Designing, engineering, manufacturing, constructing and operating these battle wagons took extraordinary tenacity and skill. A lost art from a bygone era.
I get what you are saying. To me, the ship is a tribute to the immense skill and knowledge of the designers and builders. None of this was easy and it took the concerted efforts of 10's of thousands of skilled people to build and operate these vast machines. Having had the opportunity to look at and closely inspect practically every piece of equipment still on board the ship, the one thing that I constantly remind myself is that they were so smart and I am so dumb!
These are some absolutely fantastic videos. It's fascinating to see how things worked with such detailed and knowledgeable narration. I hope in the days and years to come the ship does make it to dry dock for all the shipyard grade hull repairs and other restorations. It would also be fantastic to somehow organize volunteer help for detailed cleaning and restoration spaces like the interior of the gun houses and other spaces. With a bit of training anyone can wield the tools to sand or wire brush rust and corrosion and scrape peeling paint and clean and polish data plates and paint. Yes, I know there's some HAZMAT considerations. I visited the ship about ten years ago and among many great memories I recall how many things just looked so neglected. I know it's all about availability of labor and priorities.
Thanks for the great memories of dear Ed taking some of us all the way up from the handling room to the gun house of Turret #1. It was an amazing climb, and the chain falls area was a favorite space.
3:40 holy smokes....that motor was older than I am when this ship fired over my great-grandpa's head on D-DAY. And it's older than any member of my family that I've ever met. I freaking love history.
Just wow! I've never seen a photo of this space, much less a video! Hope we get to see more. I've been inside the gun houses of Turrets 1 through 3 only. What is the condition of Turrets 4 and 5? Were they ever open to the public?
I agree. As a kid ad as a teen ager I toured the Texas many times and was always curious as to wat was behind the locked doors and hatches. Now as a barge and shipyard contractor, I know many of those off limits areas hid dirty oil, fuel, and void spaces. To see soe of them opened up now and see unseen machinery spaces is a marvel!
When they finally get the hull and machinery supports repairs made it would be something to sell raffle tickets for people to man the hoists to turn one of the turrets.
I've watched quite a few videos concerning the USS TEXAS. Texas, being an extremely wealthy state certainly hasn't taken care of her namesake. It is concerning and shameful that the BB has been left to deteriorate so badly.
I didn’t know how many systems had manual back ups in the 14 inch turret. By comparison my 16 inch gun turret had many redundant systems and you could bypass all of the safety circuits, but there were no manual systems for train, elevation, or hoists.
The designers' motto for the New York class seemed to be keep it simple, keep it manual. Unfortunately, the chainfalls were so slow, they were essentially useless. It would have been much more useful if they had included additional backup powered systems for the turrets. I think the Brits had it dialed in better with their heavy reliance on hydraulics. Primary and backup pumps could be mounted in remote, well protected spaces and hydraulic lines run to motors where they were needed. Damage control would be easier and there was less danger of electrocution and fire from damaged conductors and controllers. However, to be fair to Texas' designers, the Mark 1, 14" 2-gun turret was a huge leap from previous designs. Since most designs were evolutionary, I think they were being conservative and used what they figured would work. In a sense, they checked off the box labelled "backup", but without really answering the question of how practical their solution was. Again in an effort to be fair, every designer of every system was always under the budget gun. I don't know this to be true, but I wouldn't be surprised if that was a major factor in the decisions. Btw, I cannot imagine any possibility of having any kind of manual handling, training or pointing equipment on the Iowa class. Things are simply too big and too heavy.
Big and heavy is right! We only ever set the turret train locking pins once. We were underway in rough seas and the Weapons Officer ordered the train locking pins set. The design was similar to the 14 inch turret except the pins were hand cranked into place with a threaded mechanism. My turret SCPO said NO! we would never get the pins out again. The Weapons Officer overruled my SCPO. The next morning the storm passed and we had three non functional turrets. They had all moved just very slightly and put 1800 tons of side torque on those pins. So my SCPO was wrong it only took turret one about 24 hours of tuning the train system on and off to finally remove the pins. Turret three was 18 hours and my turret took about 8 hours. I think my SCPO made sure we didn’t put the pins all the way in so our misery was shorter than the other turrets.
@@robertlian2009 Thanks for the story. I was going to ask you about your pins and if they were similar. I saw a drawing of a cruiser turret pin and it was a great example of over design with its geared insertion/removal mechanism and depth indicator. I will say that while SCPO had a good point, I think I understand the Weapons Officer's concerns. I'd rather take a few hours removing pins than repairing beat up training gear.
For all the modernity any given battleship had for the period it was built, it can be remarkable how old fashioned (in the sense of tried & true) parts of them can be. Which is itself a little microcosm for any navy as a whole tbh.
I suspect that compared to the farms and indusyries the young men of the teens and 20s cae from, this ship must jave been like taking a job on the space shuttel woud be to us. All of ye electric and hydraulic devices plus electric lights must hae been an awesome sight.
They could have when the ship was in operational condition. However, I don't see much reason to do that since the trainer could train the turret as slowly as 1 degree per minute. It would be a simple matter for the hoist man responsible for inserting the pin to call instructions down to the trainer. It wouldn't be possible now since none of the hydraulic speed controllers are in working condition.
Sixteen very friendly and very sweaty people, probably all stripped down to their skivvies and deck shoes. There probably wasn't a lot of air flow and ventilation in that area. And if they could squeeze in 18 to 20 I'd bet they would do it. Remember that about 5' 6" was a typical height for skinny young men in those days, so it wouldn't be the physical impossibility that it would be today with a bunch of guys 6' 2" and 180 pounds.
Since close to no sailors who served on this ship still breathe, how do you figure out how these things operate? Are ther operating manuals that explain all these obscure devices?
You are right, there is only a very small handful of surviving veterans and none are now capable of providing information. Fortunately, there are better sources of information that really drill down into the details. One of them is Navy ordnance manuals from the 1910's and 1920's. These cover overall and detailed design features of guns and turrets. There are also Navy gunnery manuals from the era that include crew operating procedures for individual turret designs. These include detailed procedures specifically for the 14"/45 cal, two-gun turrets on battleships Texas and New York. They are 100% reliable sources since both types of manuals were directly used for educating gunnery officers and enlisted personnel of the era. Both can be found and downloaded using Google Books. In the case of this video, I also have builder's drawings showing both the overall mechanism and individual components for the chainfalls. The mechanisms are straightforward and their operation is generally easy to interpret. It also helps that I was able to physically inspect them on the ship where I could directly see relationships between components that may not be easy to understand on a drawing. In both this case and other turret subsystems, the two manuals, builder's drawings and direct inspection combine to give me a very high level of confidence with my understanding of design and operation.
That wasn't the design intent for the clips. However, since they seemed to hold similar turrets in place on Oklahoma when she capsized, the ones on Texas may have well been able to do it also.
@@HM2SGT I don't get paid to do that work like the Parks Dept does. They have an annual budget plus contributions and volunteers and yet they still neglected this ship until it was turned into a husk sunken at the pier. The only thing that will keep it afloat is the foam injected into the previously flooded compartments. And for that compartment to look that bad and NOT have been flooded means they had no excuse for its condition. They could have easily reached that compartment for restoration work the entire time they had the ship... Quit defending assholes that are to lazy to do their job.
@@rek-tekconsultingllc8827 Thanks for that info. But that makes it even worse because they could have worked on it the entire time they had the ship...
incredible turn of the century technology - no doubt much has been replaced with simple micro switches and micro chips 1904 tech not used or installed for some ten years, as Tom suggests, why change it if it works, more than adequate for the task can't believe 16 people worked in this tin can, must have been noisy - wouldn't it be cool to see if anything could work again
I agree. The only practical use I can think of for the manual chain falls would be to service the turret without powering it up. An example would be to individually service the turret rollers that are the bearings the turret rests and rotates on. It requires moving the turret very slowly and stopping it very precisely to get to each roller. That would be easier to do manually than with power.
I am afraid they don't. Like the electric motors, the chainfalls provide input into hydraulic motors that do the actual job of turning the training and elevating gears. These motors are extremely complex with each containing scores of pistons and other moving parts fitted at very close tolerances. None of these have been serviced in more than 75 years and likely cannot be rebuilt. While detailed assembly drawings of these motors still exist, dimensional drawings of each part are largely missing. So, while I wouldn't say that it is completely impossible to rebuild or replace one, the money and effort to do so makes it highly impractical.
@@tomscotttheolderone364 you might be surprised, Union Pacific restored a Big Boy (#4014) to operational status that had been in a museum since 1959 with virtually no service done on it. Everyone said a Big Boy would never ride the high iron again. Upon initial inspection they found bearings on the tender and engine where the grease still looked fresh. The Texas having been laid up longer and in a harsh environment I agree makes it very unlikely but you might just find a surprise or two if you look. They said the same thing about 4014, there were a few surprises waiting for them during the teardown and rebuild in Cheyenne WY. Parts that hadn’t been used since 59 still worked.
@@dgrenier4908 I'll have to disagree with you slightly on the 'virtually no maintenance' on 4014. It, and the other engines at the LA Fair Grounds, were/are probably some of the best maintained 'dead' rolling stock in the US. That fresh grease had probably been applied by the group there something like 5 years before UP took it away for restoration. Now of course it had nowhere near the level of maintenance that a running steam loco would have had, but it had a lot more than the near-none that most retired equipment in parks gets. However I'll agree with you that unless A LOT of water has gotten into those swash plate turret drives, refurbishing them would probably be fairly trivial. The hardest part would probably be getting them unbolted and out where they can be worked on in a 'dead' ship without the power working. The second hardest part would be finding non-metric-size gaskets. :-) Swash plate pumps and motors like that are in very common use today in industrial and construction equipment of all sizes, so almost any good hydraulic shop would be able to understand them even without the prints.
Designing, engineering, manufacturing, constructing and operating these battle wagons took extraordinary tenacity and skill. A lost art from a bygone era.
I get what you are saying. To me, the ship is a tribute to the immense skill and knowledge of the designers and builders. None of this was easy and it took the concerted efforts of 10's of thousands of skilled people to build and operate these vast machines. Having had the opportunity to look at and closely inspect practically every piece of equipment still on board the ship, the one thing that I constantly remind myself is that they were so smart and I am so dumb!
Thank you for posting these special videos, about technical and mechanical equipment aboard the proud battleship .
These are some absolutely fantastic videos. It's fascinating to see how things worked with such detailed and knowledgeable narration. I hope in the days and years to come the ship does make it to dry dock for all the shipyard grade hull repairs and other restorations. It would also be fantastic to somehow organize volunteer help for detailed cleaning and restoration spaces like the interior of the gun houses and other spaces. With a bit of training anyone can wield the tools to sand or wire brush rust and corrosion and scrape peeling paint and clean and polish data plates and paint. Yes, I know there's some HAZMAT considerations. I visited the ship about ten years ago and among many great memories I recall how many things just looked so neglected. I know it's all about availability of labor and priorities.
Thanks for the great memories of dear Ed taking some of us all the way up from the handling room to the gun house of Turret #1. It was an amazing climb, and the chain falls area was a favorite space.
Yeah, Ed was superb.
@@tomscotttheolderone364 Absolutely! He was one of a kind. 💜
Thank you for the tour.
Wouldn't it be something to have seen this in operational condition
Yes, it would.
It surely would be mighty shiny, but I’m not sure even President Trump has that kind of money!
This is outstanding. Thanks, Tom, for recording these for us.
3:40 holy smokes....that motor was older than I am when this ship fired over my great-grandpa's head on D-DAY. And it's older than any member of my family that I've ever met. I freaking love history.
Just wow! I've never seen a photo of this space, much less a video! Hope we get to see more. I've been inside the gun houses of Turrets 1 through 3 only. What is the condition of Turrets 4 and 5? Were they ever open to the public?
I agree. As a kid ad as a teen ager I toured the Texas many times and was always curious as to wat was behind the locked doors and hatches. Now as a barge and shipyard contractor, I know many of those off limits areas hid dirty oil, fuel, and void spaces. To see soe of them opened up now and see unseen machinery spaces is a marvel!
When they finally get the hull and machinery supports repairs made it would be something to sell raffle tickets for people to man the hoists to turn one of the turrets.
George Distel - A very good idea 🧐
I've watched quite a few videos concerning the USS TEXAS. Texas, being an extremely wealthy state certainly hasn't taken care of her namesake. It is concerning and shameful that the BB has been left to deteriorate so badly.
I didn’t know how many systems had manual back ups in the 14 inch turret. By comparison my 16 inch gun turret had many redundant systems and you could bypass all of the safety circuits, but there were no manual systems for train, elevation, or hoists.
The designers' motto for the New York class seemed to be keep it simple, keep it manual. Unfortunately, the chainfalls were so slow, they were essentially useless. It would have been much more useful if they had included additional backup powered systems for the turrets. I think the Brits had it dialed in better with their heavy reliance on hydraulics. Primary and backup pumps could be mounted in remote, well protected spaces and hydraulic lines run to motors where they were needed. Damage control would be easier and there was less danger of electrocution and fire from damaged conductors and controllers. However, to be fair to Texas' designers, the Mark 1, 14" 2-gun turret was a huge leap from previous designs. Since most designs were evolutionary, I think they were being conservative and used what they figured would work. In a sense, they checked off the box labelled "backup", but without really answering the question of how practical their solution was. Again in an effort to be fair, every designer of every system was always under the budget gun. I don't know this to be true, but I wouldn't be surprised if that was a major factor in the decisions. Btw, I cannot imagine any possibility of having any kind of manual handling, training or pointing equipment on the Iowa class. Things are simply too big and too heavy.
Big and heavy is right! We only ever set the turret train locking pins once. We were underway in rough seas and the Weapons Officer ordered the train locking pins set. The design was similar to the 14 inch turret except the pins were hand cranked into place with a threaded mechanism. My turret SCPO said NO! we would never get the pins out again. The Weapons Officer overruled my SCPO. The next morning the storm passed and we had three non functional turrets. They had all moved just very slightly and put 1800 tons of side torque on those pins. So my SCPO was wrong it only took turret one about 24 hours of tuning the train system on and off to finally remove the pins. Turret three was 18 hours and my turret took about 8 hours. I think my SCPO made sure we didn’t put the pins all the way in so our misery was shorter than the other turrets.
@@robertlian2009 Thanks for the story. I was going to ask you about your pins and if they were similar. I saw a drawing of a cruiser turret pin and it was a great example of over design with its geared insertion/removal mechanism and depth indicator. I will say that while SCPO had a good point, I think I understand the Weapons Officer's concerns. I'd rather take a few hours removing pins than repairing beat up training gear.
Given the minimum rotation using electric the chainfalls would provide better control to center the turret.
Please keep these videos coming!
Thanks for the cool information!
For all the modernity any given battleship had for the period it was built, it can be remarkable how old fashioned (in the sense of tried & true) parts of them can be. Which is itself a little microcosm for any navy as a whole tbh.
I cant imagine what it was like to work on this ship everything looks mostly manual work too
I suspect that compared to the farms and indusyries the young men of the teens and 20s cae from, this ship must jave been like taking a job on the space shuttel woud be to us. All of ye electric and hydraulic devices plus electric lights must hae been an awesome sight.
Tom, could the chain falls have been used (instead of the electric) to center the turret to install the centering pin?
They could have when the ship was in operational condition. However, I don't see much reason to do that since the trainer could train the turret as slowly as 1 degree per minute. It would be a simple matter for the hoist man responsible for inserting the pin to call instructions down to the trainer. It wouldn't be possible now since none of the hydraulic speed controllers are in working condition.
Very interesting
16 people in there!
Sixteen very friendly and very sweaty people, probably all stripped down to their skivvies and deck shoes. There probably wasn't a lot of air flow and ventilation in that area. And if they could squeeze in 18 to 20 I'd bet they would do it.
Remember that about 5' 6" was a typical height for skinny young men in those days, so it wouldn't be the physical impossibility that it would be today with a bunch of guys 6' 2" and 180 pounds.
@@lwilton HaHa! You are right! Not 20 Ex-Vets 200 lbs each!
Since close to no sailors who served on this ship still breathe, how do you figure out how these things operate? Are ther operating manuals that explain all these obscure devices?
You are right, there is only a very small handful of surviving veterans and none are now capable of providing information.
Fortunately, there are better sources of information that really drill down into the details. One of them is Navy ordnance manuals from the 1910's and 1920's. These cover overall and detailed design features of guns and turrets. There are also Navy gunnery manuals from the era that include crew operating procedures for individual turret designs. These include detailed procedures specifically for the 14"/45 cal, two-gun turrets on battleships Texas and New York. They are 100% reliable sources since both types of manuals were directly used for educating gunnery officers and enlisted personnel of the era. Both can be found and downloaded using Google Books.
In the case of this video, I also have builder's drawings showing both the overall mechanism and individual components for the chainfalls. The mechanisms are straightforward and their operation is generally easy to interpret. It also helps that I was able to physically inspect them on the ship where I could directly see relationships between components that may not be easy to understand on a drawing.
In both this case and other turret subsystems, the two manuals, builder's drawings and direct inspection combine to give me a very high level of confidence with my understanding of design and operation.
Fonyo now know that if Texas was the flip her turrets would stay in place
That wasn't the design intent for the clips. However, since they seemed to hold similar turrets in place on Oklahoma when she capsized, the ones on Texas may have well been able to do it also.
@@tomscotttheolderone364 True
How long was that compartment under water? The TX Parks Dept should be ashamed of themselves for how bad the condition of the USSTexas was!
It was never under water.
You should be ashamed for not contributing more, and for not volunteering and fixing her yourself
@@HM2SGT I don't get paid to do that work like the Parks Dept does. They have an annual budget plus contributions and volunteers and yet they still neglected this ship until it was turned into a husk sunken at the pier. The only thing that will keep it afloat is the foam injected into the previously flooded compartments. And for that compartment to look that bad and NOT have been flooded means they had no excuse for its condition. They could have easily reached that compartment for restoration work the entire time they had the ship... Quit defending assholes that are to lazy to do their job.
@@rek-tekconsultingllc8827 Thanks for that info. But that makes it even worse because they could have worked on it the entire time they had the ship...
incredible turn of the century technology - no doubt much has been replaced with simple micro switches and micro chips
1904 tech not used or installed for some ten years, as Tom suggests, why change it if it works, more than adequate for the task
can't believe 16 people worked in this tin can, must have been noisy - wouldn't it be cool to see if anything could work again
If you were training the turret by hand your situation was very dire.
I agree. The only practical use I can think of for the manual chain falls would be to service the turret without powering it up. An example would be to individually service the turret rollers that are the bearings the turret rests and rotates on. It requires moving the turret very slowly and stopping it very precisely to get to each roller. That would be easier to do manually than with power.
They probably still work.
I am afraid they don't. Like the electric motors, the chainfalls provide input into hydraulic motors that do the actual job of turning the training and elevating gears. These motors are extremely complex with each containing scores of pistons and other moving parts fitted at very close tolerances. None of these have been serviced in more than 75 years and likely cannot be rebuilt. While detailed assembly drawings of these motors still exist, dimensional drawings of each part are largely missing. So, while I wouldn't say that it is completely impossible to rebuild or replace one, the money and effort to do so makes it highly impractical.
@@tomscotttheolderone364 you might be surprised, Union Pacific restored a Big Boy (#4014) to operational status that had been in a museum since 1959 with virtually no service done on it. Everyone said a Big Boy would never ride the high iron again.
Upon initial inspection they found bearings on the tender and engine where the grease still looked fresh. The Texas having been laid up longer and in a harsh environment I agree makes it very unlikely but you might just find a surprise or two if you look. They said the same thing about 4014, there were a few surprises waiting for them during the teardown and rebuild in Cheyenne WY. Parts that hadn’t been used since 59 still worked.
@@dgrenier4908 I'll have to disagree with you slightly on the 'virtually no maintenance' on 4014. It, and the other engines at the LA Fair Grounds, were/are probably some of the best maintained 'dead' rolling stock in the US. That fresh grease had probably been applied by the group there something like 5 years before UP took it away for restoration. Now of course it had nowhere near the level of maintenance that a running steam loco would have had, but it had a lot more than the near-none that most retired equipment in parks gets.
However I'll agree with you that unless A LOT of water has gotten into those swash plate turret drives, refurbishing them would probably be fairly trivial. The hardest part would probably be getting them unbolted and out where they can be worked on in a 'dead' ship without the power working. The second hardest part would be finding non-metric-size gaskets. :-) Swash plate pumps and motors like that are in very common use today in industrial and construction equipment of all sizes, so almost any good hydraulic shop would be able to understand them even without the prints.
those chains might as well raise a white flag since if you are using them then you have already lost the battle.
I agree. However, one good use for them would be to move the turret or guns to work on them without powering up the turret.