I worked a block away from the USS Intrepid for 10 years and I always assumed that those portholes were for ventilation because of the hanger deck. Thanks for clarifying that for me
There's actually quite a bit of stuff in between these ports and the main part of the hangar deck; immediately after and below Secondary Conn are the forecastle and the anchor windlass compartment, then a whole mess of Junion Officer Berthing, heads and such. THEN the whole Elevator One deal, the after side of which faces onto the foremost hangar bay. No space is wasted; there's something crammed in EVERYWHERE. (EDIT: at least on Hornet, I assume Intrepid is essentially the same.)
Last time I was on Intrepid (many years ago), they had opened up the forecastle area and you could see the anchor chains. I had no idea there was anything above the forecastle on an Essex class!
The fwd conning station was a little further aft before the ship was modernized and given a closed bow and angled flightdeck. The bow was originally open and a couple quad 40mm were at the point. Several Essex class in heavy weather has the front corners of the flightdeck bent down from huge waves. Lots of pictures around. Don't know about carriers, but I was a helmsman on several WWII built destroyers and a DLG. The Fletchers had a single rudder. Sumners and newer classes had twin rudders directly in the path of the props. Twin rudders give more control, make it easier to steer a straight course and much easier to steer alongside a tanker. If power is out, turning the rudder by hand is very difficult and slow. Moving 5° takes several minutes. It's better to put the rudder amidship and steer with engines.
I was just touring the Yorktown two days ago, in Charleston South Carolina. I was very surprised to find A steering position near the torpedo arming room berthing compartment. Very cool to see you discuss this just days after I saw it. Watching this channel helped me understand why there would be a steering position in such a seemingly random location.
I can confirm that such a double crank does exist for the Wasp class. If a single sailor is cranking it is 64 turns per degree, two sailors doubles the speed, and there is of course a set of these double pumps for each of the two rudders. Training specified they were only used for centering the power-disabled rudder and not for steering.
That is the first compartment I restored back in 1999-2000. The wheel you are leaning on belonged to the USS Bennington. Oh, I noticed you didn't turn the latch to close that chart drawer. Just sayin' as not much gets past my eye when walking into restored spaces. I'll turn it closed next week. Just giving you a hard time as anytime a knob or switch is moved I will notice it. Good to meet you...
It was nice having you on board, I just wish I had more of chance to talk to besides "hi, bye" on Sunday morning. Hope you guys get a chance to come back out some time soon.
I love that space on Hornet. Took my dad to see her, he had served on USS Bon Homme Richard in 1961, the Hornet Museum staff treated him like visiting royalty. I highly recommend going to see her.
I suspect more steering positions in single rudder ships has to do with assessed risk. Smaller ships like Salem are more apt to take damage from shells in a number of places and are less significantly armored so you need more redundancy to maintain steering. In the case of a carrier bomb/kamikaze/missiles, can strike anywhere and while they are rather large and have bulkheads they are not armored in the same way. In a battleship a number of the redundant steering positions are tucked away in rather armored places that if they are inoperable, your probably steering the ship to the bottom anyway.
On a frigate, we had the bridge, and the steering equipment room. In the steering equipment room there were several ways to move the rudder, from a duplicate steering wheel all the way down to a ginormous wrench that could be fitted to the rudder post and swung back and forth with a couple of chainfalls.
The hurricane bow is a post war modification. If the Essex Class was built with the auxillary steering position in this location then it was probably much smaller as built.
I wonder about that as well. I’ve been in this space on Hornet years ago and I have to wonder if this was a post modernization addition as I can’t imagine the steering gear being exposed to the environment when it was an open bow.
@Ryan -- SUGGESTION -- publish an owner's manual. Jazz it up like a new car owner's manual. Have some fun with it. Even include sections on maintenance, like how to reline a main battery barrel.
I used to work on the Hornet while in high school as part of the Safety Division. It was fun riding the central elevator and going through p-ways not open to the public yet. My fav memory was operating the targeting computer and manually traversing the forward starboard 5 inch
3:40 if i had to take a guess i would say that because of the armor on the Iowa class battleships they simply decided that the ship was well protected enough that they had a reasonable margin of safety with only 4 positions, where as any other ship can be disabled by much less firepower.
In her battle with H.M.S. Java her ship's wheel not her rudder was shot away. After her victory, they took Java's double wheel over. From that point on, she had a double wheel, Java's wheel is now in the U.S.F. Constitution Museum, she now has a reproduction on board.
While on the USS Tulare LKA 112, my sea and anchor station was after Steering, also my underway watch station. There was a large wheel there that operated a manual hydraulic pump to steer the ship. Always two people on watch, a boatswain mate and an engineman. We both had to be able to steer from that position.
a friend of mine long ago,,,,was the steersman on an aircraft carrier in WWII,,,he sat waay to the rear i think directly above the 4 rudders in a small room. In front of him was a dial with two hands. One was connected to the bridge and turned there to tell him which way they wanted the rudder to go. The other hand on the same dial told him the current direction the rudders were pointed. Behind him were 4 large diesel engines with steering gear and clutches. Engines just idled most of the time, but when his indicator pointed to a new direction, then he would turn his large steering wheel to the new direction and all 4 engines would rev up and labor as they swung their respective rudder to the new direction. When they all got aligned, the engines went back to idle until he made another correction....a very noisy and boring mission to be for many hours at sea. I dont know how long each shift was but they did have several steersmen at hand so they could switch around
MY 2 FAVORITE ARE THE Brooklyn Naval Yard & Philadelphia. I did have an opportunity to visit the Philadelphia Naval yard in the early 90s. I was amazed of No Security, I just drove and delivered supplies for the machine shop still operating there. And while they're were unloading the truck, I walked all over the yard. And seen 2 of the Iowas there, NJ and Wisconsin, and 2 carriers. And if course a whole fleet of destroyers and supply ships. The rest if the yard, where the rail cars would come was completely empty-Nada nothing but timbers tossed around, wish I can locate the pics I took
I served onboard CV-67 USS John F. Kennedy ships company. While in the Portsmouth Va. shipyard a buddy and I were able to check out the forward con. The forward con compartment was about 1/3 the size of an Essex class carrier. I remember it well. Pretty amazed at how big the Essex class forward con is. Good video Ryan!
From looking at early photos, that space did not exist before the FRAM (SCB125) that added the Hurricane Bow on the Essex Class carriers. While not all the Essex Class got the Hurricane Bow, all the existing museum Essex Class have that FRAM The space right behind the forward steering are the Aviator JO Bunkrooms, one port and one starboard (right under the cats. We could lay in our bunks and count the catapult shots.
I'm thinking the single rudder is easier to add control's to then dual rudder ships because you would have to add double as much for both rudder's adding weight and taking up space.
I spent many hours steering a Coast Guard cutter from the bridge in the 1970s. However, we did not use a wheel. I sat in a comfortable seat and there was a lever about 10 inches long. I would move it to the right for right rudder and left for left rudder. In front of me was the gyro compass, so I could determine the heading and if the command was "right rudder 10 degrees to bearing 090, it was easily done. What is also interesting was when we were at general quarters drill, my job was to be in aftersteering, locked in to a crowded compartment. On our ship this was located in the stern below decks. The bridge would transfer authority to us (for practice) and there were hydraulics there (hydraulic rams connected directly to the rudder) and hydraulic pumps running. Our job in after steering in an emergency was to be able to steer the ship if the bridge control became inoperative.
Having served on the USS Essex LHD-2, I've been in the forward conning station and the 2 "windows" are to see out of it. I also stood after steering watch which is in the steering gear rooms (each rudder has it's own steering gear room).
That space is primarily Repair One, I think, but it still has all of the required sound powered phone circuits, plus nice, big portholes, of course, so you could command the ship from there.
When I was on the USS John F. Kennedy CV-67 this was my Battle Station. Many stories I could tell you from those memories... From getting in trouble for shooting paper airplanes out the front portholes. Even though they weren't having fight ops at the time. The executive officer (2nd in charge) was in charge of the space. Our Secondary Con Station was about half to ⅓ the size of this. I just had my toolbelt on all the time in case one of our devices wasn't working. I steered the ship once. Nothing like a car or a truck. He showed me the heading and said steer in that direction. There was a severe lack of feeling with the ship and the now would drift left or right up to 6 or 8 degrees while trying to correct and I didn't have a enough time to learn and get the hang of how much drift to understand which angle is when you start to compensate. It was nerve wracking as everyone is watching you and you literally have the helm of the ship and thinking about the whole ship and crew and if they had to steady themselves going about their business. It felt like to me that I could feel like I was tilting the ship but it was probably my imagination. I had to go to GQ the night we crashed into the USS Belknap because they had an inexperienced person on the bridge but I know the Captain wasn't on the bridge. An Aircraft Carrier has the right away on the sea to shoot planes off in the wind (not to mention super common sense is that is a huge super heavy ship cruising around your ship supposedly there with all the other ships in the surrounding area to support the Carrier and the rest of the group. Well, war games or practicing for action has it's share of problems. The Belknap kept saying "wait one" while trying to make a decision. I don't know but I would just steer clear of the Carrier. I believe 6 died on the Belknap and one on the Kennedy... Lots of destruction... Very sad. We searched for crew members and the flames were as high as the superstructure with magnesium sparks and a blueness as the flames of these explosions looked horrifying... We were in the Mediterranean and even the flight deck around the angle was warped and bent but they extended our 6 months an extra month. We weren't happy about that but we just went on with our work.
_USS Kitty Hawk_ had an a space in the same place. I never went in there, as the water tight doors were locked during my 1996-2000 tour, but the space _was_ there. I doubt it was an aux conn position, as the _Kitty Hawk_ was built with provisions for bridle launch, so more likely that small space was for that. There was a passageway that went around it, part of the O3 level passageway. Nimitz class do _not_ have an aux con space there, the space that would be taken up by that compartment would be part of a 200 man berthing, which is usually Air Department.
Agreed. When I served on Carl Vinson CVN-70, the bow portholes are there, but it's a berthing. You have to deal with the cat launches to get to have windows. :D
I would think that the single ruder ships steering controls are less complex than ships with 2 Ryder’s, thus you can more easily create multiple locations to steer from.
Not really. Both rudders were controlled by the same circuit. Most ships with 2 rudders (such as New Jersey) had several steering control stations. The cruise I was on with 1 rudder had 2 steering stations. I don't think there is really any correlation.
If you collect all the control inputs in one place (double it for redundancy) and from there send out the control signal to the hydraulic valves on the rudder actuators, you can hook up as many inputs as you want without adding complexity downstream. If you insist on hooking up every actuator individually with every control station, you just created yourself a maintenance and reliability nightmare. 😅
The only real benefit you get from one rudder is (maybe) making it at least _possible_ to manually move the rudder under human power, either mechanically or by manning a manual hydraulic pump with a separate hydraulic circuit to the main circuit
On a tiger cruise in the 80s, i got to steer the USS Nimitz what felt like quite a while. i have a 'certificate' with the lat/lon where we were around here somewhere.
i don't remember if it was solid like the Intrepid one shown in this video, but it was a big wheel like that, with tons of readouts for heading and other info above/in front of it.
They had a working hand crank hooked up to a steering gear with no rudder when J went through "A" school that we were required to operate for functional experience. It not only requires 100 turns to move 1° it requires that both sailors match rotation speed.
My son served on the GW and his rack was in the bow right by the emergency steering station. This is where the people that worked the forward catapults bunked.
the radar repeater is a AN/SPA-25. Go look at WW2 pictures of the Essex class -without the hurricane bow- I think originally this location was not present.
I was on several carriers. The oldest was CVA 60 Saratoga. It and the newer ones did not have steering in the bow. There are portholes but no place to put anything up there. Just frames a foot or so apart. The island has several decks. I never saw any sort of aft steering either as my berthing was back there in CVAN 69.
You could run chains up on deck to have sailors manhandle the rudder, but on a carrier I think it would be easier to hook them up to a few aircraft tractors. (At least in the jet age, when aircraft, and hence tractors, got heavier.)
Interesting notion. The capstans could provide adequate motive force if lines could be blocked into position. About a quarter million pounds pulling force.
Amphibious ships like Dock Landing Ships, and Frigates, and Destroyer Tenders, all have just two steering stations - the bridge (or pilot house on the old LSDs that had open bridges and small pilot houses) and after steering. There were no secondary steering stations other than after steering. Perhaps because none of those ships were intended to take the beatings that battleships and carriers are expected to take. And somehow that reminds me of a recent video where you were discussing how to find the power panels for electrical circuits. There *should* be a metal tag on each cable at each junction box giving the location of the power supply. After 70 years, though, and multiple modernizations, who knows?
I've never seen anything reported on the number of officers and enlisted on the ship. It comes up in relation to my dad's service on the North Carolina. He was a newbie Ensign on board in Damage Control when the war ended. He said that he had been to every possible part of the ship. He also said that he was "in charge of Damage Control". That hardly seems possible for such an important section. I learned that the complement of a battleship was about 1,800. How were they disbursed, what were the department names, who commanded them by rank, how many officers and enlisted in each department? I recently learned that there are at least 5 O-6 "Captains" aboard an aircraft carrier, responsible for major activities. WHAT did that org chart look like? Was it the same on a battleship? Again, no data available. Thx in advance.
I don't think the number of steering positions is determined by the number or rudders, I think it is more a function of how much damage it takes to knock each one out. If you are managing to knock out the backup conns on an Iowa, you have probably basically sank the ship. A more lightly armored vessel, especially an aircraft carrier, is more likely to have it's secondary and tertiary backup steering positions disabled by fire or damage. A destroyer I would expect to have fewer, for similar reasons to the battleship, ie. if you are hitting it hard enough to knock out multiple backups, you are hitting it hard enough to sink the ship.
In battle, the island and more specifically the bridge are prime targets. They are also pretty easy to hit since they are so exposed. So of course there's a fully functional back up.
With a single rudder the ship can travel in only one direction at a time. With two rudders a ship can travel in two directions at once. That’s why ships with two rudders need fewer steering positions.
I believe that during GQ the Captain go to the CIC. That's where they can see all the information. The bridge has a better view, but in this day and age that doesn't really help much. I don't know where the XO goes. Also, if there are chains used to operate the tiller in an emergency, how would those chains go to the flight deck. And if they did go there, that would end flight ops. It seems it would be better just going to the main deck where there is a straight shot down the ship from the stern to the bow. They would have to open all the water-tight doors though.
@@randyfant2588 It all depends who you listen too. Midway was it's own class. The Roosevelt and the Coral Sea were commissioned before the Midway. They also had slightly different hulls. Midway could carry the F-14 but we could not.
Future story, if you haven't already done it. How are all of those charts organized? Latitude and Longitude? Areas of interest, regions, navigators choice?
Forrestal IIRC had an unusual layout I think it it was three, something I learned from a random picture I saw. Obviously wasn't worth the effort because it wasn't done anywhere else. I love how CVN-65's forward two just kind of stick out at an angle. I wonder how well that worked in practice, I've seen videos of the Nimitz class doing those crazy turns at full power, nothing like that online for Big E. Pity, I'd have loved to see what she could do opened up.
I was on the bridge of the Enterprise CVAN65 in 1972 when we came out of Hunters Point Naval Shipyard in San Francisco. We were conducting high speed turns. it was truly an amazing experience to be on the bridge and see the flight deck go from aLevel flat plane to a steep angle to starboard and the sing back over to port! I'm 70 years old now and it's something I'll never forget! ATB Sam Adler
Guessing it would not be considered ideal to have to leave the wheel to sound the collision alarm... pretty important to maintain continuous active control of steering at that point (I know that someone other than the helmsman could have been ordered to sound the alarm, but why introduce that delay when you could just put the alarm next to the person in that space most equipped to a) notice and b) do something about a threat of collision)
@@StacheMan26 exactly - I was (admittedly not very clearly) commenting on the fact that of the three alarms in the space the collision alarm is the only one on the wheelpost (where the helmsman could use it instantly), whereas the GQ and chemical warfare alarms are on the aft bulkhead (presumably the ranking officer in the space, who probably wouldn't be at the wheel themselves, would be more likely to sound these or order them sounded, as they're not directly to do with navigation)
the helmsman's one and only job is to maintain ships course by looking at gyro repeater. The officer of the deck is looking out the windows and sounding alarms.
The LST I was on had two rudders and one secondary steering position. That was after steering back over the rudders. I believe that the Fletcher class destroyers that I did reserve training cruises on also had only after steering as a secondary position. They also had two rudders. As a side note, the German battleship Bismarck had its rudders jammed by British aircraft which led to its destruction and sinking.
@@Knight6831 I stand corrected. Things I've read & videos I've watched, only ever said she had 1 rudder. Even Robert Ballard used the singular "rudder" when talking about his discovery of her & her sinking.
Yeah the Mark 12 torpedo that crippled Bismarck blew a hole in the starboard side and in all likelihood destroyed the starboard rudder but what happened to the port side rudder is unknown as we don't know if the port rudder was blown away by the torpedo explosion or was still attached until the sunken remains of Bismarck smashed into the side of the volcano
Before the enclosed hurricane bow was installed during her modernization, was the auxiliary steering an enclosed or open space? During her WW2 configuration, that space was open and 40MM gun emplacements were installed in that location. Can anyone shed some light on this?
They are all synchro based transmitters and receivers. If you aren’t familiar with synchros, they are synchronous motors where the shafts of the receiver units stay synchronized with the transmitter unit. The EOT order unit has an input knob that turns a synchro linked to a dial through all the standard bells (with detents to help positioning) and the answer unit in the engine room has a receiver synchro and dial to display the order. The answer unit also has a transmitter synchro connected to a receiver in the order unit so the engine room can acknowledge the order. There are some electrical switches contained within to ring a bell when the order and answer units don’t match.
I think there are couple of reasons why NJ has fewer redundant steering positions than Salem or Hornet. Firstly, NJ was much more heavily armoured than a cruiser of a carrier, and therefore it may have been assumed that (despite the design of the Iowas being designed by the Department of Redundancy Department) the chances of an individual steering position being knocked out were lower. Secondly, with a double-rudder ship, it may have been decided that the "Manual" hand-crank steering positions installed on single-rudder ships were either not feasible, or would have to be geared down so extremely that maneuvering with them would be essentially impossible, and therefore they were omitted.
I’ve had the opportunity to visit the USS Missouri on three occasions. Since you talked about the whistle, I’m wondering where it’s located on the ship.
I think the inherent redundancy of multiple rudders and their actuators / rooms / equipment in general means that less redundancy is required. These shipbuilders and the USN were extremely meticulous about redundancy and survivability, with infinite studies and data available to support any given choice. My guess is that it comes down to single-point-failures and total failures. The loss of one rudder is not considered a "total failure" - thus, you can instantly ignore the redundancy for such a failure when designing a ship. This does get tricky when you consider a failed rudder stuck hard-over to one direction and you absolutely must steer in the opposite direction (obviously not a huge issue in open waters, but certainly for obstacle avoidance or if you have to traverse to a specific location.)
Who is crewing a secondary con? (and all the other redundancy positions on the ship) Is there a bunch of sailors eternally twiddling their thumbs on the slim chance that they may have to do something one day?
Is there anyway to get into the USS JFK CV67? Now that would be a cool video. My dad served on it and I wish they weren't all being destroyed. Thanks for the cv video
That much open space on a ship makes me uncomfortable. I've been thrown around down below in rough weather, admittedly on much smaller boats. That's too much space to pick up speed before latching onto something Why the solid wheel and what's it made out of? Looks like brass?
"Chains" My first thought was to wonder if there was a manual intervention for steering. This is the Navy, I would suspect there would be. Chains seem unlikely due to weight, 200 men to carry the chains and 100 to turn the ship... They're also not user friendly for hands and fingers. Ropes seem possible even if only for show "and that's how we steer when the power goes out".
I think that because the battleship has more armour protection. They can lower the redundancy, because the wheelhouses are more protected. This is, i think, if you need more then 4 redundancy's. The ship is allready to damaged to function.
One steering position is necessary for a warship; one that is manned and working. How much redundancy that is needed to be reasonably likely to achieve that in foreseen circumstances, that I can't even estimate.
Good question. I was thinking if manned all that space would be a good spot for a large table and poker games. That space with chart tables radar repeater etc might be considered secondary conn and manned full time.
Ally Garcia class, fast frigate there’s only two places on the ship you can steer the bridge and aft, staring and that was the last compartment on the ship towards the stern
Is it the case that air operations require more accurate point of sail control than would be required for simply motoring around in a gun platform? If so, that might explain why the carriers have more redundant steering control than battleships. (I can't imagine landing on a carrier with a high angle crosswind is any fun at all.)
Carriers generally steer in to the wind and increase speed for flight operations as that increases airflow over the airplane wings and helps them generate more lift sooner. In regards to that point of sail question, with the aircraft being able to steer themselves to the carrier, it is those gun platforms which need the more accurate steering and navigation while calculating their own movement relative to their target's movement in order to direct gunfire to hit the target -- "If we are traveling at this speed on this many degrees compass bearing and our target is traveling at what looks to be that speed on that compass bearing then we need to angle our guns to ...". & "If our shore bombardment target is standing still and we are traveling at this speed on this many degrees compass bearing and the ocean or tidal current here where we are floating is that speed on that many degrees compass bearing, then when we add our vector and the water flow vectors together, what we need to do in order to hit that non-moving shore target is angle our guns to ..."
I cannot believe that space is that large. considering the Navy is always looking for someplace to use for storage or berthing I would think that space would be subdivided.
Hi Ryan, do all the various museum ships' curators tend to extent courtesy 'greater access' to one another, or is it something they particularly want YOU to have given this wonderful channel must be a great way to get more exposure for their ships and thus hopefully visitors? Not that the latter is anything other than exactly as one would hope; I'm sure you ALL want people to visit, not least because there's hardly much point in conserving them if nobody sees them. Cheers
Generally if someone from another ship calls folks will try and make their visit special. We like to sit around and talk about rust in addition to exploring the ship
@@BattleshipNewJersey LOL @ rust discussion. That could go on forever, couldn't it? Do you have an unofficial 'most' and 'least' rusty museum ship award every few years? Thanks for the reply, and thanks for another entertaining and informative vid. Cheers p.s. they're all entertaining and informative
More steering stations could be because a carrier is at higher risk of fire with all the aircrart then jet fuel as well as all the ordinance which unlike BBs is not confined in magazines then to the turrets but rather can be exposed on the flight deck or hanger deck. So more steering stations just in case. Some of those stations may be unusable in a massive fire, Think Franklin, Bunker Hill, Oriskany and Forrestal. The single rudder vs multiple rudders may be a simple matter of hull design. Or even something as petty as some guy who wore 4 stars in the 1940s at BuShips saying he wanted a single rudder.
When I was in the Navy in the 1980's. Got to go down to where the rudders came into the ship. There was what I was told was away to manually steer the ship. Took that with a grain of salt. As it appeared that you had to manually pump a hydraulic system. Not a job I would ever want.
With only one rudder, there is no back up if you lose steering, hence the multiple locations. With 2 rudders, the odds of losing both are slim necessitating less back ups.
So what did the men in the redundancy spaces do during general quarters? Were they literally just doubling everything the main bridge did until and unless needed? Was it the XO's job to come up with plan B? Was it used for training and quals? Were men assigned other nearby duties? It's hard to imagine the military "wasting" all that manpower in combat, even (especially) if the correct thing to do is to just let them do nothing until needed.
I worked a block away from the USS Intrepid for 10 years and I always assumed that those portholes were for ventilation because of the hanger deck. Thanks for clarifying that for me
There's actually quite a bit of stuff in between these ports and the main part of the hangar deck; immediately after and below Secondary Conn are the forecastle and the anchor windlass compartment, then a whole mess of Junion Officer Berthing, heads and such. THEN the whole Elevator One deal, the after side of which faces onto the foremost hangar bay. No space is wasted; there's something crammed in EVERYWHERE. (EDIT: at least on Hornet, I assume Intrepid is essentially the same.)
Last time I was on Intrepid (many years ago), they had opened up the forecastle area and you could see the anchor chains. I had no idea there was anything above the forecastle on an Essex class!
Hornet is my local museum ship and I have always wanted to see this space since I learned what it was. Thanks to Ryan and staff for the great video
It's my local museum ship as well, always wondered what they were. Was recently on the Midway and wondered the same.
And one of my local museum ships. Good to know we have a few locals. Next time I'm aboard I'll have to see if that space is open. It is a huge space.
The fwd conning station was a little further aft before the ship was modernized and given a closed bow and angled flightdeck. The bow was originally open and a couple quad 40mm were at the point. Several Essex class in heavy weather has the front corners of the flightdeck bent down from huge waves. Lots of pictures around. Don't know about carriers, but I was a helmsman on several WWII built destroyers and a DLG. The Fletchers had a single rudder. Sumners and newer classes had twin rudders directly in the path of the props. Twin rudders give more control, make it easier to steer a straight course and much easier to steer alongside a tanker. If power is out, turning the rudder by hand is very difficult and slow. Moving 5° takes several minutes. It's better to put the rudder amidship and steer with engines.
Fully
Concur.
I was just touring the Yorktown two days ago, in Charleston South Carolina. I was very surprised to find A steering position near the torpedo arming room berthing compartment. Very cool to see you discuss this just days after I saw it. Watching this channel helped me understand why there would be a steering position in such a seemingly random location.
I can confirm that such a double crank does exist for the Wasp class. If a single sailor is cranking it is 64 turns per degree, two sailors doubles the speed, and there is of course a set of these double pumps for each of the two rudders. Training specified they were only used for centering the power-disabled rudder and not for steering.
Hornet! In the mid 90's I was a scrape and paint volunteer in the Hornet. Good to see a part of the old Gal again. Thank you for what you do, Ryan!
That is the first compartment I restored back in 1999-2000. The wheel you are leaning on belonged to the USS Bennington. Oh, I noticed you didn't turn the latch to close that chart drawer. Just sayin' as not much gets past my eye when walking into restored spaces. I'll turn it closed next week. Just giving you a hard time as anytime a knob or switch is moved I will notice it. Good to meet you...
It was nice having you on board, I just wish I had more of chance to talk to besides "hi, bye" on Sunday morning. Hope you guys get a chance to come back out some time soon.
I love that space on Hornet. Took my dad to see her, he had served on USS Bon Homme Richard in 1961, the Hornet Museum staff treated him like visiting royalty. I highly recommend going to see her.
I suspect more steering positions in single rudder ships has to do with assessed risk. Smaller ships like Salem are more apt to take damage from shells in a number of places and are less significantly armored so you need more redundancy to maintain steering. In the case of a carrier bomb/kamikaze/missiles, can strike anywhere and while they are rather large and have bulkheads they are not armored in the same way. In a battleship a number of the redundant steering positions are tucked away in rather armored places that if they are inoperable, your probably steering the ship to the bottom anyway.
My grandfather was on U.S.S. Hornet during WWII, I will be visiting that museum, I didnt even know it was still floating.
There were two USS Hornets in WWII - this one is CV12, an Essex class. She’s named after CV8, a Yorktown class carrier that was sunk in 1942.
On a frigate, we had the bridge, and the steering equipment room. In the steering equipment room there were several ways to move the rudder, from a duplicate steering wheel all the way down to a ginormous wrench that could be fitted to the rudder post and swung back and forth with a couple of chainfalls.
When all else fails... Even with chain falls that must have taken some serious brute strength to move that thing.
The hurricane bow is a post war modification. If the Essex Class was built with the auxillary steering position in this location then it was probably much smaller as built.
I wonder about that as well. I’ve been in this space on Hornet years ago and I have to wonder if this was a post modernization addition as I can’t imagine the steering gear being exposed to the environment when it was an open bow.
Well! I've often wondered about those portholes. Figured they had something to do with mooring, but never suspected an alternate bridge. TNX!!
@Ryan -- SUGGESTION -- publish an owner's manual. Jazz it up like a new car owner's manual. Have some fun with it. Even include sections on maintenance, like how to reline a main battery barrel.
I used to work on the Hornet while in high school as part of the Safety Division. It was fun riding the central elevator and going through p-ways not open to the public yet. My fav memory was operating the targeting computer and manually traversing the forward starboard 5 inch
3:40 if i had to take a guess i would say that because of the armor on the Iowa class battleships they simply decided that the ship was well protected enough that they had a reasonable margin of safety with only 4 positions, where as any other ship can be disabled by much less firepower.
Iwo Jima class amphibious assault ships had similarly located secondary conns, and after steering helms.
In her battle with H.M.S. Java her ship's wheel not her rudder was shot away. After her victory, they took Java's double wheel over. From that point on, she had a double wheel, Java's wheel is now in the U.S.F. Constitution Museum, she now has a reproduction on board.
While on the USS Tulare LKA 112, my sea and anchor station was after Steering, also my underway watch station. There was a large wheel there that operated a manual hydraulic pump to steer the ship. Always two people on watch, a boatswain mate and an engineman. We both had to be able to steer from that position.
a friend of mine long ago,,,,was the steersman on an aircraft carrier in WWII,,,he sat waay to the rear i think directly above the 4 rudders in a small room. In front of him was a dial with two hands. One was connected to the bridge and turned there to tell him which way they wanted the rudder to go. The other hand on the same dial told him the current direction the rudders were pointed. Behind him were 4 large diesel engines with steering gear and clutches. Engines just idled most of the time, but when his indicator pointed to a new direction, then he would turn his large steering wheel to the new direction and all 4 engines would rev up and labor as they swung their respective rudder to the new direction. When they all got aligned, the engines went back to idle until he made another correction....a very noisy and boring mission to be for many hours at sea. I dont know how long each shift was but they did have several steersmen at hand so they could switch around
Landlubber here, impressed with the content and commentary!
MY 2 FAVORITE ARE THE Brooklyn Naval Yard & Philadelphia.
I did have an opportunity to visit the Philadelphia Naval yard in the early 90s. I was amazed of No Security, I just drove and delivered supplies for the machine shop still operating there. And while they're were unloading the truck, I walked all over the yard. And seen 2 of the Iowas there, NJ and Wisconsin, and 2 carriers. And if course a whole fleet of destroyers and supply ships. The rest if the yard, where the rail cars would come was completely empty-Nada nothing but timbers tossed around, wish I can locate the pics I took
I served onboard CV-67 USS John F. Kennedy ships company. While in the Portsmouth Va. shipyard a buddy and I were able to check out the forward con. The forward con compartment was about 1/3 the size of an Essex class carrier. I remember it well. Pretty amazed at how big the Essex class forward con is. Good video Ryan!
Glad to see the video. When I was onboard USS Lexington I knew this space existed but was never able to see it.
From looking at early photos, that space did not exist before the FRAM (SCB125) that added the Hurricane Bow on the Essex Class carriers. While not all the Essex Class got the Hurricane Bow, all the existing museum Essex Class have that FRAM The space right behind the forward steering are the Aviator JO Bunkrooms, one port and one starboard (right under the cats. We could lay in our bunks and count the catapult shots.
I'm thinking the single rudder is easier to add control's to then dual rudder ships because you would have to add double as much for both rudder's adding weight and taking up space.
Another great presentation... Thank you Ron!
That green tile! I laid my feet of this while on the USS Coral Sea, MarDet during and after our yard period in Bremerton in 1978-79.
I spent many hours steering a Coast Guard cutter from the bridge in the 1970s. However, we did not use a wheel. I sat in a comfortable seat and there was a lever about 10 inches long. I would move it to the right for right rudder and left for left rudder. In front of me was the gyro compass, so I could determine the heading and if the command was "right rudder 10 degrees to bearing 090, it was easily done.
What is also interesting was when we were at general quarters drill, my job was to be in aftersteering, locked in to a crowded compartment. On our ship this was located in the stern below decks. The bridge would transfer authority to us (for practice) and there were hydraulics there (hydraulic rams connected directly to the rudder) and hydraulic pumps running. Our job in after steering in an emergency was to be able to steer the ship if the bridge control became inoperative.
Having served on the USS Essex LHD-2, I've been in the forward conning station and the 2 "windows" are to see out of it. I also stood after steering watch which is in the steering gear rooms (each rudder has it's own steering gear room).
The space still exists on LHD-8 and newer hulls, but they removed the control console so you can no longer directly control rudders from there.
That space is primarily Repair One, I think, but it still has all of the required sound powered phone circuits, plus nice, big portholes, of course, so you could command the ship from there.
i think Battleship Texes has 5 locations for steering and 4 different types of steering methods that could be done at some of those stations.
When I was on the USS John F. Kennedy CV-67 this was my Battle Station. Many stories I could tell you from those memories... From getting in trouble for shooting paper airplanes out the front portholes. Even though they weren't having fight ops at the time. The executive officer (2nd in charge) was in charge of the space. Our Secondary Con Station was about half to ⅓ the size of this. I just had my toolbelt on all the time in case one of our devices wasn't working. I steered the ship once. Nothing like a car or a truck. He showed me the heading and said steer in that direction. There was a severe lack of feeling with the ship and the now would drift left or right up to 6 or 8 degrees while trying to correct and I didn't have a enough time to learn and get the hang of how much drift to understand which angle is when you start to compensate. It was nerve wracking as everyone is watching you and you literally have the helm of the ship and thinking about the whole ship and crew and if they had to steady themselves going about their business. It felt like to me that I could feel like I was tilting the ship but it was probably my imagination. I had to go to GQ the night we crashed into the USS Belknap because they had an inexperienced person on the bridge but I know the Captain wasn't on the bridge. An Aircraft Carrier has the right away on the sea to shoot planes off in the wind (not to mention super common sense is that is a huge super heavy ship cruising around your ship supposedly there with all the other ships in the surrounding area to support the Carrier and the rest of the group. Well, war games or practicing for action has it's share of problems. The Belknap kept saying "wait one" while trying to make a decision. I don't know but I would just steer clear of the Carrier. I believe 6 died on the Belknap and one on the Kennedy... Lots of destruction... Very sad. We searched for crew members and the flames were as high as the superstructure with magnesium sparks and a blueness as the flames of these explosions looked horrifying... We were in the Mediterranean and even the flight deck around the angle was warped and bent but they extended our 6 months an extra month. We weren't happy about that but we just went on with our work.
Cv-12. My home museum ship!
When I was in the navy my GQ location was steering gear. It was one of the best places to be because you could sit down and be comfortable.
I love this comparison between Iowas and other ships. Keep it up!
For real; cool episode! I never thought about this. I'd like to see all of them!
_USS Kitty Hawk_ had an a space in the same place. I never went in there, as the water tight doors were locked during my 1996-2000 tour, but the space _was_ there. I doubt it was an aux conn position, as the _Kitty Hawk_ was built with provisions for bridle launch, so more likely that small space was for that. There was a passageway that went around it, part of the O3 level passageway. Nimitz class do _not_ have an aux con space there, the space that would be taken up by that compartment would be part of a 200 man berthing, which is usually Air Department.
Agreed. When I served on Carl Vinson CVN-70, the bow portholes are there, but it's a berthing. You have to deal with the cat launches to get to have windows. :D
I would think that the single ruder ships steering controls are less complex than ships with 2 Ryder’s, thus you can more easily create multiple locations to steer from.
Not really. Both rudders were controlled by the same circuit. Most ships with 2 rudders (such as New Jersey) had several steering control stations. The cruise I was on with 1 rudder had 2 steering stations. I don't think there is really any correlation.
If you collect all the control inputs in one place (double it for redundancy) and from there send out the control signal to the hydraulic valves on the rudder actuators, you can hook up as many inputs as you want without adding complexity downstream.
If you insist on hooking up every actuator individually with every control station, you just created yourself a maintenance and reliability nightmare. 😅
The only real benefit you get from one rudder is (maybe) making it at least _possible_ to manually move the rudder under human power, either mechanically or by manning a manual hydraulic pump with a separate hydraulic circuit to the main circuit
Yes, I have always wondered why there were portholes just under the forward edge of the flight deck.
I would have never guessed. Now I know.
On a tiger cruise in the 80s, i got to steer the USS Nimitz what felt like quite a while. i have a 'certificate' with the lat/lon where we were around here somewhere.
i don't remember if it was solid like the Intrepid one shown in this video, but it was a big wheel like that, with tons of readouts for heading and other info above/in front of it.
Had the pleasure of seeing Secondary Con on Lexington, I believe they used that space to depict a Japanese ship in a movie.
They had a working hand crank hooked up to a steering gear with no rudder when J went through "A" school that we were required to operate for functional experience. It not only requires 100 turns to move 1° it requires that both sailors match rotation speed.
My son served on the GW and his rack was in the bow right by the emergency steering station. This is where the people that worked the forward catapults bunked.
the radar repeater is a AN/SPA-25. Go look at WW2 pictures of the Essex class -without the hurricane bow- I think originally this location was not present.
I was on several carriers. The oldest was CVA 60 Saratoga. It and the newer ones did not have steering in the bow. There are portholes but no place to put anything up there. Just frames a foot or so apart. The island has several decks. I never saw any sort of aft steering either as my berthing was back there in CVAN 69.
You could run chains up on deck to have sailors manhandle the rudder, but on a carrier I think it would be easier to hook them up to a few aircraft tractors. (At least in the jet age, when aircraft, and hence tractors, got heavier.)
Interesting notion. The capstans could provide adequate motive force if lines could be blocked into position. About a quarter million pounds pulling force.
Was this steering position added in 1955, when they closed off the bow?
Curator, you are such an interesting person, I would love to hear (if it's not a repeat video) the story of how/ why you do what you do!
Wow Ryan’s filming at night, at first I thought the portholes were painted over.
I noticed that too. Must have been a long day for Ryan. He's three hours ahead of us normally.
Amphibious ships like Dock Landing Ships, and Frigates, and Destroyer Tenders, all have just two steering stations - the bridge (or pilot house on the old LSDs that had open bridges and small pilot houses) and after steering. There were no secondary steering stations other than after steering. Perhaps because none of those ships were intended to take the beatings that battleships and carriers are expected to take.
And somehow that reminds me of a recent video where you were discussing how to find the power panels for electrical circuits. There *should* be a metal tag on each cable at each junction box giving the location of the power supply. After 70 years, though, and multiple modernizations, who knows?
I've never seen anything reported on the number of officers and enlisted on the ship. It comes up in relation to my dad's service on the North Carolina. He was a newbie Ensign on board in Damage Control when the war ended. He said that he had been to every possible part of the ship. He also said that he was "in charge of Damage Control". That hardly seems possible for such an important section.
I learned that the complement of a battleship was about 1,800. How were they disbursed, what were the department names, who commanded them by rank, how many officers and enlisted in each department? I recently learned that there are at least 5 O-6 "Captains" aboard an aircraft carrier, responsible for major activities. WHAT did that org chart look like? Was it the same on a battleship? Again, no data available.
Thx in advance.
I don't think the number of steering positions is determined by the number or rudders, I think it is more a function of how much damage it takes to knock each one out. If you are managing to knock out the backup conns on an Iowa, you have probably basically sank the ship. A more lightly armored vessel, especially an aircraft carrier, is more likely to have it's secondary and tertiary backup steering positions disabled by fire or damage. A destroyer I would expect to have fewer, for similar reasons to the battleship, ie. if you are hitting it hard enough to knock out multiple backups, you are hitting it hard enough to sink the ship.
In battle, the island and more specifically the bridge are prime targets. They are also pretty easy to hit since they are so exposed. So of course there's a fully functional back up.
Makes me want to check out the USS Yorktown and see if it has those portholes.
Hi from Charleston, the Yorktown does. Six of them.
@@edwsal59 Thank you.
With a single rudder the ship can travel in only one direction at a time. With two rudders a ship can travel in two directions at once. That’s why ships with two rudders need fewer steering positions.
I believe that during GQ the Captain go to the CIC. That's where they can see all the information. The bridge has a better view, but in this day and age that doesn't really help much. I don't know where the XO goes.
Also, if there are chains used to operate the tiller in an emergency, how would those chains go to the flight deck. And if they did go there, that would end flight ops. It seems it would be better just going to the main deck where there is a straight shot down the ship from the stern to the bow. They would have to open all the water-tight doors though.
USS Coral Sea, CV-43, an "Essex" class carrier had two rudders. Saw them while in dry dock. 1975 to 1977.
Coral Sea was not an Essex class, she was a Midway class
@@randyfant2588 It all depends who you listen too. Midway was it's own class. The Roosevelt and the Coral Sea were commissioned before the Midway. They also had slightly different hulls. Midway could carry the F-14 but we could not.
Future story, if you haven't already done it. How are all of those charts organized? Latitude and Longitude? Areas of interest, regions, navigators choice?
USS Enterprise CVN-65 had four rudders, Nimitz class and all super carriers (I think) had two. I didn’t know Essex class only had one rudder.
Forrestal IIRC had an unusual layout I think it it was three, something I learned from a random picture I saw. Obviously wasn't worth the effort because it wasn't done anywhere else. I love how CVN-65's forward two just kind of stick out at an angle. I wonder how well that worked in practice, I've seen videos of the Nimitz class doing those crazy turns at full power, nothing like that online for Big E. Pity, I'd have loved to see what she could do opened up.
I was on the bridge of the Enterprise CVAN65 in 1972 when we came out of Hunters Point Naval Shipyard in San Francisco.
We were conducting high speed turns. it was truly an amazing experience to be on the bridge and see the flight deck go from aLevel flat plane to a steep angle to starboard and the sing back over to port! I'm 70 years old now and it's something I'll never forget! ATB Sam Adler
Guessing it would not be considered ideal to have to leave the wheel to sound the collision alarm... pretty important to maintain continuous active control of steering at that point (I know that someone other than the helmsman could have been ordered to sound the alarm, but why introduce that delay when you could just put the alarm next to the person in that space most equipped to a) notice and b) do something about a threat of collision)
It's the Navy.
1:12 It's literally on the wheelpost
@@StacheMan26 exactly - I was (admittedly not very clearly) commenting on the fact that of the three alarms in the space the collision alarm is the only one on the wheelpost (where the helmsman could use it instantly), whereas the GQ and chemical warfare alarms are on the aft bulkhead (presumably the ranking officer in the space, who probably wouldn't be at the wheel themselves, would be more likely to sound these or order them sounded, as they're not directly to do with navigation)
the helmsman's one and only job is to maintain ships course by looking at gyro repeater. The officer of the deck is looking out the windows and sounding alarms.
@@gar949 huh, didn't know that - I wonder why the alarms are split like that in that case
The LST I was on had two rudders and one secondary steering position. That was after steering back over the rudders. I believe that the Fletcher class destroyers that I did reserve training cruises on also had only after steering as a secondary position. They also had two rudders. As a side note, the German battleship Bismarck had its rudders jammed by British aircraft which led to its destruction and sinking.
Bismarck had 2 rudders
@@Knight6831 I stand corrected. Things I've read & videos I've watched, only ever said she had 1 rudder. Even Robert Ballard used the singular "rudder" when talking about his discovery of her & her sinking.
Yeah the Mark 12 torpedo that crippled Bismarck blew a hole in the starboard side and in all likelihood destroyed the starboard rudder but what happened to the port side rudder is unknown as we don't know if the port rudder was blown away by the torpedo explosion or was still attached until the sunken remains of Bismarck smashed into the side of the volcano
Thanks. Keep them coming.
Before the enclosed hurricane bow was installed during her modernization, was the auxiliary steering an enclosed or open space? During her WW2 configuration, that space was open and 40MM gun emplacements were installed in that location. Can anyone shed some light on this?
I have wondered how the ships / engine telegraphs work. Saw a short video about an English where it operated with rods and cables.
They are all synchro based transmitters and receivers. If you aren’t familiar with synchros, they are synchronous motors where the shafts of the receiver units stay synchronized with the transmitter unit. The EOT order unit has an input knob that turns a synchro linked to a dial through all the standard bells (with detents to help positioning) and the answer unit in the engine room has a receiver synchro and dial to display the order. The answer unit also has a transmitter synchro connected to a receiver in the order unit so the engine room can acknowledge the order. There are some electrical switches contained within to ring a bell when the order and answer units don’t match.
There's so much room for activities!
Could the space have also been used for a forward damage control team? It’s big enough and could hold lots of the crew with equipment.
I think there are couple of reasons why NJ has fewer redundant steering positions than Salem or Hornet. Firstly, NJ was much more heavily armoured than a cruiser of a carrier, and therefore it may have been assumed that (despite the design of the Iowas being designed by the Department of Redundancy Department) the chances of an individual steering position being knocked out were lower.
Secondly, with a double-rudder ship, it may have been decided that the "Manual" hand-crank steering positions installed on single-rudder ships were either not feasible, or would have to be geared down so extremely that maneuvering with them would be essentially impossible, and therefore they were omitted.
I’ve had the opportunity to visit the USS Missouri on three occasions. Since you talked about the whistle, I’m wondering where it’s located on the ship.
I think the inherent redundancy of multiple rudders and their actuators / rooms / equipment in general means that less redundancy is required. These shipbuilders and the USN were extremely meticulous about redundancy and survivability, with infinite studies and data available to support any given choice. My guess is that it comes down to single-point-failures and total failures. The loss of one rudder is not considered a "total failure" - thus, you can instantly ignore the redundancy for such a failure when designing a ship.
This does get tricky when you consider a failed rudder stuck hard-over to one direction and you absolutely must steer in the opposite direction (obviously not a huge issue in open waters, but certainly for obstacle avoidance or if you have to traverse to a specific location.)
Who is crewing a secondary con? (and all the other redundancy positions on the ship) Is there a bunch of sailors eternally twiddling their thumbs on the slim chance that they may have to do something one day?
What happens if there is a different rudder input from two locations at the same time?
Only one "helm" is active at any given time, there are systems that have to be switched over from one to another.
I always wondered too
Is there anyway to get into the USS JFK CV67? Now that would be a cool video. My dad served on it and I wish they weren't all being destroyed. Thanks for the cv video
That much open space on a ship makes me uncomfortable. I've been thrown around down below in rough weather, admittedly on much smaller boats. That's too much space to pick up speed before latching onto something
Why the solid wheel and what's it made out of? Looks like brass?
i would go with 3 steering stations for a ship one on the bridge , one in the bowels of the ship and one in the engine room , close to the rudders
It's just missing the pool table. Lol😂
Fascinating stuff !!
"Chains"
My first thought was to wonder if there was a manual intervention for steering. This is the Navy, I would suspect there would be.
Chains seem unlikely due to weight, 200 men to carry the chains and 100 to turn the ship... They're also not user friendly for hands and fingers. Ropes seem possible even if only for show "and that's how we steer when the power goes out".
I wish I would have know Ryan was going to uss hornet guess I need to look at other social media for possible meet and greets
I think that because the battleship has more armour protection. They can lower the redundancy, because the wheelhouses are more protected. This is, i think, if you need more then 4 redundancy's. The ship is allready to damaged to function.
One steering position is necessary for a warship; one that is manned and working. How much redundancy that is needed to be reasonably likely to achieve that in foreseen circumstances, that I can't even estimate.
Would that compartment be manned all the time? Or just during a battle? Or only if the bridge was destroyed?
Good question. I was thinking if manned all that space would be a good spot for a large table and poker games. That space with chart tables radar repeater etc might be considered secondary conn and manned full time.
Ally Garcia class, fast frigate there’s only two places on the ship you can steer the bridge and aft, staring and that was the last compartment on the ship towards the stern
the push button one gets me, I can just imagine someone looking for a light switch and sending the ship into a turn
You mention the control can be switched to the forward controls. Can you do a video on how exactly that’s done?
Its just a multi position switch, turn the knob to the position labeled for the thing you want.
What is the numbering scheme for the communication channels? What is the 1MC vs the 21MC?
Always good.
Great upload
Is it the case that air operations require more accurate point of sail control than would be required for simply motoring around in a gun platform? If so, that might explain why the carriers have more redundant steering control than battleships. (I can't imagine landing on a carrier with a high angle crosswind is any fun at all.)
Carriers generally steer in to the wind and increase speed for flight operations as that increases airflow over the airplane wings and helps them generate more lift sooner. In regards to that point of sail question, with the aircraft being able to steer themselves to the carrier, it is those gun platforms which need the more accurate steering and navigation while calculating their own movement relative to their target's movement in order to direct gunfire to hit the target -- "If we are traveling at this speed on this many degrees compass bearing and our target is traveling at what looks to be that speed on that compass bearing then we need to angle our guns to ...". & "If our shore bombardment target is standing still and we are traveling at this speed on this many degrees compass bearing and the ocean or tidal current here where we are floating is that speed on that many degrees compass bearing, then when we add our vector and the water flow vectors together, what we need to do in order to hit that non-moving shore target is angle our guns to ..."
I cannot believe that space is that large. considering the Navy is always looking for someplace to use for storage or berthing I would think that space would be subdivided.
Hi Ryan, do all the various museum ships' curators tend to extent courtesy 'greater access' to one another, or is it something they particularly want YOU to have given this wonderful channel must be a great way to get more exposure for their ships and thus hopefully visitors?
Not that the latter is anything other than exactly as one would hope; I'm sure you ALL want people to visit, not least because there's hardly much point in conserving them if nobody sees them.
Cheers
Generally if someone from another ship calls folks will try and make their visit special. We like to sit around and talk about rust in addition to exploring the ship
@@BattleshipNewJersey LOL @ rust discussion. That could go on forever, couldn't it? Do you have an unofficial 'most' and 'least' rusty museum ship award every few years?
Thanks for the reply, and thanks for another entertaining and informative vid.
Cheers
p.s. they're all entertaining and informative
More steering stations could be because a carrier is at higher risk of fire with all the aircrart then jet fuel as well as all the ordinance which unlike BBs is not confined in magazines then to the turrets but rather can be exposed on the flight deck or hanger deck. So more steering stations just in case. Some of those stations may be unusable in a massive fire, Think Franklin, Bunker Hill, Oriskany and Forrestal.
The single rudder vs multiple rudders may be a simple matter of hull design. Or even something as petty as some guy who wore 4 stars in the 1940s at BuShips saying he wanted a single rudder.
I'm not sure I would fancy the vertical motion when the ship is battling into a storm.
When I was in the Navy in the 1980's. Got to go down to where the rudders came into the ship. There was what I was told was away to manually steer the ship. Took that with a grain of salt. As it appeared that you had to manually pump a hydraulic system. Not a job I would ever want.
With only one rudder, there is no back up if you lose steering, hence the multiple locations. With 2 rudders, the odds of losing both are slim necessitating less back ups.
Look at the Bismarck
Would there have been a large rise and fall that far from the middle of the ship
So what did the men in the redundancy spaces do during general quarters? Were they literally just doubling everything the main bridge did until and unless needed? Was it the XO's job to come up with plan B? Was it used for training and quals? Were men assigned other nearby duties? It's hard to imagine the military "wasting" all that manpower in combat, even (especially) if the correct thing to do is to just let them do nothing until needed.
The urge to turn everything on just to see if it still works would be overwhelming! Lol
Essex class didn't have enclosed bows during WWII, that's an interesting later addition.