The Worst Mistake in Designing the Iowa Class Battleships

Use my code BATTLESHIP to get $5 off your delicious, high protein Magic Spoon cereal by clicking this link: sponsr.is/magi...
In this episode we're talking about a major mistake in the design of thr Iowa Class.
For our previous video on caliber:
• How is a 16in Gun Also...
To send Ryan a message on Facebook: / ryanszimanski
To support the battleship's efforts to drydock, go to:
63691.blackbau...
For the most recent updates to the drydock project, go to:
www.battleship...

[@BattleshipNewJersey]

Use my code BATTLESHIP to get $5 off your delicious, high protein Magic Spoon cereal by clicking this link: sponsr.is/magicspoon_battleship0823

[@Rutherford_Inchworm_III]

In all seriousness, why is a breakfast cereal company sponsoring the Jersey? And not even in a remotely military or historical way... just "buy our cereal". Normally sponsors try to find channels that somewhat match their customers interests. Unless you're Manscaped, that is. It's a small leap. Isn't World of Warships interested? I realize they're Russians and the game itself is crap but I've seen them throwing sponsorships around on a bunch of the naval history channels.

[@Rutherford_Inchworm_III]

@UncleJoeMedia Watching him eat it was painful. Like a 60's TV ad. Is this what US military history is reduced to?

[@michaelhorne8366]

This seems real tacky. Using the history and prestige of the USN to sell.. Overpriced, hipsterbait cereal?

[@ut000bs]

If you look at the ingredients lists online you realize this is neither cereal nor real food. I sat there blankly staring for a moment because it is entirely fake food. lol /me shrugs

[@LeftMech]

@@Rutherford_Inchworm_III In previous years, World of Warships and the Battleship New Jersey have collaborated and held events on board. The pandemic basically froze that for a while. Not sure if there are plans to restart that, but if there are, it would likely be after the ship returns from dry dock I would think.

[@patcb829]

I blame the Bureau of Ordinance, solely based on the Mark 14 torpedo.

[@RobertLowman-xq3ex]

They can't design a torpefor shit but when it comes to the redneck way of just shoot the person they got it right

[@earlyriser8998]

me too

[@gregsmall5939]

All in favor of rote condemnations, say aye aye.

[@tucker1012]

An awful combination of inflated egos and bureaucracy

[@Notalent1337]

This is the correct take, with how much Buord screwed up consistently during WWII, it is actually impossible to ever give them the benefit of the doubt.

[@richardhall9815]

Despite some compromises in the armor, I think the 33-knot speed was a crucial advantage. Not only did it mean they could keep up with the carriers at top speed (which they frequently accompanied), but in a hypothetical surface engagement, it meant they were faster than any of the enemy battleships and could essentially dictate the range of the engagement, and choose to initiate or break off contact with the enemy.

[@grizwoldphantasia5005]

And controlling the range meant controlling the immunity zone.

[@stcredzero]

@@grizwoldphantasia5005 Didn't Binkov examine the doctrine the Iowas would have fought the Yamatos under, and conclude that the Iowas would have been beaten? Instead of following doctrine and closing, they should have used their speed to dictate a longer range, where the radar laid guns and ballistic computers would have given them a huge advantage.

[@milamber319]

​@@stcredzeroyeah it would have been interesting to see how that played out if it had. I'd imagine with 2020 hindsight you would want to pepper the Yamato at range until you had significantly damaged her superstructure and hopefully wear out her crew and deplete some of her ammo to reduce the threat, then close the distance and use the super armour piercing rounds to put her down at close range where the Yamatos armour would not be effective against the 16inchers. But in reality there wasn't really any chance of Yamato being sunk by anything but aircraft anyway. It's not like with the air superiority the US was ever going to let shipping go into range of Yamato when they had much better options.

[@tomhenry897]

Binkov has a low iq

[@tomhenry897]

The jap 18 inch wasn’t that accurate Just a big gun

[@greendoodily]

One of the first things I was taught in engineering; if you leave two ways of doing something, the person on the other end will choose the wrong one, every time. You should always have a single, exact specification, unless you really, really don’t care how it’s done. So the person to blame was the chair of the first meeting, because they shouldn’t have let it end without a clear, WRITTEN, decision as to which size they should use. And if they wanted to keep both options on the table as the design developed, both teams should have been working on BOTH, or at least the most conservative option (I.E. the larger one).

[@TheEvertw]

From the point of the hull designers, the smaller one was the conservative option...

[@Dragineez774]

Exactly, working in software engineering - if you trust the judgment of everyone on the team, you're bound to be disappointed. Not that they're not intelligent, capable, professional, and competent. But exactly what you said, if you leave more than one option available - someone will pick the wrong one.

[@capnthepeafarmer]

Tangentially related, in automotive engineering. We are always told to look at the drawing, and the drawing is the contract. So even if the CEO of Mercedes or BMW, or whoever, wants you to change something on the floor, you have to tell them, "well that's not what the drawing says." That has pissed off quite a number of big ego people in my years as an engineer.😂

[@TheEvertw]

@@capnthepeafarmer Probably not as much as having their ties snipped off when they entered the workshop ;-) I have seen workshops where the remains were proudly on display by the door 🤣🤣🤣

[@JohnnyWishbone85]

@@TheEvertw -- Only if they were idiots. From a systems design perspective, the most conservative option is the one that will cause the least disruption to the project if it is later decided that the design should do something else. In this case, that means the largest barbette.

[@F-Man]

The only mistake made in the design of the Iowas was that they didn’t build enough of them so that there could be one on the front lawn of every American home. 😛

[@poowg2657]

I would need five more yards to fit one but with the 100s of deer around here it'd make one heckuva deer stand!

[@bacon81]

Or at least for every state 🤓

[@deanieedwards8117]

I would be the talk of the trailer park with one of those grand ladies in my possion.

[@stuartwald2395]

And to park them (in legal spaces, of course) on the same blocks as Russia/USSR, China, North Korea, Iran....

[@domhall626]

A simple turret of 3x16” guns on the front lawn would suffice for home defence

[@FIREBRAND38]

What a masterful analysis of the design evolution and the mismatch from the two design bureaus! This one's a keeper. The existence and location of a weak spot at Turret 1 seems like the kind of "military secret" that entire spy novels and movies are written around.

[@LiveFreeOrDieDH]

@@rohanthandi4903 During WW2 I doubt that was public info.

[@deezynar]

@@LiveFreeOrDieDH That's why it would make a good spy novel.

[@xt6wagon]

but it was fairly normal that Turret 1 was crap. And US cruisers had a habit of losing everything forward of Turret 1 at the slightest excuse.

[@marklatimer7333]

To be honest I'm surprised they found out so soon and not when actually trying to lower the Barbette into a hole 2 foot too small.

[@thickernell]

All of the above (to blame). They didn't have the technology we have today, such as 3D CAD, but there's still no excuse for not maintaining a single reference design team that all parties must submit their designs to and all field changes, with a dedicated staff looking for incongruences on a daily basis.

[@briancavanagh7048]

If the ship was built using current modern 3d CAD software the project would be over budget, behind schedule and more errors would be uncovered. When the Iowa class ships were built there was no internet & continuous communications device just lots of paper and smart people.

[@Matt-yg8ub]

Not practical in the 1930s, two different design, bureaus many many many miles away from one another would not be submitting paperwork on a daily basis.

[@bobmorgan1575]

Even with all the new high tech gadgets this still happens. Some years back the company I work for put in a bid for a system to allow humvee drivers to navigate using cameras and an LCD display so they could keep the armor secured. We delivered 30 prototype displays to the USMC only to find out they had given us the wrong dimensions and it wouldn't mount over the visor, they were too large. No idea what use they found for them.

[@bilbobaggins1934]

@@bobmorgan1575 The biggest mistake in that scenario is putting armor on what was supposed to be a oversized Jeep! 😂

[@rbarger71]

@@bilbobaggins1934 exactly

[@williamj3843]

It's always the way. You get 1 million things right and the one you didn't gets noticed. Considering the pressure of time to construct and the number of people and paper processes involved it seems a miracle that the class achieved the performance and success it did.

[@edselrodriguez5450]

At least the guns were firing outwards from the ship, which would have been devastating in the first encounter.

[@richardeast3328]

Kind of like marriage for a man.

[@LarryCook1960]

Long ago my boss said "One oh-shit cancels 10 atta-boys"

[@veleriphon]

The amount of utter wizardry that played out during WWII never ceases to amaze.

[@philsalvatore3902]

Only this wizardry played out before WWII. The Iowas are a pre-war design.

[@RMJTOOLS]

It’s clearly obvious to me that the Torpedo Ordinance Department should have gotten involved in the design process. They had plenty of great ideas.

[@ham_the_spam4423]

imagine if the Iowas had torpedoes like Tirpitz, Scharnhorst, or Nelson

[@c1ph3rpunk]

Finally, we get the correct sized target for that torpedo. Don’t worry, it’ll work, this time.

[@paulmaxwell8851]

Oh, they sure did! The Mark 14 was a brilliant bit of design work. I wonder how many American submariners died trying to sink Japanese shipping with duds?

[@SamCogley]

That was BuOrd. Same morons, same old stupid problems.

[@CynicalOldDwarf]

@@paulmaxwell8851 Nevermind the duds, some of the earlier ones had a tendency to explode in the tube!

[@aspensulphate]

I've been involved in the design of machinery my entire working career, and I find these discussions utterly fascinating! The scale and complexity of the design, not to mention the implications for battle theater engagement, are so far out of my realm of experience that I consider it an absolute pleasure to partake of these video presentations. Thank you very much!

[@iowa61]

All ship designs represent a discreet set of compromises. History and math vindicate the Navy designers. The Mark 7 lightweight naval rifle firing the 16” super heavy shell was the ballistic equal of the YAMATO’s 18” guns. Moreover, the IOWAs had the speed and range to shape any tactical situation they encountered. Against the YAMATOs for example, the IOWAs could choose how the engagement would be mapped. And still, as of right now, today, the IOWAs remain extraordinarily tough to sink.

[@C0MMAND3R_ZER0]

Question: why are you yelling the ships names?

[@iowa61]

@@C0MMAND3R_ZER0 it’s proper grammar. Ships names are either italicized or capitalized. It’s only “yelling” to someone reared since the internet’s invention.

[@C0MMAND3R_ZER0]

@@iowa61well I was just making a joke with the "yelling" part but fair, have a nice day.

[@TeamDoc312]

​ @iowa61 Nope, Nope, Nope, to your points. You never use all caps in a ships name or class. It's generally a capital letter as the first letter of every part of the name... such as Iowa. Literary books might Italicize the name, but the Navy does not, nor do formal news outlets, printed or web based. The USS, HMS, SS, and the like will always be in full caps. That's from using the AP style guide and US Navy Style guide. Now, about the using all caps as shouting since the internet began. All caps can be traced back as far as the late 1800s, when the telegraph became the thing. It swept forward to become popular in the 1940s. And of course became the rage it is today, with the advent of the good old start of the internet back in the 80s.

[@iowa61]

@@TeamDoc312 So we agree.

[@jamesretired5979]

The overall construction management was to blame. Its there job to catch this type of issue.

[@Revkor]

the ship isn't built yet so why can't they redesign the ship?

[@jamesretired5979]

redesign will tack a long time and there is a war on the way.@@Revkor

[@AnimeSunglasses]

@@Revkor The number of individual things that would need redesigning in the rest of the ship is much more than the number of things to redesign in the turret and barbette.

[@Matt-yg8ub]

@@Revkor that’s the kind of thinking that leads to cost overruns :-) this was the 1930s, that’s several months of work and this isn’t just a matter of making things slightly larger to accommodate the turret, everything on the ship Has to change as a result

[@keirfarnum6811]

No. It’s “here” job to catch that sort of issue. Or is it “somewhere’s” job? I can’t remember. 😁

[@randyfant2588]

While all had some part in it, BuCon was ultimately responsible for designing the hull correctly. when given multiple options you don't assume the smallest you assume the largest so that anything else will fit. That is why when I draw something without exact specs I always round up. It may make my drawing slightly larger, but if it fits then so will the real thing even if it is off a little. For example, I couldn't find exact specs on the Mk-56 FCD but did find the dish diameter and some photos, so I drew the dish to spec, and then drew the rest around it to my best estimate, according to the picks, rounded up, so if my drawing fits the real Mk-56 would to.

[@Matt-yg8ub]

You don’t assume anything, you get your ass on the phone and you call them and find out.

[@anthonykaiser974]

Ultimately the ship design belongs to the committee, which is part of the problem. Committee head owns it, ultimately. He shouldn't have let that important detail get "assumed away."

[@Buck1954]

I've been involved in many design meetings. I was the smallest cog of the design, the draftsman, but I always found conflicts. In the case of engineering, "assume" means make an ass out of u and me. Never ever assume. The engineers just hated seeing me follow the project manager into the room because that meant I found something they didn't. In my opinion, it was everybody's fault, and most likely because of fear of offending a senior member. I've seen it many times.

[@nemigazhogynincsszab]

A good draftsman worth his/her weight in gold. That's why as engineer I try to spend as much time as possible explaining the design to the draftsman. This way it is easier to find errors like this "interface mismatch" they had with the turret.

[@lewis7315]

I worked at Nassco Shipyard san Diego as a shipfitter and smal craine operator 24 years from 1976. Ships are built in blocks of from 30 to over 100 tons, then these blocks/ sections fitted together on the ways or building dock. Each block is designed SEPARATELY! The openings for pipes, electrical etc etc in bulkheads of every first ship of a class had to be cut/ recut, moved seriously so many times it was pathetic! This is why the WW2 liberty and Victory ships were from well used designs half a century old where the blueprints were already perfect!

[@deezynar]

I am a draftsman and I know exactly what you mean. We see things that designers have missed. But if we miss something, the craftsmen will find it, and that's when it gets really expensive to fix.

[@alphax4785]

Honestly without a transcript, it's impossible to assign responsibility to which bureau made the blunder or maybe they were talking past each other and so roughly equal in responsibility.

[@brianlinton910]

Live and learn. If they could foresee every problem, there wouldn’t have been a need for boats with boomsticks in the first place.

[@phil20_20]

They need BBattleship flavored Magic Spoon. 😂 One day, when we least expect it, the Navy will build some brand new ones, based on the Iowas. Hopefully, they won't repeat this error. 😅

[@alcanino2883]

The fault falls on the General Board for failing to coordinate & communicate between all departments & divisions that are involved with the design and construction of the ships. 2. It's also the departments involved for failing to communicate, coordinate & collaborate to assure that each departments projects will work together.

[@SamCogley]

And it's still BuOrd's fault by default because those idiots couldn't do anything right.

[@philsalvatore3902]

@@SamCogley The US Navy had a lot of very effective weapons during WWII. BuOrd did a lot of thing right.

[@grizzomble]

The Airbus A380 was delayed at a cost of billions of euros because the wiring in the French piece didn't line up with the wiring in the German piece. Welcome to engineering!

[@notsureyou]

Did they settle it by using a piece from Belgium??

[@SamCogley]

The Romans could dig an aqueduct through a damned mountain and have it only out of line where the two tunnels met by a few centimeters at most, and with all of our modern technology we can't get wiring to line up right. Arrgh.

[@RobertCCox]

Welcome to engineering at Irving Shipyard in Halifax, NS, Canada

[@JohnJones-k9d]

Boeing would have just left it not joined, then blame the pilots when it crashes.

[@kanrakucheese]

Surely the biggest mistake was not finishing Illinois and Kentucky.

[@Matt-yg8ub]

Wisconsin disagrees

[@johnsathe2429]

As does Naval Air. With the advances in air power, battle wagons were deemed an unlikely need, except for some shore bombardment missions, Korea, Viet Nam, and cruise missile platform during the Gulf and Afghan wars.

[@John-qv5ux]

​@johnsathe2429 Just build an arsenal ship then? The Navy has gone down that road and they decided that it's just too big a target, better to spread out your Tomahawks across multiple assets.

[@cf453]

Ryan did a vid on how battleships were essentially obsolete by 1941.

[@John-qv5ux]

@@cf453 There was basically nothing done by battleships in WW2 that couldn't have been done by a heavy cruiser. At best, the fast battleships were good real estate to plaster Bofors guns everywhere.

[@KyriosMirage]

BuOrd was spending all their effort on insisting the Mk 14 was fine, so they didn't have any left over to keep on the same page as everyone else.

[@mpetersen6]

Buford expected everybody else to be on THEIR page. 😖

[@ChannelWright]

So fun to see you do a cereal commercial. Never thought I’d see that!

[@QED_]

Yes, nice change of pace . . .

[@politicsuncensored5617]

The 18" gun for the Iowa's was a horrible idea. I'm glad they stuck with the proven 16" gun. The 18.1" guns of the Yamato class really did nothing to help these two BBs. PJ

[@ivanskirchak4935]

The Iowa 16s with super shot had better characteristics than the 18.1s.

[@rupertboleyn3885]

Except it wasn't a proven gun, as it turned out, and they were lucky that the redesign worked, and extremely lucky in that it turned out to be very good. That said, 18" guns simply wouldn't have worked, for the reasons given in the video.

[@8vantor8]

well, the two Yamatos never got in a ship to ship fight where their 18's could really shine, same with the Iowas 16's, in the end we will never know for certain with out pitting the two against each other with equal fire control

[@allangibson8494]

@@8vantor8There were three “Yamato’s” built (out of four ordered). The third one lasted less than a day on its maiden voyage from one dockyard to another.

[@8vantor8]

@@allangibson8494 no, the third hull (Shinano) was converted into a carrier and was sunk In the early morning on November 29th 1944 by USS Archerfish, a Balao class Submarine. the 4th Yamato hull was canceled and scrapped all together, it never even got a name.

[@Michaelzehr]

I've worked on the design of a lot of large systems, and on a global review board that analyzed at risk projects. One of the main criteria we looked for was a single point of oversight (a team on a project this size), which sounds like the general board. They show up to the meeting with a piece of paper that says "agenda: 37 or 39?" and after the meeting send a note to all participants: "decision: X." The fault lies with not having that task performed. Whoever should have performed that task is at fault. As others have commented, that's the General Board for not overseeing the process, the meeting, and the communication. (Possibly both teams "got the memo" and one of them ignored it, but that's not what the video says - it says the two groups left the meeting with different understandings of the decision.) But... there's a higher level of risk analysis: hurry this project to get it done sooner but there's a chance there will be a flaw in the end result, or go slower, but then those ships are not deployed as early. A quick search leads me to think that no Iowa class battleship was sunk because it was hit by a torpedo near turret 1. (Please correct me if that's wrong.) So maybe, there wasn't a design "mistake". There was a tradeoff between sooner and good, or later and better. We don't want flaws in our designs, we try to avoid them, but there are meta-capabilities involved in the tradeoffs too, like how soon it gets built and active.

[@poowg2657]

Well said.

[@maigretus1]

Well said, but I must take issue with, "No Iowa class battleship was sunk because it was hit by a torpedo near turret 1." Did anyone ever shoot a torpedo at any of the Iowas? If not, then we can't say anything about how good the torpedo defenses were, because nobody has really tested them.

[@johnnyc6489]

I would love if you could do a video showing the difference, with a ruler, between the USS Massachusetts and New Jersey gun house, inside view. How much bigger is the mark 7 vs mark 6? What's the difference in powder bag size?

[@charlesrowan4632]

Very good Vidio, you are very knowledgeable you really like your job and it shows👍

[@johnfleet235]

I used to work in an office that hired A&E firms to develop plans and specs for buildings. As part of the process for drafting the plans for a new building, we often hired a separate contractor to peer review the plans developed by the first contractor. A lot of mistakes were caught by the peer review. Seems like Navy needed a firm to peer review their plans prior to final approval.

[@dougtaylor7724]

Walk round in a battleship and look for mistakes. They are everywhere. Pipes that don’t meet, electrical looks like it was done on the fly. You see all kinds of things. It’s hard to get everything perfect on paper.

[@Odin029]

"Surviving documents don't detail the discussions"... Somebody on one of those boards made sure the conversations between the different boards didn't survive.. The people who really screwed up wanted to keep their careers.

[@erikturner5073]

Goes to show that when groups are working together to accomplish a goal, communication is very important!! Although especially in that era I'm sure there were no shortage of Dick measuring contest, especially considering this was military related.

[@jimmellenberger8505]

Bureau of Ordnance. Ordinances are rules, folks, ordnance deals with weaponry. That is all.

[@elijahwerner6130]

I know absolutely nothing about building battleships. However in the work that I do, whenever I am presented with an option of fitting a smaller or larger piece of equipment, I always try to find room for the larger even if we end up choosing the smaller. It's almost always easier to retrofit down.

[@andrewgraham2546]

And that is the "worst mistake" of the class? Meanwhile 21st century navy has brought us LCS's, Zumwalts, amphib ships with well decks and but no stern gate, to frigate or not to frigate, and how many uniform changes? Can we go back to having these bureaus?

[@livingadreamlife1428]

When departments operate in cilos, miscommunication and mistakes often ochre. General Board should have had a person in charge of coordinating all communication between the two groups. Each of the groups should have had a lead person directly reporting to the coordinator, as well as keeping the people on their respective teams apprised of all details, ensuring compliance etc.

[@Matt-yg8ub]

They probably did, but since both teams left the meeting, thinking the opposite and both teams are siloed…. Unless the coordinator was intimately familiar with every single detail of what both teams were doing, It’s going to be several weeks or months before they get back together again in the same room to present what they came up with, and discover the issue.

[@livingadreamlife1428]

@@Matt-yg8ub Yes, the key is the talent and experience of the overall coordinator who must know the details and able to fill-in any knowledge gaps between the groups. Getting the coordinator experience from all departments would be imp and a succession plan to ensure qualified and experienced candidates were available is an Org Chart that the General Board could have created.

[@Matt-yg8ub]

@@livingadreamlife1428 in other words…. They’d need a master builder familiar with every aspect of the construction of naval vessels, ordinance, metallurgy, machining, electrical work, plumbing, welding, propulsion, navigation, radar, and every other discipline necessary to this endeavor……. Who also reads 1000 words a minute, so they could pour over every single report from every single person in every single department, every single day, to avoid this sort of thing…… or….. each department gets together in a staff meeting once a month and sorts this stuff out. The failure here is that they had two different sizes listed in the paperwork and the two bureaus weren’t on the same page for which size they were using. The solution here is blindingly simple, agree on a size, then take a permanent marker and cross out the other one on both sets of plans before you leave the room.

[@otakubancho6655]

It's like designing an elephant and winding up with a platypus,that's military intelligence!😋

[@tonydoggett7627]

However, the Australian platypus has venomous spurs!

[@tancar2004]

Given BuOrd's already not so great reputation with the Mark 14 torpedo. I think most people will put the blame on them.

[@yumisuremaki2748]

the japanese type 93 610mm(24") oxygen torpedo was a game changer based on it's performance alone it's superior than the mark 14 or anyother torpedo in the world the japanese opted for yamato to handle the bigger torpedo that's why shes so hard to sink musashi took 17 bombs and 19 torpedos to sink yamato had less because they learned from musashi

[@tbamagic]

luckily, none of these ships ever really got hammered by bombs or torpedoes. But they were FAST!

[@letsgocamping88]

Every time i see a premier on my feed. I wan to watch it but cant. Then i forget about the video and miss it.

[@johnyarbrough502]

Sounds like General Board should have instituted SOP that every meeting conclude with all hands signing off on topics discussed, conclusions reached, next steps and who's responsible

[@Plaprad]

Sounds like common sense. That's not very welcome with the government.

[@tomhenry897]

And anywhere else

[@Knight6831]

Sounds like it has something to do with the 16" guns

[@paulbarthol8372]

You poor man, plugging breakfast cereal

[@SteamCrane]

6:31 - Pretty shocking to see the clipped off barbette, a significant weakness! To see how this type of compromise can play out in real life, look at the Canadian lake freighter Roy A. Jodrey, now a dive site in the St. Lawrence River. To make room for the unloading conveyor, that part of the hull near the bow was made single hulled instead of the standard double hull. When she hit a shoal, the single hull section apparently failed, and she sank, sliding back into deep water. She had 3 sisters of the same design, which seem to have been retired early.

[@lt.petemaverickmitchell7113]

Take care of her Symanski....because they’re coming back for the Black Dragon.

[@trixierosco]

If this is the worst of design by committee, I’ll take it! Great video Ryan!

[@c1ph3rpunk]

Spent 15 years in HighEd tech, we referred to it as “death by committee”. I’m still not sure if we meant the thing we were debating or if it meant our souls.

[@carmencrincoli]

The Japanese Imperial Navy's biggest asset during WWII was the stubborn, arrogant, uncollaborative, intransigence of the BuOrd. 😬

[@Ah01]

All in all, USA did more things right than wrong, building the best ships in all vessel categories. The Essex:es were the crown jewel in these comparisons, all their fast battleships were also more or less best there were in whole world. The US ship design was hugely superior to that of the japanese. Of course the industrial capacity to build everything in large enough amounts helped too. Just as an example: The underwater protection qualities of the late 30`ies and early 40`s US BB:s has often been critizised too harshly. Uss North Carolina, that had (with it`s sister Washington) the weakest torpedo protection of all new fast battleships, took a long lance straight into the weakest spot possible, on the slim place of the hull near the turret A, and still the protection did it`s job saving the ship from a magazine explosion and keeping the vessel afloat. Who could have asked for more?

[@AlbertusMagnus_44]

Generally speaking, things designed by Committees suffer design issues caused by Committees. All parties should have published memoranda detailing each Committee’s understanding of the choices made. Once everyone looks at everyone else’s documents, the error would be obvious and could be cleared up before serious work began. This process should take less than one day. Everyone dropped the ball. But, one can’t complain about the result. The Iowas are superb ships.

[@nemigazhogynincsszab]

My experience is that proper documentation take as much time as the design itself.... So yes, you are right, but they were in wartime and hurried.

[@AlbertusMagnus_44]

@@nemigazhogynincsszab I believe this part of the design process took place before the war.

[@anthonykaiser974]

​​@@AlbertusMagnus_44we were building Iowa in June 1940. Japan had been fighting the Chinese since 1937, and Poland was annexed by Germany and the Soviets. France had been overrun in April. The writing was on the wall.

[@stevelenox152]

Personally I would of gone with the Montana Class Battleship but I can understand why they didn't as not only do you have to worry about speed but you have to increase the size and depth of the dry docks, building facilities and the Panama Canal.

[@JessWLStuart]

The three entities: Bureau of Ordinance, Construction and Repair, and the General Board were all responsible for clear, unambiguous communication. They all bear equal responsibility for the turret / hull mismatch.

[@anthonysherry2628]

Hi, i am curious about wether these museum ships are completely emptied of fuel oil?

[@ret7army]

Yes ... battleship texas for instance needed to be towed to drydock. Too much of an EPA hazard etc etc to leave them fueled

[@Aramis419]

10:43 - I'm sure more than one sailor got whacked in the lower back with that protruding medical box!

[@jonathanj8303]

At least medical supplies would have been immediately on hand for treatment...

[@brokenrecord3523]

Always, blame the process, not the people or, in this case, departments. People make mistakes, but processes make catastrophes. Now, you can blame people for creating lousy processes.

[@skovner]

I am going to guess there are no surviving documents between BuOrd and Design and Repair because the words used would make a sailor blush. After this, did they require all meeting attendees to sign meeting notes in quadruplicate?

[@clinthowe7629]

Don’t eat too much of that magic spoon or you won’t be able to crawl through those 16” guns, 😂😂😂 it was such a cringe to watch you do that, so claustrophobic.

[@albertlincoln1729]

I blamed the US military in general they are world-class money and time wasters. But they built the best battleships no doubt. Iowa class really was a masterpiece.

[@marksides9757]

This reminds me of the issues with designs of aircraft. I saw this in the pylon systems on the F-15. The pylons got designed first, and all the other systems were told to make their stuff fit. It appears to be a Rube Goldberg system. It works very well, but it's hell on the troops working on it.

[@667crash]

I'll get the details but the bureau ordinance at one point developed and tested a 16-inch/56 caliber gun, decided to go with the mark 8 16-inch/50 caliber gun. The details around the 16-inch/45 caliber gun, the 16-inch/50 caliber gun and the 16-inch/56 caliber gun would be a good topic for a future video by the author. In general a history of the 16-inch guns from the Colorado's, to the North Carolina's and thru to the South Dakota's and Iowa's should be very interesting. If he is brave he can do a comparison with the British 16-inch gun used on HMS Rodney and HMS Nelson.

[@notsureyou]

Every battleship design is: - A compromise of competing requirements. - Subject to design creep (my favourite example is in the spoof movie "The pentagon wars"). - Designed to meet a certain mission requirement. - Influenced by numerous other factors. - As well as trying to guess what the capabilities of the perceived enemy that they will most likely encounter.

[@koborkutya7338]

above is true for practically any engineering design I have ever seen (maybe the last to stated as "trying to guess the extend and characteristics of perceive threat in its operating environment) from a sewage door to the Golden Gate bridge.

[@notsureyou]

@@koborkutya7338 And you always have to ensure that you have the correct "Sheep specs" (If you have seen the movie "The Pentagon Wars")

[@adamsyclone7409]

Seeing as they were designed and built in only a few years with only pen and paper o feel that’s not to much of a mistake the Yamamoto had years of pre war development and design

[@onkelfabs6408]

An honorable mention in my view would be the electrical generators. Which are somewhat underpowered and cannot be reomved.

[@scottcooper4391]

There were no thoughts about equiping the IOWAs with modern laser / railgun weapons when they were being designed / built. What they got during construction was adequate for the tasks at hand, albiet without too much growth potential.

[@jonpaton4449]

Are these the same fellas responsible for the torpedo fiasco? So yes I blame the ordinance board.

[@fredrickmillstead2804]

The existing 16 inch 45 cal worked very well on the Kirishima. Washington penetrated her armor easily.

[@rembrandt972ify]

Point blank range and an Olympic Gold Medalist training the gunnery crews are always force multipliers.

[@8vantor8]

well, Kirishima was lunched in 1913 and Washington in 1940, i sure as hell hope a design from 27 years in the future would out do Kirishima

[@fredrickmillstead2804]

@@8vantor8 understand, by still and all the 16 45 went thru 12 (?) Inches of armor like a hot knife thru cold butter

[@fredrickmillstead2804]

@@rembrandt972ify point blank is right. I wonder how long the shells had to travel to arm. Or are they armed in he chamber?

[@rupertboleyn3885]

@@fredrickmillstead2804 The /Kongos/ had a maximum of 8" on their belts, with the upper belt being only 6". They were never armoured sufficiently heavily to resist battleship main gun fire.

[@aldenconsolver3428]

First, excellent good sir. The issue of the diameter has been mentioned in many sources and you gave more explanation than all of them. Now I do know this, before the computer revolution the time required to make construction schematics was orders of magnitude greater than it is now. Communications were also much more primitive. Now we can and do send high quality drafts of designs back and forth between departments with only a couple hours of additional work. I suspect however that in 1940 drawing up a mechanical diagram for a 16 inch triple turret would have taken (seriously) a year. For the benefit of those who have never worked in a factory designing and building a major machine however much you want to avoid it, is still going to require dozens of committees and there is NO EMAIL!! Now my silly opinion on what happened. On the North Carolinas with the 16/45 they still had to delete one bulkhead from the torpedo protection alongside the A turret. This deletion was largely responsible for the leaks when North Carolina was torpedoed. Still North Carolina was still highly functional (meaning it could have combated similar class vessels without drydocking). The New Jerseys did manage to place that bulkhead in, which should have meant that New Jersey could have taken a torpedo at that point with less damage and maybe no leakage into the citadel. Reports I have seen indicate that New Jersey could handle and fire the super heavy shells perfectly adequately and the complications inside the turret would have had no effect on its combat abilities. Now it was a very significant issue with upkeep and repairs inside the turret which was certainly a hassle. IMHO the New Jerseys were the best battleships, or maybe battle cruisers ever made (though ton for ton the South Dakotas were the best battleships in the world). Still, they had excellent armament, a wonderful turn of speed and protection only exceeded by the Yamato's and even in that case not hugely. It was clearly more important to get the ships at sea than to wait 6 months for what turned out to be a minor improvement. As we said, back at the aircraft plant, that in the lifespan of any project there comes a point where it becomes necessary to shot the engineers and begin building the thing.

[@glennsimpson7659]

To decide who was most at fault, you would have to know who was tasked with taking the minutes of the meeting. That is why minutes of meetings exist - to record what was decided rather than what was discussed.

[@ashesofempires04]

Any time there is a failure of coordination and communication between separate groups, it is the failure of the project manager. In this case, the General Board. All hard design details should be promulgated to the various design subgroups by the project managing authority. There should never be the kind of ambiguity in that sort of thing. At the end of the meeting that they had where BuOrd walked away with 39 feet and BuShips walked away with 37, the General Board should have said, and put in writing, what the barbette diameter was to be. The end.

[@vortexgen1]

16" or 406mm guns of the Iowas had the same punching power and distance as the 18.1" or 460mm guns of the Yamato class. The Iowas had higher speed and better radar and firing computers, but less armor. The Iowas could fire and hit targets in less than optimal conditions and speed away when desired.

[@steffenb.jrgensen2014]

The 16" superheavy could compete with the IJN 18" in penetration, but the 18" (and most other naval heavy shells) had a far greater explosive load.

[@SamCogley]

@@steffenb.jrgensen2014 The 16" superheavy was more dense per cm2 than the IJN 18.1" shell, so it would put more mass on the point of contact and therefore penetrate better. Explosives and splintering shells are great...if you get them under the armor. Also, the USN found a chunk of armor that was milled for one of Shinano's gun turrets (but obviously not used due to her carrier conversion) after the war, and did a test with a 16" superheavy firing against it. The test itself was rather flawed in methodology, but the hole blown through that armor panel was...impressive.

[@katrinapaton5283]

@@SamCogley Yes it was, but it was also done at very close range, 400 feet to be precise. It is extremely unlikely it could have penetrated the armour at normal battle ranges.

[@SamCogley]

@@katrinapaton5283 Hence the methodology being rather flawed. It's still an impressive demonstration of the forces involved, and it also revealed some metallurgical problems with Japanese armor plate. It had some flaws that rendered it weaker than German, UK, French, Italian, or (especially) US formulations.

[@Edax_Royeaux]

@@SamCogley The only ship armor designed to resist 18.1" shells was Yamato's turret faces, so it's a moot point.

[@ronblack7870]

multiply the bore by the caliber to get the length of the barrel. so 50x16 = 800 inches = 66 feet 8 inches . if you want metric - learn to convert.

[@sup5356]

love this channel. Thank you Ryan

[@melodicgrog]

I loved my m2a2 Bradley, but the endless boards really made a monstrosity.

[@nekomakhea9440]

In modern weapons development, multiple committees developing multiple parts of the weapon in parallel is called concurrent design, and it's basically guaranteed to derail projects into cost and time overruns while also under delivering on key capabilities. For example, designing the Zumwalt class before its railgun was finished, or putting hypersonic missile tubes on the Zumwalt before any hypersonics reach deployable readiness, or designing the LCS class before any of its modules were completed. It isn't BUORD or Repair & Construction at fault, it's Big Navy's fault for insisting they both work at the same time. The alternative is iterative development, where you build the most critical part first, then work outwards; in this case it would be construction and land-based testing of the turret & guns until the bugs are fully worked out before allowing any design or construction on the hull.

[@jacksons1010]

_Zumwalt_ was designed around a pair of 6” autoloading guns; railguns were never part of the plan. Railguns were something discussed as a future development, and remain so.

[@forcea1454]

​​@@jacksons1010As far as I can tell Railguns were mooted as a tentative addition far in the future, based on the fact that the existing Advanced Gun System mountings and magazines were installed as modules, and the Zumwalt class had in built significant power reserves (70MW as built, as high as 140MW for the original DD-21 design). I don't believe any detailed design work whatsoever was done on adding Railguns to the Zumwalt class.

[@jacksons1010]

@@forcea1454 Yes, that seems a more accurate way to describe it. Nobody knew where the railgun R&D was going to lead (the answer is "nowhere") and a sprinkling of Buck Rogers may have helped get the DD-21 project funded by Congress.

[@philsalvatore3902]

@@jacksons1010 The Zumwalts were built because the Marines insisted the Navy provide them with a dedicated fire support ship with some big guns. It took a while but the Marines have finally come to the conclusion the Navy arrived at a long time ago that banging away at shore targets with guns in an age when pretty much any adversary with a coastline has an arsenal of anti ship cruise missiles is not survivable. The Marines have finally come around to this conclusion and now the mantra is stand off, doing things from over the horizon including amphibious assault. If you study the operation to take an airfield south of Kandahar called Rhino, that is the prototype for future big amphibious assaults. The assault was conducted entirely by air, over 400 miles from their ships in the North Arabian Sea into Afghanistan. Gen Mattis left his artillery and armor on the ships and relied on Marine Corps air power aboard his ships using precision guided munitions for fire support. Marine KC-130s provided refueling both for the helicopters used in the assault (CH-53Es) and for the tactical jets. I think the days of a beach landing against a dug in foe are history. Today you will see LCACs and V-22s moving troops over the horizon and across the beach avoiding enemy defenses using multiple attack vectors. Once a beach is secured and the enemy on the run then you can bring ships in closer and unload using slower landing craft.

[@mikmik9034]

Volume low, other channels and ads much louder. Not gonna turn off the AC to hear it.

[@Tony-pk6ql]

Great video- I had no idea that this design glitch occurred.

[@stevenfrederick2315]

Both for lack of Logistics, Quality, and thoroughly sharing Statistics on the Engineering of a more powerful Canon with at least an 18" to 20" thick Double Tarpedo forward Hull! It's still not too late to add it!

[@keithwhale6640]

The Iowa class' are really Battlecruisers rather than Battleships. They precisely fit Fisher's original idea of carrying the largest guns possible on the fastest hull at the expense of protection. While their armour configuration was very comprehensive, their 12 inch belt was much thinner than it would have been if the same displacement was used for a 29-30 knot fast battleship.

[@tbamagic]

and we all know how THAT worked out (Jutland...Hood)

[@johngilbert6036]

When I was taking Electronics on college our Instructors loved to say "Details Will Kill YOU!". Sounds like someone Assumed (ASS-U-Me) and Missed a Detail. It was all of their fault because they did not double check each other by asking the right questions and getting on the same page. But it ended up as a great thing because the hull kept its speedy design and ended up with a better gun. Remember the Transistor and the Zener Diode were mistakes that changed the world's technology forever.

[@somethingelse516]

Not enough armor and seakeeping, should have traded 1-2 knots for a thicker belt. The 16” 50 cals were fine

[@davidschneider7969]

Rather than blame let's look at the missing process element of all requirements/criteria in writing. Churchill learned this in WWI and ensured that all decisions, instructions he gave, and acknowledgments back, were in writing. The process must put all key design criteria in writing. Don't need computers to do that - just smart people with high levels of execution and process discipline using notebooks and memos. The failure was not putting this design parameter (barbette diameter) in writing and having all design bureaus acknowledge it in writing.

[@pauld6967]

@davidschneider7969 You are absolutely right. Always, always, always make people commit requirements, decisions and acknowledgements in writing.

[@alanjameson8664]

I recall the old adage that a camel is a horse designed by a committee. It would be interesting to compare the New Jersey Class solution to that of the Yamato Class.

[@ArtietheArchon]

that's a great adage and it really makes designs like Dunkerque/Richelieu impressive, like an all-guns-forward armament had to make it past a committee? must have been a small one with some guts

[@TTTT-oc4eb]

​@@ArtietheArchonUntil they realised the quads couldn't hit a darn thing smaller than a mid-sized Island

[@ArtietheArchon]

@@TTTT-oc4eb the French quads had high dispersion in range until they were fit with simple delay coils yes

[@TTTT-oc4eb]

@@ArtietheArchon They went from "horrible" to "just bad". Before the upgrades they had by far the worst dispersion of all - after they still had the worst, but at least they had closed much of the gap up the second worst.

[@frankbarnwell____]

No brewery. My former life really sucked as a ship designer.

[@anthonykaiser974]

Responsibility always lies at the top. Period. When in charge, be in charge. You can delegate authority but not ultimate responsibility.

[@asbestosfibers1325]

Mmmkay

[@ScottDelles-uq5yf]

My Grandfather was the Chief Engineer for the Brooklyn Navy Yard from 1935 -1960 He had many conversations about the building of ships then and he said that both divisions of the navy engineering and development ,lacked the forethought to workwith each other. many of the redevelopment and engineering was figured out with BB61 Iowa and further re-engineered in BB63 later on most of the Navy Yards Engineering staff conversed between each other when building the Iowa class of ships

[@bjrnerikholster1058]

Gotta love the guy banging a hammer against the hull.

[@markbowles2382]

That thing is that big and does 33 knots .....impressive. Thanks mr. Ryan, I did nearly 4 years as a young man at JSI on the drydocks in Yard/Facilities - started in started in '79 for 4.31$ per hr as a 3rd class helper and worked my way up to 2nd class mechanic which was just shyof 10 bucks an hour straight time - congratulations on DD time - now I don't know how much it really costs, but the rumor around the yard at the time was 100,000$ per day for a ship to sit on the dock (rent), and that was just for the dock only - that didnt include any work on the ship, just the dock, so congratulations and good luck because it will probly be a long time before she gets back out of the water again, would love to go walk around underneath her and feel her vibe - most people spent their time at the shipyard "in" a ship, but I spent most of my time "under" the ship, mostly with a firehose or shovel or runnin a "bobcat", the production folks called us "muddiggers", thanks again and good luck.

[@4literv6]

Didn't one of the iowas exceed that speed pn a long gulf transit run during desert storm?

[@nnoddy8161]

I ship more than 20 years earlier, HMS Hood, achieved almost the same speed (32 knots) - she truly was the FIRST Fast Battleship.

[@scottcooper4391]

Modern carriers are both bigger AND faster...

[@4literv6]

@@scottcooper4391 worthless floating bombs all of em. 1 single Gerald Ford class alone without her crew costs or air wing and armaments costs more than the entire Iowa class did inc the 80s refit and adjusted for inflation. Then ya need the battle group to surround a carrier with. 😀

[@jayvee8502]

Rumor is Iowa can 37.0 knots when turbines are pushed to the limit.

[@thejerseyj5479]

My pea brain can't find fault with any part of the design of this ship. I'm amazed that 57,000 tons of steel with 1,600 compartments and all the plumbing, wiring, fuel, water, ammo and supplies aboard actually was succesfully built in the first place. All that with 3,000 sailors and she could slice through the water at 33 knots sustained? And all the people that designed her with paper and pencil are war heroes in their own right.

[@ScotttheCyborg]

My brother served in the Army in Berlin in '84 and '85, which makes him a WW2 veteran. Got his Army of Occupation medal from the US Army. So for his birthday I got him a piece of WW2 teak from the New Jersey. Arrived just a couple of days after I ordered. I think he's considering putting it in acrylic, except for one side so he can touch it. The look on his face was worth a lot more than I paid.

[@FIREBRAND38]

Well, since the terms of surrender were signed by the Warring Parties there was no WW2 for him to be a veteran of. Also, the major problem with that joke is the Army of Occupation Medal wasn't established until 5 April 1946. Since Japan surrendered 2 September 1945 in no way does an Occupation Medal equal WW2 Veteran (yeah, yeah, I know, it's a joke, but a dumb joke).

[@NAVYPROUD34]

I’m so lost, how’s he a ww2 veteran if he was in between 1984 and 1985 when ww2 ended in 1945

[@ScotttheCyborg]

@@NAVYPROUD34 Because WW2 didn't end until 1989, when Germany was reunified. Until then, it was an armistice. Reunification was the last requirement of the peace treaty, so technically the war was still on until it happened.

[@ScotttheCyborg]

@@FIREBRAND38 And the terms of surrender were not completed until Germany was reunified, so the surrender and thus the end of the war did not happen until 1989 with the fall of East Germany.

[@NAVYPROUD34]

@@ScotttheCyborg Interesting! I had no idea haha

[@BOBO-so8rx]

Thank you. This is the type of information I love to see about what, in my opinion, is the greatest battleship ever built. I know that after Pearl Harbor the focus was on building a fleet around the aircraft carriers but the Iowa class battleships must have put fear into any enemy of the US Navy.

[@davidncw4613]

I would like to see a discussion on the Iowas damage control vs the Yamatos. I understand Iowas had much better compartmentalization. This proved to be critical if the counter flooding of the Musashi resulted in a giant slosh that resulted in her capsizing in the opposite direction. Also if crews were trapped in a space to be flooded smaller spaces should result in smaller casualties.

[@tomhenry897]

Also better trained crews

[@SamCogley]

Mushashi's crew managed to keep her upright and moving for a ridiculous amount of time despite a downright insane pounding. She finally capsized and sank *hours* after the USN thought she'd gone down. Yamato's crew did the same later, when they were being hammered from all sides by torpedoes and bombs. They did a masterful job of pumping and counterflooding on the fly to keep her upright for as long as they did. The USN had more capable damage control throughout the war, but not everyone in the IJN was incompetent in that department.

[@philsalvatore3902]

@@SamCogley If you ever have the opportunity to visit a modern Japanese warship you will see they take damage control very seriously. Every passageway is lined with fire hoses, applicators, axes, wooden shoring, plugs, clamps, saws, breathing apparatus, low light cameras, etc. Their construction, things like water tight doors, ventilation fittings and labeling appear identical to US Navy practice, but their overheads are a bit lower than ours. I scraped my noggin a couple of times /:

[@SamCogley]

@@philsalvatore3902that’s 80 years later. 🤷‍♂️

[@philsalvatore3902]

@@SamCogley We taught them some hard lessons but the Japanese brought home some badly damaged aircraft carriers and cruisers during WWII.

[@borisbadaxe9678]

Maybe, naming the entire class after a land locked state? 🤣

[@lawrenceralph7481]

The system engineer failed to control the interface requirements for a while between the two subsystems. Generaljy at the conceptual design stage. This sounds like it was caught during the design development in preliminary design. But it was caught before the two components were sitting there.. Seen worse.

[@clintwilde1048]

The actual building of ships such as this, the operation of the completed ship, are very well documented. What is not is the effort to make all the bits and pieces that comprise the ship. Take the bull gear at the turret base for azimuth rotation. The men and processes that made the dies, poured the steel and machined the teeth, have very little to no coverage. The making of the barrels and things like testing the bore for true, and cutting the rifling, the original steel casting of the breech and associated parts before machining and how they did it, and it was not CNC, all would be a wonderful study.

[@TheTransporter007]

The worst mistake the USN ever made was not hanging a couple Montanas in the fleet.

[@scottcooper4391]

Montanas were not needed, even if we would have actually had to invade Japan. Once the Yamato was sunk in her suicide mission, there was no great need for a one on one battleship - and even at that - 4 Iowas should have been more than capable of beating the Japanese giants.

[@TheTransporter007]

@@scottcooper4391 oh I fully concur with your Tactical analysis. I'm just saying for things like fleet day. Also shore bombardment it would be bonkers to just park a Montana and Iowa 20 clicks out and just rain Satan himself down. Four triple turrets is just mean. 😅

[@p99t0013]

I would love to have been a fly on the wall at the meeting where the two boards discovered the discrepancy. I bet it was quite a show!

[@rogermason5833]

Based on what you've said about the functions of the three organizations mentioned, I would say that the General Board is most at fault here. Your comment about the General Board being responsible for coordinating the activities of the other two orgs tells the tale; this situation is a result of their failure to properly coordinate. Do you know if anyone was called to account for this fubar?

[@gwcstudio]

I imagine there was a lot of screaming and finger waving.

[@tobyw9573]

Is the same argument for increasing speed in the Iowa Class applicable to the Zumwalt class??? Higher speeds and significantly additional room and displacement for ammunition are important in today's super=accurate projectiles. The ship that loses advantage in range and number of shots gets hit as the enemy can hit you while you cannot hit him!

[@rupertboleyn3885]

Speed isn't terribly important today, as weapon ranges (aircraft, missiles) are very large compared to ship speeds, so tactical speed of manoeuvre isn't so important (hence why modern warships are generally capable of about 30 knots or low 30s of knots, while WWII destroyers were generally in the mid-high 30s of knots). Sustained cruising speed remains important of course - being able to get somewhere on the other side of an ocean quickly is always useful.

[@ypaulbrown]

Ryan....great video and stills clips added to this......really helps the video in this Old Videographers mind........

[@clockmonkey]

You've got to respect someone who will eat Grain Free Cereal to help support the Ship we Love.

[@tbmike23]

If you're told 2 options are being investigated and you say: we're only pursuing one option and it's the more restrictive one, then you've made a serious blunder. If they only had design time or manpower or resources for one, design around the larger, and you can always fit either turret in it.

[@tomscotttheolderone364]

That is fascinating! I have seen numerous drawings for Texas that show structural modifications made to correct errors apparently discovered during the construction process, but certainly nothing on this level. As far as who to blame, I don't think it can be placed at the feet of either bureau. This kind of mistake can be made by any group discussing complex issues. For that reason, it seems to be more of a structural failing resulting from issues and decisions not being clearly stated by all parties after each meeting.