Turbo Electric vs Direct Drive Turbine: What Propulsion Plant Is Better for Capital Ships?
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- Опубликовано: 12 сен 2024
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In this episode we're talking propulsion!
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"You push a button and electrical things happen and then the thing shoots" - that's the best description of modern weapons systems I've ever heard!
Just don’t let the smoke escape!
@@jimtalbott9535 not the magic smoke!
True Jr. High explanation!
Doubt they were used on board
Matter-Antimatter annihilation coupled to a pair of warp nacelles would be a pretty nifty power and propulsion system.
A True Man Of Culture.😎
Quantum singularity is the only way to go rook.
We think alike.
Five catastrophic hull losses in seven years due to fuel containment issues in a single capital ship class seems like an unacceptable safety risk even if two of them were undone by time travel shenanigans. Only two of them were in battle and one was against a lone gunboat.
I'm still waiting for the infinite improbability drive, but I know it's probably just too improbable.
The main advantage of turbo-electric is that you run your generation equipment at it's most efficient speed always, switching in more generation when more power is required at the drive motors. Even by the 1940s, steam-to-electricity-to-motor conversion efficiency was pretty good compared to mechanical loses in the gearing. The SS Normandie proved extremely efficient compared to Queen Mary (for example).
Modern oil flooded gear boxes are pretty efficient though.
@@joeedh Yes but efficiency at part power is horrid for large engines, where they for the most part run.Turbogenerator set you simply bring smaller units up as needed, not needing to keep massive amounts of metal spinning when it does not deliver power, and having to run at low steam pressure and flow, so they run less efficiently. Gearbox losses are minimal even on 100 year old boxes, especially if you have ball or other bearings, or separate pressurised oil feed to keep all the sleeve bearings fully floating. Pressurised oil feed you run the gearbox essentially dry, only spraying oil on the actual moving parts, the rest of the parts run in air, so lower losses there, and you do not need as much oil, plus can keep it clean better. Big ships all run with pressurised oil, the crank cases are just there to return the oil to a separate tank and filter set.
@@SeanBZA That's a good point about partial power. I guess the only real solution is to split the engine up, in which case you have to go electric (I mean the Navy can't even combine two engines mechanically--witness the LCS--, much less a dozen).
@@joeedh All Burkes have 4 gas turbines that they kick and out of gear pretty easily.
at its
The problem with the highly subdivided machinery spaces is it makes the ship far more prone to capsizing when one side is hit multiple times. USS Oklahoma capsized in Pearl Harbor; West Virginia and California were saved from capsizing by intentionally sinking them into the bottom before they could capsize. All of those ships put each boiler in its own room along both sides, with the machinery in the middle. When they take an attack from one side, it floods only one side and the ship wants to roll.
The US Navy knew this was a problem, and switched to full width machinery spaces after the standard class. The later battleships and all of the aircraft carriers to this day use full width machinery spaces. If a space floods, it does not create a tendency to capsize as the whole space will flood evenly.
Free surface effect - with full-width spaces, you can capsize even if you flood evenly from both sides
Counterflooding and be used to offset this.
Admittedly, I don't know if machine spaces could be deliberately flooded quickly enough to be effective, but counterflooding of the TPS was a common practice. One of USS Texas' most famous moments was when her captain did this to increase elevation on the guns in support of the D-Day landings.
Both the Lexington and Saratoga were hit by torpedoes and while both developed lists, these were corrected. Yes, USS Lexington did sink, but that was from numerous explosions and she did not capsize. USS Saratoga was hit two separate times and both times the listing was corrected. When she sank after the second nuclear detonation, she still didn't capsize.
As for USS Oklahoma, she was not at combat readiness, her compartments weren't watertight as they would be during wartime, and she took multiple torpedoes in the same location. The first two hit the same spot, but were defeated by the TPS and failed to penetrate the hull. A third torpedo hit just above where the first hit. Torpedo 4 hit just aft. Torpedoes 5, 7, and 9 hit above the normal waterline, 5 right at the top of the belt and 7 and 9 much higher. Out of the 9 torpedoes that struck her, 7 hit aft of Turret II and forward of Turret III. Of those, 6 where under the bridge and smoke stack. I know of no ship that would have survived that amount of damage in that amount of time, regardless if they had time to prepare or not.
Remember, USS Oklahoma capsized 12 minutes after the first torpedo struck, which was at the beginning of the attack. There was no time for any measures to be taken to save the ship.
makes a lot of sense to reduce the tendency for the ship to capsize
USS Oklahoma capsized because her torpedo bulges were open for inspection and not water tight.
Didn't work so well for the Costa Concordia.
It might be kind of ironic but I believe US Navy first major ship (15,000+ tons) with turbo-electric propulsion was the pre-WWI Jupiter class collier, which became first US carrier USS Langley, which serviced coal as most archaic energy source but had a futuristic drive system.
I work with a gentleman who was an electricians mate on board the USS Missouri for his last 4 months in the Navy. He told me that as he recalled the Iowas had a 5 kV electrical distribution system that was protected by GE magnablast breakers amd electromechanical relays. As an electrical power distribution engineer id be super into a video talking about some of that equipment
On the subject of hits knocking out T-E power, I recall that all but one of the incidents involved the _boilers_ being snuffed out, an issue that would have temporarily crippled _any_ ship with steam power, regardless of the final drive.
The singular exception was something like a million-to-one shot where a torpedo bulls-eyed the one bulkhead that carried the main power bus, essentially unplugging the ship's engines until it could be reconnected. Either way it was temporary and if you're being particularly generous the same shot would probably have broken the seals on a longer propeller shaft like what happened to _Prince of Wales._
So there was just 1 bus bar for all the engines? Do you know which battleship that was that got hit?
@@streetracer2321 I think it was USS Saratoga hit by I-16.
If I remember correctly, (no bets on that), Saratoga had about a half dozen power loss incidents during WW2, the I-16 being the longest at about a half-hour, the rest fixed in mere minutes, but it gave TE propulsion a "flaky" rep. Given the advantages, not fair assessment. Replacing huge fuses is still easier than patching steam pipes and warped shafts.
I think the naval treaties killed TE for warship drives, simply because they are heavier power plants that sucked weight away from armor and armaments.
I remember when stationed at the Pentagon in the mid-eighties, the handwriting was on the wall for retiring the battleships, and I saw a serious proposal to do exactly what you are describing -- they proposed to cut the bottom out of the ships in order to replace the drive train without dismantling the rest of the ship. I don't recall the specifics, but they were also going to cut the crew by half of so. And the test range for the 16" guns was curiously down a section of the Potomac.
The one US ship needed an engine replaced, so they cut down from the deck to make a hole big enough, all done in Australia, as this was cheaper than towing it back to the US shipyard.
Ussr once replaced the whole nuclear reactor section on icebreaker. It was so polluted after multiple leaks that no works were possible. So they cut all internal structure, blowed up bottom and all this radioactive machinery went to ocean. Than ship bottom was restored in drydock and new plant installed.
Many merchant ships of WWII were made with turbo electric not because it was more efficient but because making Lock trained compact reduction gears is difficult and only a few factories can make them.
The output was reserved for warships so merchants got the excess Capacity output of easier to make generators and motors that many factories could provide.
T-2 tankers Victory freighters.
Rudderow and Buckley class destroyer escorts also had turbo-electric drives for much the same reason.
Turbo-Electric is making a comeback in naval construction with gas turbines direct driving electrical generators which provide electricity to electric motors which turn the propellers, and also for times you don't need the high output of a gas turbine, diesel generators can still produce a useful amount of electricity to spin the motors. It also opens up using azipods to offer better maneuverability to ships.
It's also handy for cars. I have a small hybrid SUV and it's pretty neat that it doesn't even have a reverse gear. It just revs the engine to generate power and then spins the drive motors backwards.
I did some volunteer work on the Acushnet being turned into a museum ship, it's a diesel electric hybrid. Pretty wild, 4 engines, four generators in the front, not much in the middle, then the four motors feeding two gear reducers powering two shafts. Being able to mechanically decouple your power generation from the propulsion is pretty neat.
There was one account of a battleship avoiding a collision because it was able to both back down quickly to avoid the ship in front, then go back forward to avoid getting rammed by the ship behind it all in the span of a few minutes.
That was Maryland.
7:08 I would love to hear more about this story, and how the navy was able to use their ships to generate power for Seattle after that earthquake!
For others similarly interested, here's some specifics I was able to find: The ship in question was the USS Lexington (CV-2); she docked in Tacoma, WA from December 15, 1929 to January 16, 1930, after a drought and unusually cold weather led to a shortfall in hydroelectric generation capacity. She wasn't run around the clock, but was rather only used during the night to stabilize the peak lighting and heating demands. In total she added an additional 20 MW of generation capacity. (For comparison, the Cushman Dam No. 1 that the ship supplemented normally had a peak capacity of 42 MW.)
Reminds me of the modern US Navy using the CVNs as desalination plants for disaster affected areas. A hypothetical nuclear turbo-electric carrier would be able to replicate the Lexington's power supplementation without much concern for fuel use.
considering modern cruse ships like the queen Mary 2 use hybrid turbine electric for speed and efficiency, it is the way to go! not to mention you can also install a bow thruster system for extra maneuverability.
Aren't most modern cruise ships diesel-electric?
@@Grantthetruthteller QM2 has gas turbine generators and diesel generators. Diesel gens would be fine in a modern battle ship as well. Any genset would be fine really.
Isn't the qm2 an ocean liner and not a "cruise " ship? Significant differences between the two types of vessels.
@@Grantthetruthteller yes the QM2 is an ocean liner, the only ocean liner in service, still uses electric drive pods just like cruise ships too. I also remember reading Titanic 2 was also going to be useing a diesel genset and electric drive motors.
@@samthemultimediaman Titanic II is a terrible example. It's nothing more than an eccentric billionaire's pipe dream at best, and potentially some sort of money laundering or pyramid-scheme-type scam at worst.
Can we see a video on all the hidden WWII era equipment and other "stuff" that was supposed to be removed or upgraded but never was or just forgotten about? Ive been to the ship a dozen or so times and always fine something that looks a little out of place, but was never sure.
At 7:10 there's an error: The city whose power grid was plugged into by Lexington was Tacoma, not Seattle. Also, not earthquake-related.
Another advantage of turbo electric is that power from any generator can be routed to any propeller. Thus a hit that takes out a turbine doesn't take out any propellers, instead reducing the power to all propellers equally.
Turbo-electric power plants were popular with passenger ships, such as SS Canberra, where again you generally have a high electrical load compared to a cargo ship. Modern cruise ships mainly use diesel-electric propulsion where you have a number of large diesel generators providing both propulsion and hotel power.
I served in the submarine service in the late 1960s in three different WW-2 built Balao class subs which had been upgraded and streamlined after the war. This was the time when the nuclear submarine fleet was really just being built up.
In the 1920s and 1930s The US experimented with various types of drive trains for their subs. It must be said that submarine technology was much influenced by the vast improvements of the relatively new diesel engines and that they eventually used the same diesels as the new diesel locomotives, making the R&D and $$ workable for the navy.
Back in the 19-teens well into the 1930s the diesels were (noisily) geared directly to the prop shafts, but this created noisy vibration and forced the diesels to be run at speeds related to desired shaft RPM instead of their most fuel-efficient constant speeds. One design had a single prop shaft routed thru two diesel engines in line and created hopeless vibrations because of inevitable even slight misalignment. From there subs developed one pair of direct drive diesels in the stern and a second pair of diesel generators further forward in a compromise plant.
By the late 1930's the fully diesel-electric drive had been adopted, refined and proven for submarines, generally worldwide. In our US subs there were two 1500 to 1600 HP railroad locomotive diesel generators in each of two engine rooms. The generators sent their power to a large switch cubicle just aft in the maneuvering room. Here the power could be cleverly switched to power the large geared electric propulsion motors below the deck of this compartment, and/or to charge the massive batteries that provides ALL power and propulsion for the sub when it was submerged. The switching allowed any diesel generator to do either of these tasks or both of them at the same time - ultimate flexibility.
Late in the war a captain in the electrical branch, one Hyman Rickover, led a team which developed a slow turning electrical propulsion motor for submarines. This eliminated the need for the very noisy gearing and made our boats quieter. These were installed as original equipment in late war subs and were commonly retrofitted into the earlier subs when they were upgraded post war.
After the war these boats were upgraded in various ways (GUPPY programs) always with a snorkel system which could supply air to any two of the four diesels allowing them to be run at periscope depth which made the subs more difficult to detect.
The diesel railroad locomotives use the same concept of electric drive. Large geared electric motors turn their wheels. But on the subs, at least we had our large batteries to subsist with when below.with no diesels running.
I FAST BECAME A BIG FAN OF ELECTRIC DRIVE, AND STILL AM.
On the land side, the Germans and the US experimented with electric powered armored fighting vehicles. When the Wehrmacht spec went out for a "breakthrough" tank that eventually became the MkVI Tiger, Dr. Ferdinand Porsche designed a tank with two gasoline engines driving two generators driving two motors driving the tracks. After an initial production run of about 90, it was rejected due to the competitive Henschel design being better overall, not to mention the complexity and expense (and the prototypes had this nasty habit of catching fire). Most of these were later equipped with a casemate superstructure and put into service as the Ferdinand tank destroyer. Later in the war, surviving Ferdinands were modded and re-issued to troops as Elefant.
The US Army had two electric drive tanks that progressed to prototype/limited initial production, but not further. The first was Heavy Tank T1E1 (sometimes called M6A2), and the other was medium tank T23.
Modern generators can produce more power in the same amount of space. When they replaced the generators at Hoover Dam they provided a lot more power in the same size.
One of the early iterations of the Bismarck and the Graf Zeppelin called for TE plants. One of the advantages is that on average they had better range than their steam turbine sisters. IIRC the USN got 20% better fuel efficiency with them. They were also just about as fast in reverse as forward and you could run one set of screws in reverse and the other forward to turn a bit sharper.
*Not as fast in reverse, but had the same power.
I helped operate conventional steam propulsion. 1200 main steam, 600 main steam. I also did LM2500s. Of those 3, 1200 main was my girl. So tough, if you could make fire and reroute pipes you could make it move.
The U.S. Navy used electric drive with reduction gearing that never were made specifically engineered for each other till the early to mid 80s. This is the first video that mentioned the change in the 80s. I worked in the GE gear plant in Lynn MASS which made Navy reduction gearing for nuke subs up to carriers. I was assigned to the RD program that designed an built the gas turbine and reduction gearing and drive motors. The 3 were specially designed for each other. U.S. ARLEIH BURKE class destroyers DDG 51 were the first class of ships to use them. The reduction gearing case was almost 1/2 The size of previous reduction gearing and it handled higher speeds. With the gas turbine a lot of room was add for other things. I and another employee machined the major casing that held the bull gear and all other gearing. It took a couple of years to build and get accepted by the U.S. NAVY. 62 and this is one of my bragging points. I would love to actually see them installed even though they are manufactured else where.
I remember a science fiction short story (Bill the Galactic Hero?) . . . where space battleships possessed enormous power conduits, with fuses the size of 8" brass. In battle, under stress from demands of engines, weapons, and force field defenses, these great fuses would arc and blow, sending lightning bolts and molten brass into the space, while brave fuse men yanked the deaders out and slammed fresh ones into the clips. Sweat and fire and lightning. I can see it as a movie scene.
Makes me wonder if the writer (Harry Harrison?) had served on a turbo-electric battleship during the war.
Yes, that was Bill
Electric propulsion with a generator driven by a turbine is the way to go for just about anything that needs a large amount of power. Tanks, Trains, & Ships.
An important benefit of electric motors, is that we can run the motor for a short while, even if engine power is insufficient at the moment.
Even hybrid cars use a very similar concept.
I remember how incredibly different the experience of going from flank to reverse was aboard my first ship USS Kitty Hawk vs my second ship USS O'Kane.
Kitty Hawk, you gotta stop the shaft then lock the shaft engage reverse then unlock the shaft. Competent engineers like we were could get that accomplished fairly quickly but in the age of CPP screws it was still slow. BUT once we were in reverse that's 280,000 shaft horse power it hauled the ship down fast.
On the O'Kane and every other Arleigh Burke class they had CPP screws Controllable Pitch Propeller. So flank to reverse was a near instant action AND BOY DID SHE STOP! Like the old saying stopping on a dime and giving you back change. You only had to experience it once to realize the fantail may not be the best spot to experience this. Hard crash back earns every bit of it's name and the fantail is in the splash zone...
Gas turbine to electric is the way to go. Quick start up, flexible configuration, reasonable efficiency, and easy redundancy.
Nuclear may seem good but it has problems like nuc plant operators don't grow on trees; requiring a special individual and extensive training.
I was an operator in fuel oil to 600PSI steam and diesel - electric plants and worked in Repair Department for nuc subs.
Basically a turbo electric or turbo generator ship, uses an electric motor that turns the propellers. Like any land based lower station, steam is used to generate that electricity. That electricity is then wired to the electric motors.
While direct drive ships use the steam to blow a windmill, that’s connected to the propeller on a shaft.
I can tell you that on Nimitz class carriers direct drive turbine propulsion is alive and well. I doubt that electric motors powerful enough were available when it was designed in the 1960s. Imagine how much smaller those cables, generators, and drive motors could be if they upped the voltage to 4160VAC 3 phase like on Nimitz's central distribution bus.
I believe the Germans used a hybrid diesel-steam turbine electric for some ship - the diesels for cruising and the steam turbines for higher speed.
As far as the case of Saratoga loosing ALL power - that seems like a matter of better design, rather than a fundamental flaw in the idea. I could see how, if cabling and connections weren’t insulated and isolatable, you could have a complete outage. But there MUST be a way to correctly “cut out” the damaged sections, and bring at least some capacity back online.
Rudderow class DEs and Crosley class (converted from Rudderows) APDs were T-E ships. My watch and Sea & Anchor Detail were at the Throttle on USS Weiss APD 135. It was easy to go from Ahead 2/3rds to Back FULL in less than 20 seconds. I did it once.
One advantage of turbo/electric over steam propulsive turbines that I can see, would be in the resistance to shock and splinter damage; if you crack or puncture a steam pipe, that steam pipe will lose pressure and functionally lose some or all of it's capacity to transfer energy. Chip or bend a copper wire, it will still have almost all of it's original energy transfer capacity (though it may become a hazard to crew.
Obviously, the turbo-generators still require steam supply to run, so you're not eliminating all of that problem by going with turbo/electric, but assuming the steam manifolds are subdivided sufficiently, it would seem much less likely to cause a major loss of propulsive power from the loss of a single supply pipe in battle.
Indeed. But there is another advantage: Since the steam in a geared turbine set must be made possible to be put into the turbine backwards for reversing, this is not the case with t-e propulsion, thus massively decreasing the piping length and complexity!
Having been involved with converting a military ship from A/C to D/C propulsion systems, I learned one thing. Turbo electric systems have a few major drawbacks. The number of generators needed for the same HP will take up more space than a turbine propulsion system, and the main motors that drive the ship weigh more than a comparable turbine and reduction gear arrangement. Electric propulsion systems are fantastic these days and if we were building today, Diesel electric would be the way to go. Back then most of the gear was 3 or 4 times as large as it is now.
Expense and fear aside, nuclear, (with some diesel backup) would be the way to go on any large ship. Limited by only ammunition, food, and manpower. But realistically, gas turbine with diesel backup would probably be more sensible.
Like so many engineering decisions -- on land never mind at sea -- it comes down to balancing options and advantages and disadvantages. There's something to be said for almost any drive design.
1) Not Seattle for the use of an aircraft carrier to power the land grid, but rather Tacoma. The power plant on the US Navy ships was LEASED to the Navy by General Electric, the arrangement in Tacoma was done through General Electric with the Navy not paying the lease rate while the ship was used for the land grid.
2) The ultimate turbo-electric plant was not that of the battlecruisers/aircraft carriers, but rather the French liner Normandie. The reason that Normandie was not returned to service was that the electrical components were ruined by their long immersion in the North River.
Good luck in your hunt for sponsors, and looking forward to seeing you on track 👍
Excellent video, as always, Ryan. However, I'd like to offer a small correction. The power failure in Seattle you discussed at 7:10 was actually several miles south at Tacoma. The picture at 7:15 is of the USS Lexington tied to the Baker Steamship Dock supplying emergency power to the City of Tacoma, which it was able to do because of, as you stated, its' immense generating capacity as a turbo-electric design. Note the large gun turrets forward of the island structure. These are left from its main 8" armament as a cruiser. At remodeling these were removed and 5" dual purpose deck edge guns installed. The Lexington was just across the Puget Sound at the Naval Shipyard at Bremerton at the time. I have this history because the dock was my great-grandfathers company and I have this exact same picture framed in my home, the story was related to me by my grandmother. Thanks for your continued work in saving the history of these great ships.
Nuclear is always a concept I thought would be interesting on a battleship the size of an Iowa, she could probably crank out higher speeds and support many and newer weapon systems/associated systems
I worked in the nuclear field when I was in the Navy. Nuclear plants give more range, but are not necessarily going to give more speed. The shape and length of the hull affect the top speed more than the amount of horsepower you have available.
@@DonMiller-Weiser Would a nuke plant handle the shock of firing the main guns? Likewise could it handle the shock of impact on the armor from incoming weapons? I always thought they were fragile compared to boiler fired systems?
Not with the nuclear reactors of the time periods she was re-activated. One of the reasons for the Gerald R Ford class carriers is the lack of reserve electrical generation capacity of the Nimitz class reactors. The Ford's two reactors have about 25% more thermal capacity than the two reactors of the Nimitz class, with all steam from the plants not being used to drive the turbines connected to the propeller shafts pretty much all going to electrical generation. This is what makes the electromagnetic catapults possible, and once they're fully matured the sortie rates will be better because you don't need to wait on steam pressure to build back up again between Catapult launches (the steam for the catapults come from the reactors).
To convert an Iowa to nuclear in place of the oil-fired boilers would have required extensive and EXPENSIVE work as you have to tear thru all three armored decks and numerous bulkheads to do it for limited capabilities. If Not for Ronnie Reagan's promised 600 ship navy, they never would have reactivated the four Iowa class battleships in the 1980s. They just didn't bring that much to the fleet which is why they were all retired as soon as the cold war ended. Iowa spent just over 6 years in service after reactivation, New Jersey just over 8 years, Missouri less than 6 and Wisconsin less than 3, and basically it was a $1.7 billion dollar PR exercise to make the nation feel good about voting republican. In hindsight they should have just built 3 more Ticonderogas with the Mk41... or put that money to refitting the first five Ticos to replace the Mk26 twin-arm launchers with the Mk41 VLS (and then not had to retire them prematurely in the early 2000s). The number of ships dragged out of the reserve fleet, or kept it service well past the time they should have retired just to hit that 600 ship number was ridiculous.
@@andrewmortimer3317 If you had enough electric power, you could be sporting rail guns, lasers and microwave jammers.. probably would be better than having all that powder on board.
I think refueling a nuclear reactor inside a battleship's armour is problematic
Turbo electric makes more sense these days due to improved electric motor and power supply technology which makes it more efficient. Also, the rise of directed energy weapons (i.e. lasers) increases the need for more electrical power.
Diesel-electric works very well in icebreakers because the screw could be stopped quite suddenly by ice and a circuit breaker would open. That doesn’t mean there is no chance of damage to the screw, but the engine won’t be damaged and there’s no clutch, so no clutch damage either. The Coast Guard icebreaker Glacier had been the world’s most powerful floating diesel-electric power plant- Ten 10-cylinder 38 D 8 1/8 Fairbanks-Morse propulsion diesels, two F-M ship’s service generators, two F-M generators for the heeling pumps (to transfer ballast or fuel rapidly from side-to-side to help break free when stuck in ice) and one emergency generator. Fifteen F-M diesels in total!
Here's a related follow up question since you mentioned it: If cost is no object do you go nuclear with your battleship? You have all the benefits of turbo electric (perhaps apart from being able to decentralise quite as well) with effectively unlimited range and the ability to maintain high speeds for very long duration. The downsides of course are everything that comes along with being nuclear
I don’t think a nuclear drive makes a lot of sense for a battleship. The advantage of a battleship over a CV is that it’s heavily armored and can tank hits, but a nuclear reactor will scram if the ship takes damage and then you’re left without power. On a carrier you’re designing the ship with the expectation that its defensive screen will prevent a hit in the first place, but BBs are supposed to be more durable. The Russians seemed to think they could get away with it on the Kirovs because of the dual drive system, but that’s got to be pretty inefficient in terms of displacement compared to more conventional propulsion.
Replace the boilers with diesels and that's more or less the system the USN submarines of WW2 used. Very flexible, efficient, and had redundancies.
Of course far more practical due to scale AND you want that flexibility between propulsion and diverting power to recharge your battery stores, which that system allowed you to do really quite quickly (if you didn't mind using the fuel, which you wouldn't if getting your battery charge done ASAP).
There's also the problem that you can't exactly be running fires and boilers when you need to dive, let alone light them off again when surfacing (although the Brits did exactly that in one of their earliest subs, I seem to recall), LOL.
Just as you do, you tell me to build a battleship to fight other battleships I am going to choose a turboelectric installation. The turbo electric allows me to nearly double the number of compartments I have the power installation divided into. I might have missed this but another problem of the turbo-electric is that it physically occupies more space per horsepower. Compared to say West Virgina even with an additional 20 years of development you are not going to manage to pack 212000 Shaft horsepower into the same space with turbo-electric that you can with straight steam turbines. Even with careful space management, you are probably going to have to have half again more space for that plant. This is going to turn into a ship clearly another one hundred feet longer. This is going to be more expensive (but even harder to sink), with more target area but no more main armament. As far as the ship's actual ability to fight all it will really gain in secondary armament - maybe 30 5 inch and 120 40mm and then you're going to end up with a half-again larger crew. As I am sure you know, in shipbuilding one nail always drives another.
If I were to build a modern battleship, I would probably do a gas-turbine hybrid. Gas-Turbine generators with the turbo-electric drive train. No boilers, no long shafts, no high-pressure steam. The gas-turbine generators don't need steam condensors and associated piping for cooling the steam. They are really easy to automate, so we can put them in small compartments all over the ship. They could be emergency generators as well. I might use electric driven propulsion jets to eliminate the shafts completely
Gas turbines have poor efficiency.(~33%)
For cruise economy, add diesel engines(~50%) or use the turbine exhaust to heat boilers (~60%, in land based combined power plants.
By the way, what fuel do gas turbines on ships use? Do the need jet fuel, or can you run them on heavy fuel oil?
Diesel fired would be best for this size vessel. As NOS said the thermal efficiency of gas turbines is atrocious at cruising speeds, really only relevant for a fast ship.
The electric component is definitely viable, but gas turbines probably aren’t the most efficient means of generating that power.
You could go nuclear, but they’re prone to malfunction from any kind of shock. And if you’re using a battleship for it’s intended purpose then you’ll be taking a fair amount of hits causing shock and vibration.
Therefore diesel power generation would be your best compromise between cost and efficiency
@@nos9784 I think if the fuel is sufficiently vaporised a gas turbine can run on most combustible fuels
@@nos9784 The Navy runs them on JP-5. They use JP-5 for diesel engines, aircraft engines, and helicopters. Boiler-fired carriers used to burn it in their boilers too. It makes it easier for the oilers that replenish the fleet. They only have to bring one type of fuel.
One thing you forgot about choosing the right power source is the number and size of propellers you will use. The Iowas had a larger propeller than the Lexington CV. This was probably due to the gear reduction units on the Iowas. I believe the Electric drive could somewhat simulate a gear box by using different ratios of poles between the generator and motor.
Since DC electric motors have more torque at low speeds--particularly compared to turbines--I don't think a T-E system would need as much gear reduction between motors and propeller shaft compared to a steam or gas turbine arrangement. But I suspect that the difference in weight for the gearboxes would not be all that significant in the grand scheme of things.
I also suspect that both of these systems would be trumped by gas turbines with variable pitch propellers.
The forward and Nimitz class carriers were designed to be used for 50 years. Or so I've heard.
You've got me thinking now Ryan.
On the Iowas is there another seal where the shaft goes through the citadel and heads towards the back of the ship? So that if the rear compartment floods it cannot get into the citadel?
Can you please do a video on this?
And great stuff as always
I don't know if there are any more seals, but I would expect that. The problem is however, if the shaft is damaged by a hit while turning, it would spin out of control. The amount of energy conserved in that rotation (angular momentum) is incredibly high. That would probably destroy any conceivable sealing. If I understood Ryan correctly, this is what sank Prince of Wales.
There is no additional seals as the shaft heads aft. There are seals as they leave the hull, and seals at each bulkhead, but nothing more.
I am not familiar with the incident Ryan is referring to, our shafts have bearings in each space, and with the placement, I can’t see how we couldn’t shut down the shaft fast enough to limit the damage.
@@richcruse2689 are no
Thank you for explaining the pros and cons of turbo-electric versus direct drive.
Nuclear powered warship damage control in battle hasn't been tested---yet. There have been a number of nuclear powerplant incidents and the ones I've read about have been mostly submarines. The reason that USS Enterprise/CV-60 had eight atomic piles instead of the two currently standard on American aircraft carriers (with diesel back-up generators) was so that any one nuclear powerplant failure would only take down one-eighth of the Enterprise's power. Submarines--to my knowledge--have only one nuclear powerplant, a bank of backup batteries and a small diesel generator for emergency electrical power generation while surfaced. When submarines suffer hits that surface warships might survive, the submarine is doomed by depth.
Two nuclear powered US cruisers were Long Beach and Bainbridge, and both had a pair of nuclear powerplants. It might be interesting to compare those cruiser designs against the Iowa--because Long Beach and Bainbridge took over the aircraft carrier defense mission from the New Jersey.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Long_Beach_(CGN-9)
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Bainbridge_(CGN-25)
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Truxtun_(CGN-35)
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear-powered_cruisers_of_the_United_States_Navy
Is there something you could do for 1000 videos such as a 5 inch gun salute and sounding the ships salvo alarm. I'm not sure how easy it would be to get a 5 inch mount firing from Secondary Battery Plot but that would be cool. It would be cool to see the complete firing process from start to finish (plotting, loading and firing). I am not sure if you would have a former Iowa Class guns mate that could be involved.
JFTR, USNS Aeolus T-ARC 3 was launched in 1945 and operated until 1985. She was turboelectric. The main propulsion motor was pretty much problem free. She was replaced by the USNS Zeus T-ARC 7, another turboelectric ship which is still in service. Turboelectric lasts pretty much as long as you're willing to maintain it.
CVs Saratoga and Lexington used turbo-electric propulsion. Use their war-time records to assess the methods reliability and robustness.
I would go nuclear turbo electric if I was designing a modern manned military ship. The only thing I would that the US navy didn't do too well would be to design things so the ship could be refueled cost efficiently. The intent would be for the ships could have long potential lifetimes.
I could be mistaking, however, if your worried about compartmentation, you could run a bulkhead down the keel and split both fire rooms and engine rooms, assuming you are not worried about Washington Naval Treaty weight limits.
if you're
Nuclear Turbo Electric. We know Turbo Electric works as that's what the US is using on the new Zumwalt Class Destroyer. You drop a reactor in there, you don't need any of the smoke stacks or ventilation equipment, freeing up alot of room. You could even use the saved weight to put thicker armor around the reactor, even matching the citadel. One of the big things to me is to get way from the whole "It has to fit through Panama" idea, and you can build a true monster
Well, there was that recently finished expansion project for the Panama Canal to allow larger cargo ships through a new set of locks. Not sure if the Navy has any design plans involving that yet though.
Turbo electric is good if you have a variable pitch propellers. That way you don’t need dynamic braking to stop the shaft before putting it in all back, all you need to do is to reverse pitch of the blades
No, you gat the Lexington powering a city thing wrong.
It was Tacoma and because a drought cut off hydro power.
The best example of the turbo electric drive was when Maryland, whose bow was damaged, sailed from the marianas to Hawaii in reverse.
I think ideally Nuclear, but modern Diesels could be great also. Though running a few hundred Chevy 350's would also be interesting
My favorite method of marine propulsion? I'd have to say either the multicylinder hot-bulb-engines we liked here in Sweden, or the Napier Deltic.
I remember reading on turbo electric ships, they were very popular with ships that needed refrigeration, especially the ones that transported tropical fruit that also dealt with high temperatures.
The US seized a German one, it was not worth it as it constantly broke down, even when paying the original German crew to maintain it, assuming they were not sabotaging it.
And yet, here we have the Nimitz, and Ford class (CVN-65 as well) that ALL have shafts, reduction gears, and steam turbine main engines. Steam Turbines can be very easily reversed and honestly doesn't take much if any longer to reverse than a Turbo Electric would. Both have inertia to fight, and yeah, the Electric would have less, but the steam has far greater power (torque) to slow the shaft. Granted, this does not result in a faster turn around time as the shaft is such a large amount of mass, but the shaft can be spinning backwards absolutely in less than 2 minutes (from a flank bell) and honestly, I think close to 1 minute. Emergency Throttle rates are wonderful things.
If I were to design a new BB I would either go with nuclear, with an arrangement similar to a Nimitz class carrier, or failing that probably DC diesel-electric, with MG sets for ships power, or possibly CODAG like the RNs new birdfarms...
I would just use the lower structure of the Ford Class carrier, add barbettes with guns, and call it a day.
No reason to redesign the whole undersides of the ship, or the guns for that mater (except automate their reloading;) Ammo should be redesigned so the big guns could launch projectiles with steering controls much like the 500 pound smart bombs.
I've heard of them using diesel electric locomotives to power small towns after natural disasters, but a diesel electric aircraft carrier powering a city is certainly a step up.
For a modern battleships it's either IEP propulsion or nuclear. Depends entirely on what you'd require such a beast for. In all likelihood the cost of the nuclear powerplant would not worth it but who knows? It seems countries always felt inclined to install nuclear plants in their largest surface combatants during the modern times. Often the common sense has won out but who knows?
If it's about to overtake the classical roles of the WW2 era battleship with similarish requirements then IEP is the best bet which is really akin to the modern turbo-electric propulsion. It's fuel efficient, versatile, provides plentiful onboard power and can be compartmentalized really well.. Nuclear power is fine but like you explained I don't know if any contemporary reactors could resist shocks. In all likelihood they need a leadup time before being feasible and even then it does add expenses so it depends on how much you want said ship to cross the oceans.
Diesel generators running the turbo electric seems like a neat setup. Diesel engines have come a long way since WW2 and it would allow for even more subdivisions.
Nuclear power would be interesting. Would have alot of stuff to plan for. Like replacing the fuel rods and such. Modular or sectional armor?
I think this was brought up before, the big downside is both the weight and the vulnerability to shock. That said, armored caps would be the way to go to refuel the core if they went that way.
@@mdsx01 yea. Pretty sure it has been. If the engineers could work it out, it'd be nice.
The armour is actually built in sections that are welded/riveted together for ease of manufacture & repair
@@KennyCnotG yea. But I was referring to being able to easily remove a section for maintenance access. Similar to removing the rear deck lid on a tank to remove the engine.
If I were to design a modern battleship with heavy guns and missiles, I would use multiple nuclear power plants driving electric generators for electric drive. Utilize 3x 50 caliber 16" main guns in one turret for close range (up to ~20-25 miles without rocket assistance) fire support. Have room for multiple Mk 41 and Mk 57 VLS systems for long range strike or defense, CIWS or directed energy defense systems for close in defense, and room for fleet command.
Battleship Maryland got hit in the bow by a Japanese torpedo and went to Pearl Harbor backwards the whole way. This is something a steam turbine engine could never do.
I always found it interesting that the big five had turbo electric propulsion. Didn’t realize the Lex and the Sara were turbo also. When you mentioned the Saratoga taking damage did you mean the Lexington since she was lost in the Coral Sea. I think a nuclear electric plant would be interesting. Maybe not though. Then you need a reactor, steam turbine and generators. I’ve heard that Zumwalt and the Ford class have massive electrical generation capacity though.
Saratoga survived two separate torpedo hits, they unfortunately did disrupt the electrical wires & controls. Each time within 24 hrs she was able to make temporary repairs & limp to a port. However considering each hit was from a single torpedo Turbo electric propulsion was labeled less robust than pure steam.
If designing a new, “gold-plated” battleship, a pair of the Ford-class’s reactors would be most efficient. Lots of power for all purposes, and a diesel or two for backup and emergency power.
Had to correct after checking
Umm not sure this comparison is really fair guys considering only HMS Dreadnought, the Bellerophon-Class, St.Vincent-Class, Colossus-Class, Neptune-Class Dreadnoughts, the Orion-Class Super Dreadnoughts and the 1911 King George V-Class Super Dreadnoughts, the Invincible-Class, indefatigable-Class, Lion-Class, Queen Mary-Class and Tiger-Class Battlecruisers used Direct-Drive Turbines before the British switched to geared steam turbines on the Iron Dukes and the Renowns and which went on to every battleship and battlecruiser that followed on from them
A hybrid with a mix of gas and steam turbines to allow both more efficient steam turbine use for up to moderate power demands and the smaller size of gas turbines to allow more peak output and redundancy from extra turbines, designed with no less than an n+2 turbine configuration to allow for full operation while simultaneously having a turbine down for maintenance and one going offline unexpectedly for failure or battle damage requiring a third turbine down before any limitations on power, helping fulfill the absorb hits and keep going needs of a battleship. Combine that with a 3 power bus system with most critical systems being hooked up to select between two busses and each turbine able to connect to any bus running at 14400 volts phase to phase/7200 volts phase to neutral, like most street level power distribution lines to allow smaller lighter wiring for very high power items and large feeders, stepped down to 480/277 and 208/120 for smaller loads. Three busses configured that way allows for operation with any single bus out of service without as much weight penalty as a two bus system would have as each only needs to handle 1/2 of the total load, not all of it (remember in bus out of service all load gets split into the remaining 2 or single bus) or in other words total bus capacity is 1.5x (0.5x3) not 2x (1x2). Keep the busses separated from each other with only branches going to the same place, perhaps left, right, and down the center of the ship so no compartment can take out more than one bus. Add in redundant control rooms with redundant control cabling (something some modern large commercial ships actually have already) and you have a good base for a highly survivable, highly reliable, ship that can do repairs and maintenance underway without loosing redundancy and can survive a lot of complex multiple system failures and which uses a fair bit of widely available equipment which saves on cost, means we know a lot about what it can and can't take, and makes procurement of repair parts, spares, etc. much easier as there are large established supply chains.
Some may be able to tell, this is somewhat influenced by my background in IT systems and what I know and have seen or dealt with in redundant systems there, including the high power environment of data centers, which in fact often take their power in at those higher voltages and run their generators at them for similar reasons, though almost all their load is stepped down to a mix of 277/480 and 120/208, they also often have multiple internal power grids with a lot of equipment being hooked up to two separate power sources with separate backup systems, some of them have explicit redundancy even during maintenance provisions like described, and so on. They also are an example of systems build for extremely high power demands, typically measured in megawatts, often double digit megawatts in a single building and some campuses reaching over 100 megawatts in total.
Thumbs up from another fan of turboelectric ships.
5:48 Yea you do, they're called Nimitz class.
The diesel-electric rail loco's seem to work quite well. Battleships are on a much bigger scale, but the principal is more or less the same. I think the shorter the shaft to its power source is, the better. The shafts are cheaper to make and don't warp so easily. Any design must be as simple as possible. Accessibility is also a major requirement. Any component on a ship should be removable and replaceable. Saab of Sweden is a good example. They build their fighter jets with phenomenal abilities with minimum complexities.
principle is
Kamikoto, the traditional, superior Japanese knife. Made from generations of skill!
Japan has centuries of incredible Katana artisans skill strictly handed down to keep the patriotic craftsmanship alive!
Made in China
The irony of their sponsorship of Japanese knives selling on an Iowa class Battleship.
Triple expansion reciprocating steam engine. Because it is so cool! 🙂
Well, if you don't mind your BB having a top speed of 23 knots or so with accompanying thunderous vibrations.
@@monsieurcommissaire1628 I know, it's just cool. Old tech has it's place. My auto techs that study old technology are better at diagnositics.
How funny: A battleship build during a conflict with Japan and that participated in that war is now promoting and selling Japanese knifes.
I wonder if there are any turboelectric ships left? The Celebrity Millennium class cruse ships use a COGES plant, so I suppose they technically qualify, but I think all of the historic vessels have been scrapped or sunk. Langley, Lexington and Saratoga sank, all of the TE battleships have been scrapped as well as all of the T2s I think. Normandie and all of the other liners are gone to my knowledge. Supposedly there is a turboelectric DE in South America somewhere, but I think its a hulk. Maybe there is some TE transport floating around in the ghost fleet, but I doubt it. Would be interesting to find one still in existence.
Nuclear is best by far, but only as long as you have much fleet protection.
From my point of view Diesel electric would be the way to go. Combining the benefits of Diesel engines (no need to wait to rise steam, good efficiency) with the benefits of electrical drive. With enough redundancy built into the systems it should be more resilient to losing power then the examples you named.
"Official Japanese Steel Kitchen Knife of the USS New Jersey"
Dripping with irony like the juices out of a sliced steak
Today, you'd skip that infernal boiler system all together and just have gas turbine engines driving the generators. If added, the boiler system would be to increase efficiency (see combined cycle natural gas power plant).
Nuclear power used in modern Aircraft carriers could also be used in the Iowa class battleships. Now remove the main guns, all nine 16” Mk7 50 cal, then remove the 5 inch. Now replace them with modern missile systems including the new Sam systems new anti ship and guided cruise missiles. New radar and targeting systems, nbc protection and airborne defensive system upgrades. New navigational systems new lighting in led type lights and include new refers, galleys and crew quarters. Nuclear power can still keep up with the aircraft carriers and may add two knots more. New nuclear power plants for ships have been sized smaller than their predecessors and are more efficient in propelling and powering the ships, as well as creating fresh water like in nuclear subs. Also using small nuclear reactors on ships like battleships offers less space used and opens up the vessel to much more space or added armor for protection or storage.
If we were building a Battleship today we should go with Gas Turbine - Electric similar to the Zumwalt class.
Modern capital ships need ENORMOUS amounts of electrical power, especially planning for potential future upgrades (think rail guns or laser weapons).
Steam plants are too labor intensive and take too much time to bring online (need large crews).
Nuclear is just too expensive (IMO not even all our carriers should be nuclear)
Gas Turbine isn't as efficient as steam but one could operate at low speeds with just part of it's plant online and running in it's most efficient power band and then be able to very quickly (less than 2 minutes) bring the entire rest of the plant online if full power is needed.
A modern Gas Turbine ship can go from cold iron (all engines and generators turned off) to underway with just the duty section (usually 1/4 of the crew) in faster than you can get a pizza delivered.
id say for large capital ships and submarines, nuclear. mostly to bring the cost of operations and crew down. exceptions to this would be say if you have the capital and resources to manage such as a starting naval power. if you only plan to have a few capital ships and are going to have them fitted with an power/propulsion system that has a net efficiency of say 1.25/1.35 of your average cruiser of the time for a ship almost 1.75/2 times the displacement. or you really need the ship but cant afford the plants that wont make your engine room a missive week spot. after that i want to say either gas turbine or diesel electric but i cant remember which one is more efficient when sized up to fit a ship's power needs.
@E-Hamel ok, then I'd go with desire for most ships but if I have any ships that often end up in situations where the engine is ko needs repair or is lacking spare parts then swap that for a gas turbine asap. Fuel efficacy is great but not if the engine it's self keeps being damaged
I think I would prefer either Gas Turbine or Nuclear, powering Turbo-Electric depending on the size and purpose.
One issue with firehose that you fail to mention is. Modern fire hose has kevlar woven in the fabric!
Geared oil fired steam turbines seems the most efficient. Not sure how modern jet turbines would work in a ship that size?
I would think that a hybrid approach would be best. you have one set of turbines direct driving the screws, another set generating electrical power.
Your drive turbines would be designed to do one thing: efficiently drive forward at cruise speed. Then also have electric motors attached to your drive lines to assist with acceleration and of course reverse.
Love these videos. I think the drives on the Iowa class battleships were actually great for the time and would probably still be great today along with turbo electric stuff. If I were doing one today I'd do it with a bunch of emd locomotive engines. If you look at locomotives you don't need very much room to house it. But there's nuclear power which is basically just an alternate way to heat water for steam propulsion, or steam turbine generators. Anyway you do it is a variant from many decades ago anyway. Nuclear is just another way to make steam and diesel will always just be that..a diesel.
Any way you
Nuclear turbo-electric gets my vote !:-)
Another great video from the battleship. Thanks
Did you ever do anything on Admiral Farragut? Since it too was a part of NJ military history. Did any of the museum artifacts from AFA make it to NJ BB62?
⚡️ The most magnificent motor of all, is the electric motor ⚡️
(The potential issue of providing them with electricity does not take away from that)
The only advantage of turbo-electric is you have full 100% power astern. The main generators and motors are high voltage between 2,000 and 10,000 volts which a steam leak or water leak can cause havoc on a grand scale blowing out insulators, voltage regulators, transformers, and switching gear. They can be fantastic on auxiliary vessels and merchant ships but not warships in my opinion, they are just too vulnerable to day to day occurrences, not to mention battle conditions.