[Nehalemguy]

The Navy called the 16" guns on the battleships rifles...

That is what I thought as well........naval rifles since they were actually rifled barrels.

I've been sick the past few days and have been watching YouTube movies. "The Battle of Archimedes" is a Japanese made flick that is centered around the design/politics/construction/sinking of the battleship Yamato. The opening scenes alone are worth watching.

The Yamato, even though is sits at the bottom of the Pacific, is still to this day a source of pride to the Japanese people, and it has become part of their cultural lore......with it's 18" guns!

-E-

 

[Nehalemguy]

They were all of the Iowa class. As a kid I thought they were the most powerful battleships afloat aside from the Yamato/Musashi, but more recently I learned that the Iowas have only 12" thick belt armor and rely on it being installed at an angle to make up for it. The South Dakota class had 14" armor so they were better protected as battleships. In fact some naval historians regard the Iowa class as more like battlecruisers than true battleships since their armor is so light. HMS Hood was very similar, light on armor but with a long hull and capable of great speed. Unfortunately we all know how well that light armor held up when she encountered the Bismarck. Had any of the Iowas gone head to head with the Yamato it would probably have been just as ugly.

Seen this?

 

[Nehalemguy]

The Iowa class battleships were actually longer overall than the Yamato class battleships. Where you really see the difference between the two is weight displacement. Yamato displaced 71,659 tons fully loaded. Iowa Class ships displaced 58,460 tons loaded.

-E-

 

[Nehalemguy]

And without air cover they were sitting ducks.

Absolutely!

It still amazes though me just how many hits these ships were able to take and still stay in action. I was watching (again) a documentary on the sinking of the Yamato. Multiple hits from two waves of dive bombers and torpedo planes and she was still in action. It was the third wave of U.S. planes that finally sank her. She was listing so badly at that point that torpedo strikes were hitting almost at her keel and below her armoring. Shortly after those hits, she rolled completely. Then one of her magazines touched off in a massive explosion. The blast wave from the magazine explosion crippled seven attacking aircraft according to the documentary.

-E-

 

[Nehalemguy]

@USMM guy

You have to figure before construction was stopped, there may well have been 18 spare 16" barrels in storage somewhere.

Grumpy

Lol........Imagine that phone call.

''Hey, how much extra room you guys have over there?"
"Oh yeah? That much? Wow!"
"Why am I asking?"

-E-

 

[Nehalemguy]

Can you imagine how much cosmoline you would need for just one of those puppies?

Grumpy

 

[Nehalemguy]

The Iowa Class was designed to be capable of traversing the Panama Canal..........

Grumpy

That's a cool fact! I just looked up the width of the canal locks. The original locks were 110 ft wide. Talk about scraping the paint!

-E-

 

[Nehalemguy]

Even though it never sank anything bigger than a DD, DE, or CVE... Remember the "starblazers" cartoon of the 60s? In Japan it was named "space battleship yamato"

Yes. First episode released October 6, 1974. The movie version was released in Japan in August of 1977 and eclipsed the release of Star Wars for several weeks.

For those of you who are not nerds and have no idea what we are talking about, the animated series was set in the year 2199, Earth and humanity are on the brink of extinction following an interstellar war, and the remaining inhabitants of Earth secretly build a massive spaceship using the hull and super structure of the wrecked Yamato.

I know. Not what you were expecting on the 1911 Forum today.

 

[Nehalemguy]

As an aside, the first time I toured the Alabama, there was a sign posted on the deck in front of a taped off area that announced that the Alabama was being used as a prop for certain scenes in a Hollywood movie starring Steven Segal and Tommy Lee Jones. The working title of the film was Dreadnaught. I have a picture of that sign around somewhere. Of course the movie was released as Under Siege. The scenes that were filmed on the Alabama were the night action scenes when Segal's character climbs up the hull of the battleship and engages in a firefight on the deck during which a chopper crashes on the deck.

Where did they film Erika Eleniak popping out of the birthday cake?

-E-

 

[Nehalemguy]

This happened near my home in 1990 when the USS New Jersey was entering the Columbia River. Green Peace protestors hung by rope from the Astoria Bridge in an attempt to block her entry. At that time, she was still a commissioned warship.

(3) USS New Jersey Battleship BB-62 vs. Greenpeace Astoria, Oregon June 1990 - YouTube

-E-

 

[Nehalemguy]

They should have just proceeded on through, I hope that they did.

The New Jersey actually came to a full stop for a short while, let the protestors have their say, and then proceeded onward. Once she started forward again, the protestors climbed back up and were promptly arrested.

There was another incident after that where protestors tried the same tactic with a Navy ship hauling a decommissioned reactor to the Hanford Reservation. Things got tense when it looked like two of the protestors were going to rope themselves down to the deck of the ship. Guns were drawn, orders shouted out, and the protestors decided that the crew was being deadly serious and roped themselves back up to the bridge deck.

-E-