Iowa-Class Battleships

Narragansett · Jul 16, 2023

I just went off a couple weeks ago saying that the Missouri should sail the oceans forever. The last of its' kind, the biggest and the end of the war with Japan.

The argument that it costs too much is baloney. We waste that tab every Monday morning by 8:30

JohnRippert · Jul 16, 2023

Watching them tow the Battleship Texas to its dry dock in Galveston was one of my favorite things to see in the last year.

SnidelyWhiplash · Jul 16, 2023

Back in the ‘70s I heard a Vietnam vet say he would like to extend foreign aid to the North Vietnamese…he said we could recommission all four Iowas and they could sail up and down the Vietnamese coast sending them 16” care packages all day long.

Skeet 028 · Jul 16, 2023

The above statement is true. We do waste that much by Monday morning.. However...every carrier and every large capital ship is easily broken with just one very small nuclear torpedo...we have 'em...so do others. That said it could escalate any war tremendously. So maybe we should put every ship a-sail. Another question that begs to be answered...do we have the manufacturing capability to do so these days?? Do we have the political ability any longer??

SnidelyWhiplash · Jul 16, 2023

swsig said:
While it's fun to take a nostalgia trip thinking about the Iowa class being combat useful, the reality is that they've been sitting in salt water for 80 years and would require rebuilding at an astronomical cost.

There’s lots of good reasons to leave the Iowas decommissioned and museum ships…but they have lots of life left in their hulls. Their hulls were designed for fifty years of an active life. They each have only ten-fifteen years of active service out of that fifty years of planned service.

There are real problems…cost of operating them…manpower shortages to operate them though I think sailors would volunteer in droves to serve on a battleship…at the expense of manning the rest of the fleet. Most spare gun barrels for the ships have been scrapped…probably ammunition and powder supplies as well.

Two Iowas are designated as ready reserve…Iowa and New Jersey…but the other two are stricken from the Navy lists.

Chuck24 · Jul 16, 2023

One of the Naval facilities here, St Julian’s Creek Annex, had several of the 16 inch gun barrels in storage until just recently. They were going Time͏ scrap them, but made arrangements with some museums to take them. The Wisconsin is a museum ship here in Norfolk.

GB · Jul 16, 2023

In the early 1990s I worked for a mining supply co. here in town. One of our major suppliers was a company that was a part of Dresser Industries. The salesman that I worked with most, by phone, lived in Columbus. Ohio. He told me a story about his early time with the company when he received a call from a Naval officer inquiring about some parts. The officer had milspec. numbers and drawing numbers and wanted price and availability. This was before computers and my friend explained that it would be several hours/days before he could respond as he would have to find the records. When he found the records he called the Navy back and spoke to the officer. He inquired about the exact part and the officer said that according to navy records, his company was the original supplier. He told the officer that the numbers given were for a ring gear on a 16" gun turret on an Iowa class battle ship and the last time the Co. had made those parts was in 1943. The officer asked when they could expect to take delivery. My friend explained that not only did they not have the equipment to make those gears anymore but the building that they were built in no longer existed. My friend said that the Navy was very disappointed.

SnidelyWhiplash · Jul 16, 2023

When the Iowas were being recommissioned in the ‘80s…the Navy robbed…I mean reappropriated…some parts from the existing museum battleships…the USS Alabama, Massachusetts and North Carolina as necessary.

During the reactivating of the USS New Jersey in the ‘60s for the gun line off Vietnam, the Navy had few sailors experienced in heavy gun drill. They looked for sailors who had left the service and even experienced Royal Navy veterans to enlist.

ace22 · Jul 17, 2023

CH4 said:
I feel the same about the SR71, F111, etc.

lol, i almost mentioned the sr71 in my op.

Rodan · Jul 17, 2023

While in college, I was in Navy ROTC and had the good fortune to spend a week at sea aboard BB-63, USS Missouri. She had just been recommissioned, and the week I was aboard we were doing gunnery qualifications bombarding San Clemente Island off the CA coast. It was an incredible experience, and one I'll never forget.

An interesting tidbit is that when the big guns are fired, all the topside hatches had to be secured to protect the ship's electronics from the concussion. I guess we were expendable, as they allowed us to be topside. To say the big guns are impressive is the understatement of the century.

Missouri was also the site of the Japanese surrender, ending WWII, and the commemorative plaque resides in the teak planks of her deck today.

I was able to go back aboard in 2007 when we made a visit to Pearl Harbor while in Hawaii. As much as I'd love to see these ships still at sea, at least they're being preserved for folks to learn their history and haven't been turned into razor blades.

Though I've never been aboard her, I got a good look at BB-61, USS Iowa in San Pedro harbor when I went for a ride-a-long with LAPD Air Support a few years back.

SPEEDGUNNER · Jul 17, 2023

As a gun collector it gives me some comfort knowing the Navy refers to those 16" guns as "rifles". I just know where I would hang one on the wall!!

Rustyt1953 · Jul 17, 2023

From Wiki:

"These guns were 50 calibers long, 50 times their 16-inch (406 mm) bore diameter with barrels 66.7 ft (20.3 m) long, from chamber to muzzle. Each gun weighed about 239,000 lb (108,000 kg) without the breech, and 267,900 lb (121,500 kg) with the breech.[1] They fired projectiles weighing from 1,900 to 2,700 lb (860 to 1,220 kg) at different muzzle velocities, depending on the shell. When firing armor-piercing shells, their muzzle velocity was 2,500 feet per second (762 meters per second) with a range of up to 24 mi (39 km). At maximum range the projectile spent almost 1+1⁄2 minutes in flight. Each turret required a crew of 79 men to operate. The turrets cost US$1.4 million each, excluding the cost of the guns."

snowman · Jul 17, 2023

What does the Navy have now for shore bombardment? -or is that tactic obsolete also?

Andy

BLACKHAWKNJ · Jul 17, 2023

Yes, the era of the Dreadnought Battleship only lasted 1905-1945 and it's interesting how few battles they were actually in. In WWI the Dogger Bank and Jutland, in WWII the First Naval Battle of Guadalcanal and the Battle of Surigao Strait were the only battleship vs. battleship actions of the Pacific War.

Truckman · Jul 17, 2023

BLACKHAWKNJ said:
Yes, the era of the Dreadnought Battleship only lasted 1905-1945 and it's interesting how few battles they were actually in.

The last surviving of the Dreadnoughts, now 111 years old, is undergoing a preservation renewal in Galveston...The USS Texas (BB-35) participated in shore bombardment during the Normandy invasion as well as the Iwo Jima landings...It proudly wears the ceremonial title of Flagship of the Texas Navy by gubernatorial proclamation...

I hope to live long enough to revisit the old warrior once it is anchored in its new (as yet undetermined) home...

...Ben

jbtrucker · Jul 17, 2023

USS Alabama S.Dakota Class visited her couple years ago may go this fall. There is also aircraft museum and USS Drum Submarine

Baggy Wrinkle · Jul 17, 2023

Submariners have a saying: “There are two types of ships. Submarines and targets.” Guess which type of ship a battlewagon is.

BLACKHAWKNJ · Jul 17, 2023

On Google Images you can find the picture from June 7, 1954 when all four Iowas maneuvered together.

Rustyt1953 · Jul 17, 2023

SnidelyWhiplash · Jul 17, 2023

That was the only time all four operated together. They were each scheduled for decommissioning so the opportunity was taken for the family photograph.

Iowa-Class Battleships

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