The outer surface of Class-A (non-homogenous) armor has been subjected to a special heat treating process called "cementing", which produces a thick layer of cementite, the hardest of the crystalline structures that can be formed with iron and carbon. Cementite is also known by its chemical name, iron carbide. The process involves heat treating only the outer surface in a special oven, and the thickest armor required over a week of treating before it was removed and cooled. The armor then had to be "quenched", or rapidly cooled, and this part of the process could result in the warping and cracking of the piece, which meant starting over. Each piece then had to be tempered in a different type of oven. Once the batch was finished, it was shipped to the Navy for testing. A piece was selected for ballistic testing, and if it failed, the whole lot was rejected. This is why it was so time consuming and expensive. Only three American steel companies had the equipment and know-how to produce Class-A armor: US Steel, Bethlehem Steel and Midvale Steel.
Your description is simplified.....at the time the processes and materials were top secret, strategic information akin to our modern day nuclear weaponry. The alloys used, the material used for casing, the process temperatures/heating/cooling rates; all carefully guarded strategic secrets developed since the late 1800s
@@robertschultz6922 Armor has evolved a lot since 1940. New materials, new processes, new vehicles. There is a type of aluminum called Fortal that is used today for fighting vehicles. I got some trimmings from plates used to fabricate some armor. It is extremely hard, I wore out a bimetal hack blade and had to resort to carbide tooling to machine it. Civilian grade steel armor is designated AR 500. It is used to make targets for high power longuns.
From the book “Warship Builders, an Industrial History of U.S. Naval Shipbuilding, 1922-1945” by Thomas Heinrich, Naval Institute Press. Pg 156: each Iowa class ship had 246 armor plates. Midvale Steel Company mostly did side belt and deck armor; Carnegie-Illinois did armored bulkheads; Bethlehem Steel did barbette and turret armor.
I’ve often wondered, especially when Ryan is showing us particular parts of the ship, what it must’ve LOOKED like pouring some of those ridiculously large pieces - such as the armor belt, etc. It’s hard to even fathom, in a physical sense anyway, the sheer scales involved in those days. Much MUCH respect to the ship builders of that day. Sometimes it’s a wonder that mankind could even be capable of such things. With the added pressures of having to quite literally save the civilized world, it’s even more wondrous. 🫡
When Missouri was in Bremerton I heard someone say that about the turret when on the tour. I said no, if the grounding was powerful enough to crack this turret, it would have destroyed the ship, and the crack was from the steel cooling. This guy didn’t believe me and said some stupid kid (I was 13 at the time) doesn’t know anything about it. I told him I was in a foundry class in school and when I cast my anvil it cracked because we cooled it too fast. The docent had wondered in behind us and said “the kid is right, the crack happened at the steel cooled and has been there since the ship was built”. I smiled, that guy wondered off somewhere.
@@zaprowsdower3911 no, no one clapped. We just moved on. Why is it so odd for you to think that a kid who had an anvil break due to rapid cooling not have learned something in his foundry class, and recognize a similar occurrence in another cast object?
@@cascadesouthernmodeltrains7547 Unfortunately there's always those sad internet people who have to try to belittle other peoples' experiences with a "that didn't happen" just because they want the attention instead of the one who actually did something.
@@Jimorian yup. I know. He was prolly the guy in shop class that couldn’t figure out how to make the dust pan, so he just ragged on the rest of us for making swords and other cool things.
Being a foundry engineer, the lines you see in the Cast armor is the seam between the wood used to make the pattern, lie 2 to 3" that strips, the sands when packed will show the divets and cracks of the pattern and then it shows up on the casting, Being war time the Finnish quality was not a high std. but the thickness of the armor was.
I had actually heard of the crack in Missouri 's barbette never saw a picture of it until now but I always figured it was basically a casting/ cooling problem. I have seen bad castings before but that picture was an eye opener.
Yes, not that they were going to redo such a big casting because of a crack, when it still has most of it's integrity in it, and they need it fast. Just put a filler in it and paint it. Back then the filler likely was hemp rope as a base and then hammered lead strip over the top to make a metal cover, the hemp being tarred so the crack would not rust. Then wipe down all the tar on the top, and paint it. you find most castings have some cracking in them, especially as they get bigger, just a thing that you get with thick and thinner sections of steel that cool at different rates.
Interesting that you mention Midvale Steel, a relatively small firm compared to giants like Bethlehem and Carnegie/US Steel, etc., but an important producer in many respects. Long known for specialty steels and alloys, Midvale focused on high end versus commodity output. It was located on a canal that brought anthracite coal, quite a benefit for high-heat generation and quite "clean" as coal burning goes. And one large customer was Baldwin Locomotive, which bought many high-strength, high-spec items from Midvale like drive wheels and axles. Meanwhile, in 1880s Midvale employed a young worker named Frederick W. Taylor who rose from lathe operator to gang boss to engineer, and eventually engineer of the works. Yes, THAT Frederick Taylor, of "scientific management" fame and a key player in the development of industrial engineering. So, behind the armor plate of BB NJ -- as you move up the supply chain, so to speak -- is a supplier with strong and noble pedigree in American industrial history.
The quantity of unique castings on this vessel is utterly amazing. It would be amazing to talk to the project leads from back then. A testament to designing and building a complex machine before computers. The organization must have been truly amazing. A roughly six inch Acme lead screw to throw a 119 or so ton barrel up and down quickly and precisely too from the time before servo control of such things. I guess an extra ton to nearly ton and a half for the round as well once it is loaded and moving back to firing position. You can tell the cast parts on the ship by the texture, and there are lots of them. I hope a complete set of prints from when it was built still exist somewhere. These ships represented the pinnacle of engineering from the time when they were built. If you get the chance, you should definitely go and visit one of these ships as it is well worth the time and effort.
@@scottwatts3879 I just looked at New Jersey's gun elevators. I could not see the feedback mechanism from its motor and gear setup that I saw, but what you say does make sense. The signals had to get from the selected mechanical Mark 8 or other fire control computer to those motors and know the position in some way to fire accurately. The approximately 6 inch diameter Acme threaded lead screw that controlled that position was very impressive and looked pristine under its coating of cosmoline or something similar. It is pinned to the barrel and pulls it up and down about a pivot point. Very impressive looking to me for a 1941 construction.
I am mostly listening to this, but when I glanced over I first thought that sign read, 'Ammunition for Sale.' Dang, that ship's store was really well stocked.
It’s weird that the section of the Turret 2 armor you’re leaning against looks almost like brickwork that’s sort of had a bit of stucco laid over it. With lateral lines a bit visible. In my mind it all just gives the armor, and therefore the ship, a bit of character. ANY thing THAT large, and in my experience especially warships, is going to have differences between its peers. Even when built to a certain specification to (in theory & policy) be identical - there will be identifiable differences. She’s a grand old lady, and both like & unlike any other. Be sound, be well, and may God bless the USS New Jersey (BB-62) and all those aboard her.
The imperfections from the cooling makes a lot of sense. Having done too much hard facing for crushing equipment with GMAW and stick I've seen a lot of cracks. I've dabbled with face hardening on sheet steel and forging knife blades and had my few paltry attempts crack in the oil. Metal is a funny beast. Can't imagine 11 to 17 inches of the stuff. I mean, watch forged in fire.
@@RichieRichOverdrive I was talking more about the the cracks... I'm a terrible blacksmith, not allowed to stand next to a farrier, and half decent welder. 😅
Per Richard A. Landgraff, _Iowa_ and _New Jersey_ were built with Bethlehem Steel, the Carnegie-Illinois plant was slated for _Wisconsin_ and _Illinois_ & _Kentucky_ with _Missouri_ being built from Midvale plate - the stuff that delaminated and was dealt with in the 1980s.
I saw the crack several times while I was working USS Missouri reactivation. As I remember, it was on the #3 barbette. Second deck, port side passageway going aft until you get through the door where the aft part of the barbette was and just look up. I also remember one side of the crack was higher than the other.. It would have had to been ground down to keep the round shape. I knew Dick Landgraff well (contributed a number of items to his book) but I don't remember ever chatting with him about the barbette. With Dick there was never a short answer to any question
Never heard of that story, but if I had been on the tour and saw those "cracks" you may catch me looking at them and possibly trying to determine if they are jagged, smooth or if it is just chipped. Mainly because a simple rule you can go by is if the edges of metal that is cracked is jagged and not a smooth line, it has been broken by overstress, meaning a lot of force broke it apart. If it is smooth it could be done by fatigue, the same forces that you can experience if you bend a paperclip back and forth until it breaks. And finally chips, which could be casting imperfections, impact dents and what not.
For all those who believe the cracks were from the grounding event where cables were wrapped around the barbette, to put this in perspective, the cables were on the order of 2 inches diameter while the barbette was a tube, 10s of feet in diameter and 11 to 17 inches thick. The cables would have broken long before any damage could have been done to the barbette.
I'm pretty sure the belt armor plate is much smoother because of a combination of it being forged after casting and the grinding work that would have been done to bring the slabs to final dimensions. Such processes could not be reasonably done on a curved surface as large as the barbette, so the cast surface finish remains. Bear in mind this is my best guess based off of info from Drachinfel's video on armor and my knowledge as a former navy nuclear operator. Edit: The lack of forging could explain the cracking as well. The forging would have collapsed any voids or cracks present. Cast the part oversize, forge it to consolidate the material, heat treat/carbeurize, then grind to final shape.
My father was a plank owner on USS Wisconsin, serving from her commissioning in 44 till she was first mothballed in 48. He was in Damage Control. He often told me that when they first fired the 16” guns, “they cracked the barbetts “. I’m sure he was NOT referring to the surface casting imperfections shown in this video. He added that this happened while they were under way and that they flew Navy Yard welders out to meet the ship on the west coast and they made the repairs there, after transiting the Panama Canal. I always assumed that he would have been referring to some other aspect of the barbett besides the armor itself, but he always insisted that the material was extremely hard and difficult to weld and thus they brought the welders who did the welding originally. Dad left the Navy in 48 and resumed his career in Westinghouse near Philly where he was born and raised, where he worked on large gas turbines so he was very familiar with heavy weldments. I wish I would have asked him more details about this, which turret, where the cracks were, etc. We did tour the New Jersey , Wisconsin, and North Carolina together and he was the best tour guide a son of a Battleship Sailor could ever have!
Alabama’s Turret I barbette has a similar, but smaller, crack like Missouri’s. Other comments here have mentioned one on Massachusetts as well. Interesting since BB59 and 60 were built at different yards. A’s crack can be seen on second deck, port quarter of the barbette, close to the deck, for those interested!
Bethlehem steel has some great videos about steelwork that gives a glimpse into just how monumental making it was..... another great rabbit hole is the massive mesta forges used to build our military gear and there's a great documentary on here for them too
Ryan the local Philly newspaper " METRO" just had a great two page story on the NJ and mentioned you. Somebody should start a petition to have the History Channel to either hire you or at least pay you big bucks to produce a several hour long video on the most decorated battleship during WW 2. They said that so far you have created over 800 videos on this great ship. WOW. I've watched well over a hundred of your vids and why being an Army vet found every one of your vids very informative. Surprised the Navy did not have sailors grind out the casting dins them spit polish it
My first guess: different thicknesses coupled with cooling at different rates during casting process causing in stresses that result in the odd crack. It would be a huge PITA to pump that much heat into the mould and wrap it appropriately to trap it in so that it can be cooled slowly and evenly. I'm glad Megan's regarding Missouri answer coincides with my thoughts. Thanks Ryan!
I'm amazed that people try to make NEW JERSEY's cracks into battle damage. I suppose these are people who have never worked on steel ships or lived in concrete or steel buildings... MISSOURI's cracks are much more understandable because of their large surface area. Thanks for finding that old interview footage--very nice to have that in the video!
Some machine tools ( milling machines / lathes and other tools ) frequently have cast steel frames. It is super common to use auto body filler ( polyester resin ) to smooth out the surface before painting.
Bulldozer frames and excavator counterweights are often the same way, even in the case of concrete filled counterweights where the steel isn't even particularly thick.
I'm no expert by any means but I did work in a steel mill. I was in crane repair not in production. The mill I worked in made coil steel from cast slabs that were 7 by 30 feet by 10 inches thick. Part of the process involved scarfing off impurities ( mill scale or slag ) which, if not removed would, leave defects when the coil steel was formed. The scarfers would use oxygen lances to cut those impurities out of the slabs. They would move back and forth along the slab with their lances cutting a few inches at a time off of the surface of the slab. Scarfing would leave rows of marks where the lances gouged out the impurities. Your armor plate looks very similar to that of the slabs used to make coils. My thoughts are that they followed the same regimen to get a smoother surface that could also show any major defects. It is also a possibility that a defect could have caused Missouri's cracks. In welding it's commonly known that a crack can propigate from a defect in a weld so it stands to reason that it would be a concern in large armor plating.
my great uncle worked for Midvale plate during the war and my grandfather at Philly shipyard. Both wanted to fight but were denied because of their jobs and skills were too valuable. Anyway the reason for the background is I was told several times that Missouri would have had the cracked barbette recast but being at war they didn't.
Great work team! I watched the movie Shooter the other day, part of it was around Philly area. Pretty sure New Jersey had a brief bit of advertising. I could be wrong though, was cool to see regardless.
Makes more sense than cracking from running aground, only extremely brittle metal would crack from a grounding, and if armor is that brittle, it would be useless as armor. Anything that is cooled too fast will crack. If you can imagine the amount of heat the casting gives off and being up to 17" thick, it has to cool down slowly to prevent cracks. Metal shrinks when it cools, so the outer layer cooling faster than the inner will cause the metal to shrink on the outside and therefore, crack.
It makes perfect sense that Missouri's armor would have cracking from manufacturing. It was war time and the steel mill probably didn't cool the casting perfectly. In the end it was structurally fine and like mentioned a long lead time item. Use it. I see defects in small arms parts all the time from WW2. The M1 rifle often has cosmetic defects in the gas cylinders and receivers. None of which effect the final product.
I heard that the Missouri's barbette was cracked when she was battling a alien spacecraft and had to drop anchor to make a sudden turn in order to avoid incoming fire. Any truth to that?
Landgraff had us in Design (shop 300), research & find the correct filler/epoxy for the cracks, and there’s a lot more cracks than just that one. Unfortunately, the filler they picked, wouldn’t take paint at all, and Landgraff, who wasn’t worried about structural issues, as much as appearance, probably because the ship was so old. His idea was to have it smoothed and painted, but that red kept coming thru, & he wasn’t happy with the result, I was told. If you inspect it today, I dare you to find a sliver of a crack remaining. That stuff worked!
Missouri does actually have a little bit of battle damage that you can see though. On the right side towards the stern of the ship a kamikaze hit the hull a little below the rail there and you can see a noticeable dent in the hull there. I have pictures of it on my phone. Wish there was some way I could share them on here haha.
I would love to see a video about the making of the barbettes. Are they cast as one piece? Are they stacked rings? How did they move such large pieces from the foundry to the ship yard? What is the single heaviest part of the ship and how was it moved into place?
Not sure about the rings, but, at least with the two built in Philly the pieces were loaded on trains in Bethlehem PA and taken by rail to the shipyard. A neighbor of mine had worked 35 years at Bethlehem Steel and his father worked there before and during the war. He had pictures of some of the parts being made and being loaded on train cars. At that time the plant was literally hundreds of buildings that made thousands of different parts for ships.
@@johnstark4723 The armor diagram shown of p. 170 of Sumrall (1988) indicates that the upper barbettes for turrets II and III were assemblies of 11 individual armor plates, while turret I was made up of seven individual plates.
@@tomkunkle318 and? They were shipped by rail🙄 whether assembled or just the pieces they went by rail. I have seen photos of slabs on rail cars that were assembled in Philadelphia and then I have also seen where they had things like 20mm gun tubs complete with the tub and gun mount. Once at Philadelphia a crane lifts the whole gun tub into place. Then at fitting out the guns were added.
@@johnstark4723 It would be fun to know how the individual segments were erected and joined to form a barbette. Sumrall (1988 p. 33) shows a picture of New Jersey during outfit with a wooden "former" in place for aligning and holding the five segments of the conning tower armor while they were welded together in place. Perhaps something similar was done for the barbette armor? Some day when I get around to it I'll search for construction pictures showing barbette erection.
I thought Missouri was the only Iowa with cracks... due to the heat treatment of the armor. Inspected in the early 80s, sample taken, and then disguised with epoxy.
I was looking at some old photos and there were a few of you and I talking on the Sloop of War Constilation in Inner Harbor Baltimore. I thought it was neat my late wife caught that.
And temperature gradients. A curved shape cools more unevenly than a flat shape, causing cracks. Also, a couple of, essentially, surface scratches on an 18 inch thick, God know's how many ton, curved plate ain't half bad!
Sumrall (1988 pp.127 and 129) indicates that the upper barbettes are assemblies of segments of Class A heavy armor of thicknesses ranging from 17.3 to 11.6 inches. Perhaps that "crack" you're standing next to is just one of the joints between armor segments?
As in most all cast metals impurities in the sand will show in the final product such as stones and rocks will showup especially when the finished product is painted white.
As a CNC operator I work with cast steel a lot and these sorts of imperfections in the surface is quite normal but im not quite sure what exactly causes it. My pieces are only 800-1600kg though.
The only turret barbette battleship damage I've heard about was the damage South Dakota had. Makes me wonder if that's why the ship was not made into a museum ship.
That's unlikely. Take this with a bag of salt because I could be wrong.I understand that when the USN was disposing of the battleships they offered to sell them to the named states. A state like South Dakota is unlikely to have taken the navy's offer while states like Texas and New Jersey did and why those ships became museum ships.
@@kaymish6178 specifically with South Dakota, I do believe the state retained part of the superstructure and a gun or two. I'd have to go look it up, but yeah, you're correct, land locked states generally don't retain their ships. The Iowas being the exception.
@@jameskee2412 You’re right. The BB57 memorial in Sioux Falls has a small museum and some parts (a gun barrel, prop, port battle bridge door, mast, etc) inside a full-size outline of the ship. Pretty impressive in the satellite images online.
I saw the video on the artillery strike that killed the sailor on the ship during the Korean War. Is there a video on all the hits it took in combat? Or are the incidents laid out in different videos?If so, which ones?
kay. now that you've said the nj's cracks aren't from war damage, how about a show that details where the ship took hits, when, and what repairs had to be made
The surface finish on the cast armor plate is also due to the poring process , look at the rough surface finish on cast steam locomotive frames like UP4004 etc and the roughness is due to making the molten metal flow into the mold , smoothness hinders the flow of metal , apparently it is now a lost art, would have tobe relearned
I think that, technically, the distortions in the armor would have some effect but it's one of those things where it would only matter for a 1 in a million shot and if that happens you just have to accept that it was destiny.
The after turret of the USS South Dakota was struck by a 14" AP projectile from IJN Kirishima in one of the naval battles off Guadalcanal late 1942.... The shell evidently struck the junction between the armored deck and the barbette, bending the armored decking downwards and putting a king size dent in the barbette. There was no gouging visible, or spalling of the armor; it functioned perfectly as designed, absorbint the energy of the hit by plastic deformation. The turret was put out of commission by the shock. I can only imagine what the turret crew thought about this.....They all survived.
I've heard that same story about the crack. It might be Landgraff's book where he talks about smoothing out Missouri's barbette so people would stop asking about it. I think his book has the same picture of the crack with the epoxy that you showed in the video.
Langraff's book is entitled "The History of the Long Beach Naval Shipyard." Tough book to find; you may have to use your library inter loan system but worth the hunt. Many stories in addition to his experience with the Iowa's.
@@scottspilis1940 Amazon US has it in stock. It appears to be the first revision yellow cover. I'm not sure where to find the second edition white cover. According to Mr. Landgraff, he set things up just before he died so the Pacific Battleship Center (USS Iowa) would get the proceeds for his book, so it's a good purchase.
Missouri received that crack in her turret barbet when she was briefly serving with the Mediterranean squadron during the winter of 1943. Italian war ace Enzo Ferrari took credit for strafing and bombing Missouri when he wrote his memoirs in 1959. He was quoted as stating it was the finest hour of his military career.
@@scottspilis1940 LOL! Gotcha! Hook line and sinker! I made all that stuff up. Enzo Ferrari never flew planes in world war two. Bullshitting can sometimes be very fun!
Did somebody really ask if it cracked from running aground? “Experts” on a tour must be a challenge. I had something like that showing schooners to people. One fellow insisted that our painted brown aluminum masts were not that but actually wood. Our boat and our fake wood aluminum masts but no, he knew. A type of hardwood. People are funny. 😄😂
Cracking due to grounding - the impact required to crack the armoured barbettes from running aground would have resulted in catastrophic damage to the lesser armoured plate and shell plating!
What I was told concerning the crack on Missouri was the “Mighty Mo” fought an epic battle with an alien scout ship that was docked at Tokashiki Island. The scout ship ferried a diplomatic delegation from the Garthto Empire, a warlike alien race from the planet Proxima b in the Alpha Centauri system. The Garthto desired to start diplomatic relations with the Japanese Empire, whom they monitored from afar and felt a kinship to. Included in the delegation was the the beautiful Princess Aera, the only daughter to the Garthto Emperor. Even though the scout ship’s laser cannon rendered turret 3 non-operational, the Missouri was able to fire multiple savo’s from her 16 inch guns and destroy the scout ship and kill everyone in Garthto delegation party including Princess Aera. The Garthto emperor was so saddened and heart-broken by the loss of his only daughter, he vowed “No Garthto shall ever enter the Terrian system ever again!” The US government was desperate to hide any knowledge that an advanced alien civilization may be aiding the Japanese Empire, all photos and records of the battle were destroyed and the officers and crew of the Missouri was threatened with the death penalty if anyone spoke of the battle. After the Tokashiki Island was liberated from the Japanese, wreckage of the Garthto’s scout ship was sent to a small remote town in New Mexico called Roswell for technical study.
It's funny you say that, because I actually saw a documentary recently where the mighty Mo fought an alien ship off of Oahu, Hawaii. The ship had destroyed all the modern tin cans so they brought out the battleship to take care of business. It's pretty wild how that ship can come back to like in about 15 minutes of work but just a few old people. At least that's what happened in the documentary. 😂
A grounding would "lift" the barbette" as they were gravity fixed.....kinda like those Russian "jack-in-the-box" tank explosions, and I can't imagine any welder from this planet agree to "try" weld 17" steel.....that would be one helluva thick welding rod.
Great explanations and nice to have Missouri's curator confirm the facts. A few questions arise. Was a barbette on the 1940 and newer battleships cast as a single piece or were they done in sections as the gun house was? Were the screws that held the gun house armor on also armor quality steel and do you have any spares you could give a presentation on?
The armor diagram shown of p. 170 of Sumrall (1988) indicates that the upper barbettes for turrets II and III were assemblies of 11 individual armor plates, while turret I was made up of seven individual plates.
look up "15 inch Columbiad" and check out the size of cannon we we casting during the Civil War if you are interested in large castings. And that was 155 years ago.
The outer surface of Class-A (non-homogenous) armor has been subjected to a special heat treating process called "cementing", which produces a thick layer of cementite, the hardest of the crystalline structures that can be formed with iron and carbon. Cementite is also known by its chemical name, iron carbide. The process involves heat treating only the outer surface in a special oven, and the thickest armor required over a week of treating before it was removed and cooled. The armor then had to be "quenched", or rapidly cooled, and this part of the process could result in the warping and cracking of the piece, which meant starting over. Each piece then had to be tempered in a different type of oven. Once the batch was finished, it was shipped to the Navy for testing. A piece was selected for ballistic testing, and if it failed, the whole lot was rejected. This is why it was so time consuming and expensive. Only three American steel companies had the equipment and know-how to produce Class-A armor: US Steel, Bethlehem Steel and Midvale Steel.
Your description is simplified.....at the time the processes and materials were top secret, strategic information akin to our modern day nuclear weaponry. The alloys used, the material used for casing, the process temperatures/heating/cooling rates; all carefully guarded strategic secrets developed since the late 1800s
Can any company make class a armour today?
@@robertschultz6922 Armor has evolved a lot since 1940. New materials, new processes, new vehicles. There is a type of aluminum called Fortal that is used today for fighting vehicles. I got some trimmings from plates used to fabricate some armor. It is extremely hard, I wore out a bimetal hack blade and had to resort to carbide tooling to machine it. Civilian grade steel armor is designated AR 500. It is used to make targets for high power longuns.
From the book “Warship Builders, an Industrial History of U.S. Naval Shipbuilding, 1922-1945” by Thomas Heinrich, Naval Institute Press. Pg 156: each Iowa class ship had 246 armor plates. Midvale Steel Company mostly did side belt and deck armor; Carnegie-Illinois did armored bulkheads; Bethlehem Steel did barbette and turret armor.
I’ve often wondered, especially when Ryan is showing us particular parts of the ship, what it must’ve LOOKED like pouring some of those ridiculously large pieces - such as the armor belt, etc. It’s hard to even fathom, in a physical sense anyway, the sheer scales involved in those days. Much MUCH respect to the ship builders of that day. Sometimes it’s a wonder that mankind could even be capable of such things. With the added pressures of having to quite literally save the civilized world, it’s even more wondrous. 🫡
Thanks for contributing to society and my cranium, cracks and all.
When Missouri was in Bremerton I heard someone say that about the turret when on the tour. I said no, if the grounding was powerful enough to crack this turret, it would have destroyed the ship, and the crack was from the steel cooling. This guy didn’t believe me and said some stupid kid (I was 13 at the time) doesn’t know anything about it. I told him I was in a foundry class in school and when I cast my anvil it cracked because we cooled it too fast. The docent had wondered in behind us and said “the kid is right, the crack happened at the steel cooled and has been there since the ship was built”. I smiled, that guy wondered off somewhere.
Lol sure bud everyone clapped I'm sure
@@zaprowsdower3911 no, no one clapped. We just moved on. Why is it so odd for you to think that a kid who had an anvil break due to rapid cooling not have learned something in his foundry class, and recognize a similar occurrence in another cast object?
I asked this question of a Docent on the Missouri and he had no idea!
@@cascadesouthernmodeltrains7547 Unfortunately there's always those sad internet people who have to try to belittle other peoples' experiences with a "that didn't happen" just because they want the attention instead of the one who actually did something.
@@Jimorian yup. I know. He was prolly the guy in shop class that couldn’t figure out how to make the dust pan, so he just ragged on the rest of us for making swords and other cool things.
i like your no quick, non simple answers ryan. we get to learn stuff.
Being a foundry engineer, the lines you see in the Cast armor is the seam between the wood used to make the pattern, lie 2 to 3" that strips, the sands when packed will show the divets and cracks of the pattern and then it shows up on the casting, Being war time the Finnish quality was not a high std. but the thickness of the armor was.
Every time Ryan hears a tourist ask "can I fire the 16 inchers" he bangs his head against the barbette, eventually causing cracks to form.
I had actually heard of the crack in Missouri 's barbette never saw a picture of it until now but I always figured it was basically a casting/ cooling problem. I have seen bad castings before but that picture was an eye opener.
Yes, not that they were going to redo such a big casting because of a crack, when it still has most of it's integrity in it, and they need it fast. Just put a filler in it and paint it. Back then the filler likely was hemp rope as a base and then hammered lead strip over the top to make a metal cover, the hemp being tarred so the crack would not rust. Then wipe down all the tar on the top, and paint it. you find most castings have some cracking in them, especially as they get bigger, just a thing that you get with thick and thinner sections of steel that cool at different rates.
Interesting that you mention Midvale Steel, a relatively small firm compared to giants like Bethlehem and Carnegie/US Steel, etc., but an important producer in many respects. Long known for specialty steels and alloys, Midvale focused on high end versus commodity output. It was located on a canal that brought anthracite coal, quite a benefit for high-heat generation and quite "clean" as coal burning goes. And one large customer was Baldwin Locomotive, which bought many high-strength, high-spec items from Midvale like drive wheels and axles. Meanwhile, in 1880s Midvale employed a young worker named Frederick W. Taylor who rose from lathe operator to gang boss to engineer, and eventually engineer of the works. Yes, THAT Frederick Taylor, of "scientific management" fame and a key player in the development of industrial engineering. So, behind the armor plate of BB NJ -- as you move up the supply chain, so to speak -- is a supplier with strong and noble pedigree in American industrial history.
The quantity of unique castings on this vessel is utterly amazing. It would be amazing to talk to the project leads from back then. A testament to designing and building a complex machine before computers. The organization must have been truly amazing. A roughly six inch Acme lead screw to throw a 119 or so ton barrel up and down quickly and precisely too from the time before servo control of such things. I guess an extra ton to nearly ton and a half for the round as well once it is loaded and moving back to firing position. You can tell the cast parts on the ship by the texture, and there are lots of them. I hope a complete set of prints from when it was built still exist somewhere. These ships represented the pinnacle of engineering from the time when they were built. If you get the chance, you should definitely go and visit one of these ships as it is well worth the time and effort.
Servo control was around in the Navy during WW2, especially in fire control.
@@scottwatts3879 I just looked at New Jersey's gun elevators. I could not see the feedback mechanism from its motor and gear setup that I saw, but what you say does make sense. The signals had to get from the selected mechanical Mark 8 or other fire control computer to those motors and know the position in some way to fire accurately. The approximately 6 inch diameter Acme threaded lead screw that controlled that position was very impressive and looked pristine under its coating of cosmoline or something similar. It is pinned to the barrel and pulls it up and down about a pivot point. Very impressive looking to me for a 1941 construction.
Me Being a Metal fabricator, I can really appreciate this video, well done Ryan.......best regards from Florida, Paul
I am mostly listening to this, but when I glanced over I first thought that sign read, 'Ammunition for Sale.' Dang, that ship's store was really well stocked.
"Ammunition Far Side"
It’s weird that the section of the Turret 2 armor you’re leaning against looks almost like brickwork that’s sort of had a bit of stucco laid over it. With lateral lines a bit visible. In my mind it all just gives the armor, and therefore the ship, a bit of character.
ANY thing THAT large, and in my experience especially warships, is going to have differences between its peers. Even when built to a certain specification to (in theory & policy) be identical - there will be identifiable differences. She’s a grand old lady, and both like & unlike any other. Be sound, be well, and may God bless the USS New Jersey (BB-62) and all those aboard her.
The imperfections from the cooling makes a lot of sense. Having done too much hard facing for crushing equipment with GMAW and stick I've seen a lot of cracks. I've dabbled with face hardening on sheet steel and forging knife blades and had my few paltry attempts crack in the oil. Metal is a funny beast. Can't imagine 11 to 17 inches of the stuff. I mean, watch forged in fire.
If you think forged in fire looks hard, you should meet a real blacksmith. There's a whole lot more to the trade than knives and axes.
@@RichieRichOverdrive I was talking more about the the cracks... I'm a terrible blacksmith, not allowed to stand next to a farrier, and half decent welder. 😅
Per Richard A. Landgraff, _Iowa_ and _New Jersey_ were built with Bethlehem Steel, the Carnegie-Illinois plant was slated for _Wisconsin_ and _Illinois_ & _Kentucky_ with _Missouri_ being built from Midvale plate - the stuff that delaminated and was dealt with in the 1980s.
He was the man. Messaged him on a forum years ago before his death. A great wealth of info before his death
Always wanted to go to Bethlehem
Then there's the Bismarck. More than eighty years underwater, and still smacking
@@mrabintom yes, Bismarck, a broken spine, no guns, and the ass is missing. Grand example.
I saw the crack several times while I was working USS Missouri reactivation. As I remember, it was on the #3 barbette. Second deck, port side passageway going aft until you get through the door where the aft part of the barbette was and just look up. I also remember one side of the crack was higher than the other.. It would have had to been ground down to keep the round shape. I knew Dick Landgraff well (contributed a number of items to his book) but I don't remember ever chatting with him about the barbette. With Dick there was never a short answer to any question
Never heard of that story, but if I had been on the tour and saw those "cracks" you may catch me looking at them and possibly trying to determine if they are jagged, smooth or if it is just chipped.
Mainly because a simple rule you can go by is if the edges of metal that is cracked is jagged and not a smooth line, it has been broken by overstress, meaning a lot of force broke it apart.
If it is smooth it could be done by fatigue, the same forces that you can experience if you bend a paperclip back and forth until it breaks.
And finally chips, which could be casting imperfections, impact dents and what not.
For all those who believe the cracks were from the grounding event where cables were wrapped around the barbette, to put this in perspective, the cables were on the order of 2 inches diameter while the barbette was a tube, 10s of feet in diameter and 11 to 17 inches thick. The cables would have broken long before any damage could have been done to the barbette.
I'm pretty sure the belt armor plate is much smoother because of a combination of it being forged after casting and the grinding work that would have been done to bring the slabs to final dimensions. Such processes could not be reasonably done on a curved surface as large as the barbette, so the cast surface finish remains. Bear in mind this is my best guess based off of info from Drachinfel's video on armor and my knowledge as a former navy nuclear operator.
Edit: The lack of forging could explain the cracking as well. The forging would have collapsed any voids or cracks present. Cast the part oversize, forge it to consolidate the material, heat treat/carbeurize, then grind to final shape.
My father was a plank owner on USS Wisconsin, serving from her commissioning in 44 till she was first mothballed in 48. He was in Damage Control. He often told me that when they first fired the 16” guns, “they cracked the barbetts “. I’m sure he was NOT referring to the surface casting imperfections shown in this video. He added that this happened while they were under way and that they flew Navy Yard welders out to meet the ship on the west coast and they made the repairs there, after transiting the Panama Canal. I always assumed that he would have been referring to some other aspect of the barbett besides the armor itself, but he always insisted that the material was extremely hard and difficult to weld and thus they brought the welders who did the welding originally. Dad left the Navy in 48 and resumed his career in Westinghouse near Philly where he was born and raised, where he worked on large gas turbines so he was very familiar with heavy weldments. I wish I would have asked him more details about this, which turret, where the cracks were, etc. We did tour the New Jersey , Wisconsin, and North Carolina together and he was the best tour guide a son of a Battleship Sailor could ever have!
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Alabama’s Turret I barbette has a similar, but smaller, crack like Missouri’s. Other comments here have mentioned one on Massachusetts as well. Interesting since BB59 and 60 were built at different yards.
A’s crack can be seen on second deck, port quarter of the barbette, close to the deck, for those interested!
You definately know you're stuff Ryan. You are a wealth of knowledge.
The larger the casting, the more imperfections.
Great Video Brother, Thanks for everything!
I would love a video on the making of the armor, particularly focusing on which mills did this.
Check out the "drachinifel" channel, he covers British battleships and has a few good videos about armor development.
@@NotchEvident he is great with a heavy British bias.
Have a look at the channel Periscope Film They have tons of old forgotten prome / school / military films on You Tube.
Bethlehem steel has some great videos about steelwork that gives a glimpse into just how monumental making it was..... another great rabbit hole is the massive mesta forges used to build our military gear and there's a great documentary on here for them too
I would also enjoy hearing about this.
Im going to see the USS Massachusetts soon, I'll have to see if i notice any cracking on her barbettes. She was built at the old Fore River Shipyard.
Wrapped up in 25 seconds. Nicely done.
Ryan the local Philly newspaper " METRO" just had a great two page story on the NJ and mentioned you. Somebody should start a petition to have the History Channel to either hire you or at least pay you big bucks to produce a several hour long video on the most decorated battleship during WW 2. They said that so far you have created over 800 videos on this great ship. WOW. I've watched well over a hundred of your vids and why being an Army vet found every one of your vids very informative. Surprised the Navy did not have sailors grind out the casting dins them spit polish it
You sir are a wealth of knowledge. Thank you for sharing.
My first guess: different thicknesses coupled with cooling at different rates during casting process causing in stresses that result in the odd crack. It would be a huge PITA to pump that much heat into the mould and wrap it appropriately to trap it in so that it can be cooled slowly and evenly. I'm glad Megan's regarding Missouri answer coincides with my thoughts. Thanks Ryan!
I'm amazed that people try to make NEW JERSEY's cracks into battle damage. I suppose these are people who have never worked on steel ships or lived in concrete or steel buildings... MISSOURI's cracks are much more understandable because of their large surface area.
Thanks for finding that old interview footage--very nice to have that in the video!
Great video from the battleship.
Great videos as always !!
Thanks !
Some machine tools ( milling machines / lathes and other tools ) frequently have cast steel frames. It is super common to use auto body filler ( polyester resin ) to smooth out the surface before painting.
Bulldozer frames and excavator counterweights are often the same way, even in the case of concrete filled counterweights where the steel isn't even particularly thick.
I'm no expert by any means but I did work in a steel mill. I was in crane repair not in production. The mill I worked in made coil steel from cast slabs that were 7 by 30 feet by 10 inches thick. Part of the process involved scarfing off impurities ( mill scale or slag ) which, if not removed would, leave defects when the coil steel was formed. The scarfers would use oxygen lances to cut those impurities out of the slabs. They would move back and forth along the slab with their lances cutting a few inches at a time off of the surface of the slab. Scarfing would leave rows of marks where the lances gouged out the impurities. Your armor plate looks very similar to that of the slabs used to make coils. My thoughts are that they followed the same regimen to get a smoother surface that could also show any major defects. It is also a possibility that a defect could have caused Missouri's cracks. In welding it's commonly known that a crack can propigate from a defect in a weld so it stands to reason that it would be a concern in large armor plating.
my great uncle worked for Midvale plate during the war and my grandfather at Philly shipyard. Both wanted to fight but were denied because of their jobs and skills were too valuable.
Anyway the reason for the background is I was told several times that Missouri would have had the cracked barbette recast but being at war they didn't.
Great work team! I watched the movie Shooter the other day, part of it was around Philly area. Pretty sure New Jersey had a brief bit of advertising. I could be wrong though, was cool to see regardless.
Makes more sense than cracking from running aground, only extremely brittle metal would crack from a grounding, and if armor is that brittle, it would be useless as armor. Anything that is cooled too fast will crack. If you can imagine the amount of heat the casting gives off and being up to 17" thick, it has to cool down slowly to prevent cracks. Metal shrinks when it cools, so the outer layer cooling faster than the inner will cause the metal to shrink on the outside and therefore, crack.
Interesting , Thank You.
Massachusetts (BB-59) has similar cracks in her barbettes.
It makes perfect sense that Missouri's armor would have cracking from manufacturing. It was war time and the steel mill probably didn't cool the casting perfectly. In the end it was structurally fine and like mentioned a long lead time item. Use it. I see defects in small arms parts all the time from WW2. The M1 rifle often has cosmetic defects in the gas cylinders and receivers. None of which effect the final product.
Loved his own little laugh and giggle lol
Thank you for this Video and discussing this Topic . It takes care of some of those Rumors . Like the one about Steven Seagal .
Good video keep up th good work👍
I heard that the Missouri's barbette was cracked when she was battling a alien spacecraft and had to drop anchor to make a sudden turn in order to avoid incoming fire. Any truth to that?
Well they did make a whole documentary about that event.
Similar to what happened to the Space Battleship Yamato (love that ship).
Good job
Landgraff had us in Design (shop 300), research & find the correct filler/epoxy for the cracks, and there’s a lot more cracks than just that one. Unfortunately, the filler they picked, wouldn’t take paint at all, and Landgraff, who wasn’t worried about structural issues, as much as appearance, probably because the ship was so old. His idea was to have it smoothed and painted, but that red kept coming thru, & he wasn’t happy with the result, I was told. If you inspect it today, I dare you to find a sliver of a crack remaining. That stuff worked!
A video on the rope wrapping of pipes would be interesting. When and why it started and if it’s done today for a reason or simply tradition.
Sounds like during wartime rushing they really meant "close enough for government work"!
More like "get it out the door"
Missouri does actually have a little bit of battle damage that you can see though. On the right side towards the stern of the ship a kamikaze hit the hull a little below the rail there and you can see a noticeable dent in the hull there. I have pictures of it on my phone. Wish there was some way I could share them on here haha.
I would love to see a video about the making of the barbettes. Are they cast as one piece? Are they stacked rings? How did they move such large pieces from the foundry to the ship yard? What is the single heaviest part of the ship and how was it moved into place?
Not sure about the rings, but, at least with the two built in Philly the pieces were loaded on trains in Bethlehem PA and taken by rail to the shipyard. A neighbor of mine had worked 35 years at Bethlehem Steel and his father worked there before and during the war. He had pictures of some of the parts being made and being loaded on train cars. At that time the plant was literally hundreds of buildings that made thousands of different parts for ships.
@@johnstark4723 The armor diagram shown of p. 170 of Sumrall (1988) indicates that the upper barbettes for turrets II and III were assemblies of 11 individual armor plates, while turret I was made up of seven individual plates.
@@tomkunkle318 and? They were shipped by rail🙄 whether assembled or just the pieces they went by rail. I have seen photos of slabs on rail cars that were assembled in Philadelphia and then I have also seen where they had things like 20mm gun tubs complete with the tub and gun mount. Once at Philadelphia a crane lifts the whole gun tub into place. Then at fitting out the guns were added.
@@johnstark4723 It would be fun to know how the individual segments were erected and joined to form a barbette. Sumrall (1988 p. 33) shows a picture of New Jersey during outfit with a wooden "former" in place for aligning and holding the five segments of the conning tower armor while they were welded together in place. Perhaps something similar was done for the barbette armor? Some day when I get around to it I'll search for construction pictures showing barbette erection.
Just to beat this to death, the individual segments of the BB61 turret II barbette armor can be seen in www.navsource.org/archives/01/016181.jpg
I thought Missouri was the only Iowa with cracks... due to the heat treatment of the armor. Inspected in the early 80s, sample taken, and then disguised with epoxy.
I guess you say disguised and the curators say "no effect on function".
Lol, nailed it.
I was looking at some old photos and there were a few of you and I talking on the Sloop of War Constilation in Inner Harbor Baltimore. I thought it was neat my late wife caught that.
And temperature gradients. A curved shape cools more unevenly than a flat shape, causing cracks. Also, a couple of, essentially, surface scratches on an 18 inch thick, God know's how many ton, curved plate ain't half bad!
Sumrall (1988 pp.127 and 129) indicates that the upper barbettes are assemblies of segments of Class A heavy armor of thicknesses ranging from 17.3 to 11.6 inches. Perhaps that "crack" you're standing next to is just one of the joints between armor segments?
As in most all cast metals impurities in the sand will show in the final product such as stones and rocks will showup especially when the finished product is painted white.
In glassware the striations you are talking about are called 'straw marks'.
casting these large fixtures is always a challenge. Warch casting a bell video to see how hard it is to get the right density and consistency
As a CNC operator I work with cast steel a lot and these sorts of imperfections in the surface is quite normal but im not quite sure what exactly causes it. My pieces are only 800-1600kg though.
The only turret barbette battleship damage I've heard about was the damage South Dakota had. Makes me wonder if that's why the ship was not made into a museum ship.
That's unlikely. Take this with a bag of salt because I could be wrong.I understand that when the USN was disposing of the battleships they offered to sell them to the named states. A state like South Dakota is unlikely to have taken the navy's offer while states like Texas and New Jersey did and why those ships became museum ships.
Land locked states really don't have much of an option .
@@kaymish6178 specifically with South Dakota, I do believe the state retained part of the superstructure and a gun or two. I'd have to go look it up, but yeah, you're correct, land locked states generally don't retain their ships. The Iowas being the exception.
@@jameskee2412 You’re right. The BB57 memorial in Sioux Falls has a small museum and some parts (a gun barrel, prop, port battle bridge door, mast, etc) inside a full-size outline of the ship. Pretty impressive in the satellite images online.
I think Lukens Steel in Coatesville, PA made some of the armor for the battleships.
Nice
Hi Ryan it's Ryan. Question for a future video, is there a lucky shot spot in New Jersey. Like a Hood type scenario. Love the channel you're the best!
I remember that interview
I saw the video on the artillery strike that killed the sailor on the ship during the Korean War. Is there a video on all the hits it took in combat? Or are the incidents laid out in different videos?If so, which ones?
kay. now that you've said the nj's cracks aren't from war damage, how about a show that details where the ship took hits, when, and what repairs had to be made
You know what they say: "Grinder and paint makes me the welder I ain't."
Could you do a video on the only causalities on the NJ? I believe they were from artillery fire during the Korean War.
Thanks Ryan
Anyone know the purpose of the cord that is wrapped around the pipe that he is standing next to?
A little Flex-Seal will fix those cracks right up!
IIRC. this was an issue with all post-Washington Treaty US Battleships.
The surface finish on the cast armor plate is also due to the poring process , look at the rough surface finish on cast steam locomotive frames like UP4004 etc and the roughness is due to making the molten metal flow into the mold , smoothness hinders the flow of metal , apparently it is now a lost art, would have tobe relearned
I think that, technically, the distortions in the armor would have some effect but it's one of those things where it would only matter for a 1 in a million shot and if that happens you just have to accept that it was destiny.
Gosh, and I thought those scars were from careless handling when equipment was moved in or out. ;)
The after turret of the USS South Dakota was struck by a 14" AP projectile from IJN Kirishima in one of the naval battles off Guadalcanal late 1942....
The shell evidently struck the junction between the armored deck and the barbette, bending the armored decking downwards and putting a king size dent in the barbette. There was no gouging visible, or spalling of the armor; it functioned perfectly as designed, absorbint the energy of the hit by plastic deformation. The turret was put out of commission by the shock. I can only imagine what the turret crew thought about this.....They all survived.
It would have been nice to have forged and machined the armor plate however, the forging dies would have been very costly.
Only US ship with battle damage crack I saw was on the North Carolina. It was torpedo damage from a long lance.
North Carolina hit by a Submarine torpedo. They were not the "long lance"
@@craigplatel813 True it was a type 95 which was based of the Long lance made for sub use.
By the way the Japanese didn't call the Long lance. They were called oxygen torpedo. It was Morrison after the war that called them the long lance.
👍👍👍
We had the conversation on BB-60 by Barbette 1 lol
Does the poop deck have a crack?
I had heard about it before, and that it was part of the manufacturing process.
As someone who's seem planty of cracked steel, I don't see cracks in that plate. Just some pockmarks and rough casting marks, to scale with it's size.
I've heard that same story about the crack. It might be Landgraff's book where he talks about smoothing out Missouri's barbette so people would stop asking about it. I think his book has the same picture of the crack with the epoxy that you showed in the video.
Langraff's book is entitled "The History of the Long Beach Naval Shipyard." Tough book to find; you may have to use your library inter loan system but worth the hunt. Many stories in addition to his experience with the Iowa's.
@@scottspilis1940 Amazon US has it in stock. It appears to be the first revision yellow cover. I'm not sure where to find the second edition white cover. According to Mr. Landgraff, he set things up just before he died so the Pacific Battleship Center (USS Iowa) would get the proceeds for his book, so it's a good purchase.
Cool
Missouri received that crack in her turret barbet when she was briefly serving with the Mediterranean squadron during the winter of 1943. Italian war ace Enzo Ferrari took credit for strafing and bombing Missouri when he wrote his memoirs in 1959. He was quoted as stating it was the finest hour of his military career.
Missouri was not commissioned until June of 1944 and never served in the Med in World War II.
@@scottspilis1940 LOL! Gotcha! Hook line and sinker! I made all that stuff up. Enzo Ferrari never flew planes in world war two. Bullshitting can sometimes be very fun!
@@BlindMansRevenge2002 The best bullshitting has enough elements of truth in it to make it believable at first glance.
Did somebody really ask if it cracked from running aground? “Experts” on a tour must be a challenge. I had something like that showing schooners to people. One fellow insisted that our painted brown aluminum masts were not that but actually wood. Our boat and our fake wood aluminum masts but no, he knew. A type of hardwood. People are funny. 😄😂
The guy was sorta right. Aluminum would make for a hard wood.
BB New Jersey was only in service for approx. 17 years
why not just fill the cracks in with a mig welder then grind smooth and paint?
Maybe because MIG welding wasn't a thing back in the 40's.
Cracking due to grounding - the impact required to crack the armoured barbettes from running aground would have resulted in catastrophic damage to the lesser armoured plate and shell plating!
They probably used Belzona to cover the barbette crack in Missouri
What I was told concerning the crack on Missouri was the “Mighty Mo” fought an epic battle with an alien scout ship that was docked at Tokashiki Island. The scout ship ferried a diplomatic delegation from the Garthto Empire, a warlike alien race from the planet Proxima b in the Alpha Centauri system. The Garthto desired to start diplomatic relations with the Japanese Empire, whom they monitored from afar and felt a kinship to. Included in the delegation was the the beautiful Princess Aera, the only daughter to the Garthto Emperor. Even though the scout ship’s laser cannon rendered turret 3 non-operational, the Missouri was able to fire multiple savo’s from her 16 inch guns and destroy the scout ship and kill everyone in Garthto delegation party including Princess Aera. The Garthto emperor was so saddened and heart-broken by the loss of his only daughter, he vowed “No Garthto shall ever enter the Terrian system ever again!” The US government was desperate to hide any knowledge that an advanced alien civilization may be aiding the Japanese Empire, all photos and records of the battle were destroyed and the officers and crew of the Missouri was threatened with the death penalty if anyone spoke of the battle. After the Tokashiki Island was liberated from the Japanese, wreckage of the Garthto’s scout ship was sent to a small remote town in New Mexico called Roswell for technical study.
It's funny you say that, because I actually saw a documentary recently where the mighty Mo fought an alien ship off of Oahu, Hawaii. The ship had destroyed all the modern tin cans so they brought out the battleship to take care of business. It's pretty wild how that ship can come back to like in about 15 minutes of work but just a few old people. At least that's what happened in the documentary. 😂
Isn't Missouri the only Iowa class battleship with battle damage and that's from USS Jarret's phalanx system
Ryan, that looks more like a weld than a crack? I must be missing something?
A grounding would "lift" the barbette" as they were gravity fixed.....kinda like those Russian "jack-in-the-box" tank explosions, and I can't imagine any welder from this planet agree to "try" weld 17" steel.....that would be one helluva thick welding rod.
Massachusetts' barbettes are much smoother as far as I've seen
👍👊😎
Brilliant stuff despite how I despise the way you say Missouri
“It depends” 😃
That's a lot of low background steel there, no matter where it was made.
Great explanations and nice to have Missouri's curator confirm the facts. A few questions arise. Was a barbette on the 1940 and newer battleships cast as a single piece or were they done in sections as the gun house was? Were the screws that held the gun house armor on also armor quality steel and do you have any spares you could give a presentation on?
The armor diagram shown of p. 170 of Sumrall (1988) indicates that the upper barbettes for turrets II and III were assemblies of 11 individual armor plates, while turret I was made up of seven individual plates.
Will always boggle my mind that we were making steel armor over 1 foot thick over 100 years ago.
look up "15 inch Columbiad" and check out the size of cannon we we casting during the Civil War if you are interested in large castings. And that was 155 years ago.