Inside the Conning Tower of Submarine Becuna
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- Опубліковано 6 сер 2024
- In this episode, we're on board the Submarine Becuna looking at her conning tower.
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"If it choose to detonate" channeling a little bit of drach there.
Don't say that he might hear you then Ryan will have a new student.
I’ve watched his Mk 14 video three times already. Gonna watch it again now.
I literally laughed for 5 minutes when he said this
I had an experience once on the USS Lionfish at Battleship Cove. About 20 years ago, me and my Boy Scout troop did an overnight there. It was after supper and me and my Father went out to explore the sub. We were in the control room when suddenly, boom, the lights just went out! They were closing the exhibit and didn't bother to actually announce or check to see if anyone was still inside. So anyway, pitch black, the only lights we had on us were the glow lights on our watches (Pre smartphone days). That dim light was just enough for us to see and be able to run out through the two compartments to get to the stairs in the torpedo room. We got to the top just in time to not spend our overnight on the sub! This was not long after the Kursk was lost and I remember thinking about what it was like for the sailors that were trapped in that disaster.
Oh my gosh what a good story lol! Imagine if you didn't have any phones! You might of had to tap on the hull!
I must have at least 5 overnights with my two sons on the USS Massachusetts
"A Mark-14 torpedo has a really big warhead...if it chooses to detonate"
🤣
@Chandler White dauntless DBds didn't use mk. 14s
Savage!
@Chandler White And he's telling you that the Mk14 wasn't an air-dropped torpedo. Likewise, by Midway the TBD Devastator was *already* on its way out, being replaced by the TBF/TBM Avenger. Because the Navy already knew that the Devastator was obsolescent. Which is why the Avenger was already starting to be deployed operationally.
Improvements to the Mk.13 torpedo brought its reliability to nearly 100% in combat, and lots of them got used to sink Japanese shipping. Notably, they did a real number on Yamato, Musashi, and a bunch of aircraft carriers in 1944-45.
@Chandler White because the Avengers weren't available in quantity. And the TBD had done pretty well at Coral Sea a month before, with several credited sinkings.
I wasn't aware of the Mk13 using the magnetic influence exploder, though yes it did suffer the mechanical problems similar to the Mk14.
Point is, an old torpedo bomber you have on the deck with a trained crew and a weapon that might not work but still has recent success to its credit is better than nothing.
Midway was where the idea of dive bomber superiority was basically born. Even though a ship sinks from getting too much water in the people tank, not too much airflow.
@@JohnCBobcat "Too much water in the people tank" is the greatest description I've ever heard of catastrophic flooding.
"Windows on submarines are generally considered to be a bad idea..." Still not as bad as screen doors.
Screen doors aren't that bad as long as they've been sealed with Flex Seal™. After a day on the water, the inside is completely dry 😁
And not nearly as bad as Macs.
@@consubandon Bah Dum Tss....
I spent the night on board the Submarine Silversides, which is North of where I live, Holland, MI, in Muskegon, MI. We had our Boy Scout group over night. Us leaders were allowed access to the Conning Tower after the Scouts were put to bed. What a great experience.
My dad was an officer on the Tench and the Argonaut in the 1950s -- both diesel-electric boats that had also undergone Guppy conversions very similar to Becuna. I live on the west coast and once toured the USS Pampanito in San Francisco with my dad in the 1990s. The Pampanito is still largely in her WWII configuration, but dad could still recognize and describe pretty much every inch of plumbing, electrical gear, and mechanical system on her. Yeah, subs were simpler in those days but holy smokes. By the time we made it to the forward torpedo room the other tourists on the boat were paying more attention to him than their recorded guides!
I visited the U-505 as a child in the early 1990s and the tour group was largely taken over by a veteran German submariner. It was interesting to see the ever-growing crowd of museum docents joining us. Unfortunately I was perhaps 5 years old and dont really remember what nuggets of info he shared
If you live in the Midwest, there is the USS Cod, a Gato class sub still in her original WW2 configuration located in Cleveland Ohio (near the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame). She is fresh from dry dock and open (and in superb shape).
This space is going to make the interior of a 16" gunhouse look like a ballroom.
I qualified on two Balao class boats in the early 1960's, Sea Devil and Pomfret, Was battle stations helm on Sea Devil. Thank you.
I saw the German submarine U505 in Chicago a few years back. It’s surprising how many men fit in a confined space for so long.
Man, I was really hoping you'd touch on one of the most important aspects of the TDC, and that was a revolutionary piece of equipment, for a TDC that is, in the era known as the Position Keeper. The PK was one of the most powerful tools in a US Fleet Boat arsenal. It allowed a solution to be calculated, the submarine to maneuver into position, and then effect an attack without maintaining constant input. In effect, it kept the position of the target ship constantly updated in the TDC. The accuracy of the PK on US Fleet Boats was higher than the people using them, but their effect on torpedo aiming was pronounced. What used to be a four torpedo spread quickly dropped to just two or three, sometimes one. It's ability to run a continuous solution while the submarine changed its own position was key too.
Of course, all of that was made entirely irrelevant when Dick O'Kane spread his methods for successful torpedo attacks. He realized, that no matter the range to a target, the optimum angle a target needed to be, in a perfectly square triangle, was FIXED. All you had to do was to know the torpedo speed and the target ship speed and you could ignore the range to the target. This worked extremely well for making quick, accurate snap shots against ships.
What didn't work so well, was the Mark 14... it suffered huge problems with its detonator at perfectly perpendicular impacts. An issue which was never fully resolved. Dick O'Kane's method could still be utilized where you launch the torpedoes at the determined angle, while the ship passed directly ahead (and perpendicular) of the submarine. This largely fixed the issue and thus his success.
I believe O'Kane fired at more shallow angles of attack to increase the odds of the detonator exploding the warhead. For an odd reason the detonator was orthoganal to the direction the torpedo traveled.
@@jconradh yup, as I said in the last sentence, his fix for the Mk14 was to change his firing point from the angle needed for the torpedoes to impact at zero degrees ahead to firing the torpedoes as the target crosses the dead ahead bearing (000). If I'm remembering the tables correctly this put an 8 to 14 degree impact angle sufficient to deal with the problems of the Mk14 detonator.
Yes the position keeper was amazing, especially for the time.
I toured the USS Drum in Mobile several years ago. Fortunately I have some experience climbing through attics. Because that's the closest thing I could think of as I tried to squeeze my way through the boat without denting any of her steel with my head.
It's amazing what those guys did.
Thank you for the look around the conning tower. I’ve taken several tours of the USS Pampanito in San Francisco but never saw her conning tower as it was off limits. Thank you again.
I climbed up the ladder into the Pampanito"s conning tower hatch. I got my head into the conning tower, but like you said it was off limits. One thing that struck me was just how INCREDIBLY SMALL IT IS. No movie, not even Ryan's video can even begin to adequately portray how cramped a space it is. And the walls are shaped like the inside of a barrel. A really small barrel. If I remember correctly from "The Wake of the WAHOO", Mush Morton ( the CO) had O'Kane ( his XO) run the scope while he stayed in the plot, which was right below the conning tower, where the ladder was that I climbed up. I might be wrong about where Morton stood ( it was the first WWII sub book I read as a 12-13 yr old and I am 73 now) but he had O'Kane run the scope.
There is a series on UA-cam about the gears, cams and shafts used in the analog computers. It was made by the Department of the Navy.
Mechanical computers are fascinating. I have a collection of antique adding machines and it's amazing that a purely mechanical mechanism can perform math calculations. Charles Babbage would be proud! I'm sure the torpedo computer does also have some electronics though.
Here are a couple of video ideas. #1 I have watched several of the WWII Battle videos and you mention Coast Watchers, and Ryan gives a brief overview. Perhaps you could do a specific video on them. It would be nice to hear about some of the unsung heroes of WWII. Also #2, another in the series of USS New Jersey vs X... Perhaps you can see how NJ would have done against various non-combat ship losses throughout history, for example an iceberg. Also there have been collisions between ships like the Andrea Dora, or groundings like Costa Concordia. Perhaps also things like rogue waves / heavy seas (Edmond Fitzgerald, El Faro, or USS Cyclops). I know some things like these are partially covered in other videos, but perhaps one video of NJ vs. Accident?
I liked the comment about how much damage a mark 14 torpedo can do IF it decides to detonate.
I love how the museum ship community seems to come together to help raise awareness of one another.
My dad told me to always donate around 10% of one's income to charity. I give it to museums. Keep kicking ass fellas.
It really is important to preserve and teach history. This isn't just military history, it also shows science and technology from that time period, like how the torpedo data computer was able to perform complex math calculations. Most people have no idea that early computers did exist before microchips.
Thanks for all the great content. This is one of the videos where it seems really obvious how much more you are getting into your own in front of the camera. Entertaining and informative - top level content.
Thanks for sharing your a man full of knowledge and you show us a lot of it and we appreciate it thank you very much God bless
I was an ET on the Becuna in the early 60's. Made ET 2. then to the West coast for shore duty. My 3rd diesel boat. good submarine..
Fasinating discussion, thanks ryan!
Excellent and Interesting as always. Thanks
I visited two german submarines. The first one i visited was a Type XXI in Bremerhaven and the second one was a Type VII C boat in Laboe. (Both in germany)
Just subscribed to Independence Seaport Museum. Looked like a lot of great new content to explore. Thank you Ryan.
whoa! Finally somewhere i have been! kinda. I was aboard ORP Kondor (I think, i was a kid at that time) during Gdynia (Dnzig) Sailing days. It was really fun!
As a FT on submarines I can confirm TMA solutions for contacts is a combination of math and educated guesses. Though we are really good at the educated guesses.
9:09 Wow, I had no idea that they had wire guided torpedoes back duri ng WWII! I'm learning more and more that technology was more advanced in the 1940s than I thought!
Love this channel !
I was with my son and his cub scout group some years ago we stayed overnight on the USS Alabama in Mobile Bay
We slept in the front berthing area it is huge very notable or two pipes angled so the anchor chains will slide in them. I would hate to have been asleep in that room when they let their anchors down. What an alarm clock
Awesome video!!
Thanks Greg!
I surprised him with a visit for his 60th birthday he has no idea it was a museum he was very happy he told me many stories
Thanks for the sub info for the last few videos
i love these videos! the early fleet snorkel boats are some of my favorite submarines. can you do a video on the bridge??
I have a friend who restored the computer for Pampanito in SF. He said it was such a thrill to have it solve the last equation put into it when he got it running. Is the computer on Becuna operational?
If. Was a helmsman on a sub I'd have a nice risqué Varga picture to look at. I've done the Torsk in Baltimore being from Annapolis. Great explanation Ryan and a pat on the shoulder to Greg.
Love this video. Thanks. I believe they called the surfaced postion for the commander, "the bridge", but I may be wrong. :)
Everytime I go on an USN museum warship I look for the equipment that the company I worked for built (mostly before I was born).
Great video.
WW1 submarines also had beam torpedoes tubes (like the British “E” class). The torpedoes were loaded through hatches in the top of the torpedo tubes and fired to either side of the submarine.
Ryan, your Mk.2 eyeballs-software is a great upgrade. They track the camera much better. Much appreciated, adds to your already great presentation.
Thanks for this video: Always wondered what the difference between the observation & attack scope were! Hopefully will help keeping my sub in one piece on Silent Hunter Wolves of the Pacific
This is so cool.
I did 4 patrols on a SSBN late 70's, then went to.a Diesel boat last of them. The B
Girls. I was on the Blueback SS581. She is a museum in Portland, Or.
I have been in the conning tower of the USS Silversides in Muskegon Michigan. It seems smaller than that one, but that could be because of the amount of people that were up there.
The TDC was one reason the American subs were very effective
Power and accuracy
You're wrong chum... the fleet subs were packed with advanced technology including THREE radars that were as effective as anything else aboard.
Ryan has just about the coolest job on earth.
ryan, do you realize you are the captain of the Big J. as the curator, you're currently the commanding officer, which makes you the captain. that is an admiral's flagship.
Living faaar away from Philadelphia, I have visited a German Type VII C (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_submarine_U-995) and a Type XXI that missed WW II by a narrow margin and was used in the cold war era. (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_submarine_Wilhelm_Bauer)
All boats with a similar Diesel/Electric technic, but not so much focused on long distances, in the limited waters of the baltic, north sea an north atlantic. So the older type was much smaller then the US boat. You feel really cramped in there.
The description of dead reckoning is great. It would be very accurate except for the need to also know the currents where you are. Current direction and speed are always changing.
Yep, was thinking that while Ryan was talking; but not from my own experience, from my Dad's, he was considered an expert in ship handling while he was in US Navy during the cold war.
Having accurate Navigation Charts for the areas that the subs (and ships) were operating could be hard to come by if even available. If in shallow water, subs would rely on Sounding Sonar to measure depth under the keel.
Was it a practice to be slow and a little heavy so that if something is hit you aren't going to ground hard and you can more easily get rid of that weight?
I was up in there back in 2014 on a day when they were offering a special tour up there as well as living history on the Olympia - drove down just for this! Very cool up there, not the most fun climb.
I’ve visited 4 of the WWII museum subs and Becuna is the only coming tower I ever got to climb into.
Those electro mechanical computers are a work of art!
Charles Babbage is smiling!
A good skipper was someone who could take and get the TDC to do what he needed it to do all the while targeting the enemy and actually hav in 3 or 4 backup plans.
I loved the helmsman posistion humour.
Yes! When i went to visit the becuna they were allowing guest to go to the conning tower. Im a big guy and they seemed very worried I wouldn't make in and out. i made it with out help and quickly. But these submarines aren't made for big people.
You're having too much fun!
That backup steering wheel is adorable
Cool
You do such a great job at this view stuff that you’ve got a career in media affairs was for you if you get finished with preservation work. An MBA at night school and you be a natural bet.
Hey Ryan quick questions. You have mentioned that the barrels would need to be re lined on occasion. How did the navy keep track of how many rounds went out of each barrel? Is there a mechanical counter on each one?
My late wife did not like the conning tower. She said it was to small inside. She was 4.8! The Lionfish had the steering wheel in the main deck. To the helmsman left were the wheels of the plainsman.
Nice, I served on three Cold War submarines
The bridge. The bridge is at the top of the sail, manned on the surface by the Officer of the Deck (OOD) and a lookout.
how did they account for tides, drift and other forces that would push the boat off from what was predicted?
You have to periodically verify your position, by shooting the Sun or stars, or by visual observation, if near the coast.
Also, the effects of tide, current, and wind could be factored into dead reckoning navigation, if known. Navigators would calculate set and drift estimates for their current position and adjust ship’s track accordingly.
"dead reckoning" actually is short for "deduced reckoning." and now it makes sense
Do New Jersey and Becuna have any history together? Serving in the same fleet or battle at the same time?
Becuna is, like, the best sci-fi background EVER. If I had a camera and a car...someone get on that - A scy-fy submarine story with humans transforming into their their inner animal totem and E.T.s are saving them from being crushed. The Underwater People (base in the deep drenches) pilot themselves in gigantic transluscent bionic craft. What the Navy don't want you to know.
What is the largest buy weight piece of homogeneous piece of steel on a Iowa Class Battleship. Is it the beam, gun barrels, Coning tower or armor ?? What was the company that manufactured it??
I'd like to know that as well.
You might visit the U-505 if you happen to be in Chicago.
"If it chooses to detonate" lol the mk 14 gave new meaning to damn the torpedoe's
“If it chooses to detonate”😂
awesome, I have always been fascinated by submarines possibly more than battlehsips........... SACRILIGE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! lmao but for real they are freakin fascinating I have been attempting to line up getting to do the 'in depth' tour of u505 haven't yet....... at USS Cobia they were doing electrical\mechanical restoration\maintenance to\inside the conning tower when I had visited. so no, not yet lol. USS Silversides and USS Cod are the other two closest to me well aside from USS Marlin which i was wee kid when i visited that facility
********* *possibly\equal to lol" ******** had to add that
Nitpick: Submarines are always "boat", never "ship". Unless you're actively operating one, I guess. But they're submersible torpedo boats, so "boat" it for us civvies.
Re other videos, only that bladder in the gun tub for the ROVs on NJ is "gasoline," and fancy gasoline (AvGas still has lead in it) at that. Helicopters since sometime between Korean and Vietnam wars have turboshaft engines and run on JP-5 or JP-8, both interchangeable with civilian Jet A which fills the wings of your airliner, just *fancier*, which is basically fancy diesel. The battleships used the same fuel as cargo ships, i.e. the crap not-quite-asphalt/tar left over after the gasoline and jet fuel/diesel were distilled out of the crude oil.
Wait, they must have had spaces for AvGas back in the day for the seaplanes, I guess they got repurposed for JP-5 in the refit that deleted the fixed-wing aircraft.
@@DeliveryMcGee The ship's boats may also have had gasoline engines right on through the '80s. Or I suppose they might've been marine diesels. That seems less likely, though, and they certainly wouldn't have run on jet fuel.
Were the Mk-14 torpedo's wire guided?
Having watched several ww2 submarine movies, I was under the impression that the WW2 subs had rear torpedo tubes as well! I have never seen a WW2 sub movie showing that they had two scopes! yes, yes, I know, movies are not good teachers of anything, but it does seem that they could be a bit more accurate! On the other hand, maybe they were not allowed to show too much for security reasons!
They do have rear tubes, 4 forward and 1 aft on a German Type VII. 4 forward and 2 aft on a Type IX. And an American submarine had 6 forward and 4 aft.
Check out the book “Run Silent Run Deep” and the sequel “Dust on the Sea” for an excellent description of US submarine warfare. They mention that a periscope observation should be something like 4 seconds; up, range, angle on bow, down and get course as the scope comes back down. Enter that data and repeat in about a minute. While that’s happening someone is feeding you the torpedo track and distance and making course adjustments.
Dudley “Mush” Morton and Dick O’Kane had a system where the XO would be on the scope and the CO was watching the attack form from the table.
@@johnbeauvais3159 - That's what I thought to. I have the movie, and a few more!
Key phrase: "Chooses to detonate" the Mk XIV was notorious for it's unreliable exploder which wasn't fixed until 1943 almost two year after it's introduction, then of course you have the story of USS Tullibee which is believed to have somehow torpedoed herself...
or USS Tang, who actually did get hit by a circular run.
@@everettbruckerhoff6029 Tang was a Mk 18. Of Special Note is USS Sargo which nearly suffered the same fate...
"Give me a stopwatch and a map and I'll fly the Alps in a plane with no windows."
"If the map is accurate enough..."
I don't know of any reason why you'd have to stop the motors of the sub before launching an acoustic-homing torpedo. Especially one with an initial wire-guidance stage, but even without that it should be trivial to have a timer set for the torpedo to start looking for targets on its passive sonar. But even without _that,_ the hydrophone(s) in the nose of the torpedo would 1) be pointed away from the launching boat and 2) have a very noisy torpedo motor between the hydrophone(s) and the launching boat.
Now, if you were shooting an acoustic torpedo at a target, it probably meant that you'd detected and localized said target via the sub's passive sonar. So you'd probably be pretty quiet on _that_ account. Plus you were probably submerged, and so running on batteries rather than your diesels, which is about as quiet as a submarine can be. Stopping the electric motors wouldn't even reduce the sub's own noise signature that much (unless the motors were in really bad condition, I guess).
_"... it should be trivial to have a timer ..."_
And just as trivial for that timer to malfunction. Do you want to bet your life on everything working properly, given all the times they didn't?
@@michaelsommers2356 Like I said, that's just one of the reasons why an acoustic torpedo shouldn't be a threat to its launch platform. Unless the torpedo straight-up did a circular run, which sank at least a couple of boats during WW2 (before they got the new homing torpedoes).
Speaking of which, IIRC either during or just after WW2 they started putting compasses in every torpedo to deactivate the warheads if they ever turned 180 degrees or more from the direction they launched, because of the boats that were sunk by their own torpedoes.
@@Philistine47 "Shouldn't" is not the same as "isn't".
The Cod needs to allow access (full) to the Conning Tower.
I’d hang a “landscape” photo too…..
Wire guided torpedoes ftw 🤘🤘🤘
My father in law was a radioman on the 319 coming back from patrol with decks awash as ordered with no running lights coming back to Groton they were under strict orders that early day or late night they were bringing the nautilus cross river for commissioning he said it was very dark as they almost rammed the New sub and history never would of been he served from 51-54
i own a us navy periscope and would like to ID it. the plate has MK 36 NO 80 on it. US navel gun factory. can you tell me what it was used in? Is it from a gun turret?
I've always wanted to stand on the top of the coning tower.
And have your bottoms get periscoped?
I have a hypothetical question. I've read on the museums website (and elsewhere) that New Jersey was sent to Maine during shakedown in case Tirpitz broke into the Atlantic. With each ship having escorts, but New Jersey having a mostly green crew, what would have been the outcome if they met ?
2 Videos for you: ua-cam.com/video/SkEnUzL_gRg/v-deo.html
ua-cam.com/video/83WS54ZQEBg/v-deo.html
It'd be a good fight, no doubt. Even if NJ had a mostly green crew, there were some seasoned battleship sailors aboard to train newbies. And Tirpitz, while named for a man with excellent primary and secondary beards, hadn't exactly seen a lifetime of combat. My money would be on New Jersey.
@@BattleshipNewJersey the part Ryan was talking about for navigation outside the sub is called the the Bridge.
@@dangvorbei5304 if the Mark 8 was up and running it would be no contest.
@@johnshepherd8687 Absolutely. I wouldn't lump it into the category of "tech" (in the derogative connotation associated with "untested and bound to fail"), but there's no serious argument to be made that she wouldn't have used that stick to beat Tirpitz into having a really long day. Or an incredibly short one. ☠️
Why so many bolts on the firing control cabinets.
How do they load torpedos into the sub? Through the tubes?
Heres video of that: ua-cam.com/video/pnHdMmb9X-4/v-deo.html
@@BattleshipNewJersey I mean how would they be transferred onto the sub, during a re-supply? Was there a separate hatch or hatches to get them in horizontally?
Yeah. If you watch that video, there's a clip of it, but essentially they come through a hatch in the deck
and hope that the target doesn't change speed or direction until they spot the torpedoes, but then it is too late.
That was a major advantage of electric torpedoes. They didn't leave such a visible trail of bubbles.
Love your videos, but submarines don't have a "conning tower." The structure is called a "sail" in the USN.
I think he used both terms multiple times
Akuna Matata
even at that time it was Garbage In Garbage Out. Bad data in bad data out.
can you review sovetsky soyuz? and what happen if soviet manage build sovetsky soyuz battle ship? and could new jersey win against sovetsky soyuz?
Check this out ua-cam.com/video/j1X5aJ-NEX0/v-deo.html
I am surprised that DOD authorized this video showing the highly top secret coffee cup holders!
Gunner, battlesight, tank moving right
Up
Identified
Fire
On the way
Target, cease fire
Did not know the US had acoustic torpedoes during WW 2, knew Germany had but that one was new.
The USN and RN had operational acoustic torpedoes from March 1943, the same time the KM did. Officially classified as "Mk 24 Mines" for security, they were used for ASW and were air droppable.
It's raining. Guessing that doesn't happen in submarines....
And you shouldn't roll down a window and stick your hand out to check. The other crew members don't appreciate it.
The drive shafts of the windlasses would sometimes leak and drip water when the boat was on the surface and it was raining. When submerged sea pressure would seal the shaft and it would not leak. So, it was possible to tell when it was raining outside.
Two periscopes, pairiscopes if you will.
...unless of course it's a Mk. eighteen torpedo which just might do a 180 on your can.