USS Iowa..... recruits, anyone?

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Fulthrotl

Fulthrotl

~Autocorrect is My Worst Enema.~
Location
HB, CA (19 Hrs. 22 Min. from Winged Horses)
Occupation
E
well, the ship opened for public tours this morning, and i went to
lookie-see..... how shall we say, the paint is pretty thin on the
whole operation, and i'm guessing it took most of their steam
just to get this far....

a very basic tour opened up, and they will be adding more as time
goes along, but most all of what they are doing is with volunteer
labor, and i'm guessing they could use a hand.... how often do you
get to see 18" armor plate, anyway?

so i volunteered... licensed, bonded, insured, free.
how often do you think they will see those words??

anyone else local interested in tossing their name in the
hat? instead of the USS Iowa BB-61, we could rename
it the USS Holt BS-62?

i suspect they could use some sparkies, and it'd be fun.
habitats for humanity doesn't have 16" guns. :p
and you'd see stuff nobody ever runs across.
you'd get major cool points, and we know how much those
are worth.:thumbsup:

http://pacificbattleship.com/page/volunteer


randy
 
Would love to see that ship again. Was on it in 1984 as part of the MARDET, kinda neat to be onboard during a full broadside.Did a lot of gun drills to dispel the myth the 16'' guns were inaccurate...Lost a classmate from Purdue when the turret 2 exploded years later. Fire control "computers" were prehistoric looking. But that was a fighting ship alright, and one I'd want backing me up on the beach still today. Learned a lot about the steam propulsion system, but didn't get into the sparky side of things back then. More interested at putting rounds down range:)
 
K8MHZ said:
Thanks, Randy!

We have the USS Silversides and the LST 393 here in Muskegon. What amazes me is the level of engineering that was put into ships of that age.
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Engineered with slide rules, hand drafted and hand crafted, and we'd be hard pressed to build one today.
 
Sadly, the USS Texas (BB-35) has closed again for tours yesterday due to leaking that led to a 1.5? port list. The Battleship Texas had just reopened after repairing successive leaks. The old lady needs to be dry-berthed.
 
We have a radio event called 'Museum Ships on the Air'. Most, if not all, museum warships have ham radios in their radio rooms. The event allows for ham radio operators to talk to people on the ships and then get a card to prove they did it.

The ham radio call sign for the USS Silversides is N8SUB and the call sign for the LST is N8LST

View attachment 7147


View attachment 7146

It looks like the UARC in San Pedro, K6AA, has it's eyes on the Iowa.

The radio event is yearly, the last one was in June. June 2 -3 to be exact. You don't need a ham radio or a license to listen to the event. A good short wave radio that can receive side band should work.
 
gadfly56 said:
Engineered with slide rules, hand drafted and hand crafted, and we'd be hard pressed to build one today.
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The navigaton system in the Silversides is incredible. It's actually an analog computer. Remember, this was done not only with slide rules, but with late 30s and early 40s technology.

All the 'house wiring' switches and circuit breakers are open with no enclosures. There is a plexiglass sheet over the main switch board so tourists don't get zapped.

I asked why all the electrical stuff was not covered and was told it was because if there was a real problem (at war) they probably wouldn't have time to remove covers so they were never designed into the ship.
 
Sounds like a good idea Randy.....
Im here in beautiful SoCal as well, and I LOVE big boats, big guns and old stuff..... sounds like fun!
 
Pullnwire said:
Sounds like a good idea Randy.....
Im here in beautiful SoCal as well, and I LOVE big boats, big guns and old stuff..... sounds like fun!
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well, went in for my interview yesterday morning, and they have decided to let me work for free.:p

they are still running on genset, permanent shore power isn't there yet.
with the old low PF motors, they killed the first genset with KVAR... they
have a capacitor bank coming to reduce the theta. power factor musta really sucked.

got interviewed by chief engineer, nice guy.... signed all the papers to promise
i wouldn't sue them if i was unhappy... they found a chief electrician as a paying
position, i was thinking about applying for it, but the phone's been ringing a lot,
and you really need someone with an extensive marine wiring background.
i can probably help quite a bit, but to lead it, being an ex navy sparky would
be pretty much a requirement, and i don't have that skill set.

now, the interesting thing, is that they don't just want lights for tours.
ch eng has plans for getting the whole ships phone and annunciator system up,
and be able to turn and elevate main guns with ship systems, not a ridgid
threader on the manual stem. he wants to bring the ship back up to a
level of functionality quite a bit above any of the other iowa class.

got a bit of the back story on what it took to get it this far.... they put
the whole thing together, and got the ship down to long beach with a
grand total of eight employees.

i was somewhat impressed, to say the least.

first day for me is october 01.... i'll post some photos up here of what
at least *i* think is cool stuff... :huh:
 
Down in Fall River Massachusetts they have Battleship Cove. Its the world's largest collection of US naval ships (according to the website). USS "Massachusetts"... the destroyer USS*"Joseph P. Kennedy, Jr."... A Balao-class submarine, USS*"Lionfish"
 
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Fulthrotl said:
first day for me is october 01.... i'll post some photos up here of what
at least *i* think is cool stuff... :huh:
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well, i've a bunch of photos from all over the ship,
but you can't post any photos unless they are taken
from the tour areas...... but this one is ok....

we were decorating with lights.... it takes a LOT of
lights to properly decorate a set of 16" guns....

IMG_0533.jpg
 
USMC1302 said:
Anything built in 1943 that shoots the equivalent of a VW bug, 23 miles should get some respect,lol.
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I would have to say I definitely enjoyed sitting on the hilltop tellen them rounds where to land.:D
Spent 10 years Army 13F, Mortars, Howitzers, Naval Gunfire, Close Air Support, nothing better than doing a combined arms live fire just to see if you can slow the world down on it's axis, even just a little bit!:p
 
jeremysterling said:
You know, the lights on the big guns make them real pretty.

But any real sailor will tell you there are only two types of ships in the Navy.

Subs and Targets.
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yup, and all that little torpedo has to punch thru is 12" of class a armor plate, the water filled
void beyond it, and the air filled void beyond THAT. the plan was for the 12" armor belt to
slow the explosion down, the water filled void beyond it to absorb the hydrostatic shock,
and the air void beyond to contain leakage.... then you get to the m'portant parts....

it's hard to sink ships with holes that let air in... it's better if they let water in.

in any case, i think it's more than a match for all the duffy electric boats in the naples boat
parade, don't you think? with those, the only fortification is that taken on by the pilot, from
a bottle.

those duffys are pretty well fortified.
 
Fulthrotl said:
yup, and all that little torpedo has to punch thru is 12" of class a armor plate, the water filled
void beyond it, and the air filled void beyond THAT. the plan was for the 12" armor belt to
slow the explosion down, the water filled void beyond it to absorb the hydrostatic shock,
and the air void beyond to contain leakage.... then you get to the m'portant parts....

it's hard to sink ships with holes that let air in... it's better if they let water in.

in any case, i think it's more than a match for all the duffy electric boats in the naples boat
parade, don't you think? with those, the only fortification is that taken on by the pilot, from
a bottle.

those duffys are pretty well fortified.
Click to expand...

LOL, I think you are underestimating what that "little torpedo" is capable of. Subs sank 55% of all japaneese ships lost in WWII despite only being 1.5% of our fleet. I have personally sunk an old US battleship (To make an artifical reef), looks something like this.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7vaImLvZbPw
 
zog said:
LOL, I think you are underestimating what that "little torpedo" is capable of. Subs sank 55% of all japaneese ships lost in WWII despite only being 1.5% of our fleet. I have personally sunk an old US battleship (To make an artifical reef), looks something like this.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7vaImLvZbPw
Click to expand...

Of 38 battleships from all navies sunk during WW II, ony 3 were sunk by submarine. Nice infomation summary here.
 
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