Searchlights/starshells ability on Iowas was not "Navy brass being regressive" because sometimes that radar might not work. Something I've learned from watching your videos and reading books about naval battles in WW2 (i.e. "Neptune's Inferno"), the ships had redundancy built-in. In the heat of battle, you don't know what could go wrong - for instance when South Dakota lost power during a battle off Guadalcanal. They had other uses as well - searching for survivors.
Searchlights have ALWAYS been a shoot me here signal. That’s why the Japanese didn’t use them relying instead on high gain optics. Star shells were always a better option.
A lot of captains didn't trust the radar, because they had seen technology advances throughout their careers. Any time you have new technology aboard a warship, it needs time to be proven in combat. And you can always fall back on proven technology in that case, and any time you have equipment failure.
Although British battleships detected and approached the Italian heavy cruisers Zara and Flume with radar at the Battle of Cape Matapan, they were illuminated by searchlights before Warspite, Valiant and Barham opened fire. A friendly fire incident with twenty four 15" guns would have been unfortunate. The searchlights on board HMS Valiant were operated by a young Prince Philip. The British line of battle included the aircraft carrier Formidable which got a few rounds of 4.5" off before being told to get out of it, which would make Formidable the only aircraft carrier to take part in a line of battle in a surface action. Matapan is also noteworthy as the last battle where British battleships would form a line of battle.
said carrier was also involved in gun based shore fire support if my memory serves me right Edit after som research I looked further into it and it wasn't HMS Formidable but HMS Unicorn a forward aviation support ship (totally not a carrier dear parliament member(its a escort carrier for all intents and purposes))
@@albireo8166 The thing about most WW2 British Captains was they had two large spherical objects about the size of bowling balls!!! During The Battle Of The River Platte, HMS Exeter had to withdraw due to battle damage. Eventually they got a SINGLE 8" & a SINGLE 4" gun to work again, and asked their Admiral (who was on one of the Light Cruisers, I forget which one) where and when he wanted them to rejoin the battle agains KMS Graf Spee! This is after they had been "hulled" and were unable to make full speed!
Technically, the CVEs of taffy 3 also took part in a surface engagement. It just wasn’t organized, and was because they couldn’t run away fast enough even with the escorts doing their best to distract the Japanese center force.
That's usually the job of the destroyer fleet, though. It's a lot more hazardous for ships with a higher freeboard, like carriers and battleships, to try to recover personnel from the water. Also, you typically need to come to a full stop to perform those actions, and that's a lot bigger time investment and risk for those larger vessels.
Might need the search lites if in a earlier battle the radar was damaged I’m sure they could use the star shells but maybe all used up , you don’t get no time outs to replenish your needs in war
If the enemy has the proper equipment, illuminating them with radar gives away your position as surely as illuminating them with a searchlight. I have seen several sources mention that the Germans and Japanese had "excellent searchlight tactics" yet I've never been able to find any documentation describing searchlight "tactics" for them of the US Navy for that matter, although I do know generally that it involves things like controlling the illumination time (as brief as possible), and switching between different searchlights to make it harder for the enemy to pinpoint the source, as well as using them to "dazzle" enemy gunners and visual FC directors in addition to illuminating the enemy for your own guns. I would love to find a manual detailing the use of searchlights (and star shell) in night combat.
Another practice the Japanese had was using their cruiser or battleship spotter planes to drop flares behind the line of enemy ships to illuminate them. They used it in at least one of the Guadalcanal battles. They were the only navy to do that (although the RN talked about it), usually float planes didn't operate at night. I always thought that was a darn good use for them.
As a new EM-3 I was stashed on AE-15 for three months before going to Nuc Power School. During that time I used my experience with 35mm carbon arc movie projectors to return Mt Vesuvius's 36" carbon arc searchlight to service. The EMC pretty much did not believe I'd done it. I must admit to some nerves the first time I struck an arc with that beast.
In addition to redundancy like other posters have mentioned, search lights would be essential for defense against stealthy attackers; submarines, swimmers, and skiffs. Radar probably won't pick up a periscope, but your search light will.
@@erikmagnuson9670 Even during the day, it can blind a person, so using it against enemy aircraft attacking at dawn or just at sunset would be helpful to the ship!
@@timengineman2nd714 if you can find a single combat example where this alone was considered a valuable defense method against aircraft then I’ll accept your premise (note that ground base illumination for AA guns is different because the lights are not positioned on top of the target)
@@erikmagnuson9670 I'm trying to remember the exact details, but if I recall correctly the Brits in the Med used it against Italians both torpedo bombers and dive bombers, and at least once during the day. The idea wasn't to distract them, but make it harder for the enemy to see the ship's movements as they (successfully) tried to avoid being hit. Of course, this could be something along the lines of eating carrots (which was the cover story for the introduction of airborne radar.....)
A story about search lights was the story of the black cats. Black cats were pby's, which were painted black. They would attack the port of rabul at night. The japanese tried to illuminating them with search lights. This a case where radar is better than search lights.
It's amazing how complex these ships are and how much thought and engineering effort was put into producing these ships. Need to train loading teams, but we can't have them chewing through ammunition and we can't have them wearing out the real firing systems, so build a training system and place it on board. And that's just one facet these ships needed to win the war. Wow.
Hey Ryan! Thanks for another great video and I have been enjoying watching the North Carolinas videos and the great volunteers who look after her! I would have never known about this museum ship if it wasn't for you! The videos about how they had a great soda fountain and ice cream, plus the butcher shop really takes you back in time and gives a great perspective of how it was like back then! I hope to visit the North Carolina in the future! I didn't know she had 16 inch guns.
I'm a big fan of the U.S.S. North Carolina, and she was originally designed with quadruple 14 inch main turrets due to the Washington Naval Treaty, but due to Japan's withdrawing from the treaty (for the 18.1 inch Yamato class guns) the US withdrew and had already designed the option of replacing the 14 inch guns with triple 16 inch rifles.
Radar wasn't (and still isn't, but especially in the 40s) infallible. It makes sense to keep a backu handy, rather than putting all your eggs in one (brand-new and still untested) basket.
Searchlights have NEVER been useful in ship to ship combat. All they have ever been is a target for the opposition. The Savo Island battles proved that. They may be better than nothing to find a target but nothing tells your target to shoot here like a searchlight. Star shells are MUCH safer.
USS Massachusetts has practice loading machines too, as soon as I saw them in this video I knew what they were. Also neat thing of note, the 5inch gun breaches on BB59 are different from the ones on BB55. BB59's practice loading machines are practically under the funnels on the port side of the ship.
I have many spent naval casings of various calibers mostly in 88mm 102mm and 4&5 in. All recovered off the US East Coast, from the gulf of Maine to Va capes if Battleship New Jersey is interested the majority of them are up for grabs.
Fast forward to Viet Nam. We had 1 Huey with internal racks that held flare tubes that were about 3.5' long. If wind was not blowing much one of these flares lasted maybe 5 mintues. Got them after charlie blow up 5 Hueys one night. I was new in country and sitting on top of a conex box pulling guard duty when the first chopper blow up only 150' from me. Had to change my shorts after that.
Sometimes when navigating through waters it’s good to see what’s floating on the surface or if there were a man or equipment that went overboard having a searchlight could come in handy
I'm sure the US aviators in the Great Mariana's Turkey Shoot were very glad the warships, including the battleships New Jersey and North Carolina, still had searchlights as Admiral Mitscher had every ship in Task force 58 shining those searchlights up into the sky to create a beacon for the US planes, nearly out of fuel, to help them find their way back to their carriers in the darkness.
Modern day, (1986 actually) we were conducting a search for survivors from a helo crash at sea, at night. We only had the small signal lights to use as search lights, the much larger ones from the WWII era would have been very welcome.
I forgot--which battle did an American admiral turn on cruiser and carrier and destroyer searchlights so that American aircraft returning after dark could land safely? The Great Marianas Turkey Shoot? Some other battle?
Search lights have uses apart from ship to ship (search and rescue, illumination of shore targets during landings, possible anti-air at night) so you may as well have some at least.
Biggest reason for the 5" loading practice -- before proximity fuzes the AA rounds burst by a time fuze. The lag between setting that fuze (the setter is in the shell hoist*) and its firing was very important of being consistent to get a good AA barrage... actually hitting an aeroplane was not at all expected. On firing the time-fuze started and the shell burst when the timing mechanism ran out. So the time between the calculation of the range and the shells' bursting was highly significant to effective AA fire -- the crews practiced to get the shell-loading lag-time fast AND consistent. * In the 5" gunhouse one will note where the shell hoists come up from below, with the base end of the shell up. The nose of the time-fuse had a little knob that engaged its mate in the cup which the nose of the shell rested within. Stepping on the peddal of the shell hoist set the time on the fuze, right before the crewman picked the shell from the hoist. There is a fuze-setters position, see the tractor seat, with his back to the front of the gunhouse, between the hoist and the forward wall of the gunhouse.
I believe the bofors had 40mm practice clips with prqcoce shells all welded together. At least I’ve seen them that way, not sure if all we’re like that or if there were several different types.
The tin can navy did it well, but searchlights are useful for finding downed pilots. Navigating tight areas at night also was useful. As stated below, sub hunting. Search lights was employed a lot during the various naval battles around guadal canal, though usually by the japanese inpart because of radar as mentioned. However, in close-ish fighting radar had its limitations and destroyers would light the targets so the capital ships could take the shots
As battleships are all about redundancy, I think it an excellent idea to keep the search lights in spite of having this new-fangled RADAR thing. Searchlights can also serve other purposes, like being a beacon for planes or helping to illuminate a rescue mission, and not everything you want to spot reflects radar waves.
Well, NORTH CAROLINA did earn her nickname 'Showboat' because of how many times she cruised in and out of New York (Gotham) during her shakedown and acceptance trials! :)
The Japanese were pros at nighttime battles in the early days in the use of starshells and searchlights to blind us. When radar was later put in use the tables were turned. There was one battle that we lost 2 Admirals because they didn't believe the picture that the radar was showing and they drove right into another defeat that the Japanese slaughtered our fleet due to ignorance.
My brother has 5 of the WWII anti aircraft lights. They were originally remote controlled as well(been removed by previous owner). They are very similar to these. I wonder if they planned to use them as anti aircraft lights as well, since the AA guns were optically sighted.
yes, the 40mm had training rounds - they were blue. I saw one in a rack of 40mm ammo types that use to be in the Navy Gun School (known as the Green House) in Great Lakes, before it was torn down.
I could see search lights being very useful in identifying close boats, debris/survivors in the water, and nearby shorelines. Radar wouldn't help much for those. The practice guns are cool and a great idea I'd not even considered. Definitely safer than using a real gun and potentially accidently loading live ammo (or damaging the gun mechanisms through some mistake) and the open-air nature of them means more people can watch and criticize.
It was discovered at the Battle of Samar that star shells can be usefully fired at enemy warships. They tend to start high-temperature phosphorus fires in a ship hit by them, which are hard to put out at the best of times.
The idea of totally relying on Vacuum Tube Radar would have been an issue for ANY WW2 Navy! Also, the searchlights can help you search for people in life rafts or life vests....
I understand that distance between ford F. search lights was a known quantity so that they could shine their search lights On a single object and bring them into focus thereby Determining the range.
I have a 40MM practice round but I believe it to be the later Bofors design, the 40mm/L70. I'd be happy to bring it down next time to the ship if you'd like to see it regardless of its date
I would say that the US Navy was being regressive and proactive with redundancy at the same time. In 1938, they may have thought that radar was not going to be a feature of the ships when they started designing them. Also have to consider that they may have not trusted radar, with it being a new technology at the time. They were still experimenting with it at the time of the attack on Pearl. But, it does make sense to have a backup in case of a failure.
There was the Second Naval Battle of Guadalcanal, where SODAK had electrical failures. Then she took some 26 hits. Now, I realize that without electricity the search lights won’t work, but, if the radar went down, the search lights might have been the only way to find the enemy at night.
from Wikipedia's article on SearchLamp - but lacking a reference- "Second World War-era searchlights include models manufactured by General Electric and by the Sperry Company. These were mostly of 60 inch (152.4 cm) diameter with rhodium plated parabolic mirror, reflecting a carbon arc discharge. Peak output was 800,000,000 candela. It was powered by a 15 kW generator and had an effective beam visibility of 28 to 35 miles (45 to 56 km) in clear low humidity." - So this is of lower believability and reliability of what Ryan says.
The Navy probably put the searchlights on the battleship to ensure that if the radar was shot away or disabled the ship could still see and hit targets.
The Navy is always redundant. What if the radar fails? What if you take a hit that knocks out the radar? Are you crippled, or can you still shoot with star shells and search lights? When computers were coming into service, the file cabinets and safes were filled with paper. With GPS and electronic tracking, there is still a paper chart on a table.
I got out in 1992, but even then there were a lot of high tech gee whiz systems we could use to figure out our position. Regardless, every day there would be somebody (usually a Quartermaster) who would determine our position using celestial navigation. When qualifying as Officer of the Deck (OOD) Underway I was trained in celestial navigation. Why would the Navy still emphasize that? For two reasons. The first is redundancy which is a needed insurance against all the sorts of bizarre things that can go wrong. The second is so that you can verify that the various electronic navigation aids you are using way out in the middle of nowhere are working properly. It should also be pointed out that celestial navigation is a skill which needs to be practiced constantly in order to be able to rely on it. There was a story floating around, likely apocryphal, about a nuclear submarine that had problems which had pretty much taken their entire electrical system out. So they surfaced, cobbled together a repair that let them use their radio and signaled that they needed help. They got a response that help would be on the way, but then asked them the obvious question of where they were, exactly. As the story goes the Commanding Officer, the Executive Officer and the Chief of the Boat gathered around a sextant that they took out of a box, which none of them had used in years, trying to figure out what to do with it. Personally I am somewhat suspicious of that story as even with all their fancy navigation aids down they still should have known roughly where they were based on the paper logs they would have been keeping. But the idea that submariners wouldn't be regularly practicing celestial navigation because they would have to surface (or at least come to periscope depth) to do that isn't too unlikely.
@@minarchist1776 As the leading Quartermaster on a destroyer, I told my sailors that the first things the Soviets would do would be knock out NAVSAT satellites (later GPS satellites) and fry our electronic aids and receivers with an EMP burst(s). I added what they could take away was the stars and planets and the Earth's magnetic poles. I had them daily do a full Navigation Work Day. Computing the rise and set of sun, moon, stars, planet's, plus observing those bodies and working up the ship's position. Daily practice made them better than most and those results showed in the Navy Wide Advancement Exams and in Navigation Readiness Exercises. In one such exercise, the Commodore order all electronic navaids covered/blackened. The QM gang was to navigate from Roosevelt Roads to Charleston using only terrestrial/celestial means. No problem. The average deviation between the electronic positioning (Commodore staff keep for safety reasons) and what the QM gang observed/computed was .82 nm (1,640 yards). We easily found buoy 2C at Charleston. Your submariner story is sort of factual. I help train boomer QM's in celestial navigation. There answer at the start of the program was "Not at a depth of 400 feet". But with a little refresher and a lot of practice, they did quite well. It was part of their quals, yet they never could practice. When they rotated Gold crew to Blue crew and vice versa, they went to see with us for training. It was a nice program.
As a Unit Diary Clerk in the Marine Corp I basically maintained an electronic version of the Service Record Book. We still had a paper copy too. Just in case the Pentagon's servers went down? HAHAHA!
Not for much longer. Paper charts won't be printed anymore, some are going out of print now. But you can still order paper charts from specialty firms who will update then print them for you.
For the USS Washington searchlight during combat at night is mandatory, she mostly use radar fire control and a bit of optical fire control because US fired star shells or the Japanese already illuminated the battlefield with their gunfire and star shells
My father told the story about during WWII while under kamikaze attack someone grabbed Star shells from the ready box and they were firing them at the kamikaze planes and they turned tail and left.
Well, one thought is that radar can't find a 'man overboard', so search-lights would still have a valid use in that or other 'at sea' recoveries (such as crew from a sunken/sinking vessel). Out of historical curiosity, since the 'fast battleships' were generally the close in escorts for the fleet carriers, when the Admiral gave the order to illuminate the carriers during (I think it was) the Battle of the Philippine Sea to guide back in the last raid on the Japanese carriers, were the battleship searchlights used to help light up the flattops?
What was that, for lack of a better term, typewriter below the spotlight. Saw both letters and flags on it and it looked like the levers controlled something.
Ryan of the Battleship USS New Jersey Memorial and Museum, just wondering for like a 4th July celebration weekend or ringing the New Year- that the port side 5 inch mounts could "off star shells"?
So, did the New Jersey ever try any of the new IR technology coming out around the late-war period? It seems like a pretty natural evolution of searchlights.
I know that a friend of mine in the Marine Corp served as a brigg guard on Iowa during Desert Shield/Storm. They had inferred goggles in there weapons locker. In that case they were too help defend in any possible boarding action. That makes me think they had goggles elsewhere on the ship for other uses.
@@joeottsoulbikes415 Absolutely. Probably old PVS-5s, which were pretty good nods even though they were heavy. But some of that technology existed in WWIi and was fielded by the Army in the form of Sniper Scopes and Snooper Scopes, using big IR spotlights. I can't imagine the Navy not having something bigger and better for a major warship.
Two questions about the star shell/specialty shells. You mention the star shell should be popped behind the target, putting the target in silhouette. If the shell pops off in front of the target, it blinds them from seeing the source. Second, were there ever any "chaff" shells that would blind radar? Type slowly, I was a nuke MM, aka a "bottom dweller".
I don't think the navy was being regressive by having the search lights. At the time radar was still relatively new, so having a backup option incase there was issues with the radar was probably the rationale behind having the search lights
Like everything else on the Iowas.. Search lights where there, likely as a redundancy... (and in Duke of York vs Sharnhorst.. turns out they were quite helpful.. as both radar sets were knocked out immediately....) Can't help but think the search lights were also used in the search for downed aviators or missing aircraft.... Wasn't it Midway where all the ships turned on their lights, shone them upwards, to indicate to their lost, friendly, returning aircraft, where the carriers were???
As the Battle of the North Sea showed radar could be knocked out easily and by dumb luck. Radar emitters and receivers have to be exposed and unarmed just like fire directors and back then mounting additional radars really wasn't an options outside 1-2 for each search mode. Also radar had severe limitations. Against a shore line it took a very experienced operator and some luck back then to make out a ship. Having search lights just made sense incase the radar was disabled or conditions were poor for it.
What happened to the practice rounds after they were loaded into the machines? I assume they would be pushed out somewhere but I'm not seeing where in the views shown in the video. Did they do something clever and make them auto feed back into the shell host or something like that?
@@andrewgillis3073 Didn't the 5" guns use semi-fixed ammunition? If I'm understanding thing correctly there is no provision for that to extract the shell. And even if that isn't a problem, having big heavy shells falling out with the powder cases would be different than the real thing.
@@benjaminshropshire2900 on the practice machine, there is a slot underneath the ‘barrel’ where the shell would fall into a net, saving it for later use. forum.cartridgecollectors.org/t/usn-wwii-5-drill-round/34586
@@Joshua_N-A true, but statistically speaking, a capital ship’s shell was very unlikely to score a hit, much less hitting something so small so high up
Consider that the star shells will illuminate for other of your own ships firing. Use of radar info on that other ship would be... difficultl. The trick is to throw the star shells __behind__ the enemy.
"Do you think the navy brass was just being regressive by installing search lights instead of just trusting that radar?" More like it's redundancy and variety of capability. Radar is good and all, but it has limitations that a search light doesn't just like a search light has limitations that radar doesn't. You likely wouldn't rely on radar to pull survivors of a wrecked ship out of the water for example. Plus there weren't really radar guided AA weapons, or if there were, they were very primitive. So it helps the MK1 eyeballs to light up their targets if possible.
Well, at some storm radar antenna could be broken and if it happened - You are out of possibility to engage hostile ships in darkness. Thats why having searchlights isnt bad idea as for me. You could use this searchlights - and You could not, but in a case of something Youll not find yourself blind in darkness without radar.
During WW2 the search lights could have a secondary purpose. They could be used after an attack to light up a ship that needed help or search for crew in the water as well. Also for searching and identifying things that may not be an enemy ship. During the 80s and 90s all those uses were gone since ship to ship combat was pretty much gone.
Useing Seach Lghts Is Better to Used Because If The Rader Goes Out Or Gets knock Out You Will Need A back up To Hit Your Terget If Somethng Where To Happened To The Radar Yoz Can used The Lights To Take out The Enemy Ships
Another use for the searchlights is against aircraft especially torpedo bombers and dive bombers. You can't hit what you can't see and even in broad daylight those carbon Arc lamps are blinding if you are looking toward them.
At night using a searchlight against aircraft just simplifies their targeting. You can only aim at one aircraft at a time but all of them can see the source of light.
Yes but you didn't track just one aircraft with the light try looking into a bright flashlight for a second and how much can you save for the next minute or so
@@edwardbarks8989 I doubt those controls were designed for AA tracking (which is much faster than ship tracking.). It was used the other way round (Leigh lights) but I’ve never seen any description of this being attempted by ships against aircraft. The sky is just too big for this to have a significant chance of success while vastly increasing the visibility of the target.
I don't know how many times i've tried to research star shells and have gotten no useful information aside from the fact that they existed. Could never find what they did, when they where used, if they were a flare or am actual shell, nothing.
"Navy brass being regressive" ? Actually I'm surprised that they ever removed any of them. Doesn't the saying go "US Navy...246 years of tradition, uninterrupted by progress":)
And you are aware that the US navy fielded its first automatic weapon in 1798? (And yes it was a flintlock). It’s direct descendant is the Metal Storm machine gun.
Searchlights/starshells ability on Iowas was not "Navy brass being regressive" because sometimes that radar might not work. Something I've learned from watching your videos and reading books about naval battles in WW2 (i.e. "Neptune's Inferno"), the ships had redundancy built-in. In the heat of battle, you don't know what could go wrong - for instance when South Dakota lost power during a battle off Guadalcanal. They had other uses as well - searching for survivors.
What he said.
sometimes belt and suspenders is the right answer.
Searchlights have ALWAYS been a shoot me here signal. That’s why the Japanese didn’t use them relying instead on high gain optics. Star shells were always a better option.
I was going to say that about survivor search I guess you wouldn't need 5 though.
A lot of captains didn't trust the radar, because they had seen technology advances throughout their careers. Any time you have new technology aboard a warship, it needs time to be proven in combat. And you can always fall back on proven technology in that case, and any time you have equipment failure.
Hi Libby!! You give AMAZING tours below decks👍Thank you for making the ship come alive 🇺🇸 What a great time we had there today, keep up the good work!
I love that you are covering the North Carolina now, been there several times and somehow missed the 40mm practice machine great information as always
Although British battleships detected and approached the Italian heavy cruisers Zara and Flume with radar at the Battle of Cape Matapan, they were illuminated by searchlights before Warspite, Valiant and Barham opened fire. A friendly fire incident with twenty four 15" guns would have been unfortunate. The searchlights on board HMS Valiant were operated by a young Prince Philip. The British line of battle included the aircraft carrier Formidable which got a few rounds of 4.5" off before being told to get out of it, which would make Formidable the only aircraft carrier to take part in a line of battle in a surface action. Matapan is also noteworthy as the last battle where British battleships would form a line of battle.
said carrier was also involved in gun based shore fire support if my memory serves me right
Edit after som research I looked further into it and it wasn't HMS Formidable but HMS Unicorn a forward aviation support ship (totally not a carrier dear parliament member(its a escort carrier for all intents and purposes))
@@albireo8166 The thing about most WW2 British Captains was they had two large spherical objects about the size of bowling balls!!!
During The Battle Of The River Platte, HMS Exeter had to withdraw due to battle damage. Eventually they got a SINGLE 8" & a SINGLE 4" gun to work again, and asked their Admiral (who was on one of the Light Cruisers, I forget which one) where and when he wanted them to rejoin the battle agains KMS Graf Spee! This is after they had been "hulled" and were unable to make full speed!
Technically, the CVEs of taffy 3 also took part in a surface engagement. It just wasn’t organized, and was because they couldn’t run away fast enough even with the escorts doing their best to distract the Japanese center force.
@@graceneilitz7661 The loss of HMS Glorious would be another surface engagement.
@@graceneilitz7661 The loss of HMS Glorious during the Battle of Norway would be another surface engagement involving an aircraft carrier.
If my parents havent sold or trashed it i would be happy to donate my 40mm aa practice round to new jersey
sad battleship nosies
Seems like the searchlights would be good to have if you are recovering sailors from a ship that went down, or downed air crews
That's usually the job of the destroyer fleet, though. It's a lot more hazardous for ships with a higher freeboard, like carriers and battleships, to try to recover personnel from the water. Also, you typically need to come to a full stop to perform those actions, and that's a lot bigger time investment and risk for those larger vessels.
...or looking for sabatours/enemy frogmen in port.
@@joshuabessire9169 That's more a task for searchlights on the port facilities themselves.
@@joshuabessire9169 that'll be port security's AOR.
Might need the search lites if in a earlier battle the radar was damaged I’m sure they could use the star shells but maybe all used up , you don’t get no time outs to replenish your needs in war
If the enemy has the proper equipment, illuminating them with radar gives away your position as surely as illuminating them with a searchlight.
I have seen several sources mention that the Germans and Japanese had "excellent searchlight tactics" yet I've never been able to find any documentation describing searchlight "tactics" for them of the US Navy for that matter, although I do know generally that it involves things like controlling the illumination time (as brief as possible), and switching between different searchlights to make it harder for the enemy to pinpoint the source, as well as using them to "dazzle" enemy gunners and visual FC directors in addition to illuminating the enemy for your own guns. I would love to find a manual detailing the use of searchlights (and star shell) in night combat.
Another practice the Japanese had was using their cruiser or battleship spotter planes to drop flares behind the line of enemy ships to illuminate them. They used it in at least one of the Guadalcanal battles. They were the only navy to do that (although the RN talked about it), usually float planes didn't operate at night. I always thought that was a darn good use for them.
As a new EM-3 I was stashed on AE-15 for three months before going to Nuc Power School. During that time I used my experience with 35mm carbon arc movie projectors to return Mt Vesuvius's 36" carbon arc searchlight to service. The EMC pretty much did not believe I'd done it. I must admit to some nerves the first time I struck an arc with that beast.
Radar and light combo. Can't go wrong with that. Pretty cool system. 👍
In addition to redundancy like other posters have mentioned, search lights would be essential for defense against stealthy attackers; submarines, swimmers, and skiffs. Radar probably won't pick up a periscope, but your search light will.
and dive bombers -- distract their aim
@@iansinclair521 lol, a search light would actually *help* a dive bomber aim. Not that night divebombing was ever much of a thing.
@@erikmagnuson9670 Even during the day, it can blind a person, so using it against enemy aircraft attacking at dawn or just at sunset would be helpful to the ship!
@@timengineman2nd714 if you can find a single combat example where this alone was considered a valuable defense method against aircraft then I’ll accept your premise (note that ground base illumination for AA guns is different because the lights are not positioned on top of the target)
@@erikmagnuson9670 I'm trying to remember the exact details, but if I recall correctly the Brits in the Med used it against Italians both torpedo bombers and dive bombers, and at least once during the day. The idea wasn't to distract them, but make it harder for the enemy to see the ship's movements as they (successfully) tried to avoid being hit.
Of course, this could be something along the lines of eating carrots (which was the cover story for the introduction of airborne radar.....)
A story about search lights was the story of the black cats. Black cats were pby's, which were painted black. They would attack the port of rabul at night. The japanese tried to illuminating them with search lights.
This a case where radar is better than search lights.
Recently deceased Prince Philip was a young officer in charge of the searchlights on HMS Valiant at the Battle of Cape Matapan.
Prince Philip got a Mention in Dispatches for his efforts as well.
@@aw34565 Being around searchlights lights is a good way to get mentioned in despatches or a telegram to your next of kin…
@@allangibson2408 True, but this particular action was more like a massacre than a battle.
It's amazing how complex these ships are and how much thought and engineering effort was put into producing these ships. Need to train loading teams, but we can't have them chewing through ammunition and we can't have them wearing out the real firing systems, so build a training system and place it on board. And that's just one facet these ships needed to win the war. Wow.
Hey Ryan! Thanks for another great video and I have been enjoying watching the North Carolinas videos and the great volunteers who look after her! I would have never known about this museum ship if it wasn't for you! The videos about how they had a great soda fountain and ice cream, plus the butcher shop really takes you back in time and gives a great perspective of how it was like back then! I hope to visit the North Carolina in the future! I didn't know she had 16 inch guns.
I'm a big fan of the U.S.S. North Carolina, and she was originally designed with quadruple 14 inch main turrets due to the Washington Naval Treaty, but due to Japan's withdrawing from the treaty (for the 18.1 inch Yamato class guns) the US withdrew and had already designed the option of replacing the 14 inch guns with triple 16 inch rifles.
Radar wasn't (and still isn't, but especially in the 40s) infallible. It makes sense to keep a backu handy, rather than putting all your eggs in one (brand-new and still untested) basket.
especially on a huge ship that has the space and displacement. Once the backup isn't needed, it can be and was removed
Searchlights have NEVER been useful in ship to ship combat. All they have ever been is a target for the opposition. The Savo Island battles proved that.
They may be better than nothing to find a target but nothing tells your target to shoot here like a searchlight.
Star shells are MUCH safer.
@@allangibson2408 the Germans at Jutland would like a word with you about searchlights.
@@allangibson2408 Cape Matapan tells a different story.
Great presentation thankyou.
One of there Search Lamps on the Battleship Texas is from the Battleship Arizona.
Can y’all do a series on rooms y’all would love to restore? So if y’all ever get around to restoring them you will have a before and after.
USS Massachusetts has practice loading machines too, as soon as I saw them in this video I knew what they were. Also neat thing of note, the 5inch gun breaches on BB59 are different from the ones on BB55.
BB59's practice loading machines are practically under the funnels on the port side of the ship.
I have many spent naval casings of various calibers mostly in 88mm 102mm and 4&5 in. All recovered off the US East Coast, from the gulf of Maine to Va capes if Battleship New Jersey is interested the majority of them are up for grabs.
I hear star shells work really well for dismantling Japanese torpedo equipment
And hitting friendly destroyers
Nice job guys, thanks.
Fast forward to Viet Nam. We had 1 Huey with internal racks that held flare tubes that were about 3.5' long. If wind was not blowing much one of these flares lasted maybe 5 mintues. Got them after charlie blow up 5 Hueys one night. I was new in country and sitting on top of a conex box pulling guard duty when the first chopper blow up only 150' from me. Had to change my shorts after that.
Perfect intro for y’all’s videos Ryan 👍
Sometimes when navigating through waters it’s good to see what’s floating on the surface or if there were a man or equipment that went overboard having a searchlight could come in handy
I'm sure the US aviators in the Great Mariana's Turkey Shoot were very glad the warships, including the battleships New Jersey and North Carolina, still had searchlights as Admiral Mitscher had every ship in Task force 58 shining those searchlights up into the sky to create a beacon for the US planes, nearly out of fuel, to help them find their way back to their carriers in the darkness.
Been as much fun as one could possibly have with clothes on 💪😄 awesome
Just like coast artillery they had sound detectors and search lights
Search lights and starshells will help as many have noted as a backup but also in situations were radar is not sensitive enough to detect an object.
Modern day, (1986 actually) we were conducting a search for survivors from a helo crash at sea, at night. We only had the small signal lights to use as search lights, the much larger ones from the WWII era would have been very welcome.
I forgot--which battle did an American admiral turn on cruiser and carrier and destroyer searchlights so that American aircraft returning after dark could land safely? The Great Marianas Turkey Shoot? Some other battle?
Search lights have uses apart from ship to ship (search and rescue, illumination of shore targets during landings, possible anti-air at night) so you may as well have some at least.
Biggest reason for the 5" loading practice -- before proximity fuzes the AA rounds burst by a time fuze. The lag between setting that fuze (the setter is in the shell hoist*) and its firing was very important of being consistent to get a good AA barrage... actually hitting an aeroplane was not at all expected. On firing the time-fuze started and the shell burst when the timing mechanism ran out. So the time between the calculation of the range and the shells' bursting was highly significant to effective AA fire -- the crews practiced to get the shell-loading lag-time fast AND consistent.
* In the 5" gunhouse one will note where the shell hoists come up from below, with the base end of the shell up. The nose of the time-fuse had a little knob that engaged its mate in the cup which the nose of the shell rested within. Stepping on the peddal of the shell hoist set the time on the fuze, right before the crewman picked the shell from the hoist.
There is a fuze-setters position, see the tractor seat, with his back to the front of the gunhouse, between the hoist and the forward wall of the gunhouse.
I believe the bofors had 40mm practice clips with prqcoce shells all welded together. At least I’ve seen them that way, not sure if all we’re like that or if there were several different types.
The tin can navy did it well, but searchlights are useful for finding downed pilots. Navigating tight areas at night also was useful. As stated below, sub hunting. Search lights was employed a lot during the various naval battles around guadal canal, though usually by the japanese inpart because of radar as mentioned. However, in close-ish fighting radar had its limitations and destroyers would light the targets so the capital ships could take the shots
As battleships are all about redundancy, I think it an excellent idea to keep the search lights in spite of having this new-fangled RADAR thing.
Searchlights can also serve other purposes, like being a beacon for planes or helping to illuminate a rescue mission, and not everything you want to spot reflects radar waves.
Oh come on! That iris is totally to send the Bat Signal.
Well, NORTH CAROLINA did earn her nickname 'Showboat' because of how many times she cruised in and out of New York (Gotham) during her shakedown and acceptance trials! :)
The Japanese were pros at nighttime battles in the early days in the use of starshells and searchlights to blind us. When radar was later put in use the tables were turned. There was one battle that we lost 2 Admirals because they didn't believe the picture that the radar was showing and they drove right into another defeat that the Japanese slaughtered our fleet due to ignorance.
Was that when the IJN sent out a fleet of DDs at night that shredded the US Cruiser line at night at the Battle of Tassafaronga?
ColoradoStreaming yes it was
Didn't Japan also developing their own radar that time? Heard it's not as powerful as the Americans use.
My brother has 5 of the WWII anti aircraft lights. They were originally remote controlled as well(been removed by previous owner). They are very similar to these. I wonder if they planned to use them as anti aircraft lights as well, since the AA guns were optically sighted.
In wartime, more options are better, thus install the searchlights, and give the operational forces that availibilty. No downside that I can see.
At night, you wouldn't know if there's any one of you MIA after the battle. It's the worst time to get thrown overboard.
yes, the 40mm had training rounds - they were blue. I saw one in a rack of 40mm ammo types that use to be in the Navy Gun School (known as the Green House) in Great Lakes, before it was torn down.
I could see search lights being very useful in identifying close boats, debris/survivors in the water, and nearby shorelines. Radar wouldn't help much for those.
The practice guns are cool and a great idea I'd not even considered. Definitely safer than using a real gun and potentially accidently loading live ammo (or damaging the gun mechanisms through some mistake) and the open-air nature of them means more people can watch and criticize.
It was discovered at the Battle of Samar that star shells can be usefully fired at enemy warships. They tend to start high-temperature phosphorus fires in a ship hit by them, which are hard to put out at the best of times.
Search lights can also be used in search and rescue operations.
Always need a backup system. That and they're usefulness goes beyond just spotting targets at night.
On a cold night a star shell can have a very long hang time. The heat from the flare rises into the chute like a hot air balloon.
Aircraft carriers still have that same search light. Always wondered what it was.
Had searchlights as back up. Bet they still had star shells in the 80's too.
The idea of totally relying on Vacuum Tube Radar would have been an issue for ANY WW2 Navy! Also, the searchlights can help you search for people in life rafts or life vests....
Night time is the worst time to get thrown overboard.
@@Joshua_N-A "Midnight Swim Call!"
I understand that distance between ford F. search lights was a known quantity so that they could shine their search lights On a single object and bring them into focus thereby Determining the range.
The most forward searchlight was removed on the Iowa in 44
I have a 40MM practice round but I believe it to be the later Bofors design, the 40mm/L70. I'd be happy to bring it down next time to the ship if you'd like to see it regardless of its date
I would say that the US Navy was being regressive and proactive with redundancy at the same time. In 1938, they may have thought that radar was not going to be a feature of the ships when they started designing them. Also have to consider that they may have not trusted radar, with it being a new technology at the time. They were still experimenting with it at the time of the attack on Pearl. But, it does make sense to have a backup in case of a failure.
very cool
I don't know the manufacturer of those lamps but the ones on Slater are GE and the starboard side works. The 12" signal lamps work as well.
Wouldn’t these be carbon arc lamps like most WW2 searchlights? No lamps but you would need the carbon rods
There was the Second Naval Battle of Guadalcanal, where SODAK had electrical failures. Then she took some 26 hits. Now, I realize that without electricity the search lights won’t work, but, if the radar went down, the search lights might have been the only way to find the enemy at night.
from Wikipedia's article on SearchLamp - but lacking a reference- "Second World War-era searchlights include models manufactured by General Electric and by the Sperry Company. These were mostly of 60 inch (152.4 cm) diameter with rhodium plated parabolic mirror, reflecting a carbon arc discharge. Peak output was 800,000,000 candela. It was powered by a 15 kW generator and had an effective beam visibility of 28 to 35 miles (45 to 56 km) in clear low humidity." - So this is of lower believability and reliability of what Ryan says.
Surch lights still would have several uses even with radar. A simple example would be to rescue people and small boats at night.
Last time i was this late, nuclear is quite effective on helping to spot enemy ship
They're just desperate, those are just 5 inch starbursts. They don't have any shells that can hurt us!
I served with CPO Casey Ryback on the Missouri. He never did explain why that one guy on board looked like Gary Busey.
The venerable Cmdr. Crustacean!
The Navy probably put the searchlights on the battleship to ensure that if the radar was shot away or disabled the ship could still see and hit targets.
The Navy is always redundant. What if the radar fails? What if you take a hit that knocks out the radar? Are you crippled, or can you still shoot with star shells and search lights?
When computers were coming into service, the file cabinets and safes were filled with paper. With GPS and electronic tracking, there is still a paper chart on a table.
I got out in 1992, but even then there were a lot of high tech gee whiz systems we could use to figure out our position. Regardless, every day there would be somebody (usually a Quartermaster) who would determine our position using celestial navigation. When qualifying as Officer of the Deck (OOD) Underway I was trained in celestial navigation.
Why would the Navy still emphasize that? For two reasons. The first is redundancy which is a needed insurance against all the sorts of bizarre things that can go wrong. The second is so that you can verify that the various electronic navigation aids you are using way out in the middle of nowhere are working properly. It should also be pointed out that celestial navigation is a skill which needs to be practiced constantly in order to be able to rely on it.
There was a story floating around, likely apocryphal, about a nuclear submarine that had problems which had pretty much taken their entire electrical system out. So they surfaced, cobbled together a repair that let them use their radio and signaled that they needed help. They got a response that help would be on the way, but then asked them the obvious question of where they were, exactly. As the story goes the Commanding Officer, the Executive Officer and the Chief of the Boat gathered around a sextant that they took out of a box, which none of them had used in years, trying to figure out what to do with it. Personally I am somewhat suspicious of that story as even with all their fancy navigation aids down they still should have known roughly where they were based on the paper logs they would have been keeping. But the idea that submariners wouldn't be regularly practicing celestial navigation because they would have to surface (or at least come to periscope depth) to do that isn't too unlikely.
@@minarchist1776 As the leading Quartermaster on a destroyer, I told my sailors that the first things the Soviets would do would be knock out NAVSAT satellites (later GPS satellites) and fry our electronic aids and receivers with an EMP burst(s). I added what they could take away was the stars and planets and the Earth's magnetic poles. I had them daily do a full Navigation Work Day. Computing the rise and set of sun, moon, stars, planet's, plus observing those bodies and working up the ship's position. Daily practice made them better than most and those results showed in the Navy Wide Advancement Exams and in Navigation Readiness Exercises. In one such exercise, the Commodore order all electronic navaids covered/blackened. The QM gang was to navigate from Roosevelt Roads to Charleston using only terrestrial/celestial means. No problem. The average deviation between the electronic positioning (Commodore staff keep for safety reasons) and what the QM gang observed/computed was .82 nm (1,640 yards). We easily found buoy 2C at Charleston.
Your submariner story is sort of factual. I help train boomer QM's in celestial navigation. There answer at the start of the program was "Not at a depth of 400 feet". But with a little refresher and a lot of practice, they did quite well. It was part of their quals, yet they never could practice. When they rotated Gold crew to Blue crew and vice versa, they went to see with us for training. It was a nice program.
As a Unit Diary Clerk in the Marine Corp I basically maintained an electronic version of the Service Record Book. We still had a paper copy too. Just in case the Pentagon's servers went down? HAHAHA!
Not for much longer. Paper charts won't be printed anymore, some are going out of print now. But you can still order paper charts from specialty firms who will update then print them for you.
Really love seeing the differences in the US Fast battleships. Will you be visiting the North Carolina's engine rooms and "Broadway" (if NC has that)?
For the USS Washington searchlight during combat at night is mandatory, she mostly use radar fire control and a bit of optical fire control because US fired star shells or the Japanese already illuminated the battlefield with their gunfire and star shells
My father told the story about during WWII while under kamikaze attack someone grabbed Star shells from the ready box and they were firing them at the kamikaze planes and they turned tail and left.
Well, one thought is that radar can't find a 'man overboard', so search-lights would still have a valid use in that or other 'at sea' recoveries (such as crew from a sunken/sinking vessel).
Out of historical curiosity, since the 'fast battleships' were generally the close in escorts for the fleet carriers, when the Admiral gave the order to illuminate the carriers during (I think it was) the Battle of the Philippine Sea to guide back in the last raid on the Japanese carriers, were the battleship searchlights used to help light up the flattops?
What was that, for lack of a better term, typewriter below the spotlight. Saw both letters and flags on it and it looked like the levers controlled something.
Ryan just buzz it and go wooly willy
I know about you all but I would like to have a couple of those lights on the ship just in case you need to see something. Like search and rescue.
Redundancy for radar failure, search and rescue, beacon for aircraft etc several reasons to keep them
Ryan of the Battleship USS New Jersey Memorial and Museum, just wondering for like a 4th July celebration weekend or ringing the New Year- that the port side 5 inch mounts could "off star shells"?
We fire blanks from those guns on holidays or anytime someone wants to spend $500 to do it. With notice.
@@BattleshipNewJersey thanks for the answer
So, did the New Jersey ever try any of the new IR technology coming out around the late-war period? It seems like a pretty natural evolution of searchlights.
I know that a friend of mine in the Marine Corp served as a brigg guard on Iowa during Desert Shield/Storm. They had inferred goggles in there weapons locker. In that case they were too help defend in any possible boarding action. That makes me think they had goggles elsewhere on the ship for other uses.
@@joeottsoulbikes415 Absolutely. Probably old PVS-5s, which were pretty good nods even though they were heavy. But some of that technology existed in WWIi and was fielded by the Army in the form of Sniper Scopes and Snooper Scopes, using big IR spotlights. I can't imagine the Navy not having something bigger and better for a major warship.
To new to be designed and feilded,
searchlights......for when you want the enemy to know where you are
Two questions about the star shell/specialty shells. You mention the star shell should be popped behind the target, putting the target in silhouette. If the shell pops off in front of the target, it blinds them from seeing the source. Second, were there ever any "chaff" shells that would blind radar? Type slowly, I was a nuke MM, aka a "bottom dweller".
Would searchlights not also have utility if you had to get people out of the water at night?
Large lights might also need to be used at night for rescues and other operations.
I don't think the navy was being regressive by having the search lights. At the time radar was still relatively new, so having a backup option incase there was issues with the radar was probably the rationale behind having the search lights
Like everything else on the Iowas.. Search lights where there, likely as a redundancy... (and in Duke of York vs Sharnhorst.. turns out they were quite helpful.. as both radar sets were knocked out immediately....)
Can't help but think the search lights were also used in the search for downed aviators or missing aircraft....
Wasn't it Midway where all the ships turned on their lights, shone them upwards, to indicate to their lost, friendly, returning aircraft, where the carriers were???
As the Battle of the North Sea showed radar could be knocked out easily and by dumb luck. Radar emitters and receivers have to be exposed and unarmed just like fire directors and back then mounting additional radars really wasn't an options outside 1-2 for each search mode. Also radar had severe limitations. Against a shore line it took a very experienced operator and some luck back then to make out a ship. Having search lights just made sense incase the radar was disabled or conditions were poor for it.
trust me Ryan they had practice ammo for the 40 mm!!!
Would imagine the 40mm practice rounds would be pretty much what you can buy today,no powder no primer hole drilled in it.
Random request, could you cover the Omaha class scout cruisers?
What happened to the practice rounds after they were loaded into the machines? I assume they would be pushed out somewhere but I'm not seeing where in the views shown in the video.
Did they do something clever and make them auto feed back into the shell host or something like that?
When the breach was opened, the shell would be ejected automatically. The next shell would then be loaded.
@@andrewgillis3073 Didn't the 5" guns use semi-fixed ammunition? If I'm understanding thing correctly there is no provision for that to extract the shell. And even if that isn't a problem, having big heavy shells falling out with the powder cases would be different than the real thing.
@@benjaminshropshire2900 on the practice machine, there is a slot underneath the ‘barrel’ where the shell would fall into a net, saving it for later use. forum.cartridgecollectors.org/t/usn-wwii-5-drill-round/34586
👍
I thought that the North Carolina had the very first radar fire control computers.
US Navy at this time was quite progressive, so I think relying in n star shells and searchlights was mostly a contingency
In battle, the radar risked of being taken out. They'd be lucky to have a spare brought on board but then again they to replace it first.
@@Joshua_N-A true, but statistically speaking, a capital ship’s shell was very unlikely to score a hit, much less hitting something so small so high up
Consider that the star shells will illuminate for other of your own ships firing. Use of radar info on that other ship would be... difficultl.
The trick is to throw the star shells __behind__ the enemy.
"Do you think the navy brass was just being regressive by installing search lights instead of just trusting that radar?"
More like it's redundancy and variety of capability. Radar is good and all, but it has limitations that a search light doesn't just like a search light has limitations that radar doesn't. You likely wouldn't rely on radar to pull survivors of a wrecked ship out of the water for example. Plus there weren't really radar guided AA weapons, or if there were, they were very primitive. So it helps the MK1 eyeballs to light up their targets if possible.
Well, at some storm radar antenna could be broken and if it happened - You are out of possibility to engage hostile ships in darkness. Thats why having searchlights isnt bad idea as for me. You could use this searchlights - and You could not, but in a case of something Youll not find yourself blind in darkness without radar.
During WW2 the search lights could have a secondary purpose. They could be used after an attack to light up a ship that needed help or search for crew in the water as well. Also for searching and identifying things that may not be an enemy ship. During the 80s and 90s all those uses were gone since ship to ship combat was pretty much gone.
Hopefully you’ll tell us the candlepower
In case you need to convert it, 1 candlepower is equal to 12.57 lumens.
@@ghost307 I know more about the ring than the searchlights
@@richhoule3462 I hope he realizes that those are sold as wedding rings. I'm sure that his GF realizes it and she's probably getting ideas.
@@ghost307 I’d REALLY like to say something here, but for once, I’ll shut my mouth lol
Useing Seach Lghts Is Better to Used Because If The Rader Goes Out Or Gets knock Out You Will Need A back up To Hit Your Terget If Somethng Where To Happened To The Radar Yoz Can used The Lights To Take out The Enemy Ships
BB = Bright Bulbs
Autoloaders are dedinetly faster just look at the halland class destroyers or the Bkan 1 tracked artillery
Another use for the searchlights is against aircraft especially torpedo bombers and dive bombers. You can't hit what you can't see and even in broad daylight those carbon Arc lamps are blinding if you are looking toward them.
At night using a searchlight against aircraft just simplifies their targeting. You can only aim at one aircraft at a time but all of them can see the source of light.
Yes but you didn't track just one aircraft with the light try looking into a bright flashlight for a second and how much can you save for the next minute or so
@@edwardbarks8989 I doubt those controls were designed for AA tracking (which is much faster than ship tracking.). It was used the other way round (Leigh lights) but I’ve never seen any description of this being attempted by ships against aircraft. The sky is just too big for this to have a significant chance of success while vastly increasing the visibility of the target.
No. The search lights were there because the manufacturer had a friend, somewhere, who got them a sweet contract.
I don't know how many times i've tried to research star shells and have gotten no useful information aside from the fact that they existed. Could never find what they did, when they where used, if they were a flare or am actual shell, nothing.
Try illumination shells.
Does Rustic and Main make rings of the reclaimed shards of my broken heart?
That's what her best friend is for!
Iowa Class 40mm practice loader located between the stacks just forward of the triple 40 mm gun tubs navsource.org/archives/01/062/016209p.jpg
The command officers of the current war learned how to fight a war during the last war.
"Navy brass being regressive" ? Actually I'm surprised that they ever removed any of them. Doesn't the saying go "US Navy...246 years of tradition, uninterrupted by progress":)
And you are aware that the US navy fielded its first automatic weapon in 1798? (And yes it was a flintlock).
It’s direct descendant is the Metal Storm machine gun.
BB55 did have radar they even used it to aim the guns