USS IOWA Battleship Walk & Talk Tour on Sunday, September 1, 2024 in San Pedro, California

[@BattleshipUSSIowaLosAngeles]

Thanks for stopping by!

[@ScottBentona]

Thanks, IOWA. I know I'll be back.

[@Vervelio01]

The largest guns on a navy vessel were not on board of the Iowa class battleships, but on the Japanese WW2 battleships Yamato and Musashi; they were 18,1 inch....

[@ScottBentona]

@@Vervelio01Yes, they mention that on the gun tour, but qualify it to invalidate the size of the Japanese guns with some detail, although I can’t remember the qualification. Maybe you know, or maybe Iowa can chime in. It could be those ships never saw any combat deployment or were never fired. I’m not sure. I do remember the Japanese boats did not have the same accuracy or ability in targeting since the Iowa had a centralized targeting computer system which was new, and the Japanese ships still worked out range and direction manually on paper. Even with the targeting computer onboard to determine where the guns were pointed, they still missed most of the time, although during WWII, they hit their target more frequently than other ship guns, so it was a significant advancement.

[@Vervelio01]

@@ScottBentona In this way a 16 inch gun is much more effective than an 18.1 inch gun with less good aiming means. Besides the accuracy I am also curious if the speed of loading and firing differed much between the two classes of battleships.

[@ScottBentona]

@@Vervelio01 - That’s a good question. I don’t know the comparison between the two ships, however, on the gun tour, I remember I was very impressed with the rapid frequency Iowa could reload and fire her guns per minute on both the 16 inch guns as well as the 5 inch guns. Altogether, it was a lot of firepower.

[@Vervelio01]

Perhaps a very hypothetical question and purely theoretical, but if the need were really high (loss of several ships) would it then in theory still be possible to make these ships ready and combat-ready again? Or is this impossible?

[@Vervelio01]

I myself think that it will be possible to get the ship sailing, but for example the powder bags and the grenades are no longer in stock, nor are they being manufactured. Not to mention the outdated technology in large parts of the ship.

[@ScottBentona]

Here’s a KZbin video I found that goes through answering that question I thought was interesting. Basically, you would have to put the ship in dry dock for about a year, and pay $2B for restoration and updating. That does not account for the lack of ammunition and powder, but you could probably get the 5-inch guns to work which there are some stockpiles for. kzbin.info/www/bejne/mHrCZ6GLrNOVaMksi=3FFInfLSP_HbadDP

[@Vervelio01]

@@ScottBentona Thanks, very enlightening video. It does indeed show that it is unrealistic to think that an Iowa battleship can be reactivated. I think it would be more obvious to put a recently decommissioned carrier back into service.