For the british Navy it suited them fairly well seeing the german ships being scuttled --- though they couldnt say so in public ! That could be interpreted as larceny,arson or treason by the french and italian governments.
I could ignore reality and say that the germans were planing for the future, as the scuttled remains of the german fleet became a welcome source for "radiation free" steel after the first atomic bombs were detonated, which is used for example in Geiger counters, scientific instruments and some medical equipment.
@@AndrewBaker-ym3mk likely would’ve been scrapped, way too difficult spending the money on refitting unfamiliar ships in a post war depression and in the face of increasing restrictions on navy’s sizes. Still a remarkable amount of coordination to sink an entire fleet at once.
Imagine the act of boarding a ship you have never been aboard with everything labelled in a foreign language and being able to find your way to the place where you can reverse scuttling, with a very annoyed enemy crew trying to stop you. Terrifying to me.
As far as the labeling, I expect that there were a fair number of sailors from the upper midwest on board the USS Guadalcanal that had some degree of fluency in German. I expect there were a couple of those boys on the boarding crew.
Look up the story of the US capturing German U boat U505, it’s not far from this. Fortunately, they succeeded in stopping the scuttling, captured many secrets, and the boat can be seen in Chicago at the museum of science and industry.
@@dougherbert7899 Exactly what I was going to bring up. I saw U-505 when it was still displayed exposed to the elements. I recommend that anyone who can make the trip to see it. Both the museum as a whole and the submarine in particular are well worth the effort. Oh and watch the movie U-571 before you make that trip. Both to have a good appreciation of the sub and of boarding actions. ;-)
@@pauld6967 My grandfather lied about his age to enlist at 16 years old, and by 17 was on the USS Peoria (PF-67) as a radio operator. Their mission was hunting down U Boats in the North Atlantic. It’s pretty unreal to walk through U-505, touch German steel, and think about the bravery by some of the American sailors that saved her. My grandfather is still alive and telling stories at 92 years old, and I like to remind anyone that will listen that fascism taking over the world was a real threat in the not so distant past. His older brother fought in the Pacific as well, another one of my heroes.
@@dougherbert7899 I hear you. My father served in WW II and when I had the chance to fly in Aluminum Overcast, a B-17, the most poignant moment of the flight was when I manned the position my father had been trained for. He had passed away some time before that flight but for that bit of time,....well, let's just say it was a powerful moment akin to what you say about being able to touch the hull and equipment.
According to Hans Goebler, crewman on the U-505, he pulled the cover off the sea strainer. Tanks 6 and 7 valves stuck and would not open. The scuttling charges were not set because the captain was injured and the other 2 crewmen who knew how to set the charges had either abandoned ship or were injured. The boarding party closed the tank valves and replaced the sea strainer cover. They then pumped out the tanks, saving U-505.
The more of these New Jersey videos I see, the more I am amazed at the amount of engineering, design, and planning that goes into a ship like this. So many engineers have to all know what's needed and how to put it in a new ship and have it all work together, and not miss anything important.
Don't forget the valves used for counterflooding. While they can be used to correct a list, if all of them are opened it is a very efficient way to sink a ship. No sea chests needed, the ship's own damage control systems can also be used to scuttle her.
Counterflooding, at least aboard these very large vessels, probably involved the wing tanks and void spaces located in the torpedo defence systems. It would be a very rare situation when a ship designed for a damage control had to resort to flooding its habitable spaces to refrain from sinking
WW: No. There are no "counterflooding valves" that would cause a ship to sink. Ballast tanks and fuel tanks, water tanks are typically used for Trim & Ballast", which includes counterflooding. Pumps are used to move liquids around. The various types of tanks are NOT connected direct to the sea, and would not passively flood. (old sailor).
@@KB4QAA Actually, in many cases ships were designed to counterflood through sea valves. In large warships, normally this involved the torpedo protection system, BUT remember that hatches and valves to access these systems were generally available from the inside of the ship. A combination of opening the right valves and the right hatches absolutely can cause a sinking.
@@WardenWolf Water does not flow on its own. It must be pumped. Unpowered pumps do not allow free flow of liquid. I believe you have created a god of "counterflooding" that is a complete misconception. (CDR-ret'd).
Several ships have capsized due to fire-fighting efforts. The most obvious example is the French liner Normandie which capsized at her berth in New York harbour after firefighters poured tons of water into her.
@@Real_Claudy_Focan The French had fleets not at Mers el Kebir. Later in the war when the Nazis moved to take Vichy and non Vichy French naval assets the French scuttled much of their other fleets.
Learning more about the USS New Jersey (and battleships, and the USN of the past 80 years) through these videos has been one of the best parts of the last year or so -- great to see the tours have opened up again!
We've got the U505 here in Chicago in a really nice indoor museum. As expensive as it would be, I'd love to see some American ships displayed the same way.
From what I've heard, these big ships weren't designed to be out of the water for long periods of time. Eventually they would collapse vertically. I believe that's one of the big reasons they didn't end up building a permanent drydock around the Texas.
@@legogenius1667 From what I know its more of a problem the bigger the vessel is. Texas is too big and would collapse over the decades due to her own weight, but a relatively small U-Boot could be able to keep its shape quite well.
@@yoshisaurusrex3767 Yea for something small it could totally work, there's quite a few boats and submarines that are kept that way no problem. For the New Jersey though, it would be a bit of a bigger issue lol.
I’ve gone up to the exterior of the Ling at low tide in a canoe and it’s pretty corroded. I think it just sprang a leak on it’s own. There’s also a big dent in the side of it from a barge hitting it years ago but I don’t think that caused any leak.
Blowup the magazines. My uncle Buck was an engineer on one of the ore boats on the Great Lakes almost blew up their boiler. They were training a new crewman in the boiler room to feed coal automatically into the boiler. One time when he was “trained” and passed his test, he forgot to fully push the feed button all the way in to activate the timer. After a period of time too much steam built up and the safety valves began to pop open. They dumped the steam down the ash vents that went outside the ship and kept the boiler from becoming a middle and going through all the decks. They got a good talking to from the Captain. They told him they received no training at the academy in NYC fir this type of situation.
One thing I've wondered about for a while is why the bottom of the hull is often called the bowels of the ship. Shouldn't it really be the bladder? I mean it's pretty much always got water sloshing around down there.
Ryan, I really appreciate the excellent service you provide. You are very well versed and very informative about matters nautical and naval. Thank you so much.
Actually, you'll WISH it had exploded instead of the Captain exploding when he catches you. Also if you get caught playing cards while on watch in CIC. One of our Junior Ossifers did that during a quiet mid-watch and had the misfortune of having an Executive Officer suffering from insomnia wander in. The first 'Explosion' saw our young officer fired on the spot and sent to his bunkroom 'in hack.' The second 'Explosion' happened early the next morning when the Captain requested a helicopter to take the young man off the ship. "I don't care if you drop him in the ocean ... just get him the hell OFF MY SHIP!." His language was a bit saltier than that, but using it here even as a direct quote would get me banned. That was a young man who really wished the ship HAD exploded, his promising Navy career was over. So were the careers of two Petty Officers who had joined in the card game.
@@robertf3479 Damn, talk about an overreaction! I can understand the importance of paying attention to what's going on. But to destroy a young officer's career over 1 minor instance of playing cards, seems ridiculous!
@@patricksheridan5924 You beat me to it. One thing I forgot to mention, at that time we were underway ... Condition 3 (Wartime Steaming) off Libya. Just a couple of months earlier we had followed the liner Achille Lauro to Alexandria Egypt after terrorists had hijacked her. Not long after this incident we were below Kadaffi's 'Line of Death' with missiles flying overhead. I would not want a CIC Watch Officer that careless aboard, entrusted with the ship's safety.
Our warships are wonderfully designed to take a lot of punishment and still stay afloat. As Ryan noted about the Hornet, they put a lot of munitions into her and she still didn't go down. When ships are sunk as artificial reefs, they make sure that no WTD is left closed, they cut numerous other holes between decks and into the outer skin, above waterline, and then plant lots and lots of explosives. So, it would seemthe crew would have to through the ship opening all water tight fittings before opening the seacocks.
I'm sure a lot of that is just from the difficulty of removing machinery that will have a lot of oil leftover, and that they don't want to sit and slowly leak out into their nice new reef.
@@rianfelis3156 I don't know about the machinery and how it's prepped for sinking. It cost $21,000,000 to clean out Oriskany to prepare her for sinking off of Pensacola.
I always found the idea of the bismark been scuttled as meaningless. The ship at that point was a burning hulk and dead. The RN sank the bismark regardless of if scuttling charges had been set. On that note, I'm skeptical they managed to do so considering the state ship when the order was given.
According to Burkhard Baron von Müllenheim-Rechberg,the highest surviving officer from the Bismarck, Bismarck had been rendered combat ineffective & was very slowly sinking as the Brits kept plastering her with everything they could throw at her. The Bismarck’s scuttling charges detonated between 1010-1020 hours, Rodney hit her with a torpedo on the port side at 1000, Dorsetshire hit her with torpedoes (one to port & the other to starboard) between 1025 & 1035 & she sank at 1040. Several witnesses said they saw no torpedo damage on the starboard side, and Robert Ballard found no penetration below the waterline or of the armored citadel when he surveyed the wreck in June, 1989. He did find compelling evidence the ship had been scuttled.
Either way, Bismarck was going to sink. It was made of steel, after all. You poke enough holes it's going down. Given the rather ravious attitude the Brits had at that moment, I'm half convinced that, had Bismarck not gone down either as a result of shellfire and torps, or on his own accord, the order would have been given to ram him. As I understand it, the British really, REALLY wanted that ship deleted.
@@177SCmaro It was the 'poking holes in it' bit that was proving to be infuriatingly difficult for the Royal Navy. Eventually, yes, Bismarck was going to sink, but she was still shrugging off direct hits thanks to her incredibly thick armor.
@@xaenon First of all, Bismarck's armor was pretty thick for the time but it may interest you to know that it was only one half inch thicker than Iowa's belt and Iowa wasn't really considered a dedicated "line of battle ship" in some ways it was more like an extremely well armed and armored battlecruiser - a fast battleship. King George V actually had a thicker belt armor then Bismarck. Secondly, in the British mad rush to close to point blank range the problem became their main guns couldn't depress low enough to hit at or below the waterline so, instead, they ended up carving up Bismarck's superstructure like a thanksgiving turkey which, while overpenetrating the superstructure still obliterated Bismarck's ability to fight back, that isn't going to sink him, which is why they had to resort to torpedos to finally expedite his departure from the surface world. As I said, Bismarck was going to sink. Also, for the record, there never was a battleship armor that could withstand point blank hits from battleship-grade guns. Even Yamato-class turret face armor, some 26 inches thick, was penetrated in a test fire of 16 in shells at point blank range (and unrealistic scenario in practice but it demonstrates the point in theory). Battleship armor resists shells, it's doesn't make one invulnerable. I'm not saying Bismarck wasn't a tough ship but that toughness has been somewhat exaggerated over time. There is a certain romanticism with "the biggest battleships" that becomes more like legend than fact.
@@177SCmaro I'm just stating some facts, partner. They pounded the living snot out of Bismarck and she resisted an astonishing amount of punishment. It's how and why there was so much speculation about whether she was scuttled or not. Oh, and I seem to recall hearing something about her belt armor being made of some particularly high grade of steel, not quite so common in other ships of her basic size and class. I think we can both agree, though, that she was a tough ship.
really great presentation on a subject not often covered, all of your videos are well done and very informative. Also, because you asked nicely, i wont scuttle the nearest museum ship i see.
"I'm proud that the U.S. Navy never scuttled one of its battleships" .... .... I like that statement Ryan. Keep up the good work; I enjoy your videos immensely!
@@RichardFMeldrum Richard - Ryan is speaking about battleships as a class of ship. The Lexington was an aircraft carrier - although it was built on a hull of a battlecruiser. In 1942, during the Battle of Santa Cruz Islands, the U.S. Navy tried to scuttle the heavily damaged USS Hornet - but the Japanese took care of that that.
Very interesting to learn why they can't start those engines anymore. (Coolant sealed off). I'd love to see one of these Iowa class ships fired up again, even briefly. Just amazing marvels of engineering, even all these years later.
Sounds like a great action move plot. "Our only hope to stop the terrorists is to reactivate the ship" And, of course anything can be done in a two minute A-team style montage where they break out the welding tanks and go to town.
Watch, Quarter, and Station Bill designates assignments like watch standing, battle station, abandon ship area, etc. One of my assignments was securing and salvage (?). I asked about that and was told you are one of the last ones off because you’ll open the sea chest in engine room. Strike a somber note on that thought
NOt being a Navy guy myself, I never heard of 'keys to the sea chest'. But as a U.S. Army mechanic, I have variously sent other enlisted and LTs off on the hunt for 'lock washer keys', 'BA-1100-N' 'ID-10-T'' and 'ST-1' batteries (spell them out), and a number of other things.. Also 'left-handed smoke wrenches', "muffler bearings', metric crescent wrenches, and wobbilator shafts...
The US Navy did scuttle several warships in Norfolk in April 1861 to keep them out of Confederate hands. Included were USS Pennsylvania, the USS Merrimac, USS Columbia, USS Columbus, USS Delaware, USS Dolphin, USS Germantown, USS New York, USS Plymouth and USS Raritan. As these were wooden ships and in shallow water, the scuttling method used was fire. Of course the portion of the Merrimac below water survived and was used as the basis for the iron clad CSS Virginia. Later when the Union was retaking Norfolk, the Virginia was scuttled again by the Confederates.
👍Never heard the key to the sea chest one, but they use to send out the new guy to cut in the cooling water to the handrails. I remember one time they wanted to see how well a new snipe was making rounds and they put a rag over the oil level indicator on the main sump. When he came in control booth after making rounds they asked him what the oil level was and he said he didn't know, he couldn't see if for a rag tied around it.
I used to pull the dip stick on the spring bearing in shaft alley #1 when I went on watch in Main Control. When my fireman messenger reported that the spring bearing oil level was full for the second hour in a row I'd pull out the dip stick and he knew he'd been caught gundecking his readings.
Aside from Scuttling a ship. Every USN ship that I served aboard had a series of items that were immediate response items. These were commonly things like a primary Gyro, in the same room was some of the fire control functions. Basically these were things like stand outside the door and throw an axe (or hammer) at the gyro and quickly close the door. If you hear a big bang your done, if not try again. Essentially it was just a destroy the stuff you don't want them to get. As to the rest they already know it's a ship and how it works.
I imagine that scuttlings, especially massed ones like the German fleet at Scapa Flow probably look a bit like the last 3 minutes of a Phineas and Ferb episode, plus a lot of screaming and desperation.
you should check the ARA Santisima Trinidad (an Argentine navy Type 42 Destroyer who fought in the Argentinean side during 1982 Malvinas/Falklands conflict). The ship was UK made so after the war the embargo forced Argentina to cannibalize Santisima Trinidad in order to keep the sister ship ARA Hercules in commision. That was the reason behind the ship was in port as a floating spare ship since late 80s. By 2013 the ship was in such a bad shape that one of the pipes broked up it sunk on its mooring. The ship was eventually refloated and nowadays its waiting to be scrapped
Love these videos, Ryan. Please keep up the great job, especially showing us parts of the ship generally unavailable to the public. I have a related question for you: In your opinion which museum ship provides the most access to the public? I have been to several in the US and have been rather disappointed in what is accessible on some. Thanks for your input!
As far as we've seen, we have more open than any of the battleships. With smaller ships its a harder comparison. Technically, every inch of Constellation is viewable by the public.
I was a member of the Scuttling Detail aboard the USS Sacramento in the late 70's. My job was to open the large cutoff valves in the JP-5 pump room and spike the main. Others in the engine rooms would be doing what was described in the video. Radiomen and others upstairs would be weighting codebooks and throwing them overboard. Being member of the Scuttling Detail meant you didn't have an abandon ship station. I'm glad we never had to scuttle her. P.S. we had no explosives that I was aware of.
Or liferaft seats, I was on the team too. Gag the boiler safetys, max the fuel to the boilers and run like hell. The Machinist Mates blew the main condenser scoop injection .
I knew a sailor who served on a smaller ship, Vietnam era. He said that they trained in disabling the ship in the event of capture, destroying everything of value without actually sinking it. Explosive charges to destroy engines, guns, electronics.
I suspect the main reason to weld over any "sea chests", places where water could enter the hull, would be to make it easier to maintain the ship as a museum without worry that some internal pipe can rust through or be damaged or a valve leaks or somebody might turn some valve and sink the ship by accident. Another reason I can think would be to evacuate water from these systems to preserve them just in case. From that point of view, welding over these would actually make it easier to start the ship in the future, not harder. Valves leak and with "hundreds" of them you can be sure some of them will and could cause damage. I mean, any project to start this ship would be major undertaking and couple of welds will not deter or make it significantly more difficult to complete the project. On the other hand internal damage would do just that.
Welding over suction and discharge ports is done during the mothballing process for all the reasons you stated. It's also to keep suction and discharge ports from becoming clogged with marine growth.
Graff spee probably wanted to use magazine charges to cause maximum damage as it was so shallow there they needed to not just sink the ship but actually destroy things like radar (brits disguised as scrap merchants took this item)
1779 a fledgling American Navy was cornered in the Penobscott River by the British Navy - rather than let the ships be captured, they were burned or scuttled on orders from the Commodore, Dudley Saltonstall. Bernard Cornwell wrote a book about it - The Fort -fascinating reading.
Basically the self-destruct would essentially be the ship's Sea Chest all you really have to do is open them up opening number of hatches up and that would be enough to sink it, it would take a good bit of time but it would sink the ship
I never was sent to get the keys to the sea chest but I sent a couple of new recruits on that mission. We also sent new guys looking for water line to tie things up. As a substitute, they could go to the mess decks and see if they had any leftover hamstring. We also sent extra-annoying new recruits to the boiler room to borrow a BT punch. This was usually delivered by the biggest Boiler Technician available when they got there. These were fun little rites of passage, among many, that are no longer allowed in the New Navy.
One of our new firemen was sent to the other engine room to get a steam blanket for the boiler. The space supervisor sent him back with lagging material tucked into his coveralls to keep it warm.
Before the environmental damage that R-12 Freon would do was discovered, we used to send a guy to the AC&R shop to get a bucket of Freon. If the cylinder was inverted, the Freon would come out in liquid form but would quickly evaporate. So the newby would go to the AC&R shop and they would fill his bucket and then cover it with a rag so he didn’t spill any. And by the time he got back to our shop 2 decks up, the Freon would be gone. And then we would rag on him about not doing what he was told to do. I am sure that this prank contributed substantially to the hole in the ozone layer.
This video coincides with my training as an engine room mechanic on Nimitz class. We were also taught to blow the Main shafts hull seals. Our SSTG's and Desalination plants had their own sea chests. Sorry to say I did fall for the tubes of Relative bearing grease prank.
Great line about the German Navy being proud of scuttling more BB's than anyone else. They must have been thinking "We lost, but darn it, we lost BIG!" USN - "Ok....but we prefer to win."
Spanish battleships in first years of XX century had "bottom valves" with blank plate bolted in the pipe. You must unbolt the closing plate and open the valve an then the magic starts. Of course, remember to leave all door decks open! It was a slow process. This was used in battleship "Colón" fighting against "Oregon" during Cuba war.
The large valves that open to the sea are called SEACOCKS> The germans navy scuttled so many ships due to the fact that the surrendered german fleet was ensconsed at scapa flow in scotland> the crews in protest to their treatnet scuttled the entire fleet in one place> salage continues to today>
Pretty sure the easiest would be to hook up a few dozen 18 inchers to their fuses in the magazines, leave a few dozen 5 inchers in the power magazines and the 5 incher magzines, and wire those to a detonator. Easier still would be if she was carrying a nuke to dial the yield to the lowest it could go, if you didn't want to cause too much death, or if you were a sadist like me, crank the yield to the highest and watch the ship evaporate.
There are many parts of an Iowa class battleship that wouldn't be vaporized, even by far more powerful nukes than they ever carried onboard. If you were to take a much more powerful device... In the megaton range, and detonate it inside the ship, you'd almost certainly blow it apart. But you'd still have a ton of peices of various sizes flying in every direction. The smaller of which would probably fuck right off into low earth orbit if the heating from drag in the atmosphere didn't just melt/disintegrate them on the way up due to the speeds which they'd be traveling. The biggest problem with doing something like that would be the large armored peices. Many many peices of the, what is it.. 18 inch? thick citadel, and large chunks of the armor belt would almost certainly end up flying a REALLY good distance in just about every direction and landing somewhere that would cause the people living nearby to be very unhappy, dead, or a combination of both.
@@blackhawks81H pretty sure they would have their own issues if a USN ship is committing nuclear suicide anywhere within 50 miles. Also, who's to say that you'd be setting off just ONE nuke? Ideally you'd have multiple all set off to go either in parallel, or sequence to make damn sure the ship ceased to exist.
According to the British experience at Jutland all you have to do is leave the flash doors to the magazines open before heading into battle and let the enemy battlecruisers do the rest.
I had the opportunity to run around on a west German 80's era frigate , to source some parts prior to it being recycled. It had some red squares here and there, with a belt to attach something. Looking around in the steering compartment it became clear these where places to set charges, to scuttle the ship. They where placed on the ships hull, bulkheads, and vital machinery in propulsion systems and steering. Definitely no self destruct button, but like anything on such a warship, a team effort, well planned and well prepared. Designed to utterly destroy the ship and render her useless even after salvage.
A drydock, an ironworker, some bottles of oxygen and some thermic lances could get those saltwater coolant inlets and outlets un-welded over if you should want to go on a cruise. Might be able to do it with a manual plasma torch depending on how overkill the welds are, this is a battleship after all.
Scuttle your own ship is more a mental victory for the crew, because the enemy wasn't only successful at taking the ship home as a trophy but they weren't even able to clain the kill on it too. So the crew of the ship had not only served on a superior, but also an unsinkable ship for the enemy too. Please note that this is just a guess and not a fact. I asked myself why I would rather scuttle my ship than loose it by the enemy.
You might not want sensitive equipment to fall into enemy's hands, for example. Radar? Electronics? Any countermeasure launchers / ECMs? For current ships, certain materials even (like radar absorbing ones, for example)? You dont want your potential opponent to have access to that. Hence why UK did all that jazz when their F35 crashed some time ago in the mediterranean, raised it and recovered debris from the sea bed. Costs a lot, but less cost than having secrets potentially open to be exposed.
Keys to the Sea Chest are kept right next to the Machinist's Punch. You use that right after you've tightened the Boatswain's Nuts. Make sure you stop by medical first, and ask for 100ft of Fallopian tubing. Dunno, the valves are good, but if you don't have explosives, I'm looking at the flex coupling or the eductor lineup...
The overboard valves of the installed eductor system of the ship I served aboard had locks on them. During PMS I was supposed to test the system but no one knew where they were. PMS deferred.
In 1997 The Historic 1912 Steam Paddlewheeler Belle of Louisville (previously named Idlewild, & Avalon) was partially sunk, due to someone opening a freshwater intake valve. Luckily it was able to be refloated and still serves today, cruising on the Ohio River.
I never was sent to search for a sea chest, but in boot camp I was set to get striped paint for the mail buoy, and fifty feet of chow line. I spent a good three hours walking all over the base for that stuff, never did find it, nor did I get in trouble.... My dad was in the navy, so I knew, but my company commander didn't! ;)
🧐 I already KNOW the answer without having to watch the video! You simply take the main elevator(or an escalator) down to the "basement deck". When the elevator doors open, you make a left, and walk about 1/8 mile down to the end of the hallway. Open the doors on your left and right, and inside each door, you'll see a panel with a large, round red button, with words above it saying "to self destruct, press button".... From there, a special "express scuttling elevator" will rush you to the main deck to abandon ship. The scuttling charges will explode in 10 seconds. Good luck in the afterlife! 😐👍
I toured the USS Ling as a Cub Scout around 1971 at the Brooklyn Navy Yard. I thought that was sooooo cool, especially since my dad had served in subs (USS Sea Robin (SS-407) and USS Barb (SS-220)) during the Korean era. On Dock Landing ships, the gag was to send someone for the stern gate key.
Ryan, I'd love to talk to you and pick your brain (a wealth of knowledge). That's quite apparent. I used to live in Pennsylvania. 45 years of hell was enough. We moved to North Carolina where i was fortunate enough to walk through the battleship North Carolina 3 times. Still it's never enough time to s÷ it all. Ive gone to Charleston South Carolina and have been able to tour CV-10 The Yorktown twice (still never enough time for such a large ship) and the USS Laffey. It's amazing she refused to die! I have to see the New Jersey and the Iowa. The Iowa is a pilgrimage. My uncle served on her during the last months of WWII. And also knowing what happened to her in 1989 in Turret #2, and the railroad job they tried to pass off as something done on purpose with NO evidence to link Clayton Hartwig. My uncle before his death never believed that load of garbage. Unfortunately you are stuck up north and the only way i go north is if i absolutely have to! I'd also love to see the USS UNITED STATES. Thsnk you for what you do! I do pray that I get to meet you some day. God bless you all who work on keeping our important history alive! Thank you all! Chris Dez, Raleigh
We sent people to find: 50' of waterline, a lightbulb for the smoking lamp, keys for the helm, a Bosin's punch, and batteries for the sound powered phones.
something ive been wondering, say you where in charge of a hostile powers navy in ww2, what would you do if you where tasked to sink an Iowa? submarine action? air power? or something else?
@@joshuahudson2170 I guess it depends on what kind, and how many subs you had, and how suicidal the crews were. You'd almost certainly lose a lot if not all of the guys. It would pretty much be a suicide mission. The Iowas were so big, and so tough, and had good enough torpedo protection, that it would take more than one lucky hit to totally ensure a kill. You'd need multiple torpedo hits, even with the legendary Japanese type 93.. I don't think they really had enough subs.. In the case of Japan they'd more likely have tried to use a flotilla of destroyers who would launch multiple salvos of a "metric shit-ton" of torpedoes from a good distance. The only problem there is, again. It's a suicide mission as getting in torpedo range would definitely put them within range of the 16 inch guns. Japanese destroyers carried a lot of torpedoes though, and some classes had quite a few launchers. So if they were willing to take huge losses in the process, they might have been able to pull it off. But again, the losses would be so huge that they'd have probably concluded it wasn't worth it.. And just hoped to get lucky in a good old fashioned battleship vs battleship fight. Or barring luck, what they'd have REALLY liked, would be to slug it out Yamato VS Iowa. Which would have probably been their best chance, had their naval doctrine of Taikan Kyohō Shugi (which basically means "big ship big gun principle) not been foiled by the meteoric rise of successful naval aviation and the quick changeover to carrier dominated naval doctrine. For my money, airplanes would be the way to go. Sure you'd again be looking at basically a suicide mission for a lot of the pilots.. But then Japan never really had a problem with that anyway, did they? Plus, airplanes and pilots are a lot easier to replace than large warships and the whole lot of crew that die when a single ship goes down.. In my opinion, which may I point out is no better than anyone else's, as I never served in the IJN and while I've studied it quite a bit, I'm by no means even remotely an expert on the wider Japanese naval doctrine of Kantai Kessen. I think the best chance of taking out an Iowa for the Japanese, would have been an overwhelming air raid consisting of both torpedo and dive bombers. Sure the Iowas had a ton of AA coverage.. But a large enough force of aircraft would still be able to get in enough hits to do the job of you were willing to take huge losses. Especially if you caught an Iowa far enough away from a friendly carrier to provide it with an effective fighter screen. The Japanese would however likely have to trade the life of the carrier/carriers required to launch a sufficiently massive raid, as that many planes coming in to attack, especially given the range of naval aircraft at the time. Would pretty much give away where they'd come from. So again you'd have to ask would the trade-off be worth it. Again, even if the Japanese had the resources to comitt to such an attack at the point in the war where the Iowas appeared. I think their naval doctrines would have much preferred to try and lure an Iowa into a shooting battle with a Yamato. Such a battle was never meant to be however. As by the time the Iowas and especially the Yamatos were deployed, naval aviation had pretty much proven its supremacy. Remember how the Yamato itself was sank. Cheers!
wouldnt having a big hole in the bottom of your ship that pipes to engineering spaces be vulnerable to extreme overpressure? Ive seen you talk about the layered torpedo defenses, but this made it seem like its just a single (thick) mild steel tube between the inside and the ocean.
One of the more famous "scuttle party" happened in november 1942. Allies invaded Marocco during operation Torch. After that, nazi Germany decided to occupy Vichy's France (which was not under german control at that time) to support/reinforce Italy. And when they did, they tempted to take over the whole french navy fleet based in Toulon. French sailors and officers then scuttled the fleet in harbour, and some submarines managed to flee at sea, joining free french forces
I have been on USS Massachusetts and she has watertight doors on the outer hull below the waterline that can be opened to flood the powder magazines in case of a fire. I believe it has four doors in each magazine and it has three turrets and three magazines. If all the doors were opened to the sea and if enough internal watertight hatches between compartments were also opened wouldn't that cause enough flooding to sink the ship?
In a past life I worked at a Burger King Restaurant , we had a kid on the crew who annoyed the living hell out of everyone , he wouldn't stay at his station , and no one could figure out what to do with him , so one day I was not in to mood to even be at work much less deal with the kid , so I decided get rid of him by sending him to find the bucket of steam in the freezer , bought us hours of peace . Was one of the fun days at work . Now having someone go find the keys for the sea chest I could have days of fun there . LOL.
Well Ryan, thankfully never sent to search for those keys haha, but was sent to find an E7 down in an auxiliary machinery room for a very important canisteem......😆 Nothing like being new and young and dumb on a ship!!
If I remember correctly, Graf Spee exploded after the scuttling crew abandoned. They set their charges with timers on the detonators. The water there was shallow enough that if all the Germans had done was blow open the sea chests she could still have been salvaged or, at least, equipment removed for examination. The way the Germans did it, the ship burned for quite a while, ruining most of the sensitive (secret) equipment. The classified documents had already been destroyed.
I beleive they hung torpedo warheads in the magazines with a candle burning through the ropes while everyone legged it, but I can't remember what i read that in
Okay no I found it they rigged 6 torpedo warheads with a timing system, the forward charges failed to go off possibly due to the initial blast in the engine rooms damaging the wiring. aft blast was successful in destroying the rear of the ship. ship was in 8 meters of water
In the case of one German U-boat, just flush the toilet! Open every fire main and compartment door. Turn "off" all bilge pumps. Use all the counterflooding (both sides), finish by flooding the magazines. Loss of freeboard will result! When they sank the Oriskany, "on an even keel" was a major concern. In wartime (and deep water), not so much.
Oh, that's easy. Just crank up the gravity on the fusion reactor, reduce the fuel input and bang, no New Jersey, you'll also probably have taken out a large chunk of the surrounding area, but a rapidly expanding cloud of gas can't really care about stuff like that.
Gonna say this, and flame away IF I am wrong, but the US did scuttle ships during wartime, it was in 1944, at Normandy, the were called Corn Cobs, and were used to make protective barriers for the landings at Omaha Beach, and Mulberry harbors at Arromanches. The more you know.
When I was a Navy airedale, in the 60's, a young sailor came into my hangar looking for a air hook to check out? I told him that he was being hazed and to tell who ever sent him, it would be backordered and cost 10k to their shop account! He said thanks and off he went, never saw him again.
I happen to be related to a master welder and metal worker! I could send him down there to break those welds on the Sea chests smooth out the burrs and you can get that thing ready to go fight aliens.
@@ostrich67 very interesting! Thanks for helping me learn something! So the darn thing would have to be out of the water before someone could break the welds on those plates
Another example of the United States scuttling ships was the Penobscot Expedition of 1779. The expedition was 44 ships sent by the rebel Massachusetts Congress to attack a British fort in what is now Maine. The attack was clumsy and slow and a Royal Navy relief force was sent from Halifax. The rebels were trapped against the shore and fled up the Penobscot River pursued by the Royal Navy. As the water grew shallower, all the the 44 ships was forced to scuttle or surrender.
Knowing how normal pipes (steam, fire protection, domestic water and waste) end up leaking under pretty mild uses, I can't imagine how all of these fittings in all of these tight spaces didn't leak over the years, constantly.
Ryan: Great stuff. I have been to BB59 many times as a military historian and Mass native. Looking forward to getting to your ship soon. My question is, how did the crew keep the ship supplied with water while in port, given the usual debris in harbor water? Was there a filtration system to keep the mains from getting jammed with junk, or was all that accomplished by pier-side services? John Carty US Army (ret)
Hey John, on my Navy Cruiser, we connected Pier Services fresh water supply hoses to the ship. However, some foreign ports did not have pier-side fresh water, and had to obtain a water barge to supply the ship in those locations. Once at sea, the ship can make her own fresh water with a distilling plant that evaporates (boils under a reduced pressure) seawater and condenses the resulting steam into fresh water. Many newer ships now also use "reverse osmosis" water filters. (I dont believe the New Jersey has the RO water system however)
Fun fact: The German navy, under its various sank more battleships in the 1900’s than any other navy - the rub is that most of them flew the flag of the Kriegsmarine!
I love that he found the largest red button on the ship just for that self destruct gag.
We did have a debate on the where the largest bid red button was. Glad our hard work on that was noticed! Haha
@@BattleshipNewJersey 🤣🤣 thats absolutely hilarious.
@@BattleshipNewJersey I would have loved to have been at that meeting
Not like a Star Trek starship self-destruct sequence!
InstaBlaster...
The British be like, "I sank your battleship."
And the Germans be like, "No, *I* sank my battleship."
The counter to the German excuse is "Why where you sinking the battleship?"
To which their only answer is "Because you where"
The wartime equivalent of:
"You're fired"
"You can't fire me! I quit!"
For the british Navy it suited them fairly well seeing the german ships being scuttled --- though they couldnt say so in public ! That could be interpreted as larceny,arson or treason by the french and italian governments.
The point is you have one less battleship!
Germany "We did not lose the war - We came 2nd!"
The story of the entire German Fleet scuttling their ships in the British harbour of Scapa Flow at the end of WW1 is an interesting story.
Seriously, and a huge what if if they survived and were divvied up to France, Portugal, Japan, UK, America etc.
@@AndrewBaker-ym3mk They'd been used in weapon testing just like the remaining german and japanese fleets were at the end of WW2.
I could ignore reality and say that the germans were planing for the future, as the scuttled remains of the german fleet became a welcome source for "radiation free" steel after the first atomic bombs were detonated, which is used for example in Geiger counters, scientific instruments and some medical equipment.
@@AndrewBaker-ym3mk likely would’ve been scrapped, way too difficult spending the money on refitting unfamiliar ships in a post war depression and in the face of increasing restrictions on navy’s sizes. Still a remarkable amount of coordination to sink an entire fleet at once.
My choice.
Imagine the act of boarding a ship you have never been aboard with everything labelled in a foreign language and being able to find your way to the place where you can reverse scuttling, with a very annoyed enemy crew trying to stop you. Terrifying to me.
As far as the labeling, I expect that there were a fair number of sailors from the upper midwest on board the USS Guadalcanal that had some degree of fluency in German. I expect there were a couple of those boys on the boarding crew.
Look up the story of the US capturing German U boat U505, it’s not far from this. Fortunately, they succeeded in stopping the scuttling, captured many secrets, and the boat can be seen in Chicago at the museum of science and industry.
@@dougherbert7899 Exactly what I was going to bring up.
I saw U-505 when it was still displayed exposed to the elements.
I recommend that anyone who can make the trip to see it. Both the museum as a whole and the submarine in particular are well worth the effort.
Oh and watch the movie U-571 before you make that trip. Both to have a good appreciation of the sub and of boarding actions. ;-)
@@pauld6967 My grandfather lied about his age to enlist at 16 years old, and by 17 was on the USS Peoria (PF-67) as a radio operator. Their mission was hunting down U Boats in the North Atlantic. It’s pretty unreal to walk through U-505, touch German steel, and think about the bravery by some of the American sailors that saved her. My grandfather is still alive and telling stories at 92 years old, and I like to remind anyone that will listen that fascism taking over the world was a real threat in the not so distant past. His older brother fought in the Pacific as well, another one of my heroes.
@@dougherbert7899 I hear you.
My father served in WW II and when I had the chance to fly in Aluminum Overcast, a B-17, the most poignant moment of the flight was when I manned the position my father had been trained for.
He had passed away some time before that flight but for that bit of time,....well, let's just say it was a powerful moment akin to what you say about being able to touch the hull and equipment.
Where's the Self-destruct button for a Warship?
I'm pretty sure it's in the Congressional finance department...
So very true.
@@driven01 (HMS cambeltown had a self-destruct button)
@@clementwolf4081 and even then it was an hour and a half late to detonate lol. But it was on hell of a detonation
More like the Navy finance department as well.
A simple ballpoint pen...
"Please don't attempt to scuttle your museum ship." Dang ok I won't.
Dont despair! he said YOUR museum ship, so someone elses may be fair game :)
@@herrcobblermachen like for real tho
@@debeatlui7775 Yeah I mean if only you could say "no one would ever sink a museum ship". If there's a disclaimer for it, someones done it.
Dang. I was planning on scuttling the Nelson class ship in my garage but... guess not.
Literally lol.
According to Hans Goebler, crewman on the U-505, he pulled the cover off the sea strainer. Tanks 6 and 7 valves stuck and would not open. The scuttling charges were not set because the captain was injured and the other 2 crewmen who knew how to set the charges had either abandoned ship or were injured. The boarding party closed the tank valves and replaced the sea strainer cover. They then pumped out the tanks, saving U-505.
The sea strainer cover was dropped next to it so it was easily fix. If he took it topside. The sub was likely to be lost
3:03 Ryan just detonated my speakers.
RIP headphone users
@@bwolfe2514 Communicating by semaphore for the rest of the evening.
@@bwolfe2514 We need to weld over the gain knob on Ryan's microphone.
I'm glad I read ahead.
@@bwolfe2514 Ryan just scuttled my headphones, too. The remnants of them sank to the bottom of my carpet.
The more of these New Jersey videos I see, the more I am amazed at the amount of engineering, design, and planning that goes into a ship like this. So many engineers have to all know what's needed and how to put it in a new ship and have it all work together, and not miss anything important.
Without the aid of computers.
Don't forget the valves used for counterflooding. While they can be used to correct a list, if all of them are opened it is a very efficient way to sink a ship. No sea chests needed, the ship's own damage control systems can also be used to scuttle her.
Counterflooding, at least aboard these very large vessels, probably involved the wing tanks and void spaces located in the torpedo defence systems. It would be a very rare situation when a ship designed for a damage control had to resort to flooding its habitable spaces to refrain from sinking
WW: No. There are no "counterflooding valves" that would cause a ship to sink. Ballast tanks and fuel tanks, water tanks are typically used for Trim & Ballast", which includes counterflooding. Pumps are used to move liquids around. The various types of tanks are NOT connected direct to the sea, and would not passively flood. (old sailor).
@@KB4QAA Actually, in many cases ships were designed to counterflood through sea valves. In large warships, normally this involved the torpedo protection system, BUT remember that hatches and valves to access these systems were generally available from the inside of the ship. A combination of opening the right valves and the right hatches absolutely can cause a sinking.
@@WardenWolf Water does not flow on its own. It must be pumped. Unpowered pumps do not allow free flow of liquid. I believe you have created a god of "counterflooding" that is a complete misconception. (CDR-ret'd).
Several ships have capsized due to fire-fighting efforts. The most obvious example is the French liner Normandie which capsized at her berth in New York harbour after firefighters poured tons of water into her.
"those wacky germans keep scuttling all their ships"
french navy: challenge accepted
Talk to the Spanish and they will tell you a hurricane can scuttle a whole fleet at a time.
They didnt. Royal Navy sank them at Meirs-el-kebir because they were considered "too dangerous" to be left in the hands of Germany
@@Real_Claudy_Focan The French had fleets not at Mers el Kebir. Later in the war when the Nazis moved to take Vichy and non Vichy French naval assets the French scuttled much of their other fleets.
@@404Dannyboy better see her in the bottom of the ocean and in the hands of the enemy.
@@Real_Claudy_Focan Yes but not all of them, I think Strasbourg escaped.
Ryan, I appreciate your dedication and all that you do to give us these videos! You are truly an awesome person!!!
Don't forget Libby! She films and edits all of these. Truly a dynamic duo.
@@Bleachedredhair I'm sorry, Libby too!!!! And all the volunteers who work to keep this wonderful piece of history alive!!!!
Learning more about the USS New Jersey (and battleships, and the USN of the past 80 years) through these videos has been one of the best parts of the last year or so -- great to see the tours have opened up again!
We've got the U505 here in Chicago in a really nice indoor museum. As expensive as it would be, I'd love to see some American ships displayed the same way.
From what I've heard, these big ships weren't designed to be out of the water for long periods of time. Eventually they would collapse vertically. I believe that's one of the big reasons they didn't end up building a permanent drydock around the Texas.
Heres a whole video explaining why we don't agree: ua-cam.com/video/sa8x2gc448c/v-deo.html
@@legogenius1667 From what I know its more of a problem the bigger the vessel is. Texas is too big and would collapse over the decades due to her own weight, but a relatively small U-Boot could be able to keep its shape quite well.
@@yoshisaurusrex3767 Yea for something small it could totally work, there's quite a few boats and submarines that are kept that way no problem. For the New Jersey though, it would be a bit of a bigger issue lol.
@@legogenius1667 The dry berth of the Texas was scuttled for lack of money.
I'm sure the keys to the Sea Chest are on the same keyring as the key that starts the ship 😀.
Must be the ones that Ryan lost a while back 😁
It's the compartment next to the snipe locker, where they store all the waterline.
I keep my HMMVW keys in the sea chest.
The keys are kept next to the locker full of left handed wrenches!
Heading to the USS New Jersey in May with my family! These videos have whetted my appetite to explore this wonderful ship.
I take it the keys to the sea chest are stored with the muffler belts & blinker fluid.
next to the grinder sparks
... maybe in the aviation stores with the prop wash?!
@@stevefreeland9255 only on carriers
@@artbrann Or on the BBs when they carried seaplanes 😀
They're on the shelf above the chem light batteries
I’ve gone up to the exterior of the Ling at low tide in a canoe and it’s pretty corroded. I think it just sprang a leak on it’s own. There’s also a big dent in the side of it from a barge hitting it years ago but I don’t think that caused any leak.
Blowup the magazines. My uncle Buck was an engineer on one of the ore boats on the Great Lakes almost blew up their boiler. They were training a new crewman in the boiler room to feed coal automatically into the boiler. One time when he was “trained” and passed his test, he forgot to fully push the feed button all the way in to activate the timer. After a period of time too much steam built up and the safety valves began to pop open. They dumped the steam down the ash vents that went outside the ship and kept the boiler from becoming a middle and going through all the decks. They got a good talking to from the Captain. They told him they received no training at the academy in NYC fir this type of situation.
One thing I've wondered about for a while is why the bottom of the hull is often called the bowels of the ship. Shouldn't it really be the bladder? I mean it's pretty much always got water sloshing around down there.
Ugh, you're worse than me.
The mic volume kicking into overdrive at 3:05 as you begin to talk about how to scuttle the ship - very ominous, lol.
Ryan, I really appreciate the excellent service you provide. You are very well versed and very informative about matters nautical and naval. Thank you so much.
The keys to the sea chests are just under the bilge plug for safety.
Next to the fallopian tubes with the mail buoys.
Next to the compartment where all the snipe hunting gear is stowed.
And the pipes can only be opened using a left handed spanner.
Set fuel feed on boilers to full shut feed water off and run
Or just throw some grenades into the powder magazines; whatever sinks your boat.
@@paulmoir4452 grenades have a 3-5 second fuse
@@mattmopar440 My attempt at humour failed: I did not mean this as a serious reply, nor do I think the OP.
We were told to gag the safety valves and max the fuel.
@@johnchilds6471 ive heard the same thing from an old US navy guy I worked with at a hospital he was a high pressure boiler operator
German: "If I can't have my battleship, no one can!"
Everyone Else: "Works for us."
The German Navy: Alt-F4ing from the game since 1919
Just eat in CIC and the ship will explode instantly.
Actually, you'll WISH it had exploded instead of the Captain exploding when he catches you. Also if you get caught playing cards while on watch in CIC. One of our Junior Ossifers did that during a quiet mid-watch and had the misfortune of having an Executive Officer suffering from insomnia wander in.
The first 'Explosion' saw our young officer fired on the spot and sent to his bunkroom 'in hack.' The second 'Explosion' happened early the next morning when the Captain requested a helicopter to take the young man off the ship. "I don't care if you drop him in the ocean ... just get him the hell OFF MY SHIP!." His language was a bit saltier than that, but using it here even as a direct quote would get me banned.
That was a young man who really wished the ship HAD exploded, his promising Navy career was over. So were the careers of two Petty Officers who had joined in the card game.
@@robertf3479
Damn, talk about an overreaction! I can understand the importance of paying attention to what's going on. But to destroy a young officer's career over 1 minor instance of playing cards, seems ridiculous!
@@HighlanderNorth1 In CIC everybodys life is in your hands. you have a very small window to classify and react to a threat.
@@patricksheridan5924 You beat me to it. One thing I forgot to mention, at that time we were underway ... Condition 3 (Wartime Steaming) off Libya. Just a couple of months earlier we had followed the liner Achille Lauro to Alexandria Egypt after terrorists had hijacked her. Not long after this incident we were below Kadaffi's 'Line of Death' with missiles flying overhead.
I would not want a CIC Watch Officer that careless aboard, entrusted with the ship's safety.
@@robertf3479 It sounds like that watch officer was maybe Bill the Cat, just before he defected to the Soviet Union and caused the Chernobyl disaster.
"Keys for the sea chest" is a new one. I was asked about psig, psia, and pe-psi; finding the mail buoys and keys for the engine console.
Our warships are wonderfully designed to take a lot of punishment and still stay afloat. As Ryan noted about the Hornet, they put a lot of munitions into her and she still didn't go down. When ships are sunk as artificial reefs, they make sure that no WTD is left closed, they cut numerous other holes between decks and into the outer skin, above waterline, and then plant lots and lots of explosives. So, it would seemthe crew would have to through the ship opening all water tight fittings before opening the seacocks.
I'm sure a lot of that is just from the difficulty of removing machinery that will have a lot of oil leftover, and that they don't want to sit and slowly leak out into their nice new reef.
@@rianfelis3156 I don't know about the machinery and how it's prepped for sinking. It cost $21,000,000 to clean out Oriskany to prepare her for sinking off of Pensacola.
I always found the idea of the bismark been scuttled as meaningless. The ship at that point was a burning hulk and dead. The RN sank the bismark regardless of if scuttling charges had been set.
On that note, I'm skeptical they managed to do so considering the state ship when the order was given.
According to Burkhard Baron von Müllenheim-Rechberg,the highest surviving officer from the Bismarck, Bismarck had been rendered combat ineffective & was very slowly sinking as the Brits kept plastering her with everything they could throw at her. The Bismarck’s scuttling charges detonated between 1010-1020 hours, Rodney hit her with a torpedo on the port side at 1000, Dorsetshire hit her with torpedoes (one to port & the other to starboard) between 1025 & 1035 & she sank at 1040. Several witnesses said they saw no torpedo damage on the starboard side, and Robert Ballard found no penetration below the waterline or of the armored citadel when he surveyed the wreck in June, 1989. He did find compelling evidence the ship had been scuttled.
Either way, Bismarck was going to sink. It was made of steel, after all. You poke enough holes it's going down. Given the rather ravious attitude the Brits had at that moment, I'm half convinced that, had Bismarck not gone down either as a result of shellfire and torps, or on his own accord, the order would have been given to ram him. As I understand it, the British really, REALLY wanted that ship deleted.
@@177SCmaro It was the 'poking holes in it' bit that was proving to be infuriatingly difficult for the Royal Navy. Eventually, yes, Bismarck was going to sink, but she was still shrugging off direct hits thanks to her incredibly thick armor.
@@xaenon
First of all, Bismarck's armor was pretty thick for the time but it may interest you to know that it was only one half inch thicker than Iowa's belt and Iowa wasn't really considered a dedicated "line of battle ship" in some ways it was more like an extremely well armed and armored battlecruiser - a fast battleship. King George V actually had a thicker belt armor then Bismarck.
Secondly, in the British mad rush to close to point blank range the problem became their main guns couldn't depress low enough to hit at or below the waterline so, instead, they ended up carving up Bismarck's superstructure like a thanksgiving turkey which, while overpenetrating the superstructure still obliterated Bismarck's ability to fight back, that isn't going to sink him, which is why they had to resort to torpedos to finally expedite his departure from the surface world. As I said, Bismarck was going to sink.
Also, for the record, there never was a battleship armor that could withstand point blank hits from battleship-grade guns. Even Yamato-class turret face armor, some 26 inches thick, was penetrated in a test fire of 16 in shells at point blank range (and unrealistic scenario in practice but it demonstrates the point in theory). Battleship armor resists shells, it's doesn't make one invulnerable.
I'm not saying Bismarck wasn't a tough ship but that toughness has been somewhat exaggerated over time. There is a certain romanticism with "the biggest battleships" that becomes more like legend than fact.
@@177SCmaro I'm just stating some facts, partner. They pounded the living snot out of Bismarck and she resisted an astonishing amount of punishment. It's how and why there was so much speculation about whether she was scuttled or not.
Oh, and I seem to recall hearing something about her belt armor being made of some particularly high grade of steel, not quite so common in other ships of her basic size and class.
I think we can both agree, though, that she was a tough ship.
really great presentation on a subject not often covered, all of your videos are well done and very informative.
Also, because you asked nicely, i wont scuttle the nearest museum ship i see.
"I'm proud that the U.S. Navy never scuttled one of its battleships" ....
.... I like that statement Ryan. Keep up the good work; I enjoy your videos immensely!
It’s a false statement. We scuttled the USS Lexington after suffering an explosion from an aviation fuel leak after the Battle of the Coral Sea.
@@RichardFMeldrum Richard - Ryan is speaking about battleships as a class of ship. The Lexington was an aircraft carrier - although it was built on a hull of a battlecruiser.
In 1942, during the Battle of Santa Cruz Islands, the U.S. Navy tried to scuttle the heavily damaged USS Hornet - but the Japanese took care of that that.
I think the graf spee was scuttled in shallow water, they were probably afraid it'd be refloated if it was sank mostly intact.
Very interesting to learn why they can't start those engines anymore. (Coolant sealed off). I'd love to see one of these Iowa class ships fired up again, even briefly. Just amazing marvels of engineering, even all these years later.
Sounds like a great action move plot. "Our only hope to stop the terrorists is to reactivate the ship" And, of course anything can be done in a two minute A-team style montage where they break out the welding tanks and go to town.
Even the bottom of your engine room looks amazing. I hope one day that my museum ship ORLECK can look this good.
Watch, Quarter, and Station Bill designates assignments like watch standing, battle station, abandon ship area, etc. One of my assignments was securing and salvage (?). I asked about that and was told you are one of the last ones off because you’ll open the sea chest in engine room. Strike a somber note on that thought
NOt being a Navy guy myself, I never heard of 'keys to the sea chest'. But as a U.S. Army mechanic, I have variously sent other enlisted and LTs off on the hunt for 'lock washer keys', 'BA-1100-N' 'ID-10-T'' and 'ST-1' batteries (spell them out), and a number of other things..
Also 'left-handed smoke wrenches', "muffler bearings', metric crescent wrenches, and wobbilator shafts...
The US Navy did scuttle several warships in Norfolk in April 1861 to keep them out of Confederate hands. Included were USS Pennsylvania, the USS Merrimac, USS Columbia, USS Columbus, USS Delaware, USS Dolphin, USS Germantown, USS New York, USS Plymouth and USS Raritan. As these were wooden ships and in shallow water, the scuttling method used was fire. Of course the portion of the Merrimac below water survived and was used as the basis for the iron clad CSS Virginia. Later when the Union was retaking Norfolk, the Virginia was scuttled again by the Confederates.
Love the Iowa class battleship... Would love to see them restored/ refurbished to full glory! However, this channel is a nice second!
👍Never heard the key to the sea chest one, but they use to send out the new guy to cut in the cooling water to the handrails. I remember one time they wanted to see how well a new snipe was making rounds and they put a rag over the oil level indicator on the main sump. When he came in control booth after making rounds they asked him what the oil level was and he said he didn't know, he couldn't see if for a rag tied around it.
I used to pull the dip stick on the spring bearing in shaft alley #1 when I went on watch in Main Control. When my fireman messenger reported that the spring bearing oil level was full for the second hour in a row I'd pull out the dip stick and he knew he'd been caught gundecking his readings.
Aside from Scuttling a ship. Every USN ship that I served aboard had a series of items that were immediate response items. These were commonly things like a primary Gyro, in the same room was some of the fire control functions. Basically these were things like stand outside the door and throw an axe (or hammer) at the gyro and quickly close the door. If you hear a big bang your done, if not try again. Essentially it was just a destroy the stuff you don't want them to get. As to the rest they already know it's a ship and how it works.
I imagine that scuttlings, especially massed ones like the German fleet at Scapa Flow probably look a bit like the last 3 minutes of a Phineas and Ferb episode, plus a lot of screaming and desperation.
you should check the ARA Santisima Trinidad (an Argentine navy Type 42 Destroyer who fought in the Argentinean side during 1982 Malvinas/Falklands conflict).
The ship was UK made so after the war the embargo forced Argentina to cannibalize Santisima Trinidad in order to keep the sister ship ARA Hercules in commision. That was the reason behind the ship was in port as a floating spare ship since late 80s. By 2013 the ship was in such a bad shape that one of the pipes broked up it sunk on its mooring. The ship was eventually refloated and nowadays its waiting to be scrapped
Love these videos, Ryan. Please keep up the great job, especially showing us parts of the ship generally unavailable to the public.
I have a related question for you: In your opinion which museum ship provides the most access to the public? I have been to several in the US and have been rather disappointed in what is accessible on some. Thanks for your input!
As far as we've seen, we have more open than any of the battleships. With smaller ships its a harder comparison. Technically, every inch of Constellation is viewable by the public.
I was a member of the Scuttling Detail aboard the USS Sacramento in the late 70's. My job was to open the large cutoff valves in the JP-5 pump room and spike the main. Others in the engine rooms would be doing what was described in the video. Radiomen and others upstairs would be weighting codebooks and throwing them overboard. Being member of the Scuttling Detail meant you didn't have an abandon ship station. I'm glad we never had to scuttle her. P.S. we had no explosives that I was aware of.
Or liferaft seats, I was on the team too. Gag the boiler safetys, max the fuel to the boilers and run like hell. The Machinist Mates blew the main condenser scoop injection .
I knew a sailor who served on a smaller ship, Vietnam era. He said that they trained in disabling the ship in the event of capture, destroying everything of value without actually sinking it. Explosive charges to destroy engines, guns, electronics.
They need a dude like Ryan on the Missouri to do videos, very interesting
I suspect the main reason to weld over any "sea chests", places where water could enter the hull, would be to make it easier to maintain the ship as a museum without worry that some internal pipe can rust through or be damaged or a valve leaks or somebody might turn some valve and sink the ship by accident.
Another reason I can think would be to evacuate water from these systems to preserve them just in case. From that point of view, welding over these would actually make it easier to start the ship in the future, not harder. Valves leak and with "hundreds" of them you can be sure some of them will and could cause damage.
I mean, any project to start this ship would be major undertaking and couple of welds will not deter or make it significantly more difficult to complete the project. On the other hand internal damage would do just that.
Welding over suction and discharge ports is done during the mothballing process for all the reasons you stated. It's also to keep suction and discharge ports from becoming clogged with marine growth.
Graff spee probably wanted to use magazine charges to cause maximum damage as it was so shallow there they needed to not just sink the ship but actually destroy things like radar (brits disguised as scrap merchants took this item)
1779 a fledgling American Navy was cornered in the Penobscott River by the British Navy - rather than let the ships be captured, they were burned or scuttled on orders from the Commodore, Dudley Saltonstall. Bernard Cornwell wrote a book about it - The Fort -fascinating reading.
Basically the self-destruct would essentially be the ship's Sea Chest all you really have to do is open them up opening number of hatches up and that would be enough to sink it, it would take a good bit of time but it would sink the ship
I never was sent to get the keys to the sea chest but I sent a couple of new recruits on that mission. We also sent new guys looking for water line to tie things up. As a substitute, they could go to the mess decks and see if they had any leftover hamstring. We also sent extra-annoying new recruits to the boiler room to borrow a BT punch. This was usually delivered by the biggest Boiler Technician available when they got there. These were fun little rites of passage, among many, that are no longer allowed in the New Navy.
@ alan fan
We used to send newbies to supply for a bucket of prop wash. ASW Squadron VP Two Four Naval Air Station Jax Fla.
One of our new firemen was sent to the other engine room to get a steam blanket for the boiler. The space supervisor sent him back with lagging material tucked into his coveralls to keep it warm.
Before the environmental damage that R-12 Freon would do was discovered, we used to send a guy to the AC&R shop to get a bucket of Freon. If the cylinder was inverted, the Freon would come out in liquid form but would quickly evaporate. So the newby would go to the AC&R shop and they would fill his bucket and then cover it with a rag so he didn’t spill any. And by the time he got back to our shop 2 decks up, the Freon would be gone. And then we would rag on him about not doing what he was told to do. I am sure that this prank contributed substantially to the hole in the ozone layer.
This video coincides with my training as an engine room mechanic on Nimitz class.
We were also taught to blow the Main shafts hull seals.
Our SSTG's and Desalination plants had their own sea chests.
Sorry to say I did fall for the tubes of Relative bearing grease prank.
I can see that being very effective, after all even my small Sea-Doo JetSki almost sank at the boat ramp because of the shaft seal leaking
"Those wacky German...!" Hah!
Great line about the German Navy being proud of scuttling more BB's than anyone else. They must have been thinking "We lost, but darn it, we lost BIG!" USN - "Ok....but we prefer to win."
We never lose without at least setting a new world record. 😋🤦♀️🤧
Spanish battleships in first years of XX century had "bottom valves" with blank plate bolted in the pipe. You must unbolt the closing plate and open the valve an then the magic starts. Of course, remember to leave all door decks open! It was a slow process. This was used in battleship "Colón" fighting against "Oregon" during Cuba war.
The large valves that open to the sea are called SEACOCKS>
The germans navy scuttled so many ships due to the fact that the surrendered german fleet was ensconsed at scapa flow in scotland> the crews in protest to their treatnet scuttled the entire fleet in one place> salage continues to today>
Pretty sure the easiest would be to hook up a few dozen 18 inchers to their fuses in the magazines, leave a few dozen 5 inchers in the power magazines and the 5 incher magzines, and wire those to a detonator.
Easier still would be if she was carrying a nuke to dial the yield to the lowest it could go, if you didn't want to cause too much death, or if you were a sadist like me, crank the yield to the highest and watch the ship evaporate.
Intentional magazine detonation is definitely a good way about it.
Dick move would be when enemy boards the ship with the instant sunrise set for wide open fir them to see the 10 second to zero count down.....
Nukes dont dial yield if the vessel was carrying a tomahawk-N it only has one boom setting
There are many parts of an Iowa class battleship that wouldn't be vaporized, even by far more powerful nukes than they ever carried onboard. If you were to take a much more powerful device... In the megaton range, and detonate it inside the ship, you'd almost certainly blow it apart. But you'd still have a ton of peices of various sizes flying in every direction. The smaller of which would probably fuck right off into low earth orbit if the heating from drag in the atmosphere didn't just melt/disintegrate them on the way up due to the speeds which they'd be traveling. The biggest problem with doing something like that would be the large armored peices. Many many peices of the, what is it.. 18 inch? thick citadel, and large chunks of the armor belt would almost certainly end up flying a REALLY good distance in just about every direction and landing somewhere that would cause the people living nearby to be very unhappy, dead, or a combination of both.
@@blackhawks81H pretty sure they would have their own issues if a USN ship is committing nuclear suicide anywhere within 50 miles.
Also, who's to say that you'd be setting off just ONE nuke?
Ideally you'd have multiple all set off to go either in parallel, or sequence to make damn sure the ship ceased to exist.
the mane take away from this video is you have one very clean ship there absolutely spotless
keep it up
Thank you Ryan and Libby
According to the British experience at Jutland all you have to do is leave the flash doors to the magazines open before heading into battle and let the enemy battlecruisers do the rest.
Yo, Ryan out here just roasting the entire German Navy!😲😂🤣
In the interests of balance, he does go on to mention that they tried to scuttle the Hornet, but the torpedos were junk.
I had the opportunity to run around on a west German 80's era frigate , to source some parts prior to it being recycled. It had some red squares here and there, with a belt to attach something. Looking around in the steering compartment it became clear these where places to set charges, to scuttle the ship. They where placed on the ships hull, bulkheads, and vital machinery in propulsion systems and steering. Definitely no self destruct button, but like anything on such a warship, a team effort, well planned and well prepared. Designed to utterly destroy the ship and render her useless even after salvage.
A drydock, an ironworker, some bottles of oxygen and some thermic lances could get those saltwater coolant inlets and outlets un-welded over if you should want to go on a cruise.
Might be able to do it with a manual plasma torch depending on how overkill the welds are, this is a battleship after all.
Glad they welded them shut from the outside. Miles of future pipe leaks prevented.
Probably the most interesting channel on youtube
Scuttle your own ship is more a mental victory for the crew, because the enemy wasn't only successful at taking the ship home as a trophy but they weren't even able to clain the kill on it too.
So the crew of the ship had not only served on a superior, but also an unsinkable ship for the enemy too.
Please note that this is just a guess and not a fact. I asked myself why I would rather scuttle my ship than loose it by the enemy.
You might not want sensitive equipment to fall into enemy's hands, for example. Radar? Electronics? Any countermeasure launchers / ECMs? For current ships, certain materials even (like radar absorbing ones, for example)? You dont want your potential opponent to have access to that.
Hence why UK did all that jazz when their F35 crashed some time ago in the mediterranean, raised it and recovered debris from the sea bed. Costs a lot, but less cost than having secrets potentially open to be exposed.
@@michajastrzebski4383 That's a good point. Haven't thought of that.
Keys to the Sea Chest are kept right next to the Machinist's Punch. You use that right after you've tightened the Boatswain's Nuts. Make sure you stop by medical first, and ask for 100ft of Fallopian tubing.
Dunno, the valves are good, but if you don't have explosives, I'm looking at the flex coupling or the eductor lineup...
The overboard valves of the installed eductor system of the ship I served aboard had locks on them. During PMS I was supposed to test the system but no one knew where they were. PMS deferred.
In 1997 The Historic 1912 Steam Paddlewheeler Belle of Louisville (previously named Idlewild, & Avalon) was partially sunk, due to someone opening a freshwater intake valve. Luckily it was able to be refloated and still serves today, cruising on the Ohio River.
I never was sent to search for a sea chest, but in boot camp I was set to get striped paint for the mail buoy, and fifty feet of chow line. I spent a good three hours walking all over the base for that stuff, never did find it, nor did I get in trouble.... My dad was in the navy, so I knew, but my company commander didn't! ;)
🧐 I already KNOW the answer without having to watch the video! You simply take the main elevator(or an escalator) down to the "basement deck". When the elevator doors open, you make a left, and walk about 1/8 mile down to the end of the hallway. Open the doors on your left and right, and inside each door, you'll see a panel with a large, round red button, with words above it saying "to self destruct, press button".... From there, a special "express scuttling elevator" will rush you to the main deck to abandon ship. The scuttling charges will explode in 10 seconds. Good luck in the afterlife! 😐👍
I heard that developers wanted to get rid of the museum submarine to build expensive properties.
the U 505 story is super impressive...plus i love we put it in Chicago
I toured the USS Ling as a Cub Scout around 1971 at the Brooklyn Navy Yard. I thought that was sooooo cool, especially since my dad had served in subs (USS Sea Robin (SS-407) and USS Barb (SS-220)) during the Korean era.
On Dock Landing ships, the gag was to send someone for the stern gate key.
Ryan, I'd love to talk to you and pick your brain (a wealth of knowledge). That's quite apparent. I used to live in Pennsylvania. 45 years of hell was enough. We moved to North Carolina where i was fortunate enough to walk through the battleship North Carolina 3 times. Still it's never enough time to s÷ it all. Ive gone to Charleston South Carolina and have been able to tour CV-10 The Yorktown twice (still never enough time for such a large ship) and the USS Laffey. It's amazing she refused to die! I have to see the New Jersey and the Iowa. The Iowa is a pilgrimage. My uncle served on her during the last months of WWII. And also knowing what happened to her in 1989 in Turret #2, and the railroad job they tried to pass off as something done on purpose with NO evidence to link Clayton Hartwig. My uncle before his death never believed that load of garbage. Unfortunately you are stuck up north and the only way i go north is if i absolutely have to! I'd also love to see the USS UNITED STATES.
Thsnk you for what you do! I do pray that I get to meet you some day. God bless you all who work on keeping our important history alive! Thank you all! Chris Dez, Raleigh
We sent people to find: 50' of waterline, a lightbulb for the smoking lamp, keys for the helm, a Bosin's punch, and batteries for the sound powered phones.
Our favorite was Bearing Grease and the Mail Bouy. Some less than bright individuals were sent to R-Div for an HT Punch too.
Bucket of steam? Relative bearing grease?
@@Dawgsofwinter Relative Bearing Grease. I already knew the scam, so spent the time wandering the ship.
something ive been wondering, say you where in charge of a hostile powers navy in ww2, what would you do if you where tasked to sink an Iowa? submarine action? air power? or something else?
Subs.
@@joshuahudson2170 I guess it depends on what kind, and how many subs you had, and how suicidal the crews were. You'd almost certainly lose a lot if not all of the guys. It would pretty much be a suicide mission. The Iowas were so big, and so tough, and had good enough torpedo protection, that it would take more than one lucky hit to totally ensure a kill. You'd need multiple torpedo hits, even with the legendary Japanese type 93.. I don't think they really had enough subs.. In the case of Japan they'd more likely have tried to use a flotilla of destroyers who would launch multiple salvos of a "metric shit-ton" of torpedoes from a good distance. The only problem there is, again. It's a suicide mission as getting in torpedo range would definitely put them within range of the 16 inch guns. Japanese destroyers carried a lot of torpedoes though, and some classes had quite a few launchers. So if they were willing to take huge losses in the process, they might have been able to pull it off. But again, the losses would be so huge that they'd have probably concluded it wasn't worth it.. And just hoped to get lucky in a good old fashioned battleship vs battleship fight. Or barring luck, what they'd have REALLY liked, would be to slug it out Yamato VS Iowa. Which would have probably been their best chance, had their naval doctrine of Taikan Kyohō Shugi (which basically means "big ship big gun principle) not been foiled by the meteoric rise of successful naval aviation and the quick changeover to carrier dominated naval doctrine. For my money, airplanes would be the way to go. Sure you'd again be looking at basically a suicide mission for a lot of the pilots.. But then Japan never really had a problem with that anyway, did they? Plus, airplanes and pilots are a lot easier to replace than large warships and the whole lot of crew that die when a single ship goes down.. In my opinion, which may I point out is no better than anyone else's, as I never served in the IJN and while I've studied it quite a bit, I'm by no means even remotely an expert on the wider Japanese naval doctrine of Kantai Kessen. I think the best chance of taking out an Iowa for the Japanese, would have been an overwhelming air raid consisting of both torpedo and dive bombers. Sure the Iowas had a ton of AA coverage.. But a large enough force of aircraft would still be able to get in enough hits to do the job of you were willing to take huge losses. Especially if you caught an Iowa far enough away from a friendly carrier to provide it with an effective fighter screen. The Japanese would however likely have to trade the life of the carrier/carriers required to launch a sufficiently massive raid, as that many planes coming in to attack, especially given the range of naval aircraft at the time. Would pretty much give away where they'd come from. So again you'd have to ask would the trade-off be worth it. Again, even if the Japanese had the resources to comitt to such an attack at the point in the war where the Iowas appeared. I think their naval doctrines would have much preferred to try and lure an Iowa into a shooting battle with a Yamato. Such a battle was never meant to be however. As by the time the Iowas and especially the Yamatos were deployed, naval aviation had pretty much proven its supremacy. Remember how the Yamato itself was sank. Cheers!
wouldnt having a big hole in the bottom of your ship that pipes to engineering spaces be vulnerable to extreme overpressure?
Ive seen you talk about the layered torpedo defenses, but this made it seem like its just a single (thick) mild steel tube between the inside and the ocean.
They are baffled, to prevent rapid pressure change
One of the more famous "scuttle party" happened in november 1942. Allies invaded Marocco during operation Torch. After that, nazi Germany decided to occupy Vichy's France (which was not under german control at that time) to support/reinforce Italy. And when they did, they tempted to take over the whole french navy fleet based in Toulon. French sailors and officers then scuttled the fleet in harbour, and some submarines managed to flee at sea, joining free french forces
I have been on USS Massachusetts and she has watertight doors on the outer hull below the waterline that can be opened to flood the powder magazines in case of a fire. I believe it has four doors in each magazine and it has three turrets and three magazines. If all the doors were opened to the sea and if enough internal watertight hatches between compartments were also opened wouldn't that cause enough flooding to sink the ship?
In a past life I worked at a Burger King Restaurant , we had a kid on the crew who annoyed the living hell out of everyone , he wouldn't stay at his station , and no one could figure out what to do with him , so one day I was not in to mood to even be at work much less deal with the kid , so I decided get rid of him by sending him to find the bucket of steam in the freezer , bought us hours of peace . Was one of the fun days at work . Now having someone go find the keys for the sea chest I could have days of fun there . LOL.
Fascinating. Thank you for this.
Well Ryan, thankfully never sent to search for those keys haha, but was sent to find an E7 down in an auxiliary machinery room for a very important canisteem......😆 Nothing like being new and young and dumb on a ship!!
my ears are ringing, thanks for that more than double volume jump at 3:04, other than that some real intresting stuff
If I remember correctly, Graf Spee exploded after the scuttling crew abandoned. They set their charges with timers on the detonators. The water there was shallow enough that if all the Germans had done was blow open the sea chests she could still have been salvaged or, at least, equipment removed for examination.
The way the Germans did it, the ship burned for quite a while, ruining most of the sensitive (secret) equipment. The classified documents had already been destroyed.
As I understand, one of the items the British were able to inspect was the radar system and check how advanced they were in that area.
@@matthewalker The British made a shell company in Uruguay and bought the salvage rights.
I beleive they hung torpedo warheads in the magazines with a candle burning through the ropes while everyone legged it, but I can't remember what i read that in
Okay no I found it they rigged 6 torpedo warheads with a timing system, the forward charges failed to go off possibly due to the initial blast in the engine rooms damaging the wiring. aft blast was successful in destroying the rear of the ship. ship was in 8 meters of water
In the case of one German U-boat, just flush the toilet!
Open every fire main and compartment door. Turn "off" all bilge pumps. Use all the counterflooding (both sides), finish by flooding the magazines. Loss of freeboard will result!
When they sank the Oriskany, "on an even keel" was a major concern. In wartime (and deep water), not so much.
aside from plastic explosives, wouldnt the 16 inch gunpowder bags be used for scuttling the areas that you discussed?
Holy shit headphone warning!
Oh, that's easy. Just crank up the gravity on the fusion reactor, reduce the fuel input and bang, no New Jersey, you'll also probably have taken out a large chunk of the surrounding area, but a rapidly expanding cloud of gas can't really care about stuff like that.
Gonna say this, and flame away IF I am wrong, but the US did scuttle ships during wartime, it was in 1944, at Normandy, the were called Corn Cobs, and were used to make protective barriers for the landings at Omaha Beach, and Mulberry harbors at Arromanches. The more you know.
Attempt to scuttle museum ships... odd instruction, but if you insist...
When I was a Navy airedale, in the 60's, a young sailor came into my hangar looking for a air hook to check out? I told him that he was being hazed and to tell who ever sent him, it would be backordered and cost 10k to their shop account! He said thanks and off he went, never saw him again.
You are too funny Ryan. Yes, I too am very proud that we never had to Scuttle any of our Battleships.
1:37 lol you just didnt manage to do it
I happen to be related to a master welder and metal worker! I could send him down there to break those welds on the Sea chests smooth out the burrs and you can get that thing ready to go fight aliens.
Hell yeah
That's done from the outside in drydock. Plates are welded over the suction/discharge ports of ships as part of the mothballing process.
@@ostrich67 very interesting! Thanks for helping me learn something! So the darn thing would have to be out of the water before someone could break the welds on those plates
@@BlindMansRevenge2002 I suppose you could send in a diver with an underwater cutting torch, but there's probably a lot of them.
Another example of the United States scuttling ships was the Penobscot Expedition of 1779. The expedition was 44 ships sent by the rebel Massachusetts Congress to attack a British fort in what is now Maine. The attack was clumsy and slow and a Royal Navy relief force was sent from Halifax. The rebels were trapped against the shore and fled up the Penobscot River pursued by the Royal Navy. As the water grew shallower, all the the 44 ships was forced to scuttle or surrender.
Knowing how normal pipes (steam, fire protection, domestic water and waste) end up leaking under pretty mild uses, I can't imagine how all of these fittings in all of these tight spaces didn't leak over the years, constantly.
That's why we have regular maintenance and bilge pumps.
Ryan: Great stuff. I have been to BB59 many times as a military historian and Mass native. Looking forward to getting to your ship soon. My question is, how did the crew keep the ship supplied with water while in port, given the usual debris in harbor water? Was there a filtration system to keep the mains from getting jammed with junk, or was all that accomplished by pier-side services?
John Carty
US Army (ret)
Hey John, on my Navy Cruiser, we connected Pier Services fresh water supply hoses to the ship. However, some foreign ports did not have pier-side fresh water, and had to obtain a water barge to supply the ship in those locations. Once at sea, the ship can make her own fresh water with a distilling plant that evaporates (boils under a reduced pressure) seawater and condenses the resulting steam into fresh water. Many newer ships now also use "reverse osmosis" water filters. (I dont believe the New Jersey has the RO water system however)
You had me with the coastguard yard thumb nail.
Fun fact: The German navy, under its various sank more battleships in the 1900’s than any other navy - the rub is that most of them flew the flag of the Kriegsmarine!