Tuesday, January 03, 2012

The Art of War

BZ to all who took care of her while she waited for her next lover - LT B; gird your loins.

Mark 41 Stable Vertical (those hand-firing keys are incredible!) in Iowa's main battery plotting room. You can see that the condition is excellent!
Just look at that face! That is pride. My face is green right now.

Hat tip Ken.

40 comments:

SCOTTtheBADGER said...

SNIFF! The IOWA is all well and OK, but she's no BIG BADGER BOAT!  Only the BIG BADGER BOAT ever fired a MK23 Katie nuclear projectile.  ( Of course I believe that the IOWA class rules! )

UltimaRatioRegis said...

The days where the only processor was the Mk 1 Mod 0 Fire Controlman. 

These vessels are technological marvels.  The genius of the designers and the innovation of their crews never, ever ceases to amaze me. 

chief torpedoman said...

That is one big $h*t eating grin! A very happy camper.

Old Farter said...

Sea Power For Security - that's a nice slogan at the end of the video.

The Usual Suspect said...

I enjoyed seeing all the attention to detail in the spaces.  Nothing sloppy.  These old training films are great.

Aubrey said...

Good heavens, I am actually tingling....Chris Matthews gets a thrill up his leg from BHO, I get one from 16" guns!

UltimaRatioRegis said...

Had to watch the video again.  I gotta go be alone for about ten minutes.... 

GBS said...

Vintage big gun porn!  Lots of ways to lose a finger, and you'd better not be claustrophobic.

ewok40k said...

a 40k quote is on order:
"Though my guards may sleep and ships may rest at anchor, our foes know full well that big guns never tire." Huron Blackheart, The Tyrant of Badab

Spade said...

Interesting. The Bluejacket Manual pictures on the facebook link lists battleships and a whoile class that were never built.

KenofSoCal said...

I always liked this: "Rest well, yet sleep lightly; and hear the call, if again sounded, to provide fire power for freedom."  - Captain Robert C. Peniston, CO USS New Jersey (BB-62), on the decommissioning of BB-62 in 1969.

SCOTTtheBADGER said...

The MONTANAs?

James said...

Would trade 6 evolved Iowa's or Montana's and Super hornets for all the F-35's and DDG-1000.

sid said...

Oh Pish!

All this is sooo last century.

You Old Farts need to catch up with the times.

We don't need no stinking battleship when we've got the -Just Awesome!- LCS plugged into the NETWORK!!!

C-dore 14 said...

Got to say that the equipment in the picture looks an awful lot like a MK 6 Stable Element with a MK 1A computer, which were used for the 5"38 batteries on WW II warships (BBs included).  The BROOKE Class FFGs and GARCIA Class FFs had them as well.

UltimaRatioRegis said...

Plug into the NETWORK?  Like my i-phone!  And just about as lethal! 

If confronted by America's enemies in the littorals, the LCS can send them a hurtful text message and make them have self-esteem issues.

pk said...

if it works for 5" itl work for 16"

C

pk said...

the blue prints for the propellors and propellor shafts listed a whole bunch of ships never built. i saw a conversion print for propellors that listed all of the iowas, including the never builts, all of the montanas, the essexes and several other aircraft carrier classes some never built and others half built. it was an actual blueprint with the not builts white lined out.

C

pk said...

expand on that please.

c

C-dore 14 said...

@pk, Maybe...but the MK 41 looks different from this beast.  Also, pretty sure that's a MK 1A in the background, which would indicate this is the secondary battery plotting area.

William Powell said...

I was talking with some of the Iowa gang at Suisun Bay last October when they were there for the pre-tow meeting.  They said that quite a bit of equipment had been taken off of her to keep the others going.  The MK41 was apparantly taken to the Navy Museum in the Washington Navy Yard.  They said they were negotiating with the Navy to get it back.  Lots of day-to-day equipment like Red Devil blowers are missing.

Mark T said...

OMG! I miss navy training films, electricity, your deadly shipmate, now there's a classic...

Grandpa Bluewater said...

I think he said "wild thing, you make my heart sing", or words to that effect.

LT B said...

She's a beaut!  You had me at Iowa Class.  And yes, the badger boat is a fave of mine.  One might say it is enough to give ANYBODY happy thoughts, even a diversity directorate member.

SCOTTtheBADGER said...

After looking at my book on the IOWA class,  the photos in the fire control chapter seem to inicate that there nowhere near enough J switches for that to be the 16" Battery Control.  Still, there are the firing keys right in front of us. Perhaps this from an unusual angle?

SCOTTtheBADGER said...

I shall have to look in the book again, I should think Secondary Control would have the ability to fire the 16" battery in an emergency. That would account for the firing keys.

SCOTTtheBADGER said...

WISCONSIN was the only ship ever to test shoot a MK 23 nuclear 16" projectile, which was codenamed Katie, the USN giving girl's names to nuclear weapons at one time, such as Katie, and the Lulu nuclear depth charge. 

SCOTTtheBADGER said...

WISCONSIN was the only ship ever to test shoot a MK 23 nuclear 16" projectile, which was codenamed Katie, the USN giving girl's names to nuclear weapons at one time, such as Katie, and the Lulu nuclear depth charge. 

SCOTTtheBADGER said...

I am from Wisconsin, so my true love is USS WISCONSIN, the BIG BADGER BOAT!

C-dore 14 said...

Badger, Both types of stable elements have three pistol grips...one of which is the "salvo warning" key.  Had the same set up on the BROOKE-Class FFG with only one gun.  Maybe somebody from a multi-gun ship can describe their set up.

Byron said...

And in the nuclear age, the firing mechanism for Trident missiles is a pistol grip....

Acquisition Mark said...

Hey Fire Controlmen, is that not a Mk 6 Stable Element rather than a Mk 41 Stable Vertical?

C-dore 14 said...

@Byron, The Harpoon missile firing panel used during the system's initial op-eval had an aircraft joy-stick for its firing mechanism.  Much prefer stuff like that to push buttons or toggle switchs...although they get the job done too.

pk said...

thats ok.

my experience with that stuff is from walking through the compartment rapidly one day looking for an errant apprentice....

C

pk said...

the take from our smart money sitting around the table in the coffee room was that a 280mm nuke with sabot would be the projectile when that happened.

C

pk said...

red devils were pool equipment. our electric shop "remanufactured" thousands of them. when a ship goes out of commission unless its a turnover that stuff goes to the item manager probably in spcc.

some of the battle ship devils probably are still in service in other ships today.

C

ewok40k said...

intercept THAT, Kirov... sadly it seems nukes were out of issue by time Kirov appeared :p

Wharf Rat said...

Yes - but soon USS MINNESOTA will prowl under the surface, and only looks at BB 64 as nothing but one big target! 8-)

LT B said...

Love or lust?  :)

They have finally opened her up and you can tour a good portion of the spaces.  As of last summer, though, the EPA had not opened engineering up.  There was a bit of oil on the deck, so they deemed it "unsafe."  Remember, EPA spelled backwards is APE.

pk said...

if it was not abated during the reactivation, merely "encapsulated" then the whole interior of the ship could be about 14 feet deep in asbesteos.

C