🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟 Nice video! I'd like to see more guest appearances in these videos. I still do have deep appreciation for Ryan Szimanski but it is nice to have others in the videos as well.
Interesting. I always wondered why the Royal Navy stopped putting conning towers in their ships due to their commanders refusing to use them. Now that I have actually seen one I realized that it is because they would have a far better idea of what is going on in the bridge or CIC. Seems to me like being in the conning tower as a commanding officer is the last place you would want to be during battle.
HMS Prince of Wales's bridge took a direct hit from the Bismarck. In spite of the loss of life, she was able to go on firing and remained under control throughout the action.
I've heard this logic before. I'd say, in WW1 it has a point, as the view is understandably very obstructed. And in general, you are sealed off from the ship. Not to mention secondary armaments were rarely brought to bear. But, by WW2, more advanced radio systems, periscopes, and more importantly radar systems can give this sealed off command center even more info than a traditional open bridge. Not to mention the conning tower protected other vital stuff like fire control(which honestly is much worse to lose than the captain during battle). It's not just the battleship main guns that are needed to be protected against, but the rapid fire secondary armaments that actually do aim for the bridge(since they just ping off the main armor belt). And by WW2, secondary armaments' fire control was very accurate, and got the true range out of the guns. TLDR, I think the British choice to remove them was a poor decision from commanders fighting the previous war and trying to cut corners[weight] during the Naval Treaty era.
Older RN battleships that were reconstructed with new superstructures had their heavily armoured conning towers removed and replaced with much lighter structures. These new conning towers were also placed much higher in the ship, for superior visibility. There is no evidence that RN captains and admirals used the armoured conning towers on those ships that did have them during World War II, with, for example, Vice-Admiral Holland and Captain Kerr commanding Hood during the Battle of the Denmark Strait from her unarmoured bridge Even in the United States Navy (USN), battleship captains and admirals preferred to use the unarmoured bridge positions during combat. The USN had mixed opinions of the conning tower, pointing out that its weight, high above the ship's center of gravity, did not contribute directly to fighting ability. Beginning in the late 1930s, as radar surpassed visual sighting as the primary method of detecting other ships, battleships began reducing or eliminating the conning tower. The battle of Guadalcanal during World War II briefly slowed this trend: when the Japanese battleship Kirishima hit USS South Dakota on the superstructure, many exposed crewmen were killed or wounded yet Admiral Lee and Captain Davis of USS Washington declined to use the armoured conning tower during the battle.Soon the heavy battleship conning towers were removed from USS Pennsylvania, USS Tennessee, USS California, and USS West Virginia during their post-Pearl Harbor attack reconstructions and replaced with much lighter cruiser-style conning towers.
The Royal Navy removed their conning towers simply because the possibility of it being hit is very slim. Not even sure why people are saying during ww2 tertiary armament would be accurate enough to hit the conning tower; no, no they wouldn't be. They're directors and range finders, they can not pinpoint a few metre wide target compared to hundreds of metres of a ship. Nor would the conning tower need to be so armoured against tertiary batteries. The conning tower was, simply, a waste of weight that could have been better spent elsewhere. It wasn't until late 42 that radar really became decent enough to hit a battleship target, nevermind hitting something smaller. Detecting small stuff, yes, hitting it is a completely different matter all together. Ships typically have third and fourth way to control the ship, even without the conning tower it would still have two/three ways to be controlled.
Question for Battleship New Jersey: To what extent did USN doctrine mandate the use of the Conning Tower by the CO during combat? And also: to what extent was this doctrine violated in actual practice?
During the Battle of Jutland, Kapitan Zur See Hartog, of SMS Derfflinger described the moment his conning tower was struck by a British 12" armor piercing round: "...The crack of doom, the armored conning tower vibrated like a bell, throwing men around like rag dolls; and poisonous yellow gas came through the viewing slits....." Fortunately the stout armor held up, although pieces of steel were spalled off. And Kapitan Hartog along with his team survived.....
@@rherman9085 During the confrontation of the British Grand Fleet and the German High Seas Fleet, Adm. Jellicoe had the advantage by deploying his 24 dreadnought battleships in a classic 'crossing the tee' line, blocking the Germans who were steaming in a line ahead. Jellicoe then proceeded to rain heavy shells from his full broadside on the van of the German Fleet....Admiral Reinhard Scheer ordered Vice Admiral Franz Hipper to charge the British line with his battle cruiser squadron, in order to relieve pressure on the High Seas Fleet. Hartog, in Derfflinger lead the 4 German battle cruisers. He described looking out of his conning tower and seeing nothing but muzzle flashes from British heavy guns from one end of the horizon to the other. His conning tower received a direct hit on the front, all four of his turrets were struck and burnt out. While Derfflinger survived, Moltke was not so lucky, eventually sank due to progressive flooding from numerous hits to her hull. Seydlitz was also severely handled and flooded, barely making it home. On the whole, this generation of German ships had heavier armor than their British counterparts. The Battle of Jutland was decisive, the British victory was strategic; the blockade of Germany continued and eventually starved the German war machine into submission.....Even though the British suffered much heavier losses than the Germans on that day in June, 1916.
And if he didn’t have that conning tower it is likely him and whoever else was with him could have been gutted though shrapnel leaving the ship without someone in command of the ship.
This was a really great video. I often think of the "bridge" onboard fictional vessels like in Star Trek and it's funny to think of how they differ from the heavily protected conning tower seen on a ship like New Jersey. It's also interesting how modern ships don't use conning towers anymore. Maybe Star Trek got their predictions of the future right after all.
It's funny how on the Enterprise and on Star Destroyers (I'm a bigger Star Wars than trek fan; original trilogy of course) there are just giant windows and seemingly unarmored hull in theie conning tower. Though I guess they have "energy shields" and the like
@@Jon.A.Scholt Only on the reboot enterprise, on the older series ones it was a giant tv screen. It's interesting that even though they often had a "battle bridge" protected in the centre of the ship, they rarely used it in conflicts, perhaps along the same lines as to why conning towers fell out of use in some navies even during WW2.
@@sergarlantyrell7847 Nice same Ser Garlan, hope we see more of you in TWoW (whenever that drops) probably fighting against Euron on the shores of the reach! I see I am in a company of fellow nerds!
I climbed up into Big Mamies conning tower to the top as a 23yr old when no one was allowed. I would crawl around so many off limits areas back then. It was my private get away adventure and happy place. I so love her. Many memories on a beautiful ship.
I wish that the one person that consistently votes down every battleship video would just stop watching. Obviously they have an axe to grind because these videos are well done and informative.
@@BattleshipNewJersey Maybe a contributing factor to the number of dislikes is the speaker's inability to put decent phrases together. It made me stop watching half way through.
Some amplifying facts about the armor used in the new US Navy battleships built after 1930, starting with NORTH CAROLINA and including the cancelled MONTANA Class. The Conning Tower 17.3" side armor was in the IOWAs the same thickness on its sides as the side armor of the main 16" gun cylindrical barbettes, which held up the rotating turrets, above the heavily-armored (6" Special Treatment Steel in two bolted-together plies, 4.5" on top of 1.5") 2nd deck (except for a narrow strip of the barbettes where they faced directly fore-and aft, which was somewhat thinner due to being much less likely to be hit at right-angles, to save some weight); below that deck, where the ship's thickest belt and deck armor protected the lower barbette structure, the armor was thinner. The 16" gun turret faces were 17.5-18" thick (mostly also laminated with a very thick outer plate over a much thinner support plate), tilted back at 35 degrees, in the SOUTH DASKOTA and IOWA Classes (less in NORTH CAROLINA Class and much thicker in the MONTANs), so they were slightly thicker than the Conning Tower or barbette sides. What is unusual about the armor used in all of these new battleships, as opposed to all foreign ships of this type and even the older US battleships built from about 1897 through WWII was the type of armor used for the Conning Tower and turret faces and, for all US Navy warships, who was authorized to design, specify the metallurgical specs for, and pay for all of this turret-related and Conning Tower armor. All of this armor was supplied through the US Navy Bureau of Ordnance, NOT the Bur3eau of Construction and Repair or, later, the Bureau of Ships, which replaced BuC&R in 1942, who you might think would be responsible. When the first armored warships were built by the US during the US Civil War the armor, such as it was in some ships, was made of wrought iron, as was much of the iron used for ship construction when wood was not used. I am not sure who was responsible for what armor back then, but by the year 1900, high-strength nickel-chromium-steel (based on the German Krupp "Type 420" armor steel developed in 1894 -- named after the Plate Number of the first Krupp armor plate of that type tested that year and used through the 20th and 21st Centuries for the baseline specification material for the highest-strength steel armor for most ships and land vehicles) was supplied for major weapon mounts by BuOrd and ship hull armor and light protective plating for small gun mounts (gun shields and cylindrical "tubs" for the 40mm AA gun mounts during WWII, for example). WITH ONE MAJOR EXCEPTION: ALL face-hardened armor -- Harveyized Nickel-Steel in 1891 through about 1900 and Krupp Cemented (KC) and alternate non-cemented, but still deep-faced, face-hardened armors made in the 1900-1913 period for the US Navy -- were called by BuOrd "Class 'A'" armor and ONLY BuOrd was authorized to supply this form of armor, no matter where on the ship it went, including armored waterline belts and the Connint Towers. In fact, showing how "rice bowls" affected things, the word "armor" WAS NOT ALLOWED IN ANY NON-BuORD DOCUMENT CONCERNING FRAGMENT OR PROJECTILE IMPACT PROTECTION! Thus, in BuC&R and later BuSHIPS documents, the name Special Treatment Steel ("STS") had to used instead, with no face-hardened armor mentioned unless talking about and specifying BuORD Class "A" armor (STS is a direct English translation of the French name of its near-identical nickel-chromium-steel armor when no face-hardening was applied). Thus, from the first US warships to used the Krupp Type 420 steel or variants thereof to the last ship to do so, only BuORD supplied the face-hardened versions of this armor, made to BuC&R/BuSHIPS-supplied designs. BuC&R/BuSHIPS were free to supply their own armors of any other kind, but, as noted, except for thinner plating used for decks and some secondary mounts and non-face-hardened waterline belts ("Treaty Cruisers" after 1923, for example) and, in the new US Navy WWII battleships only, thick-at-the-top tapering STS lower belts to stop underwater hits, face-hardened side armor continued to be used in the older battleships through the COLORADO Class and the cancelled later ships (due to the Washington Treaty of 1923). BuC&R/BuSHIPS had its own armor supplier, Carnegie/Carnegie-Illinois Steel Corporation (later part of US Steel Corporation) for STS. BuORD had its STS-equivalent "Class 'B'" armor (used for turret roofs and all plating under about 4-5" (depends on placement) where deep-faced "decremental hardening" used with KC armor variants was not worth the higher cost) and, for many armor-related extra-high-strength support requirements, its nickel-steel "Class 'C'" armor used to make heavy nuts and bolts and support connection plates (I am not sure if BuC&R/BuSHIPS had its own Class "C" equivalent or just used BuORD-supplied material here for this purpose). All BuORD armor-related steels, in all three Classes, was supplied by three companies during the 20th Century: Carnegie, as with STS, but with separate contracts (it was the largest of the three), Bethlehem Steel Corporation, and The Midvale Company (the smallest). Bethlehem and Midvale also made gun projectiles, with Midvale being a major innovator and, until Crucible Steel Company, edged it out slightly during WWII, the best manufacturer of US Navy gun projectiles during the first half of the 20th Century. PART I
@@gregtroll Over 50 years of research on this topic and I still have things I do not know. Shows how difficult the universe is to understand when even just banging together two pieces of metal is so hard to figure out correctly in all of its variations...
no kidding eh? something about that seems innately wrong... all respectable ships should have a big ol' solid English oak wheel... manned by a pirate, of course.
The answer is in the historical record. Interwar analysis of command staff behaviour during battle indicated that they preferred to retain their situational awareness on the open bridge rather than be closed off inside the conning tower. Sometimes some of the staff were sent inside to preserve command in case the bridge was hit. Later designs thus eliminated the weight and volume of a conning tower in favour of lighter splinter and small calibre protection of the bridge structure.
@@thors3532 so did Prince of Wales, which was a minor part of why she withdrew from the battle of the Denmark Strait. Statistically it was quite unlikely to receive a direct hit, though it still had 3" of armour to protect from splinters from nearby explosions. Bismarck took so many hits a hit to the bridge was far more likely, practically a certainty. But then they were at relatively short range, where even the 14" sides of the conning tower were not enough...
@youtube propaganda There doesn't seem to be any spall lining inside the armour, with how big shells had grown the thickness wouldn't matter unless it was a meter or more thick. 17" wouldn't be penetrated but the interior would be filled with supersonic chunks of that armour, half the thickness with spacing would probably be better as it would prevent shockwave propagation.
@@sergarlantyrell7847 It might be strange but thinner conning tower could increase chances of their crew to survive when fighting against battleship - AP round could pass without causing that much spalling and without exploding. Closer quarter fight like those around Guadalcanal against heavy cruisers could be problem.
No wonder they would remove the conning towers before attempting to refloat the battleships which were salvaged after Pearl Harbor. That's a lot of weight.
that amazing, how was that even possible for them to remove the tower? that must have been a HELL of a lot of work, cutting and torching for it to come loose... that would be an incredible sight to see
If anyone's interested in the salvage of the battleships after Pearl Harbor, there are a couple of videos by Drachinifel on the subject. I'll post a link in the next reply - RUclips often deletes replies with links, if you don't see a link just search RUclips. Yeah, salvaging the battleships was a huge job, and they did remove the conning towers before attempting to right and re-float the hulls. Remember, it's not just that the towers were heavy - they were also part of the superstructure and therefore removing them would more easily allow capsized hulls to be rolled back upright, or keep upright hulls upright during the re-floating process.
Armored conning towers, in practice, were rarely ever used in battle. Still, if a NJ was getting the absolute crap beat out of it, it would have been nice to have. Fortunately the Iowas were not likely to have the crap beaten out of them, as nothing would survive long enough to find the range.
@@alecblunden8615 I'd think the biggest advantage the Iowa would have over a Yamato would be the modern fire control and search radars, followed by speed to dictate the range of engagement or break off at will, followed by ammunition quality. My impression is an Iowa could fairly reliably sink a Yamato outright in a one-on-one fight in perfect weather conditions, with the gap in performance growing wider as visibility declines.
PART 2 When the new US Navy battleships were being designed in the 1930s, they originally were going to have Class "A" armor Conning Towers and turret faces, the thickest plates on the ship, with the sides of the barbettes being a close second. However, since face-hardened armor had not been made for some time and the new steels were significantly better metallurgically than the older steel used in 1923, when innovation in heavy naval armor, especially face-hardened naval armor, kind of dried up, reactivating the thick plate plants turned out to be more difficult than expected (they could not merely use the old specs with the new steels). While the effective strength of WWII STS/Class "B" armors was not much better than it had been in WWI, the cost to make it and quality control was much better, and there was not that much call for a "better" armor of that type, just one that was reliable and could be made in large enough quantities (and since the Navy was now competing with the Army for such armors -- "Rolled Homogeneous Steel" or "Cast Homogeneous Steel" in Army specs -- keeping the cost down and the amount made up was by far more important). While it was possible to laminate STS/Class "B" armor using the thick-over-thin method as used for deck armor and, in most cases, Class "B" turret face armor, Class "A" armor had to be made in one solid thickness, with back supporting only being thin construction plates, even though these thin plates might be STS or Class "B" armor for maximum deformation resistance against heavy impacts. It turned out that the maximum thickness for Class "A" plates when NORTH CAROLIHNA and WASHINGTON was being made was less than what the Conning Tower or turret faces were specified to be, though the slightly thinner barbettes and much thinner waterline belts could be made easily. This was ramped up and by the time the SOUTH DAKOTA Class was being built, the Class "A" armor could be made to the solid 18-19" thickness range needed (over 22" for MONTANA barbettes by 1943). To prevent delays, the NORTH CAROLINA and later classes were redesigned with Class "B" armor Conning Towers and turret faces (there was a 19"-thick solid Class "B" turret face plate with two big holes in it tested for the USS ALABAMA turrets on display at the front gate of the old US Naval Proving Ground (now Naval Surface Warfare Center), Dahlgren ("Dahlgren Division" now), Virginia), though, as mentioned, most of these later battleships had slightly thinner face plates made of two layers). When doing this redesign, they realized two things: (1) By using the Class "B" armor -- still using BuORD specs even though theoretically BuC&R/BuSHIPS could have supplied STS instead -- the Conning Tower could now be WELDED (the hard face of a Class "A" plate cannot be)!!!! This allowed a major weight saving by using the heavy Conning Tower and its armored support structure (carrying the electrical power and control cabling down to the hull and the other equipment on the ship) as the central support of the large gun director and radar platforms at the top of the forward mast which the Conning Tower is a major part of. This armored structure was extremely strong and could be used without any outer replacement being needed to surround, but not touch, it, as would have bee needed for an equally-strong structure using Class "A" armor. From then on, no US battleships ever considered Class "A" armor for Conning Towers ever again, but (politics?) BuORD kept the power of making the armor contracts for it (I wonder if BuSHIPS was less than happy about this for the later ships?). (2) Because the turret faces of NORTH CAROLINA and WASHINGTON were Class "B" armor, it was originally thought that they might be inferior in stopping power against the new US AP shells also being introduced at that time (14" Mark 16 and 16" Mark 5 for the overhauled older battleships and 16" Mark 8 "super-heavy" AP for the new battleships). Tests showed THE OPPOSITE: The new shells were so strong (and they got stronger as WWII progressed in some of these shells) that the hard face layer was not capable of damaging them unless they hit at a rather high angle from right-angles. Since the turret faces were tilted back at 35 degrees to increase their effective strength at close range where striking velocity was the highest, these new US shells were tested at 35-40 degrees against the thickest flat Class "A" plates available -- older WWI-era 13.5" belt armor plates in storage at Dahlgren and later new 13.5" belt plates to repair those ships damaged at Pearl Harbor -- and the shells proved to be just as resistant to damage from Class "A" armor as from Class "B" armor and Class "B" armor was much cheaper and more reliable and could be made faster, to boot. Only in the thinner -- 12-12.2" Class "A" armor -- inclined waterline belts or curved barbettes, where impacts at high angles were expected even at rather close range, was Class "A" armor deemed to be somewhat better at damaging the new AP shells (and, as it turned out, no foreign shells came even close to the required test specs for the US shells, though many were equal to the new US shells at up to 30-35 degrees against the thinner plates). For example, when, after WWII US 14" Mark 16 MOD 8 AP shell, about the best AP shell ever made for the US Navy or anybody else, for that matter, was tested against a 1930s-design British 14" Mark IB N.T. APC shell (the US Navy did not use a "C" in its shell ID as it assumed an armor-piercing cap was used or it reverted to the term "Common" for such shells, no matter how they were designed otherwise) used in its WWII KING GEORGE V Class battleships against the new-made 13.5" belt plates at 30 degrees from right-angles (British spec angle), the British shell was slightly better than the US shell as to the minimum velocity needed to penetrate (taking weight differences into account, of course), but when tested against 17.3" Class "A" armor or 18" Class "B" armor used in IOWA, for example, at this same angle, the US shell completely penetrated, with some base damage that would not have allowed the shell to explode properly (though other such tests had showed that at a higher velocity intact penetrations were the usual), at the minimum possible velocity to get through, but at the same equivalent velocity the British shells just broke apart against the Class "A" armor and bent into a crescent and made only an 11"-deep dimple in the Class "B" armor plate (with no hope of these British shells being able to penetrate such thick armor even at point-blank range at probably 25 degrees or more). There is damage and there is DAMAGE! Thus, it turned out that using Class "B" armor for turret faces was not a problem after all...
Thank you for your detailed post. It is my understanding that naval armor plates were case hardened, in order to facilitate the break-up of AP shells upon impact, and the armor was made from high nickle content steel that gave it toughness and a malleability that would absorb the energy of the penetrating projectile by deforming.....There are some photos of damage that occurred to US cruisers and the battleship South Dakota during the many engagements around Guadacanal during WWII. The South Dakota was struck on the upper edge of the barbette of the after turret by a 14 in. AP from IJN Kirishima. The armored deck was seriously deformed, and a good sized dent in the barbette with no spalling or cracks. A photo from a cruiser, (Boise or Portland) shows a direct hit on the face armor of a turret. No damage to the armor other than scorch mark, but the deck is gouged by shrapnel from the round.
@Barney Linet HARVEYIZED nickel-steel is what you are describing, introduced in 1891 by the Harvey Company (named after the inventor of this armor, who had worked for Bethlehem Steel previously) and based on the just-introduced French Schneider et Cie. nickel-steel armor that made all previous armors obsolete. Unfortunately for them, Krupp in 1894 introduced his nickel-chromium armor in 1894, which was significantly stronger when hardened properly and which could be made into a deep-faced form of face-hardened armor allowing much better damage to and resistance from AP shells (at least those at the time which did not have hardened AP caps). The Krupp Cemented (KC) armor (Harveyized surface and deep "decremental" hardening both applied), with a large number of variants, was the main side armor of battleships and, the larger, more heavily protected cruisers by the year 1900 and thereafter, with the homogeneous, ductile version forming the rest of the true armor protection (nickel-steel and high-tensile steel was used in support plates and thin splinter protection, but not when a direct enemy shell impact was expected on its own unprotected surface) -- also used as the basis for most tank armor made of steel. Homogeneous, ductile armor is by far the best when a shell hits at a highly oblique angle in thinner plates, since the plate has to keep from cracking and breaking as it gradually deflects the nose of the shell from downward to upward to glance off over a rather long, cigar-shaped "canoe" gouge -- face-hardened armor can be punched through too easily under such a condition.
@@barneylinet6602 You mention that 14" Type 91 hit by KIRISHIMA on SOUTH DAKOTA. I and a friend of mine who wrote a book about this did a detailed analysis of that hit and it turns out to be one of the most unusual impacts ever received by a warship (at least one that lived to tell the tale). The impact on the 1.5" weather deck was a few feet in front of the barbette at a very highly oblique angle (about 75 degrees or so from the range at the time and the ship being in a turn, tiling the hull. The shell dented the deck downward, tearing it free from the light supports projecting out of the 17.3" US BuORD Class "A" ("Thick Chill" face-hardened) barbette plate, forming a rounded-bottom "V"-shaped gouge/dent in the armor so that the nose of the projectile hit the barbette angled somewhat downward at about a 45-degree horizontal angle (but the deep dent confined the projectile nose to vertical motion only). The impact with the deck tore up the teak deck in front of and near the forward motion of the shell to each side, but this was all removed when the shell detonated later on, as will be seen.; The deck impact tore off the thin windscreen and separated the shell's unique (to all Japanese Type 91 AP shells) removable "Cap Head" -- a flat-based "discus-shaped" AP cap tip held on only by the windscreen threads and designed to tear free on ocean impact, allowing the shell to dive underwater easily and stay stable nose-first for a rather long time to allow a hit on the enemy ship's lower hull, bypassing the belt armor, if the shell hits the ocean up to 220 feet (for the 14" size) short of the hull. To get this long path the base fuze delay, set off on the water impact, was lengthened to a huge 0.4 second (a pro0blem when hitting light plating on the ship itself, as the shell would tend to pass through the target ship like a solid shot; not good). In this case the windscreen was more-or-less crumpled up and smashed flat against the barbette and, to my knowledge never found, while the Cap Head followed right behind the windscreen and hit the barbette higher up on the barbette while the projectile pinched it between the flat nose and the bent-down deck plate. The Cap Head bounced off and tore a large bite out of a water-shield combing around a hatch to the side of the barbette (we originally thought that the shell made that tear, but the angles were impossible) and flew away from the ship like a small vertical-tilted flying saucer. The projectile itself, with its AP cap torn upward by the deck armor, separating it from the nose, but keeping it riding on the nose anyway, then hit the barbette just below the level of the deck prior to the hit, making a wide, shallow gouge in the hard face surface and denting the armor just enough to later stop them from using the turret (except if an emergency had occurred, since it still moved, though with complaints). Since the projectile was somewhat nose-down and the extremely long base fuze delay was not going to effect anything else during this hit, the projectile tried to nose downward, further bending the deck into a large "smiley face" wraped partly around the barbette and wedging the nose through the narrow gap between the plate and barbette. Using this gap point as a pivot, the still-moving body and base of the shell, rotated upward until the shell was standing on end, nose-down, and its middle and lower body slammed at high velocity like a baseball bat against the super-hard cemented face of the barbette (further denting it a little, I assume) where it detonated due to the extreme sensitivity of the trinitroanisol ("Type 91 Explosive") filler, which had thick cushioning all around it inside the shell from a nose-on hit, but not against a sideways slap like that. The filler detonated high order, tearing off the deck wood for yards in all directions radiating from the shell hit on the barbette and disintegrating the shell above the weather deck, only tiny pieces of which were ever found. The nose, held wedged between the barbette and deck was broken into many large and small chunks tore up the region between the weather deck and the primary deck armor on the 2nd deck under it, tearing up the area in this one-deck-high region and making many holes in surrounding bulkheads, with a few of the larger pieces tearing through some additional bulkheads to be found some distance away. Other than the small affect on the turret horizontal drive, no other significant damage to the weapon platform portion of SOUTH DAKOTA occurred from the hit. This was one crazy, odd-ball hit!
@@nathanokun8801 Thank you for your excellent post on the damage to the Uss South Dakota......The Kirishima paid dearly for that hit. USS Washington with Adm. Willis (Ching) Lee embarked exacted a fearful revenge later on in the encounter. A recent analysis by Robert Lundgren and Tony Giulian dated 28 October 2010 details the numerous radar directed 16 in hits that sank the Kirishima later on in the evening.....
@@nathanokun8801 Again, thank you for your detailed insight; the long history of armor protection has not come to an end, new metals and materials are currently being developed. And now that a new ballistic technology, hypersonic ramjet artillery rounds are beginning to be developed, the contest between kinetic energy weapons and protective measures has entered a new phase. "Keep at it, every shot is telling"
I found this BLAST PROOF Armored room on the Missouri at Pearl Harbor. We had four huge blast doors on our Titan II Missile Complexes - hydraulic locking pins.
there was a program on T V years ago about going down and finding the Bismarck. they specifically had the under-sea rover go around bridge and conning tower. they found penetrating holes in the tower from the 16" projectiles of ( nelson or rodney ). anyone inside there would have been blown to pieces by the " spall " fragments. and even IF the armor was able to protect the people inside from splinters they would have been messed up by the concussion.!!
Conning towers have saved commanding crew lives before. Don’t get me wrong it isn’t exactly pleasant to have a large caliber shell hit your conning tower but having a large ringing sound and some spalling (dependent on armor thickness) vs the alternative of having your ship bridge crew gutted by shrapnel and over pressure with the command structure of the ship going down the toilet. I’d take the former. Besides it isn’t just large caliber shell hits but also medium and light caliber guns as well and shrapnel that needs to be considered as well.
How survivable would a 14-16" shell hit on the conning tower be for those inside? I presume shock and spalling would knock C&C out for at least a few min...
Depends on the shell too. A direct hit from HE might cause minor spalling. A direct hit from an AP round or squashead might cause more serious damage. Getting a direct hit at a right angle to the armor is what it would take to penetrate though. Its a cylinder, any angle at all and the round is likely to deflect or break apart.
Aside from the immediate damage control efforts, how do you repair something like a hole in the 17inch armor of the citadel? I presume there is a LOT of welding involved, but how much material needs to be cut away? How do they ensure a solid weld without voids?
I can assume that a destroyer could ding at that conning tower armor for quite a long time before punching through with her small deck gun. I think it's also safe to assume that a direct hit from another Battleship would probably still bust right through that armor, unless it's at such an odd angle that it'd prefer deflecting instead. But what about all the sizes of shells in between? What size does the gun shell/velocity need to be before this conning tower ceases to provide protection?
The general rule of thumb is that in order to penetrate armor, you need a shell at least as wide as the armor is thick. Battleships are (by definition) armored against their own weapons, so a 16" shell should not be able to defeat this armor.
@@KingdaToro But it'd have to be different for shells with fuse delays. And the amount of powder behind the shell still matters. The delay allows the shell to dig in a big before exploding. And they could tip the shell with a more dense metal. Even if someone happened to survive a direct hit to that conning tower, I have a suspicion they wouldn't be able to function. Their loss of hearing would be the least of their problems.
Great video Ken! As a follow up, what would happen to the crew in the conning tower if a large caliber shell hit it when the doors were closed for battle?
Theories are mixed on that. Some designers in other Navies eliminated the heavy armored conning tower. They felt that if a heavy shell it hit even without penetration the occupants would be dead.
The film of the Bismarck wreck shows the armoured door for the conning tower blown off, it was commented that a hit from 16" shell from Rodney probably penetrated the armour.
@@markdavis2475 yes it is correct and apparently the Rodney with her 16 inches cannon was shooting at the Bismarck from 3,000 yards. The conning tower stood no chance at all...
@@johnstudd4245 the Nelson class battleships was fitted with the BL 16-inch Mark 45 calibre cannons lobbying 2,048 pounds (929 kg) shells up 2,586 feet/second (788 m/s) with an effective firing range 35,000 yards (32,000 m) at 32° elevation. So you can easily understand what it means shooting off the conning tower at around 3,000 yards, really a piece of cake. Those 16-inch cannons was one of the main reasons why they easily won the battle of Matapan against the Italian fleet simply because they out-ranging the Littorio class battleships that was fitted with the 380 mm cannons (not really true..) but the fact remains that the 16-inch cannons were far more effective... Hope I didn't bore you!
It goes down to the top of the citadel. Here are the deck plans: maritime.org/doc/plans/bb62.pdf Page 4 will give you a pretty good image of the citadel
Not necessarily. 16-17 inches of armor is a lot of mass that has to transfer concussion force and will greatly reduce the overall shock. As for over pressuer, my understanding is the even the viewing ports are open, there is not enough open space for the pressure wave to enter the conning tower before the pressure has dissipated below deadly levels; essentially a case of path of least resistance and into the conning tower is not the path of least resistance
I'm wondering if you can answer a question for me, it's not BB New Jersey specific, but on BB Missouri there is some sort of antenna or mast on the bow of the ship. Do you know what that is/was for?
The "Christmas tree" shaped antenna on the bow is for the NTDS. It's some kind of data link system. If I remember right, it's for sharing targeting information, but the Iowas were only capable of transmitting. If anyone knows why that is, I would love to hear it.
A discone is very efficient antenna. Just about any radio can pick up the signal transmitted by it and radio sets up until the 1980s were often separate transmitters and receivers with dedicated antennas. For example, the receivers on these ships where almost always just long wire dipoles, whereas the transmitting antennas were more sophisticated.
It is a discone-cage (discage) antenna. As the name suggests, it is actually a combination of a discone and a cage. It is good for 2 to 30 MHz. It is not, as another poster suggested, good only for LINK 11. See www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=&ved=2ahUKEwjkxfi8utjuAhUWEVkFHXo9BkkQFjAAegQIARAC&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.navy-radio.com%2Fant%2Fdiscage-661464.pdf&usg=AOvVaw1IwnRvHR1HCSdBe-vPBZHn
It's wierd how the steering wheel is solid, rather than being spoked. In the grand scheme of things it wouldn't make much of a difference in terms of using more materials, but a spoked design might be easier to hold on to.
We essentially have "power steering" so you don't need to hold to it quite so hard. It does also have ridged edges allowing for a god grip when necessary though.
I don't understand the ventilation issue. Why did they allow direct sunlight onto the conning tower? Whey were there no powerful fans circulating the air out of it? Where was water cooling? Why no AC???
Did Bethlehem Steel produce all the steel for the Iowa class ships? Was that a function of theirs? Or was the steel produced in Pittsburgh by US STEEL or other companies? Those war department contracts helped make the military industrial complex what it is today, eh. 🙂
Great video. One correction: The conning tower is not the thickest armor on the ship. That award goes to the turret faces, which are up to 19.5" thick, if memory serves. And I believe the barbettes are also the same thickness as the conning tower at their thickest points.
The conning tower just outpaces the turret faces and the widest part of the barrette in armor thickness. The front face is 17in thick, and the barrette tops out at 17.3 while the conning tower is 17.5 .
An additional note from Ryan on this: the faceplate of the turrets has multiple layers of armor. Once the layers are combined it creates a thicker armor than the conning tower once combined, but the conning tower is the thickest single piece of armor. Generally when measuring armor, measuring the multiple layers as one is a bit of "*" because we also have air gaps and other defensive layers that would then make the armor seem thicker than it really is though all of it does provide a protection layer. TLDR; yes and no on the thickness of the turret face plates.
I would be glad to know there was more than 1 door to the conning tower if my battle station was inside it. I am claustrophobic and would be afraid of a hit jamming a single door and me drowning like a trapped rat in a sinking ship. Like the people trapped in elevators on the Lusitania when it lost electrical power after being hit by the torpedo. That would really suck.
There's a book called _Battleship Sailor_ by Mason. The author was a radioman on _California_ at the time of Pearl Harbor. Main radio had a single exit, an armored hatch that could only be opened from the outside.
On the other hand, if you're claustrophobic, the Navy is probably not the service for you in the first place. Small, dark, dangerous spaces are kind of a specialty of ships generally. :)
The very first Liberty Ship was produced by Bethlehem-Fairfield in Baltimore. The company was an incredibly prolific shipbuilding and steel manufacturer. Its quite possible they provided material for or directly built hundreds of ships.
The steel plant I was referring is the old steel plant in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. They actually have a real battleship cannon in display in front of one of their old buildings. Incidentally, this old steel site is now part of Wind Creek Casino.
There were multiple ways out of the conning tower, to include the wiring trunk down to broadway. However a list would not preclude open the vault doors as the doors are hydraulically opened and closed as even when level they are too heavy to be opened and closed by hand
Enclosed bridges are a fairly recent concept in warships due to most glass used on bridges not being able to withstand the concussion of the ships main guns being fired. Even after the IOWAs got enclosed bridges, the SOP all the way up to their retirement and donation was that the bridge windows were to be rolled down (into presumably protective sleeves inside the bulkheads) in case of general quarters or weapons employment in order to prevent the windows from being blown out by the concussion.
@@isaachousley325 Thanks, actually makes sense for those types of ships, but British Corvettes, Destroyers operating in the North Atlantic or Artic regions looks so miserable that I would think it had to have some negative effect on fighting efficiency.
@Salty Cock fortunately, we've got an extra 40 years of Navy maintenance to put the ship in a better starting place, and we've had the ability to learn from earlier museum ships that Texas did not. Also, Texas isn't in as bad of shape as most people think. They just gave her $50 million, she's going to be just fine.
Im sure if you wrote em a check ... theyd put it use !
3 года назад
the state of N.J. spends MILLIONS on " social programs " . most of their politicians of the ruling party actually hate anything to do with " the military ". so why would THEY spend any money to keep it up.!!!!! it won't get them any votes.!!!! look at how poorly the cruiser " olympia " is maintained , and it's in the philly NAVY YARD .
The battleship is actually a private organization and not part of any local, state, or federal government. These organizations are very kind to us but they do not control the museum and thus have limited ability to support the ship.
Really big cranes. When they installed the turrets, the man in charge of the crane promised the crane would hold but it hadn't been tested. He stood under the turret while it was being moved so if it failed he wouldn't have to deal with the aftermath. He and the turret were just fine.
The turrets were moved in pieces. Armor plates and barrels installed after the barbette lift. Was the conning tower also lifted in sections? You see the turret gun house being assembled on navsource.org but no pics of the conning tower being installed. Bummer.
@@BattleshipNewJersey Probably because no sane enemy with conventional power would dare attack US ships and those insane enemies with unconventional/asymmetrical power would need to be close enough to discharge a charge of enough energy to pierce a 3" hull? American ships have been attacked this way before by a small boat and 100lb of quasi directional charge.
5:26 : I knew it! Dales cpimbomg up the ladder #laddergate ...These Hollywood computer guys, same guys who faked that mom landin' at the NASuhhh, gul durn NASuhh with their High falutin green screens,faking them stories them newses put out
I have watched a couple of these New Jersey Battleship videos... and they look like a couple of Junkies found the keys to the ship...a cheap iphone and are trying to get some money! Anyway...super casual perhaps..... wish you all some luck...... get a haircut LOL
We prefer to put our money into the ship than into ourselves (or our cameras). But check out our community page for additional information on the difficulties we face carrying camera equipment through the ship.
Not very good. Should have rehearsed this, for starters. Okay, right from the beginning.......what's the purpose of the conning tower and why was it armored? Why did armor thickness increase with every iteration of the "BB"? Iowa's conning tower had 17.3 inches of armor.....why 17.3 inches? How was the Iowa's armor designed and fabricated? See, I know all these answers....and would have made a point of putting this guy on the spot for the entire duration of "the tour" he or his colleagues would try and give me. Too easy not to include the basic "wave-top-facts" I suggested with the example questions I posed. Not trying to put this guy down, but....the Iowa deserves better guides or docents or interpretive whatever's...than this fellow who isn't very articulate to begin with. You're right, I am retired from the US Department of the Navy.
@@BattleshipNewJersey I agree I'm a viewer and I know the purpose of the conning tower and why it is armored I do not need JD S to tell me. Good job with your videos and keep them coming.
Give it a Break! Gee! I will wager I know far more than you ever could learn about the Battleships! I was on the Engineering and reactivation teams! I worked and operated every Engineering space including the guns! I crawled every Bilge and had hands on repairing each boiler and fire room!
BUY A PROPER SOUND MIKE, I KNOW ITS NEW JERSEY , THE LEAST PRODUCTIVE LEAST HARDEST WORKING STATE IN THE UNION AN ALWAYS A VICTIM , BUT A GOOD CHINESE SOUND MIKE NOT MUCH WORK EVEN BY NJ STANDARDS.
I have been on the New Jersey when she was back in service in the 80's and the North Carolina and Alabama as museums. All hold special memories!
nice, very lucky my friend =)
I love the bridge of the Iowa class ❤️
🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟
Nice video! I'd like to see more guest appearances in these videos. I still do have deep appreciation for Ryan Szimanski but it is nice to have others in the videos as well.
Interesting. I always wondered why the Royal Navy stopped putting conning towers in their ships due to their commanders refusing to use them. Now that I have actually seen one I realized that it is because they would have a far better idea of what is going on in the bridge or CIC. Seems to me like being in the conning tower as a commanding officer is the last place you would want to be during battle.
HMS Prince of Wales's bridge took a direct hit from the Bismarck. In spite of the loss of life, she was able to go on firing and remained under control throughout the action.
I've heard this logic before.
I'd say, in WW1 it has a point, as the view is understandably very obstructed. And in general, you are sealed off from the ship. Not to mention secondary armaments were rarely brought to bear.
But, by WW2, more advanced radio systems, periscopes, and more importantly radar systems can give this sealed off command center even more info than a traditional open bridge. Not to mention the conning tower protected other vital stuff like fire control(which honestly is much worse to lose than the captain during battle).
It's not just the battleship main guns that are needed to be protected against, but the rapid fire secondary armaments that actually do aim for the bridge(since they just ping off the main armor belt). And by WW2, secondary armaments' fire control was very accurate, and got the true range out of the guns.
TLDR, I think the British choice to remove them was a poor decision from commanders fighting the previous war and trying to cut corners[weight] during the Naval Treaty era.
Older RN battleships that were reconstructed with new superstructures had their heavily armoured conning towers removed and replaced with much lighter structures. These new conning towers were also placed much higher in the ship, for superior visibility. There is no evidence that RN captains and admirals used the armoured conning towers on those ships that did have them during World War II, with, for example, Vice-Admiral Holland and Captain Kerr commanding Hood during the Battle of the Denmark Strait from her unarmoured bridge Even in the United States Navy (USN), battleship captains and admirals preferred to use the unarmoured bridge positions during combat.
The USN had mixed opinions of the conning tower, pointing out that its weight, high above the ship's center of gravity, did not contribute directly to fighting ability. Beginning in the late 1930s, as radar surpassed visual sighting as the primary method of detecting other ships, battleships began reducing or eliminating the conning tower. The battle of Guadalcanal during World War II briefly slowed this trend: when the Japanese battleship Kirishima hit USS South Dakota on the superstructure, many exposed crewmen were killed or wounded yet Admiral Lee and Captain Davis of USS Washington declined to use the armoured conning tower during the battle.Soon the heavy battleship conning towers were removed from USS Pennsylvania, USS Tennessee, USS California, and USS West Virginia during their post-Pearl Harbor attack reconstructions and replaced with much lighter cruiser-style conning towers.
@@TheNinjaDC do you have any idea how big and heavy those systems were? They would not fit inside the conning tower, therefore your point is moot.
The Royal Navy removed their conning towers simply because the possibility of it being hit is very slim. Not even sure why people are saying during ww2 tertiary armament would be accurate enough to hit the conning tower; no, no they wouldn't be. They're directors and range finders, they can not pinpoint a few metre wide target compared to hundreds of metres of a ship.
Nor would the conning tower need to be so armoured against tertiary batteries. The conning tower was, simply, a waste of weight that could have been better spent elsewhere.
It wasn't until late 42 that radar really became decent enough to hit a battleship target, nevermind hitting something smaller. Detecting small stuff, yes, hitting it is a completely different matter all together.
Ships typically have third and fourth way to control the ship, even without the conning tower it would still have two/three ways to be controlled.
Question for Battleship New Jersey:
To what extent did USN doctrine mandate the use of the Conning Tower by the CO during combat? And also: to what extent was this doctrine violated in actual practice?
Excellent commentary on this beautiful ship
During the Battle of Jutland, Kapitan Zur See Hartog, of SMS Derfflinger described the moment his conning tower was struck by a British 12" armor piercing round: "...The crack of doom, the armored conning tower vibrated like a bell, throwing men around like rag dolls; and poisonous yellow gas came through the viewing slits....." Fortunately the stout armor held up, although pieces of steel were spalled off. And Kapitan Hartog along with his team survived.....
14" Mk VII King George V rounds penetrated Bismark's 14" conning tower armor.
@@ThePaulv12 From what i have read, the lower decks referred to Adm. Lutgens as "Schwarze Peter".....
Must have been a glancing blow....
@@rherman9085 During the confrontation of the British Grand Fleet and the German High Seas Fleet, Adm. Jellicoe had the advantage by deploying his 24 dreadnought battleships in a classic 'crossing the tee' line, blocking the Germans who were steaming in a line ahead. Jellicoe then proceeded to rain heavy shells from his full broadside on the van of the German Fleet....Admiral Reinhard Scheer ordered Vice Admiral Franz Hipper to charge the British line with his battle cruiser squadron, in order to relieve pressure on the High Seas Fleet. Hartog, in Derfflinger lead the 4 German battle cruisers. He described looking out of his conning tower and seeing nothing but muzzle flashes from British heavy guns from one end of the horizon to the other. His conning tower received a direct hit on the front, all four of his turrets were struck and burnt out. While Derfflinger survived, Moltke was not so lucky, eventually sank due to progressive flooding from numerous hits to her hull.
Seydlitz was also severely handled and flooded, barely making it home. On the whole, this generation of German ships had heavier armor than their British counterparts.
The Battle of Jutland was decisive, the British victory was strategic; the blockade of Germany continued and eventually starved the German war machine into submission.....Even though the British suffered much heavier losses than the Germans on that day in June, 1916.
And if he didn’t have that conning tower it is likely him and whoever else was with him could have been gutted though shrapnel leaving the ship without someone in command of the ship.
great video, i learned a lot. it never occurred to me how hot a ship could get, and how long it would hold onto the heat.
btw, great shirt.
We sell them in our store: www.battleshipnewjersey.org/shop/apparel/battleship-hawaiian-shirt/
Enemy: “It’s not the conning tower we were aiming for.” Guys inside the tower: “Oh cr---“
Are you conning me?
very good video . I have great respect Ken N.
Great job, and thanks for the wonderful video!
This was a really great video. I often think of the "bridge" onboard fictional vessels like in Star Trek and it's funny to think of how they differ from the heavily protected conning tower seen on a ship like New Jersey. It's also interesting how modern ships don't use conning towers anymore. Maybe Star Trek got their predictions of the future right after all.
No, they were, unfortunately, wrong.
Lost a "railings" war, after all. Lol
It's funny how on the Enterprise and on Star Destroyers (I'm a bigger Star Wars than trek fan; original trilogy of course) there are just giant windows and seemingly unarmored hull in theie conning tower. Though I guess they have "energy shields" and the like
Yall might appreciate this video: ruclips.net/video/24-0BcsNWQU/видео.html
@@Jon.A.Scholt Only on the reboot enterprise, on the older series ones it was a giant tv screen.
It's interesting that even though they often had a "battle bridge" protected in the centre of the ship, they rarely used it in conflicts, perhaps along the same lines as to why conning towers fell out of use in some navies even during WW2.
@@sergarlantyrell7847 Nice same Ser Garlan, hope we see more of you in TWoW (whenever that drops) probably fighting against Euron on the shores of the reach! I see I am in a company of fellow nerds!
This is the best RUclips channel. Gracias
I climbed up into Big Mamies conning tower to the top as a 23yr old when no one was allowed. I would crawl around so many off limits areas back then. It was my private get away adventure and happy place. I so love her. Many memories on a beautiful ship.
I wish that the one person that consistently votes down every battleship video would just stop watching. Obviously they have an axe to grind because these videos are well done and informative.
Discontent is the sign of success!
@@BattleshipNewJersey Maybe a contributing factor to the number of dislikes is the speaker's inability to put decent phrases together. It made me stop watching half way through.
@@zootsootful No idea what you mean, though I am not an English major. I quite liked it.
Some amplifying facts about the armor used in the new US Navy battleships built after 1930, starting with NORTH CAROLINA and including the cancelled MONTANA Class. The Conning Tower 17.3" side armor was in the IOWAs the same thickness on its sides as the side armor of the main 16" gun cylindrical barbettes, which held up the rotating turrets, above the heavily-armored (6" Special Treatment Steel in two bolted-together plies, 4.5" on top of 1.5") 2nd deck (except for a narrow strip of the barbettes where they faced directly fore-and aft, which was somewhat thinner due to being much less likely to be hit at right-angles, to save some weight); below that deck, where the ship's thickest belt and deck armor protected the lower barbette structure, the armor was thinner. The 16" gun turret faces were 17.5-18" thick (mostly also laminated with a very thick outer plate over a much thinner support plate), tilted back at 35 degrees, in the SOUTH DASKOTA and IOWA Classes (less in NORTH CAROLINA Class and much thicker in the MONTANs), so they were slightly thicker than the Conning Tower or barbette sides.
What is unusual about the armor used in all of these new battleships, as opposed to all foreign ships of this type and even the older US battleships built from about 1897 through WWII was the type of armor used for the Conning Tower and turret faces and, for all US Navy warships, who was authorized to design, specify the metallurgical specs for, and pay for all of this turret-related and Conning Tower armor. All of this armor was supplied through the US Navy Bureau of Ordnance, NOT the Bur3eau of Construction and Repair or, later, the Bureau of Ships, which replaced BuC&R in 1942, who you might think would be responsible. When the first armored warships were built by the US during the US Civil War the armor, such as it was in some ships, was made of wrought iron, as was much of the iron used for ship construction when wood was not used. I am not sure who was responsible for what armor back then, but by the year 1900, high-strength nickel-chromium-steel (based on the German Krupp "Type 420" armor steel developed in 1894 -- named after the Plate Number of the first Krupp armor plate of that type tested that year and used through the 20th and 21st Centuries for the baseline specification material for the highest-strength steel armor for most ships and land vehicles) was supplied for major weapon mounts by BuOrd and ship hull armor and light protective plating for small gun mounts (gun shields and cylindrical "tubs" for the 40mm AA gun mounts during WWII, for example). WITH ONE MAJOR EXCEPTION: ALL face-hardened armor -- Harveyized Nickel-Steel in 1891 through about 1900 and Krupp Cemented (KC) and alternate non-cemented, but still deep-faced, face-hardened armors made in the 1900-1913 period for the US Navy -- were called by BuOrd "Class 'A'" armor and ONLY BuOrd was authorized to supply this form of armor, no matter where on the ship it went, including armored waterline belts and the Connint Towers. In fact, showing how "rice bowls" affected things, the word "armor" WAS NOT ALLOWED IN ANY NON-BuORD DOCUMENT CONCERNING FRAGMENT OR PROJECTILE IMPACT PROTECTION! Thus, in BuC&R and later BuSHIPS documents, the name Special Treatment Steel ("STS") had to used instead, with no face-hardened armor mentioned unless talking about and specifying BuORD Class "A" armor (STS is a direct English translation of the French name of its near-identical nickel-chromium-steel armor when no face-hardening was applied). Thus, from the first US warships to used the Krupp Type 420 steel or variants thereof to the last ship to do so, only BuORD supplied the face-hardened versions of this armor, made to BuC&R/BuSHIPS-supplied designs. BuC&R/BuSHIPS were free to supply their own armors of any other kind, but, as noted, except for thinner plating used for decks and some secondary mounts and non-face-hardened waterline belts ("Treaty Cruisers" after 1923, for example) and, in the new US Navy WWII battleships only, thick-at-the-top tapering STS lower belts to stop underwater hits, face-hardened side armor continued to be used in the older battleships through the COLORADO Class and the cancelled later ships (due to the Washington Treaty of 1923). BuC&R/BuSHIPS had its own armor supplier, Carnegie/Carnegie-Illinois Steel Corporation (later part of US Steel Corporation) for STS. BuORD had its STS-equivalent "Class 'B'" armor (used for turret roofs and all plating under about 4-5" (depends on placement) where deep-faced "decremental hardening" used with KC armor variants was not worth the higher cost) and, for many armor-related extra-high-strength support requirements, its nickel-steel "Class 'C'" armor used to make heavy nuts and bolts and support connection plates (I am not sure if BuC&R/BuSHIPS had its own Class "C" equivalent or just used BuORD-supplied material here for this purpose). All BuORD armor-related steels, in all three Classes, was supplied by three companies during the 20th Century: Carnegie, as with STS, but with separate contracts (it was the largest of the three), Bethlehem Steel Corporation, and The Midvale Company (the smallest). Bethlehem and Midvale also made gun projectiles, with Midvale being a major innovator and, until Crucible Steel Company, edged it out slightly during WWII, the best manufacturer of US Navy gun projectiles during the first half of the 20th Century.
PART I
@@gregtroll Over 50 years of research on this topic and I still have things I do not know. Shows how difficult the universe is to understand when even just banging together two pieces of metal is so hard to figure out correctly in all of its variations...
Very well done, Ken.
The last ship I was on had a wheel the size of a coke bottle lid. It's all electronic.
no kidding eh? something about that seems innately wrong... all respectable ships should have a big ol' solid English oak wheel... manned by a pirate, of course.
I wish we still had a preserved British battleship so we could see why these things were being ditched in favour or splinter protection.
Wooden shells are wicked lol
The answer is in the historical record. Interwar analysis of command staff behaviour during battle indicated that they preferred to retain their situational awareness on the open bridge rather than be closed off inside the conning tower. Sometimes some of the staff were sent inside to preserve command in case the bridge was hit. Later designs thus eliminated the weight and volume of a conning tower in favour of lighter splinter and small calibre protection of the bridge structure.
@@thors3532 so did Prince of Wales, which was a minor part of why she withdrew from the battle of the Denmark Strait. Statistically it was quite unlikely to receive a direct hit, though it still had 3" of armour to protect from splinters from nearby explosions.
Bismarck took so many hits a hit to the bridge was far more likely, practically a certainty. But then they were at relatively short range, where even the 14" sides of the conning tower were not enough...
@youtube propaganda There doesn't seem to be any spall lining inside the armour, with how big shells had grown the thickness wouldn't matter unless it was a meter or more thick. 17" wouldn't be penetrated but the interior would be filled with supersonic chunks of that armour, half the thickness with spacing would probably be better as it would prevent shockwave propagation.
@@sergarlantyrell7847 It might be strange but thinner conning tower could increase chances of their crew to survive when fighting against battleship - AP round could pass without causing that much spalling and without exploding. Closer quarter fight like those around Guadalcanal against heavy cruisers could be problem.
No wonder they would remove the conning towers before attempting to refloat the battleships which were salvaged after Pearl Harbor. That's a lot of weight.
Ya' think so, Captain Obvious?
Yeah, it's pretty interesting. I wouldn't think the armour around the superstructure would be that thick. You'd expect it around the hull, but dang!
that amazing, how was that even possible for them to remove the tower? that must have been a HELL of a lot of work, cutting and torching for it to come loose... that would be an incredible sight to see
If anyone's interested in the salvage of the battleships after Pearl Harbor, there are a couple of videos by Drachinifel on the subject. I'll post a link in the next reply - RUclips often deletes replies with links, if you don't see a link just search RUclips. Yeah, salvaging the battleships was a huge job, and they did remove the conning towers before attempting to right and re-float the hulls. Remember, it's not just that the towers were heavy - they were also part of the superstructure and therefore removing them would more easily allow capsized hulls to be rolled back upright, or keep upright hulls upright during the re-floating process.
Link: ruclips.net/video/bB-V9cCSC8o/видео.html (Let's see if this survives)
Jared Harris looking dude. Loved the video!
Armored conning towers, in practice, were rarely ever used in battle. Still, if a NJ was getting the absolute crap beat out of it, it would have been nice to have. Fortunately the Iowas were not likely to have the crap beaten out of them, as nothing would survive long enough to find the range.
I suspect a Yamato could have given one a hiding in a ship on ship contest. The advantage of an Iowa would be the ability to run away.
@@alecblunden8615 I'd think the biggest advantage the Iowa would have over a Yamato would be the modern fire control and search radars, followed by speed to dictate the range of engagement or break off at will, followed by ammunition quality. My impression is an Iowa could fairly reliably sink a Yamato outright in a one-on-one fight in perfect weather conditions, with the gap in performance growing wider as visibility declines.
Is it possible to open the doors from outside? I.e. in case crew inside is incapacitated by high caliber direct git
Can't answer about opening from outside but there's a interior stairwell.
No
PART 2
When the new US Navy battleships were being designed in the 1930s, they originally were going to have Class "A" armor Conning Towers and turret faces, the thickest plates on the ship, with the sides of the barbettes being a close second. However, since face-hardened armor had not been made for some time and the new steels were significantly better metallurgically than the older steel used in 1923, when innovation in heavy naval armor, especially face-hardened naval armor, kind of dried up, reactivating the thick plate plants turned out to be more difficult than expected (they could not merely use the old specs with the new steels). While the effective strength of WWII STS/Class "B" armors was not much better than it had been in WWI, the cost to make it and quality control was much better, and there was not that much call for a "better" armor of that type, just one that was reliable and could be made in large enough quantities (and since the Navy was now competing with the Army for such armors -- "Rolled Homogeneous Steel" or "Cast Homogeneous Steel" in Army specs -- keeping the cost down and the amount made up was by far more important). While it was possible to laminate STS/Class "B" armor using the thick-over-thin method as used for deck armor and, in most cases, Class "B" turret face armor, Class "A" armor had to be made in one solid thickness, with back supporting only being thin construction plates, even though these thin plates might be STS or Class "B" armor for maximum deformation resistance against heavy impacts. It turned out that the maximum thickness for Class "A" plates when NORTH CAROLIHNA and WASHINGTON was being made was less than what the Conning Tower or turret faces were specified to be, though the slightly thinner barbettes and much thinner waterline belts could be made easily. This was ramped up and by the time the SOUTH DAKOTA Class was being built, the Class "A" armor could be made to the solid 18-19" thickness range needed (over 22" for MONTANA barbettes by 1943). To prevent delays, the NORTH CAROLINA and later classes were redesigned with Class "B" armor Conning Towers and turret faces (there was a 19"-thick solid Class "B" turret face plate with two big holes in it tested for the USS ALABAMA turrets on display at the front gate of the old US Naval Proving Ground (now Naval Surface Warfare Center), Dahlgren ("Dahlgren Division" now), Virginia), though, as mentioned, most of these later battleships had slightly thinner face plates made of two layers). When doing this redesign, they realized two things:
(1) By using the Class "B" armor -- still using BuORD specs even though theoretically BuC&R/BuSHIPS could have supplied STS instead -- the Conning Tower could now be WELDED (the hard face of a Class "A" plate cannot be)!!!! This allowed a major weight saving by using the heavy Conning Tower and its armored support structure (carrying the electrical power and control cabling down to the hull and the other equipment on the ship) as the central support of the large gun director and radar platforms at the top of the forward mast which the Conning Tower is a major part of. This armored structure was extremely strong and could be used without any outer replacement being needed to surround, but not touch, it, as would have bee needed for an equally-strong structure using Class "A" armor. From then on, no US battleships ever considered Class "A" armor for Conning Towers ever again, but (politics?) BuORD kept the power of making the armor contracts for it (I wonder if BuSHIPS was less than happy about this for the later ships?).
(2) Because the turret faces of NORTH CAROLINA and WASHINGTON were Class "B" armor, it was originally thought that they might be inferior in stopping power against the new US AP shells also being introduced at that time (14" Mark 16 and 16" Mark 5 for the overhauled older battleships and 16" Mark 8 "super-heavy" AP for the new battleships). Tests showed THE OPPOSITE: The new shells were so strong (and they got stronger as WWII progressed in some of these shells) that the hard face layer was not capable of damaging them unless they hit at a rather high angle from right-angles. Since the turret faces were tilted back at 35 degrees to increase their effective strength at close range where striking velocity was the highest, these new US shells were tested at 35-40 degrees against the thickest flat Class "A" plates available -- older WWI-era 13.5" belt armor plates in storage at Dahlgren and later new 13.5" belt plates to repair those ships damaged at Pearl Harbor -- and the shells proved to be just as resistant to damage from Class "A" armor as from Class "B" armor and Class "B" armor was much cheaper and more reliable and could be made faster, to boot. Only in the thinner -- 12-12.2" Class "A" armor -- inclined waterline belts or curved barbettes, where impacts at high angles were expected even at rather close range, was Class "A" armor deemed to be somewhat better at damaging the new AP shells (and, as it turned out, no foreign shells came even close to the required test specs for the US shells, though many were equal to the new US shells at up to 30-35 degrees against the thinner plates). For example, when, after WWII US 14" Mark 16 MOD 8 AP shell, about the best AP shell ever made for the US Navy or anybody else, for that matter, was tested against a 1930s-design British 14" Mark IB N.T. APC shell (the US Navy did not use a "C" in its shell ID as it assumed an armor-piercing cap was used or it reverted to the term "Common" for such shells, no matter how they were designed otherwise) used in its WWII KING GEORGE V Class battleships against the new-made 13.5" belt plates at 30 degrees from right-angles (British spec angle), the British shell was slightly better than the US shell as to the minimum velocity needed to penetrate (taking weight differences into account, of course), but when tested against 17.3" Class "A" armor or 18" Class "B" armor used in IOWA, for example, at this same angle, the US shell completely penetrated, with some base damage that would not have allowed the shell to explode properly (though other such tests had showed that at a higher velocity intact penetrations were the usual), at the minimum possible velocity to get through, but at the same equivalent velocity the British shells just broke apart against the Class "A" armor and bent into a crescent and made only an 11"-deep dimple in the Class "B" armor plate (with no hope of these British shells being able to penetrate such thick armor even at point-blank range at probably 25 degrees or more). There is damage and there is DAMAGE! Thus, it turned out that using Class "B" armor for turret faces was not a problem after all...
Thank you for your detailed post. It is my understanding that naval armor plates were case hardened, in order to facilitate the break-up of AP shells upon impact, and the armor was made from high nickle content steel that gave it toughness and a malleability that would absorb the energy of the penetrating projectile by deforming.....There are some photos of damage that occurred to US cruisers and the battleship South Dakota during the many engagements around Guadacanal during WWII.
The South Dakota was struck on the upper edge of the barbette of the after turret by a 14 in. AP from IJN Kirishima. The armored deck was seriously deformed, and a good sized dent in the barbette with no spalling or cracks. A photo from a cruiser, (Boise or Portland) shows a direct hit on the face armor of a turret. No damage to the armor other than scorch mark, but the deck is gouged by shrapnel from the round.
@Barney Linet HARVEYIZED nickel-steel is what you are describing, introduced in 1891 by the Harvey Company (named after the inventor of this armor, who had worked for Bethlehem Steel previously) and based on the just-introduced French Schneider et Cie. nickel-steel armor that made all previous armors obsolete. Unfortunately for them, Krupp in 1894 introduced his nickel-chromium armor in 1894, which was significantly stronger when hardened properly and which could be made into a deep-faced form of face-hardened armor allowing much better damage to and resistance from AP shells (at least those at the time which did not have hardened AP caps). The Krupp Cemented (KC) armor (Harveyized surface and deep "decremental" hardening both applied), with a large number of variants, was the main side armor of battleships and, the larger, more heavily protected cruisers by the year 1900 and thereafter, with the homogeneous, ductile version forming the rest of the true armor protection (nickel-steel and high-tensile steel was used in support plates and thin splinter protection, but not when a direct enemy shell impact was expected on its own unprotected surface) -- also used as the basis for most tank armor made of steel. Homogeneous, ductile armor is by far the best when a shell hits at a highly oblique angle in thinner plates, since the plate has to keep from cracking and breaking as it gradually deflects the nose of the shell from downward to upward to glance off over a rather long, cigar-shaped "canoe" gouge -- face-hardened armor can be punched through too easily under such a condition.
@@barneylinet6602 You mention that 14" Type 91 hit by KIRISHIMA on SOUTH DAKOTA. I and a friend of mine who wrote a book about this did a detailed analysis of that hit and it turns out to be one of the most unusual impacts ever received by a warship (at least one that lived to tell the tale). The impact on the 1.5" weather deck was a few feet in front of the barbette at a very highly oblique angle (about 75 degrees or so from the range at the time and the ship being in a turn, tiling the hull. The shell dented the deck downward, tearing it free from the light supports projecting out of the 17.3" US BuORD Class "A" ("Thick Chill" face-hardened) barbette plate, forming a rounded-bottom "V"-shaped gouge/dent in the armor so that the nose of the projectile hit the barbette angled somewhat downward at about a 45-degree horizontal angle (but the deep dent confined the projectile nose to vertical motion only). The impact with the deck tore up the teak deck in front of and near the forward motion of the shell to each side, but this was all removed when the shell detonated later on, as will be seen.; The deck impact tore off the thin windscreen and separated the shell's unique (to all Japanese Type 91 AP shells) removable "Cap Head" -- a flat-based "discus-shaped" AP cap tip held on only by the windscreen threads and designed to tear free on ocean impact, allowing the shell to dive underwater easily and stay stable nose-first for a rather long time to allow a hit on the enemy ship's lower hull, bypassing the belt armor, if the shell hits the ocean up to 220 feet (for the 14" size) short of the hull. To get this long path the base fuze delay, set off on the water impact, was lengthened to a huge 0.4 second (a pro0blem when hitting light plating on the ship itself, as the shell would tend to pass through the target ship like a solid shot; not good). In this case the windscreen was more-or-less crumpled up and smashed flat against the barbette and, to my knowledge never found, while the Cap Head followed right behind the windscreen and hit the barbette higher up on the barbette while the projectile pinched it between the flat nose and the bent-down deck plate. The Cap Head bounced off and tore a large bite out of a water-shield combing around a hatch to the side of the barbette (we originally thought that the shell made that tear, but the angles were impossible) and flew away from the ship like a small vertical-tilted flying saucer.
The projectile itself, with its AP cap torn upward by the deck armor, separating it from the nose, but keeping it riding on the nose anyway, then hit the barbette just below the level of the deck prior to the hit, making a wide, shallow gouge in the hard face surface and denting the armor just enough to later stop them from using the turret (except if an emergency had occurred, since it still moved, though with complaints). Since the projectile was somewhat nose-down and the extremely long base fuze delay was not going to effect anything else during this hit, the projectile tried to nose downward, further bending the deck into a large "smiley face" wraped partly around the barbette and wedging the nose through the narrow gap between the plate and barbette. Using this gap point as a pivot, the still-moving body and base of the shell, rotated upward until the shell was standing on end, nose-down, and its middle and lower body slammed at high velocity like a baseball bat against the super-hard cemented face of the barbette (further denting it a little, I assume) where it detonated due to the extreme sensitivity of the trinitroanisol ("Type 91 Explosive") filler, which had thick cushioning all around it inside the shell from a nose-on hit, but not against a sideways slap like that. The filler detonated high order, tearing off the deck wood for yards in all directions radiating from the shell hit on the barbette and disintegrating the shell above the weather deck, only tiny pieces of which were ever found. The nose, held wedged between the barbette and deck was broken into many large and small chunks tore up the region between the weather deck and the primary deck armor on the 2nd deck under it, tearing up the area in this one-deck-high region and making many holes in surrounding bulkheads, with a few of the larger pieces tearing through some additional bulkheads to be found some distance away. Other than the small affect on the turret horizontal drive, no other significant damage to the weapon platform portion of SOUTH DAKOTA occurred from the hit.
This was one crazy, odd-ball hit!
@@nathanokun8801 Thank you for your excellent post on the damage to the Uss South Dakota......The Kirishima paid dearly for that hit. USS Washington with Adm. Willis (Ching) Lee embarked exacted a fearful revenge later on in the encounter. A recent analysis by Robert Lundgren and Tony Giulian dated 28 October 2010 details the numerous radar directed 16 in hits that sank the Kirishima later on in the evening.....
@@nathanokun8801 Again, thank you for your detailed insight; the long history of armor protection has not come to an end, new metals and materials are currently being developed. And now that a new ballistic technology, hypersonic ramjet artillery rounds are beginning to be developed, the contest between kinetic energy weapons and protective measures has entered a new phase.
"Keep at it, every shot is telling"
From what I understand armored conning towers were no promise of survival due to the concussion of a large shell causing such a shock .
Who knows, it might have, bu regardless it would have deafened anyone inside it and rendered the ship leaderless in any case.
I found this BLAST PROOF Armored room on the Missouri at Pearl Harbor. We had four huge blast doors on our Titan II Missile Complexes - hydraulic locking pins.
..so how thick were the Yamato class conning towers? Not that it helped either warship to survive. Fascinating engineering regardless..
19.7 inches
there was a program on T V years ago about going down and finding the Bismarck. they specifically had the under-sea rover go around bridge and conning tower. they found penetrating holes in the tower from the 16" projectiles of ( nelson or rodney ). anyone inside there would have been blown to pieces by the " spall " fragments. and even IF the armor was able to protect the people inside from splinters they would have been messed up by the concussion.!!
Conning towers have saved commanding crew lives before. Don’t get me wrong it isn’t exactly pleasant to have a large caliber shell hit your conning tower but having a large ringing sound and some spalling (dependent on armor thickness) vs the alternative of having your ship bridge crew gutted by shrapnel and over pressure with the command structure of the ship going down the toilet. I’d take the former. Besides it isn’t just large caliber shell hits but also medium and light caliber guns as well and shrapnel that needs to be considered as well.
Is there record of hits taken to conning towers of NJ or any other WW2 battleships?
NJ never took a hit to her conning tower
Honestly and not putting Ryan down but your delivery style is far better
The benefits of doing 2 videos a month instead of 30 is the ability to do it in a dozen tries instead of 1 or 2 and being able to plan out your spiel!
Thank you. Would it be possible to get a zoomed-out shot of the conning tower?
The space is pretty tight, this is about as zoomed out as one can get, unfortunately. Looks like you'll have to come out and see it in person!
How survivable would a 14-16" shell hit on the conning tower be for those inside?
I presume shock and spalling would knock C&C out for at least a few min...
I can't think of any examples. The Captains don't seem to have used them.
@@mikepotter5718 I presume it'd depend on the level of threat? Wonder if Bismarck captain used his.
Depends on the shell too. A direct hit from HE might cause minor spalling. A direct hit from an AP round or squashead might cause more serious damage. Getting a direct hit at a right angle to the armor is what it would take to penetrate though. Its a cylinder, any angle at all and the round is likely to deflect or break apart.
Targeting offensive weapons like main batteries, compromising hull integrity or main propulsion would be priority targets.
@@dlifedt If I remember correctly they were on the bridge. I've forgotten the source but "whoever" said they Probably died when the bridge was hit.
A Star is born
Very informative for us LAND LUBBERS 🤣🤣👍
Good job
This guy should do all the videos on the channel.
If only he could do it in less than 20 takes...
@@BattleshipNewJersey does he take too many takes?
@@BattleshipNewJersey lol.
Is there another bridge used for routine navigation?
Love the shirt, I want one. Where did you get it?
We have them in our online store: www.battleshipnewjersey.org/store
I was on 3 ships but always wanted an Iowa Class, as an AC&R Shop LPO I would have had access to a lot of spaces.
Aside from the immediate damage control efforts, how do you repair something like a hole in the 17inch armor of the citadel? I presume there is a LOT of welding involved, but how much material needs to be cut away? How do they ensure a solid weld without voids?
If a 17 inch armor gets perforated then the ship might not need repairs anymore ;-)
Super glue
I'd Super crown Big J just to hear her stories from her perspective.
.................. your what hurts?! =/
I can assume that a destroyer could ding at that conning tower armor for quite a long time before punching through with her small deck gun. I think it's also safe to assume that a direct hit from another Battleship would probably still bust right through that armor, unless it's at such an odd angle that it'd prefer deflecting instead. But what about all the sizes of shells in between? What size does the gun shell/velocity need to be before this conning tower ceases to provide protection?
The general rule of thumb is that in order to penetrate armor, you need a shell at least as wide as the armor is thick. Battleships are (by definition) armored against their own weapons, so a 16" shell should not be able to defeat this armor.
@@KingdaToro But it'd have to be different for shells with fuse delays. And the amount of powder behind the shell still matters. The delay allows the shell to dig in a big before exploding. And they could tip the shell with a more dense metal. Even if someone happened to survive a direct hit to that conning tower, I have a suspicion they wouldn't be able to function. Their loss of hearing would be the least of their problems.
How are these conning towers produced ?
Casted ?
I assume rolled.
Great video Ken! As a follow up, what would happen to the crew in the conning tower if a large caliber shell hit it when the doors were closed for battle?
Theories are mixed on that. Some designers in other Navies eliminated the heavy armored conning tower. They felt that if a heavy shell it hit even without penetration the occupants would be dead.
The film of the Bismarck wreck shows the armoured door for the conning tower blown off, it was commented that a hit from 16" shell from Rodney probably penetrated the armour.
@@markdavis2475 yes it is correct and apparently the Rodney with her 16 inches cannon was shooting at the Bismarck from 3,000 yards. The conning tower stood no chance at all...
@@paoloviti6156 Ouch! at that range the impact would have been brutal. Although I don't know how much velocity the shell looses at long ranges.
@@johnstudd4245 the Nelson class battleships was fitted with the BL 16-inch Mark 45 calibre cannons lobbying 2,048 pounds (929 kg) shells up 2,586 feet/second (788 m/s) with an effective firing range 35,000 yards (32,000 m) at 32° elevation. So you can easily understand what it means shooting off the conning tower at around 3,000 yards, really a piece of cake. Those 16-inch cannons was one of the main reasons why they easily won the battle of Matapan against the Italian fleet simply because they out-ranging the Littorio class battleships that was fitted with the 380 mm cannons (not really true..) but the fact remains that the 16-inch cannons were far more effective...
Hope I didn't bore you!
Does the Conning tower armor go down to the citadel?
It goes down to the top of the citadel.
Here are the deck plans:
maritime.org/doc/plans/bb62.pdf
Page 4 will give you a pretty good image of the citadel
Awe that’s awesome!!! Thank you for that!
The over pressure of a hit on that conning tower would kill everyone inside instantly.
Do you mean essentially the concussion of such a hit?
Not necessarily. 16-17 inches of armor is a lot of mass that has to transfer concussion force and will greatly reduce the overall shock. As for over pressuer, my understanding is the even the viewing ports are open, there is not enough open space for the pressure wave to enter the conning tower before the pressure has dissipated below deadly levels; essentially a case of path of least resistance and into the conning tower is not the path of least resistance
I'm so relieved that he explained the purpose of the fan, I would never have known otherwise.
I'm wondering if you can answer a question for me, it's not BB New Jersey specific, but on BB Missouri there is some sort of antenna or mast on the bow of the ship. Do you know what that is/was for?
The "Christmas tree" shaped antenna on the bow is for the NTDS. It's some kind of data link system. If I remember right, it's for sharing targeting information, but the Iowas were only capable of transmitting. If anyone knows why that is, I would love to hear it.
Check this out: ruclips.net/video/LxVX8oedK0o/видео.html
A discone is very efficient antenna. Just about any radio can pick up the signal transmitted by it and radio sets up until the 1980s were often separate transmitters and receivers with dedicated antennas. For example, the receivers on these ships where almost always just long wire dipoles, whereas the transmitting antennas were more sophisticated.
It is a discone-cage (discage) antenna. As the name suggests, it is actually a combination of a discone and a cage. It is good for 2 to 30 MHz. It is not, as another poster suggested, good only for LINK 11. See www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=&ved=2ahUKEwjkxfi8utjuAhUWEVkFHXo9BkkQFjAAegQIARAC&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.navy-radio.com%2Fant%2Fdiscage-661464.pdf&usg=AOvVaw1IwnRvHR1HCSdBe-vPBZHn
It's wierd how the steering wheel is solid, rather than being spoked. In the grand scheme of things it wouldn't make much of a difference in terms of using more materials, but a spoked design might be easier to hold on to.
We essentially have "power steering" so you don't need to hold to it quite so hard. It does also have ridged edges allowing for a god grip when necessary though.
I don't understand the ventilation issue. Why did they allow direct sunlight onto the conning tower? Whey were there no powerful fans circulating the air out of it? Where was water cooling? Why no AC???
Welcome to the 1940s, creature comforts arent really important.
Did Bethlehem Steel produce all the steel for the Iowa class ships? Was that a function of theirs? Or was the steel produced in Pittsburgh by US STEEL or other companies? Those war department contracts helped make the military industrial complex what it is today, eh. 🙂
No Air Conditioning was a missed opportunity to improve crew performance in hot conditions.
Air con has a hot end and a cold end. Where are they gonna blow the hot air to?
Great video. One correction: The conning tower is not the thickest armor on the ship. That award goes to the turret faces, which are up to 19.5" thick, if memory serves.
And I believe the barbettes are also the same thickness as the conning tower at their thickest points.
The conning tower just outpaces the turret faces and the widest part of the barrette in armor thickness. The front face is 17in thick, and the barrette tops out at 17.3 while the conning tower is 17.5 .
An additional note from Ryan on this: the faceplate of the turrets has multiple layers of armor. Once the layers are combined it creates a thicker armor than the conning tower once combined, but the conning tower is the thickest single piece of armor. Generally when measuring armor, measuring the multiple layers as one is a bit of "*" because we also have air gaps and other defensive layers that would then make the armor seem thicker than it really is though all of it does provide a protection layer. TLDR; yes and no on the thickness of the turret face plates.
I would be glad to know there was more than 1 door to the conning tower if my battle station was inside it. I am claustrophobic and would be afraid of a hit jamming a single door and me drowning like a trapped rat in a sinking ship. Like the people trapped in elevators on the Lusitania when it lost electrical power after being hit by the torpedo. That would really suck.
There's a book called _Battleship Sailor_ by Mason. The author was a radioman on _California_ at the time of Pearl Harbor. Main radio had a single exit, an armored hatch that could only be opened from the outside.
On the other hand, if you're claustrophobic, the Navy is probably not the service for you in the first place. Small, dark, dangerous spaces are kind of a specialty of ships generally. :)
I was a QM, looks like home.
17 inch thick steel is really thick
Did Bethlehem Steel, provided the steel to built this ship. Or any of the ships in the United States Navy.
The very first Liberty Ship was produced by Bethlehem-Fairfield in Baltimore. The company was an incredibly prolific shipbuilding and steel manufacturer. Its quite possible they provided material for or directly built hundreds of ships.
The steel plant I was referring is the old steel plant in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. They actually have a real battleship cannon in display in front of one of their old buildings. Incidentally, this old steel site is now part of Wind Creek Casino.
The yellow I beam you see in many of our videos is Bethlehem Steel and its far from the only piece from there.
Nice spot to drown when the ship is listing and you can not open the door anymore..
There were multiple ways out of the conning tower, to include the wiring trunk down to broadway. However a list would not preclude open the vault doors as the doors are hydraulically opened and closed as even when level they are too heavy to be opened and closed by hand
The Monitor had a conning tower :-)
Tight shirt!
We sell them in our gift shop! Battleshipnewjersey.org/shop
He was a good ship
I have never understood why any ship much less a Warship would have an open bridge.
Enclosed bridges are a fairly recent concept in warships due to most glass used on bridges not being able to withstand the concussion of the ships main guns being fired. Even after the IOWAs got enclosed bridges, the SOP all the way up to their retirement and donation was that the bridge windows were to be rolled down (into presumably protective sleeves inside the bulkheads) in case of general quarters or weapons employment in order to prevent the windows from being blown out by the concussion.
@@isaachousley325 Thanks, actually makes sense for those types of ships, but British Corvettes, Destroyers operating in the North Atlantic or Artic regions looks so miserable that I would think it had to have some negative effect on fighting efficiency.
What a shame there is insufficient maintenance budget to take care of these old gals properly.
There's a whole lot of ship to keep up! To help support the ship, go to: gf.me/u/ysdi3a
@Salty Cock fortunately, we've got an extra 40 years of Navy maintenance to put the ship in a better starting place, and we've had the ability to learn from earlier museum ships that Texas did not. Also, Texas isn't in as bad of shape as most people think. They just gave her $50 million, she's going to be just fine.
Im sure if you wrote em a check ... theyd put it use !
the state of N.J. spends MILLIONS on " social programs " . most of their politicians of the ruling party actually hate anything to do with " the military ". so why would THEY spend any money to keep it up.!!!!! it won't get them any votes.!!!! look at how poorly the cruiser " olympia " is maintained , and it's in the philly NAVY YARD .
The battleship is actually a private organization and not part of any local, state, or federal government. These organizations are very kind to us but they do not control the museum and thus have limited ability to support the ship.
17 and 3 inches of armor? 20"?
17.3 inches of armor
Still don't know what is a Conning Tower? Where does the word come from?
Its the armored protection around the steering wheel.
It's name comes from the word for navigating or controlling the ship,at least in the Royal Navy it's known as conning the ship.
@@BattleshipNewJersey
I love how basic this explanation is.
Looks like a sealed coffin. Makes me wonder how they "cast" installed aand transported it.
Really big cranes. When they installed the turrets, the man in charge of the crane promised the crane would hold but it hadn't been tested. He stood under the turret while it was being moved so if it failed he wouldn't have to deal with the aftermath. He and the turret were just fine.
The turrets were moved in pieces. Armor plates and barrels installed after the barbette lift. Was the conning tower also lifted in sections? You see the turret gun house being assembled on navsource.org but no pics of the conning tower being installed. Bummer.
@@BattleshipNewJersey I’ve worked around crane's, to easy to die, to play Russian Roulette.
@@Bill-xx2yh he’s not condoning the actions of the man, he’s just stating what happened.
I would wager a non zero amount of people lost limbs when that door closed on them
17 inch thick armor .
If a 15" shell hit the conning tower, would anyone survive inside?
That totally sucks there is no air-conditioning
So why don’t modern navy ships have conning towers anymore?
Modern ships don't really have armor at all anymore because the modern navy doesn't fight other ships.
@@BattleshipNewJersey Probably because no sane enemy with conventional power would dare attack US ships and those insane enemies with unconventional/asymmetrical power would need to be close enough to discharge a charge of enough energy to pierce a 3" hull? American ships have been attacked this way before by a small boat and 100lb of quasi directional charge.
i have that shirt...
We wear them every Friday!
Armored citadel
Is it just me But After Watsching a Little Bit does he Sound high 🪴🪴
You can tell the narrator has little shipboard experience
Only about a decade
Laughs in British
5:26 : I knew it! Dales cpimbomg up the ladder #laddergate ...These Hollywood computer guys, same guys who faked that mom landin' at the NASuhhh, gul durn NASuhh with their High falutin green screens,faking them stories them newses put out
This guy doesn't look well.
Maybe get some sun and some more fresh fruit and veg...
I have watched a couple of these New Jersey Battleship videos... and they look like a couple of Junkies found the keys to the ship...a cheap iphone and are trying to get some money! Anyway...super casual perhaps..... wish you all some luck...... get a haircut LOL
We prefer to put our money into the ship than into ourselves (or our cameras). But check out our community page for additional information on the difficulties we face carrying camera equipment through the ship.
Marc why be such a jerk? Just take your bad attitude somewhere else, these videos are great!
@@BattleshipNewJersey I'm old, but this guy sounds really really old. I'm glad you're doing these videos and volunteering your time.
Um, uh, pause. Keep trying, because what you have to say is very good. Practice for a while and you'll be a good teacher.
Not very good. Should have rehearsed this, for starters. Okay, right from the beginning.......what's the purpose of the conning tower and why was it armored? Why did armor thickness increase with every iteration of the "BB"? Iowa's conning tower had 17.3 inches of armor.....why 17.3 inches? How was the Iowa's armor designed and fabricated?
See, I know all these answers....and would have made a point of putting this guy on the spot for the entire duration of "the tour" he or his colleagues would try and give me. Too easy not to include the basic "wave-top-facts" I suggested with the example questions I posed.
Not trying to put this guy down, but....the Iowa deserves better guides or docents or interpretive whatever's...than this fellow who isn't very articulate to begin with.
You're right, I am retired from the US Department of the Navy.
Good point, wd shouldn't have assumed that why a space was armored was obvious to all of our viewers.
@@BattleshipNewJersey I agree I'm a viewer and I know the purpose of the conning tower and why it is armored I do not need JD S to tell me.
Good job with your videos and keep them coming.
Give it a Break! Gee! I will wager I know far more than you ever could learn about the Battleships! I was on the Engineering and reactivation teams! I worked and operated every Engineering space including the guns! I crawled every Bilge and had hands on repairing each boiler and fire room!
so why 17.3 and not a rounder figure of say 17.5 inches?
Fascinating subject.... totally unprepared presenter. Frustrating. Because i was genuinely interested.
BUY A PROPER SOUND MIKE, I KNOW ITS NEW JERSEY , THE LEAST PRODUCTIVE LEAST HARDEST WORKING STATE IN THE UNION AN ALWAYS A VICTIM , BUT A GOOD CHINESE SOUND MIKE NOT MUCH WORK EVEN BY NJ STANDARDS.
Thank god ....no more ryan please
You say "um" to much. Annoying!