The fact that New Jersey and Wisconsin, built in New Jersey, had Westinghouse propulsion equipment probably is no accident. Westinghouse's had a large factory in Lester, PA (south Philadelphia) which was a center for steam turbine manufacturing. This facility, later became known as the Large Rotating Apparatus (LRA) Division. Iowa and Missouri, being built in New York, would naturally be closer to General Electric's plants in upstate New York and New Jersey which did power generation equipment. Particularly during wartime, you would want to minimize the risk of supply chain issues by avoiding shipping notoriously large and heavy capital ship machinery any great distances. Physical proximity to the shipyards likely had a large influence in choosing the propulsion machinery providers for the Iowa-class. When Westinghouse went out of business in 2000, its corporate archives in Pittsburgh went to the George Westinghouse Collection maintained by the University of Pittsburgh. It would not surprise me if significant documentation on production of machinery for US battleships and other warships during World War 2 might be available there for further research. I know that Westinghouse was extremely proud of its contribution to the war effort and documented its production of naval propulsion systems, radar, and munitions very completely!
It makes sense for risk mitigation reasons to order from more than one supplier as well. It's not always feasible, and it can cost more, but it reduces the risk of a single point of failure causing delays.
@@dantreadwell7421That's more of an added benefit. Spreading the manufacturing is specifically designed to facilitate getting congress to approve the budget. The local rep gets the credit for creating such and such high-paying jobs, so they pressure their party to pass the bill. It's often a burden on the military, which ends up with less equipment because it ends up being a lot more expensive this way. In wartime this logic goes out the window but it's very much the rule of the land in peacetime.
@dr.victorvs most definitely a major factor in peacetime. But as you pointed out that goes out the window in wartime, and economically speaking, the US had been at least partially at an "At War" footing since the end of 1939. And the Iowa class was an entirely at war program.
12:45 I can confirm , Ryan. My Dad served aboard USS Franklin D Roosevelt (CVA-42) and has all kinds of specs on her from cruise books and other materials. Franklin D.Roosevelt’s turbine and generator machinery was indeed made by General Electric because she was built in Brooklyn, and she was stripped for parts to feed the mothballed battleships before scrapping. FDR did have maintenance issues and that was part of her undoing, yes, (old sailors on the ship swore she never worked right after her supposed UFO encounter, that’s a whole other story) but the main reason was that the 1970’s modernizations on Coral Sea and Midway ran so far over cost they were canceled for FDR. So FDR was still in her early 1960’s configuration and far less capable than her sisters when she was scrapped. Furthermore, she was disposed of and not put in reserve because the Navy was afraid the penny pinching Carter Administration would use her existence in the reserve fleet as an excuse to cancel the funded but but not yet begun CVN-70 that became USS Carl Vinson.
@@georgecaserta2360 The turbine nameplate only lists the turbine specific characteristics, ie RPM, capacity, contract/serial number and maybe year built. Same practice for the big turbo generators in land based powerplants.
I’m a volunteer on the USS Midway, Ryan is right these engineering spaces are tight, especially the firerooms, they are so small in fact there is no secondary escape trunk in the fire rooms, they have a ladder but it’s not sealed off like a normal escape trunk. The other engines rooms are rather tight as well. The midways engineering plant is most definitely not museum friendly, the entrances to the fire rooms are probably some of the steepest ladders on the entire ship. Her fourth deck is so heavily subdivided it is a pain to get to one side from the other as it requires going up and down constantly. There’s a reason only one engine room is open
It kind of makes sense. If you want a class of ships built quickly, you can rarely source all of any given major component from the same company, unless that company is somehow just sitting on huge amounts of spare manufacturing capacity.
Ryan, as a antique engine collector I know that reproduction tags and plaques are being made. I suggest since you have one to have the other 3 reproduced and re installed. Thanks for all the great videos
Here's a fun fact for you: in order to generate 53,000 HP at 202 RPM at the turbine main gear, there must be 1.378 Million foot pounds of torque developed on the gear. And to keep the engine from racing, that same torque, less a negligible amount for shaft twist and bearing drag, must be developed in the opposite direction by the the water drag on the attached screw.
Now this is what maritime archeology is all about. It would be interesting to research if there are any other components of the engineering plant (particularly focusing on electrical system parts) on New Jersey and on Midway that are the same (e.g., the AC turbo-generators).
Some things I have observed about the engineering plants of the larger ships from the WWII era. A little lengthy but here goes. In general, but not always… GE provided turbines for ships built at the New York naval Shipyard (Brooklyn), New York Shipbuilding in Camden and Bethlehem Quincy Westinghouse provided turbines for ships built at Newport News Shipbuilding, Philadelphia Naval Shipyard and Norfolk Naval Shipyard Both North Carolina class BB’s were engined GE The South Dakotas were split; the South Dakota and Massachusetts were engined GE; the Indiana and Alabama were engined Westinghouse We already know the engine suppliers and builder yards for the Iowa and Midway class ships per Ryan’s presentation. In addition, the Alaska class large cruisers were engined by GE and all were built by New York Shipbuilding in Camden The Essex class carriers were engined by Westinghouse. Building yards included Newport News, Bethlehem Quincy, New York Naval Shipyard, Philadelphia Naval Shipyard and Norfolk Naval Shipyard. Thus is where some of the GE/Westinghouse exceptions occur The Baltimore class cruisers were engined by GE. These ships were built at Bethlehem Quincy, New York Shipbuilding and Philadelphia Naval Shipyards. More GE/Westinghouse exceptions The Cleveland class cruisers were engined by GE. These ships built in all yards noted above and in addition, Cramp Shipbuilding in I think Philadelphia? More GE/Westinghouse exceptions The Des Moines class cruisers were engined by GE. Salem and Des Moines were built at Bethlehem Quincy and the Newport News in Newport News. The Worcester class light cruisers were engined by GE and built by New York Shipbuilding Camden. The Atlanta class light cruisers were engined by Westinghouse. These ships were built by Bethlehem Quincy, Bethlehem San Francisco and Federal Shipyard in Kearny. As an side the engineering plants for the Essex class carriers and Alaska class cruisers were virtually identical utilizing eight boilers and four turbines good for 150,000 SHP. Only the turbines were different. And to illustrate the “building block” approach taken by the navy in its choice of engineering plants, the plants for both the Essex class and Alaska class were essentially two Atlanta class plants ganged together; the Atlantas being designed for 75,000 SHP per ship. These trend did continue somewhat post war, the superliner United Stated and nuclear carrier Enterprise were both built by Newport News and were both engineered by Westinghouse. The nuclear cruiser Long Beach was built by Bethlehem Quincy and uses GE turbines The information I have for the Forrestal/Kitty Hawk class ships is inconsistent. Most sources list Westinghouse as the turbine supplier but some of the ships (Saratoga, Ranger, John F Kennedy are alternatively listed as being engined by either GE or Westinghouse. There’s more but this is long enough and I am out of sources.
What I find interesting is the story of the Sacramento class supply ships, getting engines from the incomplete ships. I like the idea of repurpsing parts to other ships.
In the interwar and WW2 periods, a lot of warships got guns from deactivated and/or scrapped ships. Which makes some sense, since guns are one of the longest lead-time items, and the countries already have the ammo manufacturing in process for those barrels.
@@ut000bs Unfortunately both Sacramento and Camden have been scrapped. But now I’m curious which engine type did they (and Kentucky) have, since Illinois was laid down in Philly and would probably have the same engines as New Jersey and Wisconsin. But Kentucky was laid down in Norfolk, so who made her engines?
Being a library aide working with engineers all day, this is actually fascinating. It's amazing how seemingly unrelated pieces of information come together and what you find when you really start looking. It's also cool to know all the museum ships work together to broaden the collective knowledge. Things like that are what will enrich the visitor experience (and us RUclips history geeks) for years to come.
I don’t particularly care about ships, there cool, and all that but what i love about this channel is Ryans passion and enthusiasm. It fascinates me when you see someone do something they love effortlessly at a high level, Great job Ryan keep it up
I love this kind of research, proving an old wives tale right/wrong. I've been finding things to do it on everywhere I've gone since high school. Maybe it's some tale about the guy who went to my high school that tried to kill the President. Maybe it's my college marching band, and the trophy we stole after a win back in '78 (we didn't win in '78). Maybe it's looking into the revisions of the cell towers PCBs I repair. I agree. I don't care about naval history, but I love this kind of research with all my heart, and this channel goes on a new adventure weekly. It's great.
So kinda like older Fords where you could have a Windsor or a Cleveland when you go to the Battleship Parts Store you have to tell them if you have the Westinghouse or the GE. Different size spark plugs & all.
I was on the MIdway a few weeks ago, and was just mulling over this exact question. I had observed the difference you noted in boilers, and was trying to understand what they mean, because the engineering spaces were visually very different. Thank you for solving this mystery. And great use of your very large primary source/archeological field!
Thank You Ryan for the videos you produce. I served aboard the USS Saint Paul CA 73 (sadly gone now) at the end of the Viet Nam conflict. We served in tandem with the New Jersey at the DMZ till 1970. I appreciate the slice of history you are preserving. Again , Thanks
Salute - excellent job Bob and Ryan. I have partially seen this before - with the same class of ships - for main engines some ships are GE others are Westinghouse. And on some occasions similar with boilers Babcock & Wilcox or Foster-Wheeler. In some cases you get a breakdown of which manufacturer of each case to which ship - In most cases you do not.
Wonderful story, and a great reminder that the map is not the territory, that these massive engineering marvels all had their own differences. It's often framed as a limitation based on available resources, but I think it was also an intentional form of redundancy, risk management, and rapid development: problems with one type of turbine would affect only half the ships of the class, whereas lessons learned from BOTH types could be taken forwards. With the huge lead times on battleships, this seems like a massive advantage over deliberately building identical ships.
My father was #2 in charge of the GE gear shop making the gear sets for the Iowa class ships. He related to me a problem that almost rejected the gear for one of the gear sets. He said that one of the large gears had a tooth thickness several thousands small. He had a hard time explaining to one of the Admirals that in the long run it would only slightly shorten the life span. In addition, it takes more than a month to hob the gear, causing a delay in the build. He prevailed, the gear set is serviceable to this day.
USS Franklin D. Roosevelt also did not recieve major upgrades the other 2 Midway class carriers recieved due to cost overruns on the other ships, to the extent of only recieving 1/4 the funds the others got.
I am a docent on the Midway and found this video fascinating. Last month I had the opportunity to tour New Jersey and had I seen this video first I would have looked at the engines much closer and taken more pictures.
Thanks for another great video! We visited the Midway last summer, and they’ve done a very fine job on that ship. I’m hoping to get out there (I’m in Oregon) and visit the New Jersey also!!
Very interesting video, as some of the other viewers have noted the Navy often used multiple suppliers for boilers, engines and other long lead time main components for their ships. Particularly in wartime where construction of multiple ships of the same class was taking place simoultaneously, this would minimize supply chain issues. What it boils down to is there never are two ships exactly the same, different shipyards and different suppliers made it impossible. I served on a destroyer USS Davis DD937 from '70-'73. The ship had Foster Wheeler boilers, General Electric Turbines and Falk reduction gears while many of the ships of the same class such as Forest Sherman DD931 had Babcock & Wilcox Boilers and Westinghouse Turbines, Both ships were built in Bath Maine by Bethlehem Steel. The general layout of the 931 Class destroyers and early DDG's was pretty standardized with Babcok & Wilcox or Foster Wheeler boilers along with Westinghouse or GE turbines. I think Westinghouse made their own reduction gears while GE used Falk and possibly another suppliers.
Ryan, Great video. It was fun doing the research and there's still more to do. I'm looking forward to showing you around Midway soon. Bring your video gear. A few answers for some of your commenters: Montana had the multiple watertight compartments, not identical to but similar to Midway but Montana's engines were going to be smaller, something like 173,000 hp. Their top speed was only going to be about 27 knots. Midway has a great Edncation Department. But all the classrooms are not in the squadron ready rooms. Those are all ready room exhibits. The education classrooms are in what used to be the forward mess decks. Midway's original designation, CVB-41, the "B" stood for "Large". Just like the Alaska-class cruisers were CB (large cruiser). All of the Midway-class and the Iowa-class boilers were 600 psi and 850 degrees superheat. Maybe you guys can see me in person when Ryan visits. Soon I hope. Bob.....
I adore when old wives tales prove true in orgin. Till museum ships started chatting, this would’ve been some esoteric trivia between a couple old engineering plant dudes that only happened to work on different iowas and then ended up retiring close enough to chat in person enough to notice the other engineer had a different steam turbine in his sister ship. Great stuff man.
My entire life has been predicated on the knowledge that the engines of Iowa Class battleships and Midway class carriers were the same. My father’s dying words were “Midway and the battle wagons have the same propulsion engineering!” I have nothing left…
Thanks Ryan, this is informative and educationally entertaining. I grew up in the shadows of CV-16, The Blue Ghost. She was then an active trainer and she went on to became a museum ship. Her history is also amazing.
I worked in Engineroom #4 on Missouri. Holy crap, you just casually show the Inspection Cover opened up and a shot of the reduction gears below, but in operation whenever those were opened it was a VERY BIG, MONSTROUSLY HUGE DEAL and careers could be on the line if anything fell in. Pockets had to be taped, wrenches tied to wrists with string, etc. A single washer could put a burr on those gears if dropped and potentially kill the whole ship. We were told the Reduction Gears, specifically, were Leased and not owned by the Navy. Reason being, they were so massively expensive due to the ultra-precise machining, not even the military could afford them outright. Not a single speck of dust got in there if we could avoid it. Mo was my 24/7 home for 2 1/2 years of my life, and I only got a 5-second peek inside the engine like you're showing. I'm envious.
I believe the reason for different engines in the ship classes, is because of where the ships were built, considering supply chains and procurement its likely they would've gone with equipment closest to the construction yard. Either way this is pretty cool, I wonder just how many other ships across the world was like that
I like your videos about how the Iowa classes are different from each other. Before I watched your videos I always assumed everything was exactly the same but you've shown how even when they were newly built there were differences. As for the carriers what I've heard was the hulls were actually up sized cruiser hulls.
What I had heard was that the Midway Class had the hull and machinery of the Montana Class, not the Iowas. I heard this when the Midway was on its last deployment during the first Gulf War. It was said that the Midway was more maneuverable than its bigger sister carriers, which came in handy in the tight confines of the Persian Gulf. On a somewhat related note, I've heard that the Alaska Class "Very Heavy Cruisers" used the same hulls and machinery of the Essex Class carriers.
I spent two years on the Princton, we went threw a typhoon that lifed the ship 50 feeet out of the water. it amazed me how well the ship was built in the 40's
Very intresting! In this day and age we got so used to mass production where all the same parts in a product are manufactured by the same company and can be shipped basically anywhere, we forgot that in those days the companies that were closest manufactured the parts because that was more convenient. Now that we know, it makes perfect sense. Not to mention that building a battleship is anything but mass production :D
This is really COOOL 😎 I enjoy this type of archeological detective work. Same....but different. [sung] 🎶Which one of these, is not like the other.....🎵
This differing propulsion plant manufacturers within the same class of ships was common in WW-2 construction, probably primarily to more fully utilize the various very good manufacturers in the market. For instance, the GATO, BALAO and TENCH class submarines built during the war had different engines and main electrical gear depending on which of two sets of plans they were built from. The "government" set of plans (developed by Portsmouth Naval Shipyard) used Fairbanks-Morse opposed piston main diesels with main motors and propulsion control cubicles from various manufacturers. All "government" yards (Portsmouth & Mare Island) used the same equipment. The "Electric Boat" set of plans used GM V-16 main engines and generally main motors and control cubicles from other manufacturers. All non-government yards (EB, Victory, Manitowoc, Cramp, etc) uses these items.
When I worked at the San Francisco Naval Shipyard I went out on the USS Salmon for sea trials after an overhaul. I remember when they started the Fairbanks-Morse vertically opposed 10 cylinder engines. Very impressive.
@@jimprice1959 I visit the USS Silversides (SS-236) in Muskegon MI almost every July. Several years ago I just happened to be aboard when they started up both of the FM diesels in the aft engine room. The sound and the smells brought back my days of serving on GUPPY subs in the late 1960s. YES! Very impressive when both FM diesels in an engine room are up and running in a floating WW-2 sub.
The engineering plant on the never commissioned USS Kentucky were pulled out when the Kentucky was scrapped and divided to provide the engineering plants for two fast transport ships for the Navy.
I served on the USS Coral Sea CVA 43 in Vietnam ‘69-‘70. During operations we lost a reduction gear unit…suspected sabotage. They disconnected the prop shaft to allow the prop to free wheel. Could barely keep speed up for launches…planes were leaving with 1/2 the bomb load….They took reduction gear unit from the New Jersey , we were told, and we met its arrival at Yokuska ship yard in Japan for replacement.
Have you ever thought about putting up a board with questions for veterans who served on other ships whose vessels were lost or scrapped? You must occasionally get people who served (or ship builders) who still remember vital details.
Not often do you find an error in a book like that. I have begun to notice that the specs for WW1 ships are changing, particularly the German High Seas Fleet. I play board games, and we are seeing updates all the time now, making each ship unique. We know that Yamato and her sister Musashi were made in different yards and varied. All interesting! Thanks!
So the Westinghouse plant has more ships that stayed in service longer AND the fastest battleship in the world? I guess we know which one was better! 😉
that was highly interesting- it's obviously so difficult to document the true configuration of those ships and find out the reason why- truly shipboard archaeologie!
Very interesting Ryan. All through my time in the Navy I had been hearing that the Midway class ships had engines built for the Montana class ships. Maybe not so far fetched it seems. I never believed that old story about the Midways being built on Montana hulls, the differing hull dimensions and all that. Midway and Coral Sea were built down here in Hampton Roads by Newport News Shipbuilding, Franklin D Roosevelt was built in the New York Navy Yard, Brooklyn. Thus it makes sense that CV-41 and 43 would have main turbines and reduction gears from the same builder, but that the "middle sister" might be a bit "different."
FDR had powerplants from another manufacturer. That fact may have played a part in her retirement and quick disposal. The Midway and Coral Sea were more alike equipment-wise despite the fact Midway ended up with a very different angled deck configuration topside. You hear different stories about FDR/CV-42 and her material condition when she retired. Some crew members to this day say that the Navy LIED about the FDR's material condition when she retired. They maintain FDR's equipment was in better shape than Coral Sea's in the mid/late-1970s when FDR was retired. What isn't in dispute is that FDR had General Electric turbines and it was felt these did NOT give the performance level of the Westinghouse units used by her sister ships. Also, FDR was less modern and the Navy did not look forward to spending more money to refit a 30-year-old ship that already wasn't up to specs with her sisters. [Boiler and other engine issues play parts in other ship decommissionings. USS Forrestal was originally intended to be converted into a training carrier but that plan fell apart because of the age of the ship, budget constraints, and a persistent issue with her boilers. She was decommissioned with perhaps a decade or more left of practical hull life left after an SLEP just a few years before decommissioning. I think also the suboptimal deck layout of the Forrestal class carriers played a role in their early decommissionings. The edge elevator layout was poor and the island position was an issue, too. Later carriers moved their islands further aft for safety concerns as well as positioning of the starboard deck edge elevators. The design of the JFK's (CV-67) flight deck was the optimal layout for carriers and was the standard from 1967 onward. Sure, the general edge deck elevator layout was set from CV-63 Kitty Hawk but I'm talking about shape and acreage of the JFK/CV-67 flight deck being the lead-in for the Nimitz Class.] The concern the US Navy had at the time was that if FDR was mothballed, the Congress would force them to recommission the FDR instead of letting the Navy buy a newer carrier. At the time, the Navy was only authorized to build 3 Nimitz-class carriers (CVN-68 to CVN-70) but they were always hoping that a future administration would let them buy more supercarriers of the Nimitz class or another newer design. So, instead of mothballing FDR, the Navy promptly took the ship off the naval register and offered FDR up for scrap. FDR was scrapped well within 3 years. Its hull was gone by some point in 1980! Contrast that with the Coral Sea which took over six years (1994-2000) to scrap in Baltimore!
@@AvengerII I had the "honor" of following the Coral Sea around as a "Plane Guard" destroyer during her first deployment with an all Marine F\A-18 air wing and I noticed something that isn't mentioned often, she was badly "hogged". When seen from off the port quarter I could see her flight deck was twisted, her stern and bow lower than her midships section. On a perfectly flat sea aircraft would be launched heading "downhill" with planes landing on an "uphill" slope. I don't know if either of her sisters had this problem, but I also did not note it causing any real problems with her maneuverability. She also came equipped with the standard "Carrier magnetic bow," I was on the signal bridge watching a Soviet Kashin II destroyer cut across her bow during flight ops, trying to get her to dump a Hornet and barely getting out of the way. There were probably some "brown trousers" on the Kashin's bridge after that.
@@AvengerIII understand there were a number of legal issues with the breakers yard hired to dismantle Coral Sea and that is what slowed that process down
Similarly, when I reported to the Enterprise (CVN-65) we were told the engine rooms was "battleship derived", designed closely to the Iowa class battleships but not terribly close.
Its fascinating you've got 4 ships of the same class built in 2 different navy yard how they can be so uniquely different, I absolutely love all these videos you guys make its really intersting!
Cool stuff! I got as much of a kick out of how tickled you are as I did out of the information itself. I'm a little surprised that during wartime they didn't share plans and all have the same gear train instead of it being dependent on which coast it was made on. Then again... Have two different setups gives redundancy of sorts so if one design is flawed you don't lose all the heavy ships because of it. Thanks for sharing.
Great stuff! Guys, what I’d love to see a video on would be how much it costs per day to run a battleship. Fuel, wages, food, etc and especially wartime. Shells and how much fully stocking the ship out also how much one salvo would cost per shot including powder bags. **Also entire wage bills for each day might be quite interesting maybe? *** I saw the 1 million per day video.. funnily enough it popped up when refreshing my YT after typing this. But not everything was included that is above, maybe wage slips and ammo costs etc would still be nice to see if possible
Regarding the engineering differences. I'm pretty certain that the reason for having GE vs Westinghouse equipment was based purely on proximity to the plants that provided said equipment. GE was in Schenectady, just up the Hudson River while Westinghouse was in Philly. Likely, neither one alone could supply all the materials needed for the construction periods. That, coupled with the problem of adding additional transportation costs, was the driving factor. Now, my only question is this: Are the two designs interchangeable? Military orders very commonly specified identical designs so that replacement of parts was universal. This is much the along the same idea of the 1911 45 caliber pistol. It was made by Colt, Union Switch and Signal Company, Singer and several others, but were still all the same design, some even being produced internationally.
One thing that is consistent among Midway class, Iowa Class, Essex Class ships is the use of M type controlled superheat boilers and four shafts. Differences include engineering space configurations, amount of boilers, size of boiler, etc. Essentially, all of these ships had "the same engineering plant" in that they used variations of the same equipment types, the same technologies but the equipment would not for the most part be interchangeable. The SS United States was also said to have had a battleship engineering plant and that is somewhat true, the US Government subsidized it's construction and the engineering plant was classified, and it was also the fastest civilian ship of it's time but again, the engineering plants were the same technology but had few directly interchangeable pieces of equipment or parts.
I used to frequently drive past the Westinghouse plants in Sunnyvale, CA where heavy machinery, such as generator plants and engines are still built for the US Navy. Perhaps the Westinghouse machinery in the Iowa class and the Midway class were built there.
When I worked at the San Francisco Naval Shipyard we tested and set the governors on the turbo generators of the USS Midway. I can't remember who their manufacturer was--maybe GE. It would be interesting to see if they were also on the Iowa class battleships.
I was a Field Engineer at GE Marine Department at San Francisco, then Oakland back in the early 1980's. Ship Service Turbine Generators were my favorites. I worked on them from 300kw to 2000kw. Most of the GE's turned about 10,000 rpm on the turbine and had a single helical reduction gear that ran a 6 pole generator at 1200 rpm. Almost all of them had a hand cranked lube oil pump which needed to be turned by one sailor while another sailor opened the handwheel on the Trip Throttle Valve. As the turbine started rolling, the internal lube oil pump took over. When it hit governing speed, the Trip Throttle Valve was cranked fully open and the unit sat on governor control. We used to have to do overspeed trip tests on them to make sure they didn't run past 105% and run away and come apart.
@@kimmer6 I was in Design Code 251C at the San Francisco Naval Shipyard in 1963 and 1964 and wrote up the test procedures for the turbo generators. My responsibility was to witness the tests. To set the droop we would put the units on a load box, sometimes called a water box. This involved taking the generator off line and switching it to the water box via a temporary circuit. To move the ships load, sometimes we had to break rules and parallel with shore power so the ship's power wouldn't be interrupted. The GE governors had 5 steam valves that were easier to set and less prone to oscillation than the 3 valve Westinghouse units. One time a sailor wasn't cranking the oil pump fast enough and the other one opened up the trip wheel to fast. When the oil pressure came up it opened the throttle wide and the unit "took off." Fortunately the overspeed trip caught it.
@@jimprice1959 Jim, I was in grade school when you were working there. My dad took me through Morro Bay power plant when I was a kid and saw Unit 2 on the half shell. That was when I decided that turbines were for me. Right out of Cal Poly SLO in the 70's, GE hired me to do gas turbine installs and overhauls all over the world. I got back to Calif in the 80's when GE SF Marine Dept hired me to take care of the 5 Chevron gas turbine tankers. I could do anything! Even set up and diagnose balky Woodward governors. Ha! Crank that SSTG oil pump! Many times they left out the orifice plate in the trip oil circuit and you could crank until your arms fell off and get no movement from the TTV after a year overhaul. They sent me to Pearl Harbor 27 times, NASSCO San Diego, and the North Slope in Alaska. I quit GE when they ordered me to move to Alaska. I gave my Area Supervisor the Hawaiian Good Luck sign and told him to jam it, quit right then and there, started my own business directing cogen installs in Oregon and NorCal, then got into real estate, then retired. Thanks for the memories! Where does time go?
GE and Westinghouse. Interesting! The Thomas Edison versus George Westinghouse and Nicola Tesla, argument. Tesla and Westinghouse won that one. Oh, Tesla was inducted into the electrical Engineering hall of fame, for inventing the, get this, the AC INDUCTION motor. We can also look at Edison for using AC power, for the electric chair, even though he preached DC power. Tried to make Westinghouse and AC look bad. Sorry for the sidebar. Ryan, GREAT story, as is usual. steve
How about the maintenance and operation manuals? Do you have the original manuals provided when the ship was built? Wouldn't they indicate the manufacturer?
Carriers had more boilers because they needed to maintain full speed for launching, and at the same time feed steam to the catapults, which used a lot of steam.
Also with 1930's Ocean Liners and their power plants . The Queen Mary had X shaft HP with Y amount of boilers the Queen Elizabeth a few years later (Both had very similar length and tonnage) QE had about half the Boilers as was installed in the QM. Speed was very close.
During times of war it was use what you have to complete the project. Some ships in different classes could have identical equipment while ships in the same class can have different equipment. Location of build is another factor as was pointed out in the video. Great job!
@@robertf3479 During my time in the Navy I was aboard the Lexington, an Essex class carrier in the mid 80's. Worked in Boiler room #4. Aft engine room was the next compartment aft of my space. She is now a museum in Corpus Christie Texas. Would really like to see the old gal again.
I got to go into the Midway’s engine room a couple of times in 1971 while underway. The first time was during a dependence’s day cruise before our deployment. My dad, a retired WW2 chief asked the Midway’s chief who was running the engine space if was true that the Engines were the same as the Iowas. He said yes. He had worked on both . He also said the the fast supply ships of the Sacramento class also used the same engine. I remember the noise and the heat. Months later a friend of mine invited bask. Off Viet Nam the heat must have been 130. I normally worked on the flight and appreciated being able to in cooler winds, but the air was cleaner in the engine room as we often had stack gases on the flight deck, especially between launch cycles. By the way, my friend who worked in the engine room graduated from high school with me. We only saw each other 3 times in the chow hall in the 9 months I was on that ship.
Looking at the plans, get the feeling the designers had it in for the fire room gang as they're the first to know there's water coming in through the sides.
Great video. Kind of unrelated but really scaled how much power the turbopumps on the Saturn 5 had, being that each engine's fuel pump had roughly the same power as each engine of the ship. Pretty unbelievable
And those turbopumps were physically *tiny*, comparatively. They were only rated for a few minutes of course, and had more ambitious cooling (same deal with SSME turbopumps).
The fact that New Jersey and Wisconsin, built in New Jersey, had Westinghouse propulsion equipment probably is no accident. Westinghouse's had a large factory in Lester, PA (south Philadelphia) which was a center for steam turbine manufacturing. This facility, later became known as the Large Rotating Apparatus (LRA) Division. Iowa and Missouri, being built in New York, would naturally be closer to General Electric's plants in upstate New York and New Jersey which did power generation equipment. Particularly during wartime, you would want to minimize the risk of supply chain issues by avoiding shipping notoriously large and heavy capital ship machinery any great distances. Physical proximity to the shipyards likely had a large influence in choosing the propulsion machinery providers for the Iowa-class.
When Westinghouse went out of business in 2000, its corporate archives in Pittsburgh went to the George Westinghouse Collection maintained by the University of Pittsburgh. It would not surprise me if significant documentation on production of machinery for US battleships and other warships during World War 2 might be available there for further research. I know that Westinghouse was extremely proud of its contribution to the war effort and documented its production of naval propulsion systems, radar, and munitions very completely!
It makes sense for risk mitigation reasons to order from more than one supplier as well. It's not always feasible, and it can cost more, but it reduces the risk of a single point of failure causing delays.
I was going to say something just like this. You build with what is at hand, there are fewer lead time issues, if nothing else.
It all boils down to time and money doesn't it? Use what you got as long as it's easy to obtain, path of least resistance
@@dantreadwell7421That's more of an added benefit. Spreading the manufacturing is specifically designed to facilitate getting congress to approve the budget. The local rep gets the credit for creating such and such high-paying jobs, so they pressure their party to pass the bill. It's often a burden on the military, which ends up with less equipment because it ends up being a lot more expensive this way. In wartime this logic goes out the window but it's very much the rule of the land in peacetime.
@dr.victorvs most definitely a major factor in peacetime. But as you pointed out that goes out the window in wartime, and economically speaking, the US had been at least partially at an "At War" footing since the end of 1939. And the Iowa class was an entirely at war program.
12:45 I can confirm , Ryan. My Dad served aboard USS Franklin D Roosevelt (CVA-42) and has all kinds of specs on her from cruise books and other materials. Franklin D.Roosevelt’s turbine and generator machinery was indeed made by General Electric because she was built in Brooklyn, and she was stripped for parts to feed the mothballed battleships before scrapping. FDR did have maintenance issues and that was part of her undoing, yes, (old sailors on the ship swore she never worked right after her supposed UFO encounter, that’s a whole other story) but the main reason was that the 1970’s modernizations on Coral Sea and Midway ran so far over cost they were canceled for FDR. So FDR was still in her early 1960’s configuration and far less capable than her sisters when she was scrapped. Furthermore, she was disposed of and not put in reserve because the Navy was afraid the penny pinching Carter Administration would use her existence in the reserve fleet as an excuse to cancel the funded but but not yet begun CVN-70 that became USS Carl Vinson.
Could you tell us more about the UFO encounter?
Goddamn I love the comments section for exactly this sort of comment. thankyou for your time!
And the plate has no ships name on it. I guess there was no name yet. When they manufactured the engines
What company would have made the Engines for Illinois and Kentucky Then??
@@georgecaserta2360 The turbine nameplate only lists the turbine specific characteristics, ie RPM, capacity, contract/serial number and maybe year built. Same practice for the big turbo generators in land based powerplants.
I’m a volunteer on the USS Midway, Ryan is right these engineering spaces are tight, especially the firerooms, they are so small in fact there is no secondary escape trunk in the fire rooms, they have a ladder but it’s not sealed off like a normal escape trunk. The other engines rooms are rather tight as well. The midways engineering plant is most definitely not museum friendly, the entrances to the fire rooms are probably some of the steepest ladders on the entire ship. Her fourth deck is so heavily subdivided it is a pain to get to one side from the other as it requires going up and down constantly. There’s a reason only one engine room is open
It's amazing how 4 seemingly identical ships are so very different.
For example, New Jersey may have been refit either at different times, or even built in a different shipyard as say Iowa or Missouri.
@@williammitchell4417 New Jersey is probably more like she was in WW2 than any of her sisters.
It kind of makes sense.
If you want a class of ships built quickly, you can rarely source all of any given major component from the same company, unless that company is somehow just sitting on huge amounts of spare manufacturing capacity.
@@ut000bs she has had some upgrades, with radar, different AA batteries, some changes at the fantail...
@@MonkeyJedi99 a classic example being Liberty ships, or submarines.
Ryan, as a antique engine collector I know that reproduction tags and plaques are being made.
I suggest since you have one to have the other 3 reproduced and re installed.
Thanks for all the great videos
Great item for the gift shop as well!
I love how clear it is that Ryan is passionate and loves doing his job.
Truth! And it very much contributes to this channel being a value and a joy.
Here's a fun fact for you: in order to generate 53,000 HP at 202 RPM at the turbine main gear, there must be 1.378 Million foot pounds of torque developed on the gear. And to keep the engine from racing, that same torque, less a negligible amount for shaft twist and bearing drag, must be developed in the opposite direction by the the water drag on the attached screw.
HP = (Torque x RPM) / 5252. In US units of ft*lb and HP
Westinghouse was a superb company known for its heavy engineering. High risk loans in 1990 led to its breakup. One of America's best companies.
Now this is what maritime archeology is all about. It would be interesting to research if there are any other components of the engineering plant (particularly focusing on electrical system parts) on New Jersey and on Midway that are the same (e.g., the AC turbo-generators).
Some things I have observed about the engineering plants of the larger ships from the WWII era. A little lengthy but here goes.
In general, but not always…
GE provided turbines for ships built at the New York naval Shipyard (Brooklyn), New York Shipbuilding in Camden and Bethlehem Quincy
Westinghouse provided turbines for ships built at Newport News Shipbuilding, Philadelphia Naval Shipyard and Norfolk Naval Shipyard
Both North Carolina class BB’s were engined GE
The South Dakotas were split; the South Dakota and Massachusetts were engined GE; the Indiana and Alabama were engined Westinghouse
We already know the engine suppliers and builder yards for the Iowa and Midway class ships per Ryan’s presentation.
In addition, the Alaska class large cruisers were engined by GE and all were built by New York Shipbuilding in Camden
The Essex class carriers were engined by Westinghouse. Building yards included Newport News, Bethlehem Quincy, New York Naval Shipyard, Philadelphia Naval Shipyard and Norfolk Naval Shipyard. Thus is where some of the GE/Westinghouse exceptions occur
The Baltimore class cruisers were engined by GE. These ships were built at Bethlehem Quincy, New York Shipbuilding and Philadelphia Naval Shipyards. More GE/Westinghouse exceptions
The Cleveland class cruisers were engined by GE. These ships built in all yards noted above and in addition, Cramp Shipbuilding in I think Philadelphia? More GE/Westinghouse exceptions
The Des Moines class cruisers were engined by GE. Salem and Des Moines were built at Bethlehem Quincy and the Newport News in Newport News.
The Worcester class light cruisers were engined by GE and built by New York Shipbuilding Camden.
The Atlanta class light cruisers were engined by Westinghouse. These ships were built by Bethlehem Quincy, Bethlehem San Francisco and Federal Shipyard in Kearny.
As an side the engineering plants for the Essex class carriers and Alaska class cruisers were virtually identical utilizing eight boilers and four turbines good for 150,000 SHP. Only the turbines were different. And to illustrate the “building block” approach taken by the navy in its choice of engineering plants, the plants for both the Essex class and Alaska class were essentially two Atlanta class plants ganged together; the Atlantas being designed for 75,000 SHP per ship.
These trend did continue somewhat post war, the superliner United Stated and nuclear carrier Enterprise were both built by Newport News and were both engineered by Westinghouse.
The nuclear cruiser Long Beach was built by Bethlehem Quincy and uses GE turbines
The information I have for the Forrestal/Kitty Hawk class ships is inconsistent. Most sources list Westinghouse as the turbine supplier but some of the ships (Saratoga, Ranger, John F Kennedy are alternatively listed as being engined by either GE or Westinghouse.
There’s more but this is long enough and I am out of sources.
What I find interesting is the story of the Sacramento class supply ships, getting engines from the incomplete ships. I like the idea of repurpsing parts to other ships.
The first two Sacramento AOEs each got half of USS Kentucky's unneeded power plant.
In the interwar and WW2 periods, a lot of warships got guns from deactivated and/or scrapped ships.
Which makes some sense, since guns are one of the longest lead-time items, and the countries already have the ammo manufacturing in process for those barrels.
@@ut000bs
Unfortunately both Sacramento and Camden have been scrapped. But now I’m curious which engine type did they (and Kentucky) have, since Illinois was laid down in Philly and would probably have the same engines as New Jersey and Wisconsin. But Kentucky was laid down in Norfolk, so who made her engines?
Being a library aide working with engineers all day, this is actually fascinating. It's amazing how seemingly unrelated pieces of information come together and what you find when you really start looking. It's also cool to know all the museum ships work together to broaden the collective knowledge. Things like that are what will enrich the visitor experience (and us RUclips history geeks) for years to come.
I don’t particularly care about ships, there cool, and all that but what i love about this channel is Ryans passion and enthusiasm. It fascinates me when you see someone do something they love effortlessly at a high level,
Great job Ryan keep it up
I love this kind of research, proving an old wives tale right/wrong. I've been finding things to do it on everywhere I've gone since high school. Maybe it's some tale about the guy who went to my high school that tried to kill the President. Maybe it's my college marching band, and the trophy we stole after a win back in '78 (we didn't win in '78). Maybe it's looking into the revisions of the cell towers PCBs I repair.
I agree. I don't care about naval history, but I love this kind of research with all my heart, and this channel goes on a new adventure weekly. It's great.
I spent two years on Midway. She would go faster than 32 knots.
That's just awesome how excited you guys get when you uncover something. It's great that after all these years, you are still finding new stuff.
So kinda like older Fords where you could have a Windsor or a Cleveland when you go to the Battleship Parts Store you have to tell them if you have the Westinghouse or the GE. Different size spark plugs & all.
I had the 351 Cleveland in my 1969 Cougar
I was on the MIdway a few weeks ago, and was just mulling over this exact question. I had observed the difference you noted in boilers, and was trying to understand what they mean, because the engineering spaces were visually very different. Thank you for solving this mystery. And great use of your very large primary source/archeological field!
Thank You Ryan for the videos you produce. I served aboard the USS Saint Paul CA 73 (sadly gone now) at the end of the Viet Nam conflict. We served in tandem with the New Jersey at the DMZ till 1970. I appreciate the slice of history you are preserving. Again , Thanks
Salute - excellent job Bob and Ryan. I have partially seen this before - with the same class of ships - for main engines some ships are GE others are Westinghouse. And on some occasions similar with boilers Babcock & Wilcox or Foster-Wheeler. In some cases you get a breakdown of which manufacturer of each case to which ship - In most cases you do not.
A number of fleet carriers were converted battle cruisers, which would make people think others might be too. This is good fun; thank you!
I do very much love this kind of find after all these years!
Amazing archeology Ryan. Would love to spend more time with you in the engineering spaces and make new discoveries right alongside you. Thanks❣️
Wonderful story, and a great reminder that the map is not the territory, that these massive engineering marvels all had their own differences.
It's often framed as a limitation based on available resources, but I think it was also an intentional form of redundancy, risk management, and rapid development: problems with one type of turbine would affect only half the ships of the class, whereas lessons learned from BOTH types could be taken forwards. With the huge lead times on battleships, this seems like a massive advantage over deliberately building identical ships.
My father was #2 in charge of the GE gear shop making the gear sets for the Iowa class ships. He related to me a problem that almost rejected the gear for one of the gear sets. He said that one of the large gears had a tooth thickness several thousands small. He had a hard time explaining to one of the Admirals that in the long run it would only slightly shorten the life span. In addition, it takes more than a month to hob the gear, causing a delay in the build. He prevailed, the gear set is serviceable to this day.
USS Franklin D. Roosevelt also did not recieve major upgrades the other 2 Midway class carriers recieved due to cost overruns on the other ships, to the extent of only recieving 1/4 the funds the others got.
I am a docent on the Midway and found this video fascinating. Last month I had the opportunity to tour New Jersey and had I seen this video first I would have looked at the engines much closer and taken more pictures.
Thanks for another great video! We visited the Midway last summer, and they’ve done a very fine job on that ship. I’m hoping to get out there (I’m in Oregon) and visit the New Jersey also!!
Very interesting video, as some of the other viewers have noted the Navy often used multiple suppliers for boilers, engines and other long lead time main components for their ships. Particularly in wartime where construction of multiple ships of the same class was taking place simoultaneously, this would minimize supply chain issues. What it boils down to is there never are two ships exactly the same, different shipyards and different suppliers made it impossible.
I served on a destroyer USS Davis DD937 from '70-'73. The ship had Foster Wheeler boilers, General Electric Turbines and Falk reduction gears while many of the ships of the same class such as Forest Sherman DD931 had Babcock & Wilcox Boilers and Westinghouse Turbines, Both ships were built in Bath Maine by Bethlehem Steel. The general layout of the 931 Class destroyers and early DDG's was pretty standardized with Babcok & Wilcox or Foster Wheeler boilers along with Westinghouse or GE turbines. I think Westinghouse made their own reduction gears while GE used Falk and possibly another suppliers.
I absolutely love things like this. Learning new things about her! Absolutely share any such content with us!
So Wise , Thank You . Such a fine thing to find , there are more some where
Truly fascinating!
Looking forward to you visiting the Midway aircraft carrier in the future.
Ryan, Great video. It was fun doing the research and there's still more to do. I'm looking forward to showing you around Midway soon. Bring your video gear.
A few answers for some of your commenters:
Montana had the multiple watertight compartments, not identical to but similar to Midway but Montana's engines were going to be smaller, something like 173,000 hp. Their top speed was only going to be about 27 knots.
Midway has a great Edncation Department. But all the classrooms are not in the squadron ready rooms. Those are all ready room exhibits. The education classrooms are in what used to be the forward mess decks.
Midway's original designation, CVB-41, the "B" stood for "Large". Just like the Alaska-class cruisers were CB (large cruiser).
All of the Midway-class and the Iowa-class boilers were 600 psi and 850 degrees superheat.
Maybe you guys can see me in person when Ryan visits. Soon I hope. Bob.....
I adore when old wives tales prove true in orgin.
Till museum ships started chatting, this would’ve been some esoteric trivia between a couple old engineering plant dudes that only happened to work on different iowas and then ended up retiring close enough to chat in person enough to notice the other engineer had a different steam turbine in his sister ship.
Great stuff man.
My entire life has been predicated on the knowledge that the engines of Iowa Class battleships and Midway class carriers were the same. My father’s dying words were “Midway and the battle wagons have the same propulsion engineering!” I have nothing left…
Thanks Ryan, this is informative and educationally entertaining. I grew up in the shadows of CV-16, The Blue Ghost. She was then an active trainer and she went on to became a museum ship. Her history is also amazing.
Awesome work Ryan! If I ever get to the USA on holiday I'd love to come see the ship
I worked in Engineroom #4 on Missouri. Holy crap, you just casually show the Inspection Cover opened up and a shot of the reduction gears below, but in operation whenever those were opened it was a VERY BIG, MONSTROUSLY HUGE DEAL and careers could be on the line if anything fell in. Pockets had to be taped, wrenches tied to wrists with string, etc. A single washer could put a burr on those gears if dropped and potentially kill the whole ship.
We were told the Reduction Gears, specifically, were Leased and not owned by the Navy. Reason being, they were so massively expensive due to the ultra-precise machining, not even the military could afford them outright. Not a single speck of dust got in there if we could avoid it. Mo was my 24/7 home for 2 1/2 years of my life, and I only got a 5-second peek inside the engine like you're showing.
I'm envious.
I believe the reason for different engines in the ship classes, is because of where the ships were built, considering supply chains and procurement its likely they would've gone with equipment closest to the construction yard. Either way this is pretty cool, I wonder just how many other ships across the world was like that
So awesome having that plaque, Wow!!
I like your videos about how the Iowa classes are different from each other. Before I watched your videos I always assumed everything was exactly the same but you've shown how even when they were newly built there were differences. As for the carriers what I've heard was the hulls were actually up sized cruiser hulls.
What I had heard was that the Midway Class had the hull and machinery of the Montana Class, not the Iowas. I heard this when the Midway was on its last deployment during the first Gulf War. It was said that the Midway was more maneuverable than its bigger sister carriers, which came in handy in the tight confines of the Persian Gulf.
On a somewhat related note, I've heard that the Alaska Class "Very Heavy Cruisers" used the same hulls and machinery of the Essex Class carriers.
I spent two years on the Princton, we went threw a typhoon that lifed the ship 50 feeet out of the water. it amazed me how well the ship was built in the 40's
Interesting vid! This is the sort of archeology I dig!
Always cool to watch videos where Ryan gets excited about the information.
Very intresting!
In this day and age we got so used to mass production where all the same parts in a product are manufactured by the same company and can be shipped basically anywhere, we forgot that in those days the companies that were closest manufactured the parts because that was more convenient. Now that we know, it makes perfect sense. Not to mention that building a battleship is anything but mass production :D
This is really COOOL 😎
I enjoy this type of archeological detective work.
Same....but different. [sung] 🎶Which one of these, is not like the other.....🎵
This differing propulsion plant manufacturers within the same class of ships was common in WW-2 construction, probably primarily to more fully utilize the various very good manufacturers in the market.
For instance, the GATO, BALAO and TENCH class submarines built during the war had different engines and main electrical gear depending on which of two sets of plans they were built from.
The "government" set of plans (developed by Portsmouth Naval Shipyard) used Fairbanks-Morse opposed piston main diesels with main motors and propulsion control cubicles from various manufacturers. All "government" yards (Portsmouth & Mare Island) used the same equipment.
The "Electric Boat" set of plans used GM V-16 main engines and generally main motors and control cubicles from other manufacturers. All non-government yards (EB, Victory, Manitowoc, Cramp, etc) uses these items.
When I worked at the San Francisco Naval Shipyard I went out on the USS Salmon for sea trials after an overhaul. I remember when they started the Fairbanks-Morse vertically opposed 10 cylinder engines. Very impressive.
@@jimprice1959 I visit the USS Silversides (SS-236) in Muskegon MI almost every July. Several years ago I just happened to be aboard when they started up both of the FM diesels in the aft engine room. The sound and the smells brought back my days of serving on GUPPY subs in the late 1960s. YES! Very impressive when both FM diesels in an engine room are up and running in a floating WW-2 sub.
That is what makes that a really really very cool line of work to be in. 😁
The engineering plant on the never commissioned USS Kentucky were pulled out when the Kentucky was scrapped and divided to provide the engineering plants for two fast transport ships for the Navy.
I though some of it also ended up on Forestal
Great video. Thanks Ryan!
Very cool. Would love to see more information like this.
I served on the USS Coral Sea CVA 43 in Vietnam ‘69-‘70. During operations we lost a reduction gear unit…suspected sabotage. They disconnected the prop shaft to allow the prop to free wheel. Could barely keep speed up for launches…planes were leaving with 1/2 the bomb load….They took reduction gear unit from the New Jersey , we were told, and we met its arrival at Yokuska ship yard in Japan for replacement.
Do what you love and love what you do! Incredible find gentlemen.
It's fun to see you so excited.
The squadron ready rooms would make great classrooms on the U.S.S. Midway
Have you ever thought about putting up a board with questions for veterans who served on other ships whose vessels were lost or scrapped? You must occasionally get people who served (or ship builders) who still remember vital details.
Those gears look immaculate. No nics or rust at all
Marvelous work. Thanks ryan and Bob
GREAT VIDEO RYAN,,,!!!! DO YOU HAVE A LITTLE TAN BEING OUTSIDE WHEN THE BATTLESHIPS PARTY WAS GOING ON ,,.. THANKS...
Awesome video. Never even knew I was interested in this topic until I watched this. Great job! :)
Split engine room system, on board Vampire. Means that one engine room out, can get use from other room.
Stephen
Not often do you find an error in a book like that. I have begun to notice that the specs for WW1 ships are changing, particularly the German High Seas Fleet. I play board games, and we are seeing updates all the time now, making each ship unique. We know that Yamato and her sister Musashi were made in different yards and varied. All interesting! Thanks!
Really nice research on the subject ! Thanks Ryan :)
So the Westinghouse plant has more ships that stayed in service longer AND the fastest battleship in the world? I guess we know which one was better! 😉
Very cool bob, thanks team
that was highly interesting- it's obviously so difficult to document the true configuration of those ships and find out the reason why- truly shipboard archaeologie!
Very interesting Ryan. All through my time in the Navy I had been hearing that the Midway class ships had engines built for the Montana class ships. Maybe not so far fetched it seems. I never believed that old story about the Midways being built on Montana hulls, the differing hull dimensions and all that.
Midway and Coral Sea were built down here in Hampton Roads by Newport News Shipbuilding, Franklin D Roosevelt was built in the New York Navy Yard, Brooklyn. Thus it makes sense that CV-41 and 43 would have main turbines and reduction gears from the same builder, but that the "middle sister" might be a bit "different."
FDR had powerplants from another manufacturer. That fact may have played a part in her retirement and quick disposal.
The Midway and Coral Sea were more alike equipment-wise despite the fact Midway ended up with a very different angled deck configuration topside.
You hear different stories about FDR/CV-42 and her material condition when she retired. Some crew members to this day say that the Navy LIED about the FDR's material condition when she retired. They maintain FDR's equipment was in better shape than Coral Sea's in the mid/late-1970s when FDR was retired.
What isn't in dispute is that FDR had General Electric turbines and it was felt these did NOT give the performance level of the Westinghouse units used by her sister ships. Also, FDR was less modern and the Navy did not look forward to spending more money to refit a 30-year-old ship that already wasn't up to specs with her sisters.
[Boiler and other engine issues play parts in other ship decommissionings. USS Forrestal was originally intended to be converted into a training carrier but that plan fell apart because of the age of the ship, budget constraints, and a persistent issue with her boilers. She was decommissioned with perhaps a decade or more left of practical hull life left after an SLEP just a few years before decommissioning. I think also the suboptimal deck layout of the Forrestal class carriers played a role in their early decommissionings. The edge elevator layout was poor and the island position was an issue, too. Later carriers moved their islands further aft for safety concerns as well as positioning of the starboard deck edge elevators. The design of the JFK's (CV-67) flight deck was the optimal layout for carriers and was the standard from 1967 onward. Sure, the general edge deck elevator layout was set from CV-63 Kitty Hawk but I'm talking about shape and acreage of the JFK/CV-67 flight deck being the lead-in for the Nimitz Class.]
The concern the US Navy had at the time was that if FDR was mothballed, the Congress would force them to recommission the FDR instead of letting the Navy buy a newer carrier. At the time, the Navy was only authorized to build 3 Nimitz-class carriers (CVN-68 to CVN-70) but they were always hoping that a future administration would let them buy more supercarriers of the Nimitz class or another newer design. So, instead of mothballing FDR, the Navy promptly took the ship off the naval register and offered FDR up for scrap. FDR was scrapped well within 3 years. Its hull was gone by some point in 1980! Contrast that with the Coral Sea which took over six years (1994-2000) to scrap in Baltimore!
@@AvengerII I had the "honor" of following the Coral Sea around as a "Plane Guard" destroyer during her first deployment with an all Marine F\A-18 air wing and I noticed something that isn't mentioned often, she was badly "hogged". When seen from off the port quarter I could see her flight deck was twisted, her stern and bow lower than her midships section. On a perfectly flat sea aircraft would be launched heading "downhill" with planes landing on an "uphill" slope. I don't know if either of her sisters had this problem, but I also did not note it causing any real problems with her maneuverability.
She also came equipped with the standard "Carrier magnetic bow," I was on the signal bridge watching a Soviet Kashin II destroyer cut across her bow during flight ops, trying to get her to dump a Hornet and barely getting out of the way. There were probably some "brown trousers" on the Kashin's bridge after that.
@@AvengerIII understand there were a number of legal issues with the breakers yard hired to dismantle Coral Sea and that is what slowed that process down
That's a fun little nugget of information. Nice!
Similarly, when I reported to the Enterprise (CVN-65) we were told the engine rooms was "battleship derived", designed closely to the Iowa class battleships but not terribly close.
Thanks 😊
I'm excited because you are. I'm stoked for more history you find out about and share with us about these ships.
I never heard that. I was always told the Midway class used the engine plant from the Montana Class
I laughed when Ryan said he wanted to get to the bottom. Generally, on a ship, the objective is to not do that! :)
Wow! You are lucky indeed to,have such a fascinating work environment! I only wish I,could join you but it's a looooooong commute from the UK!
Its fascinating you've got 4 ships of the same class built in 2 different navy yard how they can be so uniquely different, I absolutely love all these videos you guys make its really intersting!
Cool stuff! I got as much of a kick out of how tickled you are as I did out of the information itself. I'm a little surprised that during wartime they didn't share plans and all have the same gear train instead of it being dependent on which coast it was made on. Then again... Have two different setups gives redundancy of sorts so if one design is flawed you don't lose all the heavy ships because of it. Thanks for sharing.
Great stuff! Guys, what I’d love to see a video on would be how much it costs per day to run a battleship. Fuel, wages, food, etc and especially wartime. Shells and how much fully stocking the ship out also how much one salvo would cost per shot including powder bags. **Also entire wage bills for each day might be quite interesting maybe? *** I saw the 1 million per day video.. funnily enough it popped up when refreshing my YT after typing this. But not everything was included that is above, maybe wage slips and ammo costs etc would still be nice to see if possible
Regarding the engineering differences. I'm pretty certain that the reason for having GE vs Westinghouse equipment was based purely on proximity to the plants that provided said equipment. GE was in Schenectady, just up the Hudson River while Westinghouse was in Philly. Likely, neither one alone could supply all the materials needed for the construction periods. That, coupled with the problem of adding additional transportation costs, was the driving factor. Now, my only question is this: Are the two designs interchangeable? Military orders very commonly specified identical designs so that replacement of parts was universal. This is much the along the same idea of the 1911 45 caliber pistol. It was made by Colt, Union Switch and Signal Company, Singer and several others, but were still all the same design, some even being produced internationally.
One thing that is consistent among Midway class, Iowa Class, Essex Class ships is the use of M type controlled superheat boilers and four shafts. Differences include engineering space configurations, amount of boilers, size of boiler, etc. Essentially, all of these ships had "the same engineering plant" in that they used variations of the same equipment types, the same technologies but the equipment would not for the most part be interchangeable.
The SS United States was also said to have had a battleship engineering plant and that is somewhat true, the US Government subsidized it's construction and the engineering plant was classified, and it was also the fastest civilian ship of it's time but again, the engineering plants were the same technology but had few directly interchangeable pieces of equipment or parts.
I used to frequently drive past the Westinghouse plants in Sunnyvale, CA where heavy machinery, such as generator plants and engines are still built for the US Navy. Perhaps the Westinghouse machinery in the Iowa class and the Midway class were built there.
Great information, love these in depth videos
When I worked at the San Francisco Naval Shipyard we tested and set the governors on the turbo generators of the USS Midway. I can't remember who their manufacturer was--maybe GE. It would be interesting to see if they were also on the Iowa class battleships.
I was a Field Engineer at GE Marine Department at San Francisco, then Oakland back in the early 1980's. Ship Service Turbine Generators were my favorites. I worked on them from 300kw to 2000kw. Most of the GE's turned about 10,000 rpm on the turbine and had a single helical reduction gear that ran a 6 pole generator at 1200 rpm. Almost all of them had a hand cranked lube oil pump which needed to be turned by one sailor while another sailor opened the handwheel on the Trip Throttle Valve. As the turbine started rolling, the internal lube oil pump took over. When it hit governing speed, the Trip Throttle Valve was cranked fully open and the unit sat on governor control. We used to have to do overspeed trip tests on them to make sure they didn't run past 105% and run away and come apart.
@@kimmer6 I was in Design Code 251C at the San Francisco Naval Shipyard in 1963 and 1964 and wrote up the test procedures for the turbo generators. My responsibility was to witness the tests. To set the droop we would put the units on a load box, sometimes called a water box. This involved taking the generator off line and switching it to the water box via a temporary circuit. To move the ships load, sometimes we had to break rules and parallel with shore power so the ship's power wouldn't be interrupted. The GE governors had 5 steam valves that were easier to set and less prone to oscillation than the 3 valve Westinghouse units. One time a sailor wasn't cranking the oil pump fast enough and the other one opened up the trip wheel to fast. When the oil pressure came up it opened the throttle wide and the unit "took off." Fortunately the overspeed trip caught it.
@@jimprice1959 Jim, I was in grade school when you were working there. My dad took me through Morro Bay power plant when I was a kid and saw Unit 2 on the half shell. That was when I decided that turbines were for me. Right out of Cal Poly SLO in the 70's, GE hired me to do gas turbine installs and overhauls all over the world. I got back to Calif in the 80's when GE SF Marine Dept hired me to take care of the 5 Chevron gas turbine tankers.
I could do anything! Even set up and diagnose balky Woodward governors. Ha! Crank that SSTG oil pump! Many times they left out the orifice plate in the trip oil circuit and you could crank until your arms fell off and get no movement from the TTV after a year overhaul. They sent me to Pearl Harbor 27 times, NASSCO San Diego, and the North Slope in Alaska. I quit GE when they ordered me to move to Alaska. I gave my Area Supervisor the Hawaiian Good Luck sign and told him to jam it, quit right then and there, started my own business directing cogen installs in Oregon and NorCal, then got into real estate, then retired. Thanks for the memories! Where does time go?
That's pretty cool. I'm surprised that the engines weren't better documented.
This was really interesting, thank you
GE and Westinghouse. Interesting!
The Thomas Edison versus George Westinghouse
and Nicola Tesla, argument. Tesla and Westinghouse
won that one. Oh, Tesla was inducted into the electrical
Engineering hall of fame, for inventing the, get this, the
AC INDUCTION motor. We can also look at Edison for
using AC power, for the electric chair, even though he
preached DC power. Tried to make Westinghouse and AC
look bad.
Sorry for the sidebar.
Ryan, GREAT story, as is usual.
steve
That's really neat! What excellent research and collaboration!
This is what academia should be all about!
Interesting ship geekyness! Very fun.
How about the maintenance and operation manuals? Do you have the original manuals provided when the ship was built? Wouldn't they indicate the manufacturer?
LOVE THIS
Carriers had more boilers because they needed to maintain full speed for launching, and at the same time feed steam to the catapults, which used a lot of steam.
Way cool. Thanks for the video and keep them coming.
Also with 1930's Ocean Liners and their power plants . The Queen Mary had X shaft HP with Y amount of boilers the Queen Elizabeth a few years later (Both had very similar length and tonnage) QE had about half the Boilers as was installed in the QM. Speed was very close.
During times of war it was use what you have to complete the project. Some ships in different classes could have identical equipment while ships in the same class can have different equipment. Location of build is another factor as was pointed out in the video. Great job!
That makes me wonder about the Essex class ships, over a dozen built in three or four different shipyards.
@@robertf3479 During my time in the Navy I was aboard the Lexington, an Essex class carrier in the mid 80's. Worked in Boiler room #4. Aft engine room was the next compartment aft of my space. She is now a museum in Corpus Christie Texas. Would really like to see the old gal again.
You are doing great vídeos with a lot of interesting content. Thanks a lot for that
I’ll grab a pic tomorrow of a the placard on midway
good one
I got to go into the Midway’s engine room a couple of times in 1971 while underway. The first time was during a dependence’s day cruise before our deployment. My dad, a retired WW2 chief asked the Midway’s chief who was running the engine space if was true that the Engines were the same as the Iowas. He said yes. He had worked on both . He also said the the fast supply ships of the Sacramento class also used the same engine. I remember the noise and the heat. Months later a friend of mine invited bask. Off Viet Nam the heat must have been 130. I normally worked on the flight and appreciated being able to in cooler winds, but the air was cleaner in the engine room as we often had stack gases on the flight deck, especially between launch cycles. By the way, my friend who worked in the engine room graduated from high school with me. We only saw each other 3 times in the chow hall in the 9 months I was on that ship.
Looking at the plans, get the feeling the designers had it in for the fire room gang as they're the first to know there's water coming in through the sides.
Great video. Kind of unrelated but really scaled how much power the turbopumps on the Saturn 5 had, being that each engine's fuel pump had roughly the same power as each engine of the ship. Pretty unbelievable
And those turbopumps were physically *tiny*, comparatively. They were only rated for a few minutes of course, and had more ambitious cooling (same deal with SSME turbopumps).