We dropped a mailbag into the sea during an UNREP once. For months afterwards, every time COMDESRON 10 wanted to know if we'd answered some request for an inventory of left-handed screwdrivers, we'd just innocently claim the report must of been in that mailbag.
I was a helmsman on Fletcher and Sumner class destroyers in the 1960s. A normal unrep speed was 12 knots. Destroyers usually refuled every 3 days. I never was alongside a BB, but many carriers, AOs, AFs, AEs, AOEs, DDs, and a CA. AOE 1 & 2 had BB Kentucky's engines and did 26 knots. The wake of the other ship tends to push away the destroyers bow away so you normally have about 12° rudder into the other ship. Usually you steer a compass course to 1/2 degree. Sometimes in really bad weather the captain will have a good helmsman steer by the marker line. A line run in front of the bridge with tags marked in feet about every 10' showing the distance between the two ships. We did emergency break away drills all the time. During gunfire support off Vietnam, when replenishing 5" ammo, in heavy weather have seen pallets of 5" shells go under water when the ship rolled. And then rolling the other way the wire pulled tight, the pallet shot out of the water, and most of the shells were flung over the ship.
Was heavy seas just that common, that you had to do resupply during a storm? They couldn't wait for calmer waters to transfer the live explosives?😅 I know just enough about sailing that I know you don't want to lose power in those conditions, so I could see the need to refuel in those conditions.
@@acester86 Part of the answer is we were on the gun line. They needed us there. If there were attacks, we could fire off lots of ammo. Each gun had 350 rounds of all types, HE star, smoke, WP. At 10-15 rounds per minute you could go thru all the HE fast. 5" ammo was also part of our ballast as was fuel. If the weather got worse we'd need the ballast and if we couldn't refuel from a ship, we'd have to go to Subic Bay in the Philippines to get fuel. 800+ miles. The WWII built destroyers were top heavy at about 3,000 tons. Today's destroyers weigh in at above 8,000 w/o all the guns we had. During WWII, in a typhoon 3 destroyers capsized. Most admirals like to keep their destroyers as full as possible. In Korea we had 4 BBs, many cruisers in addition to destroyers for gunfire. In Vietnam 1 BB for a few months and the occasional cruiser. So the DDs had to do it all. It takes many more 5" shells to do the work of a cruiser and the 5" may not do the job.
It's called the Bournoulli effect, and it has to do with the decrease in water pressure against the hulls of moving vessels. This decrease in pressure causes the hulls to move towards each other.
Same thing happens when a ship moves at speed near the edge of a canal or river. Known as "bank effect," it may be what caused the Ever Given to get stuck in the Suez Canal in 2021.
A friend of mine served on Battleship New Jersey, and he was in his retirement part of the restoration team for the Museum. And thanks to talking with the people at the museum I was able to get back in contact after losing contact just before Covid and my friend is alive but fully back to retirement now.
I did a reserve training cruise on Colahan then home ported in Long Beach. I also had reserve training on Shields, another Fletcher class DD in the reserve fleet. Her home port was San Diego. My first experience with underway replenishment was a training exercise with the then new Sacramento. My job was to keep a visual record of all course and speed adjustments ordered by the OOD. I was on USS Stone County (LST-1141). I was also on Stone County when we were deployed to Viet Nam. On our return we were assigned the duty of refueling several minesweepers. As the supplying (and larger) ship our responsibility was to maintain a steady course and speed while the minesweepers needed to make adjustments to keep the correct position off our starboard side. Obviously we were not anywhere close to 20 knots. We had a top speed of 12.5 knots, and minesweepers had a top speed of 15 knots. I believe that were moving at less then 10 knots. Still under way replenishment is a challenging task and was developed by the U. S. Navy prior to WW II.
Thank you for your service. My dad was in Nam in 70-71 in the Army, with AHC-240's white flight. He told me a story about landing a Huey in a minefield once.
This is why the Navy, and everything that has to do with it, is literally The Business! These incidents just emphasize how ridiculously difficult everything they do can be. And they’re supposed to do it all the time.
I grew up visiting Cassin Young on a regular basis, and still swing by occasionally. As a kid, I was one of the first people allowed below decks when they had restored some spaces, and I still remember how happy that made me.
My UNREP station was aft steering, glad we never had a problem! I couldn't keep the ship on course (no more than 3' total variance) when we were in the Persin Gulf, and that is flat calm! Granted I didn't get much practice.
I wish I could find where I read this: but I believe the Iowas were designed so that, in theory, you could run one completely outta gas, outta shells, and outta food, and, if you had three fueling ships and two supply ships ready to go, you could stop tie off both supply ships on one side, and all three fuel ships on the other and completely refuel, rearm the main magazines, much of the secondaries, plus an emergency rep on food and dry stores all in 16 hours or less anywhere on the ocean. Logistics won the war in both theaters and its amazing how complex and dangerous these daily operations were
I believe the Navy's expectation was, if an Iowa came into port undamaged but completely empty at 6am, it could be fully fueled, armed, resupplied, underway, with new crew aboard by midnight - without ever having to stop making steam
I find it awesome yall are STILL finding out new information about this ship, that was basically unknown. This gotta be one of those giddy moments for those interested in the history of the ship
The invention of self-tensioning rigs post-war made UNREP much safer by allowing ships to steam much further apart while alongside. Even so, it’s one of the most dangerous evolutions the surface navy does. The approach is very tricky. As the approaching ship’s bow comes even with the replenishment ship’s stern, the prop wash and hydrodynamics push the bow out, so the conning officer has to steer slightly inward to maintain the right distance. Then, as the bow moves further forward, the Bernoulli effect between the hulls pull the bow in while simultaneously the stern is now being pushed out by the aforementioned forces, so the conning officer must steer slightly outward. Once in position alongside, he (or she) needs to pay closer attention to the distance between the ships, as the closer they get, the stronger the Bernoulli effect pulling them together. Today, ships generally UNREP at 15 knots-the very idea of doing it at 25 knots scares the bleep out of me! (LT, SWO, 81-85)
@@williamescolantejr5871 : Indeed! Although for the conning officer, that was the fun part. I admit I really liked my ship's breakaway song: CCR's "Up Around the Bend". Hmm... Question for BB-62 vets... What was NJ's breakaway song at different eras?
@@williamescolantejr5871 : I hear ya, shipmate. I did a brief stint on Spruance before reporting to SWOS, then did my division officer tour on Moinester (FF-1097) as A&E and then Gunnery. Those Spru-cans had some freakin' get up and go when you punched it for the breakaway--the Knox frigates took their time ambling up to flank speed.
Unrepping (underway replenishment) is thankfully a procedure that doesn't need to be undertaken often in the modern Navy. It's sooo inherently dangerous. Especially if the fleet is driving for best speed. The slower vessel has to make full steam and try to hold a steam surplus so that it can make those rapid thrust inputs you need to mirror course and speed. And the faster one has to hold revolutions for whatever speed the slower vessel can make. But NJ's hull is designed for top speed. You slow her down from 30 to 25 kts and she is way less efficient and way more choppy and stubborn. When you're sailing full steam, you've got places to be. Which means you've got to hold course. In peacetime, when unrepping, you will not only slow way down, but you'll make course so you're are tacking into the wind. You don't want either vessel to be fully leeward of the either - especially if there are significant winds or a huge displacement difference between vessels. The smaller vessel should tie off stern to stern and bow to midship - in that order. And in reverse order when untying (similar to putting jumper cables on/off). The larger vessel will hold rudder amidship and the smaller vessel will use slight rudder adjustments to hold the correct slack and angles in the pacing lines which will be decorated with flags so they are easy for the officer of the deck to identify. And after you shoot your pacing lines, and telephone lines, and the clotheslines (the smaller guage guidewires you use to winch in the craning lines) you just run your crane lines from the mast of the unloading vessel to the deck or holds of the on-taking vessel. Then you just winch the cargo up the mast, put it on the crane line, and let gravity do the work.
And, to be clear, the destroyer can't just cruise up alongside NJ - way too dangerous to try to approach her from behind at an overtaking speed and then try to come in over the tailwake. You have to overtake NJ and find that perfect spot to slide over her bowwake. And then you have to stay in that little pocket so you don't start pitching and rolling like a typhoon
And some might guess this would be extremely dangerous at night. Correct. But only because it's always dangerous. Surprisingly - night is the best time to unrep. The seas are generally calmer, the winds lower, the temperature more stable & more comfortable. And - when the destroyer gets in position - let's say she goes starboard to port - she can turn on every searchlight on her starboard side and as long as you don't point your lights too far fore, aft, or upwards - the sheer hulk of NJ will hide all that light. The ships on the outsides of the battle group will make sure you don't bathe NJ in enough light as to silhouette her at any distance - but you have plenty of light to operate at night
The big danger with night unrep at speed - if you do go overboard - you're a dead man. It's nothing but whitewater between the boats and you're pounding along at 20+ kts - even if someone sees you go over and gets a ring or a raft out - by the time you come out of the propwash - you'll be in absolute darkness and that raft or ring won't be within 300 yards of you - prolly not 500 - you won't be able to anything further than 30 feet on the rolling ocean. They'll never find you. Even if they run search patterns all morning - it's so impossible to see someone bobbing in the ocean
Also remember that if both ships rang down to 20kts at the same time (or even STOP,) the NJ is going to take longer to slow down due to inertia. Sure, her block co-efficient is greater, so she will have more drag, but it is much less of a difference than the inertial difference. My dad had been the Special Sea Detail helmsman on his DD, and when I was touring MISSOURI in 2001(ish) I met an old timer who had been the shot line sailor on an oiler and he remembered fueling my dad's ship!
collisions during unrep happened more often than you might think. my dad was on DE-698 (USS Raby) and they collided with their supply ship while getting 5" shells and powder. he said it was a pretty tense few moments. he was a boiler tech and had no hand in the operations but was off-watch, watching... they lost an anchor, all of the oxy-acetylene tanks and about half their depth charges when they came up a swell, under the flight deck of the USS Mindoro (CVE-120) in the north atlantic during an convoy escort duty. i JUST VISITED USS Kidd in Baton Rouge. it was a good tour but theyre looking to dry-dock sometime soon as well...
1:00 Ships traveling in a narrow channel will actually create suction along their sides, enough that if a ship drifts to close to one side (especially if the side is a vertical wall not a gently sloping shoreline) it can suck the ship right into the wall. Two ships side by side like they are when refueling create the same effect, and fun fact its the same effect that creates lift on plane wings. The water is being shoved out of the way but in areas where it is confined and has nowhere to go it will accelerate along the side of the ship to try to fill in the low pressure zone at the back of the ship. When a fluid increases in velocity it decreases its pressure. Same as the Venturi effect.
Ships have to be moving fast to pull off a VERTREP maneuver. The speed is supposedly needed to keep the wires up. In 1978 on board the US Iwo Jima we were trying to perform a transfer to the USS Sherman Forrest humping a long at 20kts (the top speed for the Iwo was 21 or 22kts) when the Destroyer lost a boiler and their speed dropped to ~10kts. We hung out for about an hour waiting for their engineers to relit their boiler but eventually our CO decided we'd waited long enough and we returned to port at Gitmo.
also what nots clearly explained is that when doing an UNREP is that the sea state or waves between ships can an will cause 1 or both ships to come close then go away from each other.I presume they did have a messenger line someplace using the markers to identify feet between ships.Did my share of it in 80s on a spurance class
@@TheSteelArmadillo The ship in question has 1 5"/54 forward, one superfiring aft and one Mk 11 twin missile launcher aft. The hull number 9 is clearly visibly.
I wonder how many collisions happened during WW2. My father-in-law (who was a plank owner) was on board the USS Indiana when it collided with the USS Washington. 4 killed on Indiana, 6 killed or missing on Washington. Captain of the Indiana was relieved of command.
The USS Abercrombie collided with an escort carrier during a refueling UNREP. It is mentioned in Little Ship Big War by Stafford (he also wrote 'The Big E').
I was a sailor on USS Sellers (Adams class DDG) back in the late 80's. We did many UNREPs with carriers. Spooky stuff. I was one of the guys heaving on lines to manage tension on the fuel rig. The Sellers didn't have a lot of freeboard, and the churn between the ships was amazing. (We weren't doing anything near 25 kts) One of my memories involves lines of signalmen on both ships chatting with each other using semaphore. I would look up from my death grip on that big ole rope with giant waves churning by a few feet from me and see grinning signalmen on the flying bridge waving their hands madly at their counterparts on the carrier. It seemed a bit surreal. Always kinda wanted to be one of them. Later, I ended up striking ICman since I had a lot of electrical training already.
I was stationed on the USS Sacramento AOE 1 we were a oiler ammunition ship. I was a phone talker on the Sacramento. We were a floating petrol station and we carried 9.9 million gallons of fuel combined with 2.2 million gallons of JP5 plus tons of bombs and ammunition. 796 feet long and first of it's class. Scary times refueling ships in turbulent seas. 55 thousand tons fully loaded. I loved that ship. It was challenging refueling ships at night.
Haven't been on a fletcher, but I was on a Gearing. It looked weird, since the super firing turret was removed, but the platform it was on was still in place.
I have a question for the Team. I am currently listening to Tom Clancy's Red Storm Rising, in audio book form. Iowa and New Jersey get a reference about 3hr 50 mins from the end (not sure what page in the book, sorry). I wondered if there are any other mentions of New Jersey in fiction? Apologies if this has already been covered.
Ryan, love your videos. i am a former Navy BT and a ship nut. It seems to me that many of the WWII ships were disposed of between 1958-1961. I know the Navy was enamored with missles and uclear power and heavily in transition, but was their anything else that doomed so many fine ships to the scrappers?
My ship (USS Barbey) was doing unrep in mid 1990 with the USS White Plains, and dolphins were playing in the mountain of water waves created by our close proximity. One such dolphin made a great leap through the 'stationary' wave (some 20 feet of standing water), but misjudged the angle. I saw this dolphin gracefully leap into the air and then go head-first into the hull of the White Plains. The face-plant rendered the dolphin unconscious for a spell, and just kinda sank into the waves with a case of the jitters. Those of us topside laughed our $$$#% off.
If mail was all that was being passed (doubtful) it was on a "light line" which is a misnomer. I NEVER hauled on a light line that wasn't as heavy as could be that I can recall. I would much rather pull refueling lines to take on JP4, given a choice. There was some mail I'm sure, but the other stuff lost was likely more important overall.
Hey Ryan you should do a tour of the areas off limits to normal visitors like below the water line and make your way down to the keel so we can see what happens down there
We've got a lot of video from off the tour route spaces, check out the rest of our channel. For starters, here's one time when we went down to the keel: ua-cam.com/video/R0ci4I-LvLY/v-deo.html
The different in after-action reports is pretty funny New Jersey: "We got some stanchions and stuff scraped away, they lost an anchor. Nobody died, everything's fine." Calohan: "Sailing a destroyer alongside a battleship at 25 knots is F#*&%§ DICEY, and we recommend *not* doing it!"
Isn't this a similar location where Missouri has a dent from a kamikaze bouncing off the side of the ship? Has anyone checked Iowa or Wisconsin for dents?
If "Battleship" means a big ship with big guns and lots of armor, then yes. If "Battleship" means a big ship with tons of offensive striking power that's roughly equally good at defending herself against similar attacks, then no - It'd actually be a pretty good ship - It just wouldn't be as good as an aircraft carrier, or as the same amount of striking power spread out over multiple smaller ships that can be in more places at once and can't all be disabled simultaneously by anything short of a large nuclear warhead.
@@sambrown6426 , So underneath the southern end of the bridge there's a parking lot. So my friend was towing her boat and ended up leaving the sun shade up just a little bit to high and sure enough she hit the bridge with a boat on land. Lol... This gal has had some of the craziest things happen to her like going over a 150 ft cliff in a car and surviving to her luck with cooking campfire food as you could be trying so hard to make yourself the perfect pudgy pie and burning it black yet you can forget all about hers just to find it cooked perfectly every time. For the unfortunate luck she's had she also has some incredible luck.
She doesn't *have to* travel that fast and the conclusion after this is that they shouldn't travel that fast. These ships never really stop so a complete stop isn't going to happen and going really slowly isn't practical when you've got places to be, this process can take hours, but slower than 28kn is definitely advised.
Generally speaking, tankers didn't really go with the fleet. Only the fast fleet tankers could keep up with them. Because of the American belief in the range of battleships and carriers, they didn't need to. Refuel everything. Battleships and carriers could transfer fuel to destroyers as they need it. As far as the complexity of the transfer, it's not really that hard. Not as hard as doing a transfer with vehicles. The battleship would remain on course with a set speed. The destroyer being narrower and lower would have an easier time to set up a position. Line would be tossed over or shot over. I think it would actually be easier for a Fletcher to be along side an Iowa verses trying to refuel from a Pennsylvania or even a South Dakota. Speeds are very similar between a Fletcher and an Iowa meaning both will be able to stay in one selection speed. In the case of Pennsylvania, they could be at flank and the destroyer is somewhere between half and 3 quarters. Same with the South Dakota. There's a lot more people coordinating getting two ships together to fuel or transfer supplies. Two cars would require the same thing unless one has an American car and the other has a British car. One person remain straight at a set speed. Another would coordinate with the second car to get by the driver. The one driver just holds out his hand, keeps straight, and maintains speed. The other car maneuvers to where it could be passed over. Same with fueling a car driving down the road. If I remember correctly, a wing walker actually took fuel over from one plane to another for the first case of inflight refueling. Even today, it's difficult. You're taking a jet fighter made to go faster than sound and getting close to an aircraft that is bigger and slower. The boom actually supports the aircraft as several aircraft have used it to be towed home due to damage. Another bad one would be the space station docking. Ships and cars just get dents and trade paint if a mistake is made. In fact the Birmingham pulled next to Princeton because destroyers couldn't get close enough without taking damage. Those two ships would bump each other without any real damage. Aircraft and space station needs near perfect manufacturing (maneuvering) at higher speeds or both objects involved come down and survival is highly unlikely.
@@michaelpiatkowskijr1045 I believe you meant maneuvering when talking about spacecraft or space station refueling. One correction though - A space station likely would stay up after a bump with a resupply vehicle - although it could suffer damage to solar panels, antennas, and or radiators. A more serious bump could result in a compartment losing it's atmosphere and having to be isolated from the rest. I believe Mir had instances of both situations towards the end of it's career.
@@KnightRanger38 could be. The space station could be built more stout than a space craft that has to fly. The main point is the speed they're going. It doesn't take long for something to go really wrong. Don't blame me for my English. It's a second language. It just happens to be the only one I know. Spelling has not been my strongest talent. Phone autocorrect? My phone made the suggestion. Don't forget the Columbia was damaged by space junk.
I did recall hearing that the aircraft carrier Abraham Lincoln had to deal with the Sacramento loosing steering capabilities and they did collide with damage to both ships
The battle of Jutland in WWI was only real time big gun battleships ever slugged it out. Even early in WWII. When Bismarck was disabled by measly biplanes shows just how weak and fragile these ships were.
It's not that dangerous. Navy ships routinely hook up to take on supplies. I was on a Guided Missile Cruiser. We did it at least once a week as I recall. Never had an incident. Never saw any damage on any ships from it.
Ryan is only partly correct,, he fails to mention Bernoulli's principle.. This is where 2 ships running parallel at close proximity get sucked into each other as the water between them speeds up.
It’s obviously why these ships never really took any damage. They were for the most part glorified artillery. They almost never used their main guns against other ships. They were basically a waste of resources and obsolete at the start of WWII.
One fleet carrier suffered a similar impact. It sent the Destroyer the following message by blinker: "You touch me there again and I will scream"
Lmfao
Do you happen to have a source or a name for which CV?
Just a seamans tale. No one can ever name anything.
The big question - was the mail lost? That's a pretty big thing for the sailors.
We dropped a mailbag into the sea during an UNREP once. For months afterwards, every time COMDESRON 10 wanted to know if we'd answered some request for an inventory of left-handed screwdrivers, we'd just innocently claim the report must of been in that mailbag.
"Coming along an Iowa-class battleship was an incredibly dangerous thing."
And that was for the FRIENDLIES!
My Battleship New Jersey Nuclear Tomahawk launch keys were delivered today.
Jealous! Let us know how you like them!
Ryan should get the Lock Picking Lawyer to see if he can pick the nuclear launch lock.
Got mine a bit ago - very cool! Just like the real ones but bigger
We don't need to pick that launch lock, we have the keys, we wouldn't risk damaging an artifact for no reason.
Your video's always seem to be the perfect length to tell the story being presented and not too much rambling on. Kudo's for doing a great job!!
I was a helmsman on Fletcher and Sumner class destroyers in the 1960s. A normal unrep speed was 12 knots. Destroyers usually refuled every 3 days. I never was alongside a BB, but many carriers, AOs, AFs, AEs, AOEs, DDs, and a CA. AOE 1 & 2 had BB Kentucky's engines and did 26 knots. The wake of the other ship tends to push away the destroyers bow away so you normally have about 12° rudder into the other ship. Usually you steer a compass course to 1/2 degree. Sometimes in really bad weather the captain will have a good helmsman steer by the marker line. A line run in front of the bridge with tags marked in feet about every 10' showing the distance between the two ships. We did emergency break away drills all the time.
During gunfire support off Vietnam, when replenishing 5" ammo, in heavy weather have seen pallets of 5" shells go under water when the ship rolled. And then rolling the other way the wire pulled tight, the pallet shot out of the water, and most of the shells were flung over the ship.
Was heavy seas just that common, that you had to do resupply during a storm? They couldn't wait for calmer waters to transfer the live explosives?😅 I know just enough about sailing that I know you don't want to lose power in those conditions, so I could see the need to refuel in those conditions.
@@acester86 Part of the answer is we were on the gun line. They needed us there. If there were attacks, we could fire off lots of ammo. Each gun had 350 rounds of all types, HE star, smoke, WP. At 10-15 rounds per minute you could go thru all the HE fast. 5" ammo was also part of our ballast as was fuel. If the weather got worse we'd need the ballast and if we couldn't refuel from a ship, we'd have to go to Subic Bay in the Philippines to get fuel. 800+ miles. The WWII built destroyers were top heavy at about 3,000 tons. Today's destroyers weigh in at above 8,000 w/o all the guns we had. During WWII, in a typhoon 3 destroyers capsized. Most admirals like to keep their destroyers as full as possible.
In Korea we had 4 BBs, many cruisers in addition to destroyers for gunfire. In Vietnam 1 BB for a few months and the occasional cruiser. So the DDs had to do it all. It takes many more 5" shells to do the work of a cruiser and the 5" may not do the job.
@oceanmariner thank you for the info.
It's called the Bournoulli effect, and it has to do with the decrease in water pressure against the hulls of moving vessels. This decrease in pressure causes the hulls to move towards each other.
Thank you for the correction. I was a pretty good shiphandler, but a lousy scientist.
Same thing happens when a ship moves at speed near the edge of a canal or river. Known as "bank effect," it may be what caused the Ever Given to get stuck in the Suez Canal in 2021.
A similar event occurred between Titanic and New York as she left Ocean Dock at the start of her voyage.
A friend of mine served on Battleship New Jersey, and he was in his retirement part of the restoration team for the Museum. And thanks to talking with the people at the museum I was able to get back in contact after losing contact just before Covid and my friend is alive but fully back to retirement now.
I did a reserve training cruise on Colahan then home ported in Long Beach. I also had reserve training on Shields, another Fletcher class DD in the reserve fleet. Her home port was San Diego. My first experience with underway replenishment was a training exercise with the then new Sacramento. My job was to keep a visual record of all course and speed adjustments ordered by the OOD. I was on USS Stone County (LST-1141). I was also on Stone County when we were deployed to Viet Nam. On our return we were assigned the duty of refueling several minesweepers. As the supplying (and larger) ship our responsibility was to maintain a steady course and speed while the minesweepers needed to make adjustments to keep the correct position off our starboard side. Obviously we were not anywhere close to 20 knots. We had a top speed of 12.5 knots, and minesweepers had a top speed of 15 knots. I believe that were moving at less then 10 knots. Still under way replenishment is a challenging task and was developed by the U. S. Navy prior to WW II.
Thank you for your service. My dad was in Nam in 70-71 in the Army, with AHC-240's white flight. He told me a story about landing a Huey in a minefield once.
This is why the Navy, and everything that has to do with it, is literally The Business! These incidents just emphasize how ridiculously difficult everything they do can be. And they’re supposed to do it all the time.
I grew up visiting Cassin Young on a regular basis, and still swing by occasionally. As a kid, I was one of the first people allowed below decks when they had restored some spaces, and I still remember how happy that made me.
My UNREP station was aft steering, glad we never had a problem! I couldn't keep the ship on course (no more than 3' total variance) when we were in the Persin Gulf, and that is flat calm! Granted I didn't get much practice.
I wish I could find where I read this: but I believe the Iowas were designed so that, in theory, you could run one completely outta gas, outta shells, and outta food, and, if you had three fueling ships and two supply ships ready to go, you could stop tie off both supply ships on one side, and all three fuel ships on the other and completely refuel, rearm the main magazines, much of the secondaries, plus an emergency rep on food and dry stores all in 16 hours or less anywhere on the ocean. Logistics won the war in both theaters and its amazing how complex and dangerous these daily operations were
I believe the Navy's expectation was, if an Iowa came into port undamaged but completely empty at 6am, it could be fully fueled, armed, resupplied, underway, with new crew aboard by midnight - without ever having to stop making steam
I find it awesome yall are STILL finding out new information about this ship, that was basically unknown.
This gotta be one of those giddy moments for those interested in the history of the ship
Been to the greek Fletcher class. It is actually being manned by active marines and me knowing about stuff got them pretty excited. Lovely chaps 😊
The invention of self-tensioning rigs post-war made UNREP much safer by allowing ships to steam much further apart while alongside. Even so, it’s one of the most dangerous evolutions the surface navy does.
The approach is very tricky. As the approaching ship’s bow comes even with the replenishment ship’s stern, the prop wash and hydrodynamics push the bow out, so the conning officer has to steer slightly inward to maintain the right distance. Then, as the bow moves further forward, the Bernoulli effect between the hulls pull the bow in while simultaneously the stern is now being pushed out by the aforementioned forces, so the conning officer must steer slightly outward. Once in position alongside, he (or she) needs to pay closer attention to the distance between the ships, as the closer they get, the stronger the Bernoulli effect pulling them together.
Today, ships generally UNREP at 15 knots-the very idea of doing it at 25 knots scares the bleep out of me! (LT, SWO, 81-85)
cant forget emergency break away lol
@@williamescolantejr5871 : Indeed! Although for the conning officer, that was the fun part. I admit I really liked my ship's breakaway song: CCR's "Up Around the Bend". Hmm... Question for BB-62 vets... What was NJ's breakaway song at different eras?
@billpaine6241 wish I could remember it guess 1 too many beers ago lol I served Harry w hill dd 986 85 to 88
@@williamescolantejr5871 : I hear ya, shipmate. I did a brief stint on Spruance before reporting to SWOS, then did my division officer tour on Moinester (FF-1097) as A&E and then Gunnery. Those Spru-cans had some freakin' get up and go when you punched it for the breakaway--the Knox frigates took their time ambling up to flank speed.
@billpaine6241 had a friend on the Roark.went to hs with a younger sister of his.He was an OS 6 then days or we called them scope dopes
Unrepping (underway replenishment) is thankfully a procedure that doesn't need to be undertaken often in the modern Navy. It's sooo inherently dangerous. Especially if the fleet is driving for best speed. The slower vessel has to make full steam and try to hold a steam surplus so that it can make those rapid thrust inputs you need to mirror course and speed. And the faster one has to hold revolutions for whatever speed the slower vessel can make. But NJ's hull is designed for top speed. You slow her down from 30 to 25 kts and she is way less efficient and way more choppy and stubborn. When you're sailing full steam, you've got places to be. Which means you've got to hold course. In peacetime, when unrepping, you will not only slow way down, but you'll make course so you're are tacking into the wind. You don't want either vessel to be fully leeward of the either - especially if there are significant winds or a huge displacement difference between vessels. The smaller vessel should tie off stern to stern and bow to midship - in that order. And in reverse order when untying (similar to putting jumper cables on/off). The larger vessel will hold rudder amidship and the smaller vessel will use slight rudder adjustments to hold the correct slack and angles in the pacing lines which will be decorated with flags so they are easy for the officer of the deck to identify. And after you shoot your pacing lines, and telephone lines, and the clotheslines (the smaller guage guidewires you use to winch in the craning lines) you just run your crane lines from the mast of the unloading vessel to the deck or holds of the on-taking vessel. Then you just winch the cargo up the mast, put it on the crane line, and let gravity do the work.
And, to be clear, the destroyer can't just cruise up alongside NJ - way too dangerous to try to approach her from behind at an overtaking speed and then try to come in over the tailwake. You have to overtake NJ and find that perfect spot to slide over her bowwake. And then you have to stay in that little pocket so you don't start pitching and rolling like a typhoon
And some might guess this would be extremely dangerous at night. Correct. But only because it's always dangerous. Surprisingly - night is the best time to unrep. The seas are generally calmer, the winds lower, the temperature more stable & more comfortable. And - when the destroyer gets in position - let's say she goes starboard to port - she can turn on every searchlight on her starboard side and as long as you don't point your lights too far fore, aft, or upwards - the sheer hulk of NJ will hide all that light. The ships on the outsides of the battle group will make sure you don't bathe NJ in enough light as to silhouette her at any distance - but you have plenty of light to operate at night
The big danger with night unrep at speed - if you do go overboard - you're a dead man. It's nothing but whitewater between the boats and you're pounding along at 20+ kts - even if someone sees you go over and gets a ring or a raft out - by the time you come out of the propwash - you'll be in absolute darkness and that raft or ring won't be within 300 yards of you - prolly not 500 - you won't be able to anything further than 30 feet on the rolling ocean. They'll never find you. Even if they run search patterns all morning - it's so impossible to see someone bobbing in the ocean
A good description of all the variables causing the collision.
Also remember that if both ships rang down to 20kts at the same time (or even STOP,) the NJ is going to take longer to slow down due to inertia. Sure, her block co-efficient is greater, so she will have more drag, but it is much less of a difference than the inertial difference.
My dad had been the Special Sea Detail helmsman on his DD, and when I was touring MISSOURI in 2001(ish) I met an old timer who had been the shot line sailor on an oiler and he remembered fueling my dad's ship!
collisions during unrep happened more often than you might think. my dad was on DE-698 (USS Raby) and they collided with their supply ship while getting 5" shells and powder.
he said it was a pretty tense few moments. he was a boiler tech and had no hand in the operations but was off-watch, watching...
they lost an anchor, all of the oxy-acetylene tanks and about half their depth charges when they came up a swell, under the flight deck of the USS Mindoro (CVE-120) in the north atlantic during an convoy escort duty.
i JUST VISITED USS Kidd in Baton Rouge. it was a good tour but theyre looking to dry-dock sometime soon as well...
1:00 Ships traveling in a narrow channel will actually create suction along their sides, enough that if a ship drifts to close to one side (especially if the side is a vertical wall not a gently sloping shoreline) it can suck the ship right into the wall. Two ships side by side like they are when refueling create the same effect, and fun fact its the same effect that creates lift on plane wings. The water is being shoved out of the way but in areas where it is confined and has nowhere to go it will accelerate along the side of the ship to try to fill in the low pressure zone at the back of the ship. When a fluid increases in velocity it decreases its pressure. Same as the Venturi effect.
That would suck. We unrepped on our aircraft carriers in fairly heavy seas. Have some photos. Really wild how we never banged together.
I have some pics of Unrep when i served on
USS JFK 1980 to 82 in some heavy seas. Good times!
Ships have to be moving fast to pull off a VERTREP maneuver. The speed is supposedly needed to keep the wires up. In 1978 on board the US Iwo Jima we were trying to perform a transfer to the USS Sherman Forrest humping a long at 20kts (the top speed for the Iwo was 21 or 22kts) when the Destroyer lost a boiler and their speed dropped to ~10kts. We hung out for about an hour waiting for their engineers to relit their boiler but eventually our CO decided we'd waited long enough and we returned to port at Gitmo.
25 knots is moving right along underway!
FF-1051 made the video… my home in the early 80s🙂
The first UNREP sequence was from the 1980s. The ship being refueled is the Adams Class destroyer USS Towers (DDG-9)
also what nots clearly explained is that when doing an UNREP is that the sea state or waves between ships can an will cause 1 or both ships to come close then go away from each other.I presume they did have a messenger line someplace using the markers to identify feet between ships.Did my share of it in 80s on a spurance class
How can you tell?
@@TheSteelArmadillo The ship in question has 1 5"/54 forward, one superfiring aft and one Mk 11 twin missile launcher aft. The hull number 9 is clearly visibly.
@@johnshepherd9676 I completed missed the 9 🤦♂️
That'll buff right out. . .
Happy Monday everyone!
I live about 15 miles from USS Kidd, and work only 10 blocks from her. I visit the ship several times a year.
I wonder how many collisions happened during WW2. My father-in-law (who was a plank owner) was on board the USS Indiana when it collided with the USS Washington. 4 killed on Indiana, 6 killed or missing on Washington. Captain of the Indiana was relieved of command.
Re Fletcher Class, I have been on and toured the Cassin Young.... would love to see the Kidd...
Hallsey again. He did more damage, ships and men lost than *many* IJN/KM admirals did to the USN. Interesting to observe.
Sometimes a Navy's command does far more damage than the enemy (see: Imperial Japan)
The USS Abercrombie collided with an escort carrier during a refueling UNREP. It is mentioned in Little Ship Big War by Stafford (he also wrote 'The Big E').
I have Little Ship Big War in my collection.
I was a sailor on USS Sellers (Adams class DDG) back in the late 80's. We did many UNREPs with carriers. Spooky stuff. I was one of the guys heaving on lines to manage tension on the fuel rig. The Sellers didn't have a lot of freeboard, and the churn between the ships was amazing. (We weren't doing anything near 25 kts) One of my memories involves lines of signalmen on both ships chatting with each other using semaphore. I would look up from my death grip on that big ole rope with giant waves churning by a few feet from me and see grinning signalmen on the flying bridge waving their hands madly at their counterparts on the carrier. It seemed a bit surreal. Always kinda wanted to be one of them. Later, I ended up striking ICman since I had a lot of electrical training already.
Very interesting
I was stationed on the USS Sacramento AOE 1 we were a oiler ammunition ship. I was a phone talker on the Sacramento. We were a floating petrol station and we carried 9.9 million gallons of fuel combined with 2.2 million gallons of JP5 plus tons of bombs and ammunition. 796 feet long and first of it's class. Scary times refueling ships in turbulent seas. 55 thousand tons fully loaded. I loved that ship. It was challenging refueling ships at night.
I served on dd508 the USS Coney in the 1960s and helped decommission her July of 1969
Haven't been on a fletcher, but I was on a Gearing. It looked weird, since the super firing turret was removed, but the platform it was on was still in place.
Interesting , Thank You
25 knots is 10 knots faster than our regular cruising speed on the USS Dixie AD-14. Heck, it's 7 knots faster than our top speed at FLANK.
Yes!
I saw Cassin Young when I was a kid!
I have a question for the Team. I am currently listening to Tom Clancy's Red Storm Rising, in audio book form. Iowa and New Jersey get a reference about 3hr 50 mins from the end (not sure what page in the book, sorry). I wondered if there are any other mentions of New Jersey in fiction? Apologies if this has already been covered.
The Hunt for Red October also mentions us. Kindergarten Cop has us sail past at one point, seems to be coincidental.
Only museum ship I have visited so far is USS Nautilus. I do plan to visit Texas and Lexington soon and plan to visit Torsk.
The USS Thach FFG-43 did high line and I think we did refueling on West Pac 86 with the NJ. I had pictures of it somewhere.
Ryan, love your videos. i am a former Navy BT and a ship nut. It seems to me that many of the WWII ships were disposed of between 1958-1961. I know the Navy was enamored with missles and uclear power and heavily in transition, but was their anything else that doomed so many fine ships to the scrappers?
The American Navy perfected underway replenishment and still amazes me how it is still done even with helicopters doing a lot of it now.
Missed BBs...sent to CLG-7 C6F. Good stuff
My ship (USS Barbey) was doing unrep in mid 1990 with the USS White Plains, and dolphins were playing in the mountain of water waves created by our close proximity. One such dolphin made a great leap through the 'stationary' wave (some 20 feet of standing water), but misjudged the angle. I saw this dolphin gracefully leap into the air and then go head-first into the hull of the White Plains. The face-plant rendered the dolphin unconscious for a spell, and just kinda sank into the waves with a case of the jitters. Those of us topside laughed our $$$#% off.
Poor thing
Apparently USS Colahan had a tomcat painted on her stack during WWII that was later adopted by destroyer squadron 53 as the tomcat squadron
I’m surprised that they were moving that fast. In the late 1980’s, we did UNREP at 15 knots.
If mail was all that was being passed (doubtful) it was on a "light line" which is a misnomer. I NEVER hauled on a light line that wasn't as heavy as could be that I can recall. I would much rather pull refueling lines to take on JP4, given a choice. There was some mail I'm sure, but the other stuff lost was likely more important overall.
Not as a Fletcher class museum ship. I was on the USS Twining DD-540 in the '60s when she was a Reserve Training ship out of NS Treasure Island, CA.
20 years in the fleet sometimes I really miss it. Hard to believe it's been 32 years ago, I am old lol I was in Vietnam along with this ship.
I visited on The USS The Sullivans DD- 537 .
I've seen this ship from the decks of of The USS VULCAN WHAT A BEAUTIFUL THING .
Are there any pics of the damage?
Hey Ryan you should do a tour of the areas off limits to normal visitors like below the water line and make your way down to the keel so we can see what happens down there
We've got a lot of video from off the tour route spaces, check out the rest of our channel. For starters, here's one time when we went down to the keel: ua-cam.com/video/R0ci4I-LvLY/v-deo.html
Let's not forget the time a destroyer became Halsey's uninvited breakfast guest during Typhoon Cobra after a botched UNREP attempt.
Would really suck being transferred from ship to ship in a bosun's chair when something like that happens.
The different in after-action reports is pretty funny
New Jersey: "We got some stanchions and stuff scraped away, they lost an anchor. Nobody died, everything's fine."
Calohan: "Sailing a destroyer alongside a battleship at 25 knots is F#*&%§ DICEY, and we recommend *not* doing it!"
I’ve been on this one
I've been on the USS The Sullivans.
Isn't this a similar location where Missouri has a dent from a kamikaze bouncing off the side of the ship? Has anyone checked Iowa or Wisconsin for dents?
I saw that dent on the Missouri a few years back. I remember the picture of that plane a microsecond before it hit the ship.
I still remember when I qualified as a refueling at sea Helmsman
25 knots! That's crazy
Ryan I would love to help with the ships metal repairs!
Yes I have been aboard the Kid when I was working for FEMA
I wonder if any personnel suffered any consequences, being blamed for the collision?
This is a notoriously difficult maneuver, it happens.
Unless the casualty could be traced back to improper PMS I doubt it.@@BattleshipNewJersey
@@BattleshipNewJersey I just know how touchy the Navy gets about things like groundings.
Cpt. of the destroyer
@@luvr381yeah, but it is amazing how much goes away when you're in the middle of the greatest naval war in history.
It's not like a couple of sailors can stick their foot over the side to push the other boat away!😮😂😊
You should do a video on if the U.S. built a brand new battleship with modern technology if it would or would not be obsolete
I have seen a video about that idea, "what a modern battleship would be like". I don't know if it was this channel or not, but look up arsenal ships.
If "Battleship" means a big ship with big guns and lots of armor, then yes.
If "Battleship" means a big ship with tons of offensive striking power that's roughly equally good at defending herself against similar attacks, then no - It'd actually be a pretty good ship - It just wouldn't be as good as an aircraft carrier, or as the same amount of striking power spread out over multiple smaller ships that can be in more places at once and can't all be disabled simultaneously by anything short of a large nuclear warhead.
@@ryanhodin5014 when I say battleship I mean big guns, lots of armor and the ability to do ship on ship engagements
i have a friend that's only one of two people to crash into the Makinac Bridge, not crash on the bridge but into, the other one was a plane.
Now that's a story I need to hear.
@@sambrown6426 , So underneath the southern end of the bridge there's a parking lot. So my friend was towing her boat and ended up leaving the sun shade up just a little bit to high and sure enough she hit the bridge with a boat on land. Lol... This gal has had some of the craziest things happen to her like going over a 150 ft cliff in a car and surviving to her luck with cooking campfire food as you could be trying so hard to make yourself the perfect pudgy pie and burning it black yet you can forget all about hers just to find it cooked perfectly every time. For the unfortunate luck she's had she also has some incredible luck.
@@weirdscience1 Huh.
Does the New Jersey still have her propellers?
I got a big question why does the ship have to travel at 28 knots to receive fuel or mail? Couldn't they come to a dead stop or at least slow down?
She doesn't *have to* travel that fast and the conclusion after this is that they shouldn't travel that fast. These ships never really stop so a complete stop isn't going to happen and going really slowly isn't practical when you've got places to be, this process can take hours, but slower than 28kn is definitely advised.
I had no ideas the battleships were used as underway replenishment.
Wow! Didn’t know NJ friendly killed a destroyer CO with her port anchor. 😱
Me neither. That’s rough for all concerned. Really rough.
I wonder who's fault the collision was, if it was his, instant karma, if not, that really sucks...
True that.
Was mail delivery successful?
Probley got very wet!
So New Jersey spent most of her time as a gas station?
Generally speaking, tankers didn't really go with the fleet. Only the fast fleet tankers could keep up with them. Because of the American belief in the range of battleships and carriers, they didn't need to. Refuel everything. Battleships and carriers could transfer fuel to destroyers as they need it.
As far as the complexity of the transfer, it's not really that hard. Not as hard as doing a transfer with vehicles. The battleship would remain on course with a set speed. The destroyer being narrower and lower would have an easier time to set up a position. Line would be tossed over or shot over.
I think it would actually be easier for a Fletcher to be along side an Iowa verses trying to refuel from a Pennsylvania or even a South Dakota. Speeds are very similar between a Fletcher and an Iowa meaning both will be able to stay in one selection speed. In the case of Pennsylvania, they could be at flank and the destroyer is somewhere between half and 3 quarters. Same with the South Dakota.
There's a lot more people coordinating getting two ships together to fuel or transfer supplies. Two cars would require the same thing unless one has an American car and the other has a British car. One person remain straight at a set speed. Another would coordinate with the second car to get by the driver. The one driver just holds out his hand, keeps straight, and maintains speed. The other car maneuvers to where it could be passed over. Same with fueling a car driving down the road.
If I remember correctly, a wing walker actually took fuel over from one plane to another for the first case of inflight refueling. Even today, it's difficult. You're taking a jet fighter made to go faster than sound and getting close to an aircraft that is bigger and slower. The boom actually supports the aircraft as several aircraft have used it to be towed home due to damage.
Another bad one would be the space station docking. Ships and cars just get dents and trade paint if a mistake is made. In fact the Birmingham pulled next to Princeton because destroyers couldn't get close enough without taking damage. Those two ships would bump each other without any real damage. Aircraft and space station needs near perfect manufacturing (maneuvering) at higher speeds or both objects involved come down and survival is highly unlikely.
@@michaelpiatkowskijr1045 I believe you meant maneuvering when talking about spacecraft or space station refueling.
One correction though - A space station likely would stay up after a bump with a resupply vehicle - although it could suffer damage to solar panels, antennas, and or radiators. A more serious bump could result in a compartment losing it's atmosphere and having to be isolated from the rest. I believe Mir had instances of both situations towards the end of it's career.
@@KnightRanger38 could be. The space station could be built more stout than a space craft that has to fly. The main point is the speed they're going. It doesn't take long for something to go really wrong.
Don't blame me for my English. It's a second language. It just happens to be the only one I know. Spelling has not been my strongest talent. Phone autocorrect? My phone made the suggestion.
Don't forget the Columbia was damaged by space junk.
👍👍
I did recall hearing that the aircraft carrier Abraham Lincoln had to deal with the Sacramento loosing steering capabilities and they did collide with damage to both ships
Carbiner!
If you wanted to see the sinking of tug boat delivering the mail to a Trident Submarine place "There goes the mail" in your UA-cam search.
I handed a beer to a coworker while driving at 25 miles an hour and it worked out. Not the smartest thing I have ever done but I can say I did it!
25 knots for a mail transfer ?? Never saw any unrep..mailrep, etc at that speed unless it was some sort of emergency breakaway drill.
I suspect it could have been materials critical to the mission.
Talk to the guys that were there, they'd love to tell ya!
Not just imagining cars at 28mph . A soda (destroyer) can beside a bank vault, BB62. Attention helmsman!
I wonder what happened.🤔
Loss of hydraulics probley.
The battle of Jutland in WWI was only real time big gun battleships ever slugged it out. Even early in WWII. When Bismarck was disabled by measly biplanes shows just how weak and fragile these ships were.
Were you ever in the Navy?????????????
It's not that dangerous. Navy ships routinely hook up to take on supplies. I was on a Guided Missile Cruiser. We did it at least once a week as I recall. Never had an incident. Never saw any damage on any ships from it.
3rd, 27 November 2023
Alright, I’m ignorant. Will someone please define “unrep”?
Underway Replenishment. At sea refueling or taking on of ammunition, food, or other supplies.
Can we get the man a jacket instead of a one size too small sweater?
Imagine doing it with coal as it was attempted in the late 1800s/early1900s by the RN and the USN.
Ryan is only partly correct,, he fails to mention Bernoulli's principle.. This is where 2 ships running parallel at close proximity get sucked into each other as the water between them speeds up.
No, neither of the 2 ships was 'sailing'.
FFS, drop the ridiculous use of that word.
Its still the commonly used word despite not literally sailing.
It’s obviously why these ships never really took any damage. They were for the most part glorified artillery. They almost never used their main guns against other ships. They were basically a waste of resources and obsolete at the start of WWII.
Too long. Needs editing.
The smoking lamp was lit in designated areas 😅
Its called vessel squat....al ships at speed suffer from it
😮You talked a lot about an accident, but where's the damage? Where is the only world war II damage left?😢
He showed the dented area. Did you watch the video?
When?
Start here 03:00.
They buffed it out.