which required a special key would have been the shop's Flammables Locker where we kept small quantities of alcohol, solvents, and oils required for PMS.
FZ alarm junction boxes also had a micro-switch inside that was an anti-tamper alarm if someone tried to get into the boxes.
@@BillSimms-t4g The thought was to not get into the details of a classified system...
So Cool. Over 40 years ago, as an intern, I worked on a display system that looked just like this console and I was told it was for firing cruise missiles on the recommissioned battleships. I designed the fonts in dot matrix format, but I remember amber display.
What kind of system is it? The vintage computers I play with are mainly 80's and early 90's. If that's a 5.25" drive, maybe late-70's? That's the kind of system I'd imagine CuriousMarc and his team of nerds would love to fix up.
The display shown is retrofitted, so the original may have been amber.
Thank you and your people for not just pocketing and keeping these keys. It would have been soooooo easy to just slip these in your pocket and pretend they were never found. Amazing
You should check to see if you have the keys to the locks on the main reduction gears. It would also make a good video to talk about the procedures followed when the main reduction gears were actually open. Cool to know there are still discoveries to be made after all these years!
Ditto that. On the ships that I served on the main reduction gear covers were securely locked. Otherwise it would have been very easy to sabotage the very high precision gears with foreign objects or other very bad things. The keys were under the control of the Chief Engineer. This actually happened on the USS Ranger in believe 1973, and disabled the ship for perhaps three months.
Was my thought as well.....if the reduction gears are still there. The large ones were leased to the Navy by Westinghouse so they may be gone.
@HVAC Quality Assurance the Navy doesnt own most if not all of the MRG's on its current ships. They are leased and removed when decommissioned. If the MRG's are onboard the New Jersey, then I absolutely agree that they were bought outright by the Navy. Definitely interested to know if they are or are not still onboard. They would have to have been cutout for sure if leased or the Navy paid them off so they didnt have to cut them out lol.
@@rickthorp8363 The ship was built around the MRGs. There's no removing them, particularly the bull gear. They are simply too large to pass through any of the available hatches even if removed from the housing.
I agree with this. I loved looking at the Submarine Reduction gears really want to see an IOWAs.
I was aboard a few hours ago for an after hours tour... they are over the moon finding that key box!
Can you blame us?
@@BattleshipNewJersey I really can't... It sank in for me a little over a year ago... when Alaina was aghast at my comment of just zip-wheeling the locks off. I never thought to view the locks themselves as artifacts... they were just obstacles to my mind.
"I'm the Curator and if I say fire one-"
"Fire one, aye!"
Before dying USS Olympia retaliates with a mustard gas shell.
I understood that reference
It can retaliate with a sarin gas shell, i think nbc protection is part of all modern warships 🤣
You need to make these as keychains available in the gift shop
I love Ryan's threats at the end. All in good fun.
Really neat to see someone so enthusiasticly having a satisfying moment, thank you for sharing it with us!
The key to the wardroom icebox, naturally. You've got to keep the strawberries somewhere. Now, if you find a duplicate key to that icebox, why, you'd really be on to something.
I know that book and movie! Also look for the three ball bearings.
The key to the ice cream storage are the 2nd most important ite on the ship.
He was a decent guy just a little tightly wound and hated the color yellow.
When Dad was on the Ranger, they would take on cargo that was heavily guarded by Marines. While they were there, parts of the ship would become restricted access. It was always presumed by the crew that this was nuclear material. Dad was once told by one of these Marines with a shotgun to about face and beat feet when he encountered them.
Nice knowing you Ryan. Enjoy your visit from the NSA any minute now, they're only like a 30 minute helicopter ride away lol.
Coming Tuesday: "Hi I'm Kelly Ann Rogers curator on the battleship New Jersey and i'm here to talk about how our plans for the spring season are going!!"
Can completely understand how excited you are from finding these keys.
Super exciting, I love the fact that the ship is an active archaeological site where you discover new (old) things.
Love how casual the threats are delivered.
I was looking at videos from the Wisconsin, and I think they found their "nuke keys". Also, for the Desert Storm/Desert Shield Anniversary, they interviewed a TAO from the ship, and he talked about, when they got the orders to deploy to Desert Shield, they suddenly had a problem, because the ships being deployed were to be not carrying any nukes, but they had some aboard, so they had to offload them, before they could deploy.
Remember it was an thing after the cold war that the US would stop carry nuclear weapons on surface ships.
Now it could be carriers only as you could fly in new bombs and air launched missiles anyway.
@@magnemoe1 Actually, at the time, late 1990-early 1991, that "directive/order" hadn't been given, yet. The USS JFK, I think, even still had it's "W Company" aboard, which was the weapons handlers who handled the nuclear bombs on the ship. The "directive" removing nuclear weapons from the surface navy wasn't issued until after the end of Desert Storm. Heck, there was congressional outrage over the B-1Bs not participating in Desert Shield/Desert Storm, but they were fulfilling their mission, still sitting nuclear pad alert at the SAC Bases in the US, and were still nuclear weapons, only. They hadn't received the ability to carry and employ conventional munitions, yet.
@@magnemoe1 Cannot confirm nor deny. was the training nuke a dummy or real. When it was swapped was it another dummy or real. Treat it as real, hope it was a dummy. Talking in the early 70's. Offload and forget about it. Onload and pretend or was it real? I don't know who had the keys and if anyone onboard could confirm or deny.
There’s a scene in the beginning of Damnation Alley, where a minuteman crew go through the launch procedure from authentication to firing. At the part where the “turn the keys” the senior launcher officer says “ 3…2…1…turn. 1…2…3…release.” From my understanding, it looked liked the locks were spring loaded to not stay on the “fire” setting. Maybe that’s what happening to your tomahawk keys, this is former government property we’re talking about.
Dude that's amazing! I'd love to hunt around all the forgotten spaces. I love that you've found so many keys that you have to describe it in pounds.
You could probably get lost in there for years if you had food and water.
There’s a red light flashing in an abandoned bunker somewhere now. I am so happy you referenced that fine documentary Under Siege
Awesome find! By far the best museum ship channel out there!
Other than weapons the most secret place on warships is the communications suite so I imagine there are many keys and safes there. After the Falklands War Navy divers entered the safes in the wrecks to recover documents and code-books and it is said, expensive spare parts, from HM Ships Coventry, Ardent and Antelope all resting in shallow water.
That is the coolest thing you could possibly find on a museum ship!
The fact that you are still discovering things like this illustrates the complexity of the ship.
How large would a donation have to be to choose the target? Asking for a friend.
At that level you are actually asking how many times over is my chosen target obliterated.
My ex wifes house seems like a good place
@@pcguysoffgridcabin Nuke might be overkill but I know how you feel.
@@pcguysoffgridcabin Let me know when the party starts and I'll send my ex over, wouldn't want her to miss out 😜
@@pcguysoffgridcabin I got one of those to send also🤣
I'm happy to see Ryan so happy
MY MAN LITERALLY HAS THE NUKE KEYS... this is every genx kids coldwar dream
Ryan is now Nuclear-Capable. I love it.
You wanna be picky about it, any vehicle that can carry a SADM could be called nuclear capable. Special atomic demolition munition.
They always talk about NUCLEAR CAPABLE aircraft. Even a tiny cessna as long as it can hold a suitcase nuke is "nuclear capable" 🤣
On the topic of other keys, I recall seeing a picture of the padlocks installed on the access covers to the combining gears on one of the Iowas. Apparently, the locks were put in place to prevent someone sabotaging the ship by dumping a bunch of metal shavings or other debris into the gears. If I remember right, the locks went in during the Vietnam War because other ships had been damaged that way. Not sure if the photo was from New Jersey.
I concur that is standard (from 702-80s) _ I call then Reduction Gears instead. Also _ I have heard comments that those used to actually only be Long term lease by Navy, not owned.
The USS Raleigh LPD1 had locks on the turbine gears in 1971. Chief Engineer had the keys.
It's so cool not only that they found those, but that Ryan's standing there like a kid at Christmas going look what I have! This is awesome! Also, the Ryan snark lives large. Love the snark.
Did you ever find the ignition keys so you can start her up & drive her around the harbor?
It has to be kick started thought everyone knew that.
Check in Biden's garage behind the Corvette ( Tee Hee )
You can't check Bidens garage, it was locked.... 😂
Imagine the amount of starting fluid they’d have to use!
@@ah244895 Maybe I can try Nancy P's house?
Appalled at how simple those keys are. Beginner lock picking skills would be fine for the job, they could be raked open in 2 seconds each
@Ryan, Very cool find and great video as always.
The small safe is most likely the EWs safe and definitely not where those keys would've been kept. This is where we would keep our large operational specific publication some of which were classified Secret and above. The EW Logo on the front of the safe gives it away. The secondary safe inside would be for the most highly sensitive materials which typically would require two people to access. This would mean that two people to knowingly be accountable for any loss or leak of that highly sensitive information.
Incidentally, EWs merged with CTTs on 1 Oct 2003. Finding an FC that served on the ship may be a good start on finding the answer on the keys.
Was gonna say same. Retired ewc.
I was an EW3 for all of 1 week before the merger. Bootcamp started 29OCT2002. Then Holding company and A school.
@@MiddKnightAlphaOmega Mergers can be good, and mergers can be bad. I was a submarine FT, we had a chief who was actually trained as a DS, but at some point in time they decided to merge sub DS's into the FT rate because the DS's pretty much just handled OTH data (which we had to be at PD or surfaced to work with) and didn't have maintenance on their own equipment (FT's did). But in the wonderful logic of the navy in personnel matter they took decided to take any DS's E-5 and below and send them back to school to crossrate to FT's; but for E-6's and above someone at bupers waved a magic rating wand and they fell asleep as a DS one day and woke up as a FT the next. That chief was a DS1 when it happened. I never had to spend so much time explaining to someone what we needed to do.
Was going to say the same.
SLQ-32 console probably located right near that small safe.
@@harrylumsdon6773 Congratz on retirement. EW2 Aegis vet here.
Museum Curator discovers National Treasure! Or historically significant artifacts, at least!
Brilliant!
I’m so happy for you, Battleship New Jersey, and all the future generations who will benefit from learning about our past!
Hooyah, Ryan! Hooyah!
On boomers, the Captain carries the permission to fire key. I think he keeps it in a safe until the order to go to 1SQ. The Captain has a missile status console in the conn, which takes the key. The Weapons officer has a safe with a trigger, and there are crew to set the PAL (permissive action links). The tactical stuff has a lead seal on it (there are training versions). Burnt umber is the official color of tactical stuff.
On the BB, it wouldn't be a surprise to require two officers to launch missiles. Although thinking about it, because the Tomahawk is a versatile weapons system unlike the Trident II, they may be required for normal launches (I wouldn't be surprised if they wanted two person integrity even for regular strikes, because of rules of engagement, even conventional they can start a war). There would have been additional equipment I imagine to set the PALs, and also the targets would probably have been defined in a SIOP package. I'm not sure how skimmers get EAMs, but that directs the crew to enter targeting info based on the order. If they used the same weapons package (like the W88 warhead, but not in an reentry body), they would need the PAL package. That stuff was probably removed. I think the Captain has a safe in his room (on British boomers they do) where the key is kept. Everything is together at that console, which makes me think it isn't for the nukes, especially for each launcher. The AF puts the launch keys in the EAM boxes.
Crimson Tide in my opinion was accurate in regards to the launch procedure, but the Captains dog would have gotten TDU'ed at the first opportunity, especially if he took a leak in Sherwood Forest... I can say the 'button' on a submarine looks like a pistol grip, with a old-school phone cord, and burnt umber for the tactical trigger, black for training.
I have been is several Minuteman ICBM Launch Crew Capsules. I have seen the Red Ammo box with two combination locks on it. Inside are the launch consoles keys. I did not see the keys. My job was to maintain the 465L SACCS equipment that was one of several means of passing the Presidential Emergency War order.
Too many acronyms for the uninitiated - ha ha ha 😂
For tactical nukes like the TLAM-N's actually they didn't use a two-person system, primarily because these are not weapons that can really lunched on a whim and are intended to be potentially used anywhere, and so unlike strategic missiles, these things are deployed dumb (no mission data what-so-over) and need to have mission data uploaded to them prior to launch. Assuming we carried one on a fast attack, if we were to launch one we would need an appropriate mission data package to upload to the weapon, a permissive interlock for the TLAM-N installed in the tube control panel and finally the CO's rom key. So on a fast attack to launch on you would at minimum need three people, at least one FT, the Strike Officer or Weapons Officer and the CO.... FT+ Strike or WEPS for the retrieval and upload of mission data, and CO for the rom key, if not more when relying on transmitted data, because then you have whoever many people were involved in making the new mission data package for it, lol. Mission data can be sent to us.... but usually they have several potential packages stored on a drive held in a two-combination safe in the CSES the safe combinations top one was had by the WEps and Strike, and the bottom by all qualified FTOW's
@@tekcomputers The CAPT was in the con, and he just had to put in a key to launch all missiles. The missiles aren't necessarily programmed with strike information, and people aren't necessarily aware of the target. The XO was only involved in authentication of the EAM (Emergency Action Message).
WEPS had the trigger. The FTB's (now MT's I suppose) had to denote and prepare the missiles.
There was a target list, but it was using ID's and not names. Computations were constantly run as the boat's position was updated. Funny they used FORTRAN libraries over the C ones because of accuracy.
@@andreperrault5393 WDYM OOC DERR
What people are saying is to look for a red label safe. It'll still be grey, black or parchment colored. But the label will have red lettering.
But that depends on what years the ship was active. Red label safes were not put into use until the early 90s. Before then, there were several generations of safes used for storing classified material.
The keys alone would not have allowed a nuclear launch. You need codes as well, and only the captain and XO would have had access to the codes.
The tomahawk launch console is common among many types of ships. Since the tomahawk was nuclear capable, the controls had to be built into the console even if the specific ship did not carry nuclear tomahawks.
Red Safe likely refers to the contents and not the exterior color. Red is a reference to classified materials. Another example of this would be black phones and red phones. Black being nonclassified telephone systems and red being phones made safe to convey classified conversations.
The high security lock keys that you showed on a welded metal ring are for the small arms and ready service lockers (RSLs).
Observation windows and service ports on the ships reduction gears had pad locks.
Small arms magazines would be locked.
The captains mess food lockers and refrigerators.
Ships mail room
Speaking as a former cold war Gunner's Mate, many of the extra keys you have would be for mags both below decks and top side. When I can make it up for a visit, I would be happy to take a look to see if I could help ID anything.
Was in the Gulf War when Missouri and the Whiskey were in the gulf. Grateful as a Marine to see both of these ships. Wisconsin was in the PG and Missouri I toured in Subic
If I found them I would definitely run immediately to the launch station and insert them just for the fun of it! That’s so awesome and very cool to see.
I see at the 4:00 mark and on, over your right shoulder in the background you have the SLQ-32 console up and operating. Nice to see it again...
So Ryan puts the two keys into the panel, turns them in sequence, and from a previously unexplored part of the ship an odd rumbling sound is heard. The deck opens, missiles appear, and there is a massive cloud of smoke. “Quick, get the Pentagon on the phone! The Navy left us more than just the keys!”
Sounds like a great idea for a gift shop item - "Launch Keys" with reproduction tags perhaps?
My thoughts too. I also want a nuclear launch key.
I would definitely like one also
That would totally be "Shut up and take my money!" territory! :D
We have a secure keybox at work to control access things like the campus master key sets and state vehicle keys. I'm always disappointed when I return a key to the locker and I turn the "carrier" key into the slot. A little LED goes out, but I never hear a missile launch or a space laser fire or anything. :P
Love that the screen flashes bright then blacks out when he turned the key.
I think you should try and find they keys to the sea chest. Maybe ask all the veterans if they know where they were kept.
The Battleship New Jersey Museum gets funding from the State of NJ because we threaten them with Nuclear weapons... may be the most NJ Thing I've ever heard Ryan say. I'm glad we're getting the Maryland niceness out him :).
You missed a great oppruntunity to insert a nuclear explosion in the video after Ryan turned the key!
No, no.... some dolt would make it go viral and the interweb would go nuts. He doesn't need that sort of trouble. He has plenty
Amazing find! Absolutely fascinating.
I liked the way the "Donor Rap" evolved into a real Supervillain threat.
"Now witness the power of this fully armed and operational battleship!"
Engineering keys? Main reduction gear inspection ports, maybe lube oil strainer (I forgot whether the spray shield was locked on my lowly ammunition ship), and LOTS of spring bearing fill, dipstick, and drain ports. My ship had 9 spring bearings and a single shaft, Iowa class has 4 shafts so it may be 36, but the outboard shafts are slightly shorter.
Awesome find! I wonder how hard it would be to make a simulator add-on like in the Titan Museum where turning the key does a simulated (we hope!) launch sequence....
Now that would attract more visitors! Come and perform a mock missile strike…. that would be cool
In 1990 I toured the Titan Missle Museum south of Tucson. I was a Museum director at the time and got the 25 cent tour. Her and I turned the keys, very very cool and thinkonable. She took me into the bottom of the launch tube where we could look up the skirt of the Shepard AFB training missile which they have loaded in the tube. Hair raising, literally.
Just a strong suggestion - With that many keys, look into lishi lock pick tools. You can use one of these tools to decode the bitting for that lock. With the keyway and bitting information any locksmith can easily cut missing keys for you. You could also catalog the keys and their bitting, and use the lock's bitting information to easily look up the right key.
Have to love Ryan. Like a kid in a candy store . Such a smart hard working young man. Have to get him as a presenter on Jeopardy for clues on the New Jersey or anything on Naval ships.
What an incredible find, i would suspect they were left behind by someone who wanted the history preserved, as you said the capability was removed, but these are huge in the cold war history of the ship!❤
I’ve watched so many of your videos and this is the first that gave me chills. 😬
You should consider making copies of those keys - if for no other reason than you have a "disposable" set you can test on, or gift to, the other Iowa-class museums whenever you all go out for drinks or something.
Can you imagine the person at the counter's reaction though. Having Ryan waltz in asking to get a couple of keys copied, "yeah, no trouble". Then watching their face as they read the tags on what the keys are for. Absolutely needs to video that interaction.
@marth6271 I actually used to work at Home Depot and at least the store near me that I worked at they were certain keys that we were not able or allowed to copy, mostly because we couldn’t carry every blank under the sun so if we didn’t have the blank we couldn’t copy it but there were certain restricted access keys that we just would refuse to copy because we wouldn’t want the copies falling into unauthorized hands, one of the big ones was medico keys that say do not copy or anything with Yale 1103 as those are used for peco service area locks for things like powerline switching, CT cabinet locks and even substation access
The brass handles on those safes, are exactly like the ones on my railroad safe from the 1880's (bought at auction 30 years ago when an old caboose was decommissioned), the combo dials look almost identical too.
Do those combo locks start off counter-clockwise, I wonder? Modern combo locks go the other way. On my antique, you then need to go around *twice* clockwise. I have long since forgotten the combo, because I had a locksmith teach me how to crack it... all I have to remember is the pattern, and do the rest by feel.
I just find it cool that my railroad safe appears to have the same mechanism as the safes on a battleship commissioned many decades later.
As a gag you need to rig up some loud sound effects to the NUCLEAR PERM TO FIRE switch....maybe an alarm followed by the sound of a rocket launching.
Wow you would think that those would be disposed of! Good find!
I worked in the armory the last few months in the USMC. We had a small safe just like that. The main part of the safe had the duty pistols and some other stuff that I can’t remember. The inner safe held the ammo to the duty pistol.
Absolutely perfect wrap to this video. Witty, clever, and gave me a total belly laugh. Nicely done!!
Could you post photos of the keys and key fobs showing front and back? It would be fun to try to make my own replicas of these. I'll bet you could sell copies in the museum store for a nice chunk of change!
I was thinking the same thing
@@atomicshadowman9143 If I knew how to, I would be posting that Fry "Take my money" picture.
Waaaaaay before fobs.
I would definitely spend far too much money on such a thing
It would go nicely with my Alcatraz and Bastille key replicas LOL
Thank you for sharing your excitement :)
The nuclear you generally speaking has to have two key locks turns It's spring loaded so one person cannot enable both, there's a distance between them.
Thanks for showing a closeup of turning the key. I was waiting thinking "TURN IT! TURN IT! TURN IT! TURN IT! "
I think you have found a great marketing opporunity there - souvenir copies of the key tags would be popular i'm sure.
Thank God they were never used in warfare. Really cool that you found them. One day I just have to get up there to see the ship in person. Nice! Keep up the good work!
From the picture of the other keys those are definitely Medeco keys to the big Sargent & Greenleaf padlocks such as the ones on the reduction gear. Be careful guys.
Confirm medicine keys. I worked for a lock and key company. I have duplicated many of those keys.
You seriously have the best job ever... I'd have to have that switch wired into an old "ooga" horn to make the visitors jump.
There are HP computers on ebay that are similar to the one in the console to your right, which can provide a set of replacement key caps for that computer on your right. They don't cost a lot.
The missing key caps may have ended up in tourist pockets.
@@paulhurst7748 I suspect that myself. My response would be EPOXY GLUE.
LOL, we had the same model of computer on my submarine that we specifically used for computing SVPs
Being PRP with a US Navy A7 squadron was crazy interesting when we would do a "LoadEx". Marines everywhere! Really brought the seriousness of what we were doing to the forefront...
That first safe has the EW Rating Symbol on it.
It was probably used by the EWs for publications and software tapes for the SLQ-32 or WHR-1H suite.
Good Presentation. Reminds when a German F-104G Flashed by me while I was sitting at the edge of cliff waiting for a buck to walk by. He pulled vertical then curved back over the top and went back the way he had flown in. Uphill two miles away was a fenced in "Weather Station" that I later ID as a bomb release training beacon used to measure drop accuracy when practice releases are done. Target in this case was the Glenrock Wyoming power station. In this case no practice bombs are used just the radiotelemetry to the beacon.
In USAF the panels for nuke keys to fire missiles are different for each panel. Panels are far enough apart that two people are required to turn the keys.
“Gently”
there's probably a different here because the nukes in question would be nuclear tomahawk's TLAM-N... these are tactical nuclear weapons as opposed to strategic nuclear weapons. We have similar controls in the navy to what you speak of employed in launching strategic weapons, but for tacticals it was different. Our TLAM-N's also were not as powerful as the tactical nukes employed by the airforce in their tactical nuclear cruise missiles. Some of the yield was sacrificed because these missiles would be stored in the torpedo room in close proximity to the crew, and as such measures were taken to reduce gamma emitions by the warhead unlike the airforce ones.
You should consider making replica key chains to sell. I suspect a lot of people would buy replicas allowing them to pretend their house keys are nuclear permission keys. I at least would.
It’s weird to think how the ship still has secrets in its bowels after all this time. A whole museum ship still keeping its hidden knowledge.
well... I bet F117 will still have some secrets even after the retirement of B-52