Comments by "Old Guy Gaming Network" (@CRAZYHORSE19682003) on "Drachinifel" channel.

  1. I had a run in with Capt. Seaquist shortly after the accident in Turret 2. We had just pulled into port and I was standing guard making sure curious onlookers didn't try to get into the turret. I heard some people on the electrical decks, I was on the powder flats at the time. They started coming down the ladder and I let out a wrathful challenge of WHO THE F___ ARE YOU with the intent of stomping a mudhole in someone's rear. He barked right back I am Captain Seaquist and I am in charge of this investigation. I apologized and let him know I was on guard duty, he nodded and said carry on.
    1600
  2. So let me get this straight, it took the Russians over twenty years to design an inferior Scharnhorst......ROFLMAO.
    17
  3.  @USN1985dos  Yes I was, we had just pulled into port and there were hundreds of civilians on board. My first thought was it was someone from the media trying to get pictures inside the turret. I will also remind you that this was only a couple of days after the accident, we were all still in shock by what had happened.
    13
  4. I call BS on all the Bismarck defenders. I saw a picture of either the armored conning tower or a barbette that was penetrated by a 16 inch shell from Rodney. If the conning tower or barbette can be penetrated the hull would have been penetrated. As to no deck penetration that is easily explainable due to the short range of the final engagement. They were basically pounding her at point blank range where the shell trajectories would have been much flatter.
    8
  5. The don't call her the Showboat for nothing :)
    8
  6. At 11:19 you say, you have this motorized hoist which runs along this rail. Just for clarification it was not motorized propulsion along the rail, that was 100% muscle power. Even for the 2700 pound shells, when you had them connected to the monorails it was muscle power that moved those shells along the rail. The canisters and shells would be balanced so well that it was not hard to move them that way.
    6
  7.  @mikecavanaugh3672  I was assigned as a gunners mate to 16 inch turret 1. I can not recall what division we were it has been over 30 years. As far as being on 60 minutes believe it or not I was working as a security guard for IBM at the time and I got a call at the security desk from Charlie Thompson, producer for 60 minutes and author of A Glimpse Of Hell. He said they were doing a story on the Iowa explosion and wanted to talk to me.
    6
  8. The hatches for loading and unloading shells and powder are called strike down hatches.
    5
  9.  @Mark-gg6iy  Why do I sound like a jerk?
    4
  10. Avoid World Of Warships like the plague, it is absolute trash.
    4
  11. I wonder that if a near peer conflict broke out could the US start cranking out ships or are they too complex to be built quickly.
    3
  12. It wasn't the age of the powder that was the problem, stored properly a powder charge is good for DECADES. The problem is that the powder in question was stored on non climate controlled barges in the middle of the summer and exposed to temperatures of over 100 degrees for DAYS which caused the powder to start breaking down and becoming unstable. Also they didn't spontaneously combust, they were probably exposed to incredible pressure from an accidental over ram.
    3
  13. Externally there wouldn't be. We repainted her externally after the fires were out so when we pulled into port in Norfolk there was no visible signs of the explosion other than the turret still trained to starboard and the left and right guns elevated and center gun in the loading position.
    3
  14. On the shell hoisting mechanism around the shell, if you look 2/3 of the way down the shell you can see a large pad eye. When lowering the shell down the strike down hatches there would be a guy at the bottom with a hook who's job it was to catch that pad eye securing the shell to on of the monorail systems at the bottom of the turret. You would them move the shell to the appropriate location inside and a second hoist would take them up to one of the projectile decks. It was dangerous as hell because if you missed the shell would strike the deck and could potentially fall over crushing the catch man, there was hardly any room to maneuver in the annular space where you were catching the shells as they were lowered.
    3
  15.  @sooline3854  It has been a lot of years since I read it but to my knowledge it was very accurate. Charlie interviewed me quite a bit when he was writing the book. I first met him when I as interviewed by Mike Wallace on 60 minutes, Charlie was a producer for the show.
    3
  16.  @parrot849  I get what you are saying but honestly I think I was still in shock, it had only been a few days since the incident. When we were pulling into Norfolk there were dozens of news helicopters, tons of media on the pier. Thousand of civilians, all I really wanted was for everyone to leave us alone. In my mind all I was thinking was it was some media jerk off trying to sneak inside the turret and take pictures or a souvenir hunter. It never crossed my mind that it would have been the investigation team onboard so quickly after we docked. So all of my pent up grief and anger was looking for a target to be unleashed on, if that makes any sense.
    3
  17. The Scharnhorst was designed to have the same guns as the Bismarck class. However technical issues with the design of the turrets cause a delay. The 11 inch guns were a placeholder and were never intended to be the main battery.
    2
  18.  @Melvorgazh  The Gneisenau actually went into the yards to be regunned but allied bombing raids damaged her so much that the upgrade was canceled and all her armament was taken off and and she was sunk as a block ship in Gdynia Poland. As far as the technical issues I don't remember reading anything specific other than the turret was a brand new design and was not ready and the delays would have caused a delay in Scharnhorst and Gneisenau entering service so it was decided to arm them with the 11 inch triple turrets as a stop gap measure.
    2
  19.  @DethOnHigh  New Jersey and Iowa are identical from the perspective of bulkheads. It is the Missouri and Wisconsin that were improved with substantially thicker transverse bulkheads.
    2
  20.  @godlymonkey  It might have been Captain Milligan....It has been so long I got the names mixed up.
    2
  21. Turret explosions were far more common than you think. The USS Mississippi had two of them in the same turret. Coincidently or not all but one turret explosion in USN history were center gun turret two.
    2
  22. The French ships were designed in a way to maximize efficiency in taking on a boarding party from another nation and surrendering.
    2
  23. That was my favorite thing about being a Gunners Mate in 16 inch turret one on the USS Iowa BB61. We didn't have a range finder so the booth was a huge wide open space. A good place to hang out after work to read and just get away from everyone.
    2
  24.  @John.0z  They were a huge waste of tonnage.
    2
  25. Yes but for a specific weapon system like the 16 inch 50 caliber guns on the Iowa class battleships those calculations only had to be done once. Ships carried something called a range table where you could look up your latitude, course and targets range and bearing and the range table would tell you how many feet to add or subtract. You had different range tables for every weapon system onboard. It was much quicker looking at a chart than actually ding the calculations.
    2
  26. My wife and I visited there in August. I am a battleship sailor and I served on the USS Iowa. On our tour every time the Docent didn't have an answer to a question I would answer it. Halfway through the tour he said man you should get a job here lol.
    1
  27. I think they could have saved a lot of weight by replacing hull plating that was riveted in place with wielded hull plating.
    1
  28. US ships had them in WW2.
    1
  29. The way you talk about presentation is so true. I will never forget when I reported to the USS Iowa. She was in Norfolk and had a full combat load so she sat much lower in the water than I expected. I remember feeling disappointed thinking that she was a lot smaller than I imagined.
    1
  30. As far as the view of the ship you are so right. I remember when I reported to the USS Iowa in 89. She had a full load and it was low tide. The deck was basically level with the pier and I remember thinking WOW these ships are a lot smaller than I imagined.
    1
  31. The Iowa's were the best protected battleships ever built not named Yamato so they were fast battleships.
    1
  32. Great video, I am a former gunners mate on the USS Iowa. So this brings back s many memories. The MK-8 Range keeper fire control computer was so advanced that when the Iowa's were reactivated in the 80's they were retained because a modern computer could not do the job any better. With the MK-8 gone were the days of ranging salvos and adjusting fire. If you had a firing solution you can realistically expect a first salvo hit. The only factors being the natural dispersion and manual error in inputting the data into the computer. Provided you inputted everything correctly the computer would update everything in real time. It did not matter if you changed course and speed or if your target changed course and speed the system was calculating where the target would be when the shells landed. It was the worlds first aimbot. A good demonstration of the system in actual combat was at the battle of the Surigao strait. The West Virginia had been completely modernized and rebuilt after Pearl Harbor had a MK-8 fire control computer. In pitch black conditions the West Virginia's fire control radar picked up the Japanese battleship Yamashiro at 42,000 yards and had a firing solution lock at 30,000. The opened fire at 22,800 yards and scored a first salvo hit and scored hits on five of the next six salvos. California and Tennessee which were also modernized and equipped with the MK after Pearl Harbor also engaged Yamashiro. The other three battleships in his formation, Maryland, Mississippi and Pennsylvania did not get those modernizations and had older less capable fire control systems were not able to get a firing solution. Maryland had to visually sight in on the splashed from the other battleships. Mississippi only fired one salvo and the Pennsylvania could not find the target and never fired a shot. The Yamashiro was unable to acquire a target and was unable to return fire on any of the US battleships. This is why the North Carolina, South Dakoda and Iowa class ships would have had little difficulty squashing any axis battleship during the war.
    1
  33. The only two battleships in the world left for me to visit is the Alabama and Texas.
    1
  34. All those guys standing around looking at the damage, I guarantee there was one guy there saying "I JUST painted that."
    1
  35.  @beedalton9675  No, they are obsolete. The Iowa was in TERRIBLE condition in the 80's so I can't imagine she has any life left in her.
    1
  36. With huge holes like that in the turrets and barbettes, I am guessing that they would have to remove and replace said turrets and barbettes. Simply patching those holes would not fix the integrity of the armor would it?
    1
  37. Iowa was decommissioned 18 months after the explosion. She sat in mothballs for a long time but that is not the same as being in service. Turret 2 was not repaired because of cost.
    1
  38. If I could time travel I would love to have a dinner with ship designers from back in the day and ask where the concept of wing turrets came from and why would go with something so stupid. Wing turrets seem so illogical compared to an all centerline arrangement.
    1
  39. Wouldn't have mattered, by the time the KGV's got close enough to where their guns could penetrate Iowa's armor they would have been blown out of the water by the Iowa's 2700 pound AP shells.
    1
  40.  @aw34565  Except the KGV did not have thicker effective armor. The KGV had a 14.7 inch armor belt that was vertical. The Iowa had an internal angled armor belt. When you add the 1.5 inch or 38mm of STS hull plating the 12.1 inch (307 mm) internal angled armor belt and the .875 inch (22.2 mm) STS backing plate the belt was mounted to it gave the Iowa's the equivalent of 17.3 inches(439 mm) of vertical armor. The Iowa's and South Dakoda's were the best protected battleships not named Yamato. I will also mention the barbettes and turret faces of the KGV were weak at 12.75 inches(324 mm) compared to the Iowa's turret faces of 19.5-inch (495 mm) and barbettes of 17.3 inches (439 mm). A fight between a KGV and an Iowa or South Dakoda class battleship would be a short one sided ugly encounter with the American ships absolutely wrecking the KGV's.
    1
  41. I would love to see a video on the USS Katahdin (1893), which believe it or not was designed with ramming being her main form of attack.
    1
  42.  @frysebox1  As a gunners mate on the USS Iowa in 16 inch turret one I can say Yes I have. During ESWS qualifications we were trained on the fire control computer and how to plot a fire control solution manually in case the computer got knocked out. We used a RPV that is what they used to call drones to monitor shell fall.
    1
  43.  @frysebox1  I totally get what you are saying. We all get our information from somewhere and that is what shapes our reality. It is not based on actual scientific experiments that we have personally done but having faith that the work of others is the correct interpretation of reality.
    1
  44. It would have been funny if a modernized Hood made it to the Falkland's. The Argentinians hit her with multiple exocet's and start crowing about how they sank the Hood. Meanwhile on the Hood the Boatswain's mates are pissed that the Argentinians scratched their paint!
    1
  45.  @unemployed_history_major4795  I do not believe that had anything to do with it. At full power the ass end of the ship would literally get sucked down low in the water from the power of the screws. On one full power fun the stern was almost pulled under water, several spaces were flooded because of that and the deck was wet all the way up to turret 3's barbette.
    1
  46.  @SuperchargedSupercharged  By definition a crane not only lifts and lowers objects but it moves them horizontally. So the davit used to strike down projectiles and powder does not fit that definition.
    1
  47. I wonder how HOT that shell was right after impact. Since energy can not be destroyed and is converted into other forms like light, sound and heat I wonder how hot that shell was after punching through the armor of the Jean Bart.
    1
  48. Where did the crews of these ships stay?
    1