Which Battleship Could Fire Its Guns Fastest?

[@BattleshipNewJersey]

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[@lightningwingdragon]

Oh that firing cycle clock would make for a sick poster.

[@leighrate]

The Captain of a British Battleship (with quite close ties to the Monarch) was once reprimanded during by his Admiral, because in the view of the Admiral his guns were not firing fast enough. The Admiral had to withdraw the reprimand and apologise when the results of the "shoot" were calculated. It was determined that a substantially higher number of hits were scored by the Captains "slower" firing ship. Apparently the good Captain looked at his Admiral and observed that whilst fast was all very well and good, accurate was better. They were, after all, there to sink the buggers, not just frighten them and his crew would indeed have sunk the blighters.

[@raynscloud8072]

From my perspective as a former tank commander, my cardinal rule for my tank loader was, "I never want to be waiting on you." Having a rapid possible rate of fire is more important than achieving it, because what really matters is having a round ready to go when the order to fire is given. That order (and the necessary prerequisites like target identification, target obscuration, aiming, fall of shot, etc.) is likely to be an even more limiting factor for achieved rates of fire than the mechanical aspects of getting the round ready. No one tells a battleship turret, "fire at will" unless they are too close to miss or in such dire straits that flinging rounds is more important than hitting something.

[@stevea9604]

Absolutely…Can only fire at a target and you often had to wait to get one from observing where your previous shells hits, plus you might have to wait for another guns firing…

[@arthurjenkins9757]

Did you allow him to lap load ?

[@raynscloud8072]

@@arthurjenkins9757 Not in an M1. Combustible casings means you're asking to die in a fire if something, anything, goes wrong that requires the loader to have a free hand.

[@arthurjenkins9757]

@raynscloud8072 your not wrong but as a former tanker myself. I know people do it

[@brianking9446]

As a former combat engineer our sop all but went out the windows when the angry bees show up. Everyone knew their jobs. Everyone did their jobs without being directed. I'll tell you from that perspective...if my loader wanted to hold one in the ready..two things better be going on. One; be damn sure of the type of round I need next. Two; have a previous understanding about it so everyone is in on the "update" and risks associated with it. We ALL removed the safeties from our frags, we all pre-primed our charges, we all knew the risks. Combat changes stuff. Great convo guys.

[@leaj847]

I would suggest the following. Prior to the use of radar directed fire control on the battleships, the actual hit rate of these large rifles was in the neighborhood of 10-15%, if that. In this scenario the rate of fire would have been very important. The more steel fired, the higher chance of hitting the target. After the integration of radar with the fire control, the scenario changed. The hit rate of the guns improved markedly, consequently the rate of fire was not nearly as important as it had been. As noted in one of the other comments, having the guns ready to fire was more important that the actual highest rate of fire.

[@davidmcintyre8145]

Tell that to the men who died as a result of Beatty's obsession with maximum rate of fire in the battlecruisers at Jutland

[@Joseph55220]

I'm not sure where you are drawing those numbers from. There's a huge number of factors that determine how accurate the BBs but they never even approached anything like 10%. Even with radar. Case in point: Iowa's gunnery exercise on Nevada. Broad daylight, stationary target, known range, calm seas, light wind, and Iowa couldn't connect with a single shell before crew fatigue and mechanical problems forced them to terminate the whole thing.

[@davidmcintyre8145]

@@Joseph55220 This is true 10% seems high against a(fast)moving maneuvering target at any great range even with RADAR and remember the longest range verified hits on a moving warship by another was about 26,000 yds and those were using RADAR so 2-3% is a more likely hit rate even at a moderate range of 15-18,000 yds

[@alganhar1]

Sorry, but no. Look, the main limitation on battleship rate of fire, assuming they want to hit anything, is NOT how fast you can load the guns. Its how fast can your fire control generate a target solution. If your guns load in twenty seconds, but your TCT can only generate the target solution in forty seconds you are firing every forty seconds at the minimum. Your enemy, remember, is moving, and is a LONG way away in most battleship engagements. And thats without the delay involved in waiting for your shells to start landing so you can determine whether they are over, under, off target, or straddling. A battleship is not going to be engaging any target at full rate of fire of the guns UNLESS that target is so close a target solution is not required, or the target is not moving. Those kinds of actions are either very unusual (such as the night action of the Third battle of Guadalcanal), or niche, as in shore bombardment duties....

[@luked7525]

Something to note about the German 15” guns. The 26 second time is for the loading angle of 4 degrees. In actual action, they would also have to elevate the guns to fire at battle ranges (at a rate of 6 degrees per second.) The shell hoists themselves were also shown to be prone to breakdowns during testing.

[@stevea9604]

Thank Ryan…Folks do not realize how much research you do for these presentations 👍🏻🤩😄

[@dcy665]

Yes we do. Ryan is why we are here

[@GilmerJohn]

It it's original mission, it was important for a battleship be able to re-load the big guys quickly only when the target was another battleship. But when shelling land based targets an extra 30 seconds between shots isn't all that important. Indeed, it might contribute to longer barrel life. One reason the the Iowa's turret exploded was that the loaders were rushed. There was no point to rushing them.

[@williestyle35]

While pushing the speed of reloading was probably a contributing factor for the turret explosion on USS _Iowa_ , the root problem was the officer acting as commander of the guns and ordnance. The gun team commander was "experimenting" with loads and charges - probably leading to and "overloaded" charge that the gun and barrel was not designed to handle. The loss of life on USS _Iowa_ was a tragic waste of life, and most likely preventable.

[@rogerlevasseur397]

There was a British gunnery exercise pre-WWII where it's been said that in order to fire faster had doors open to pass the powder bags thru the doorway versus only using the powder scuttles to pass the powder thru a steel wall safely.

[@pauldodge1927]

There are actually some records of US Short Range Battle Practice exercises that the National Archives have made available online, so we do have a pretty good idea of the ideal rates of fire for the standard battleships at loading angle. In the mid 20s Pennsylvania managed a blistering 2.5rpm, Tennessee an only slightly slower 2.2rpm, and Maryland a very respectable 1.98rpm. While I’ve not seen a digitized record of shoots later than the 1920s, the 1935-36 CINCUS annual report mentions in the gunnery training section that they’d exceeded all past performance in SRBP that year, so it was at minimum around there. Not that it matters massively since the Idaho test is a much better representation of actual achievable sustained fire, as the 20s SRBP shoots seem to work out to about six full salvos per ship shot as fast as they can, but it gives a good idea of ideal vs practical rate like the Japanese were fond of calculating.

[@davidclark7584]

Good stuff. As a kid my step father was in the navy and i lived on a naval base for about 4 years. We used to visit on weekends some times on his ship. Pretty cool stuff for a young kid. This channel brings back some cool memories. Thanks.

[@emmabird9745]

Well researched Ryan. Small point, Yamato's sister Musashi obviously also had 18 inch even though she never got close enough to an enemy to use them! Also Furious became the first real aircraft carrier (after landing those 18 inch guns) and hosted the first deck landings. Aircraft carriers were Musashi's nemisis.

[@Joseph55220]

Not to say that speed isn't important - but it's down the list of important things. As Ryan alludes to, until you've got your range dialed in - firing more salvos isn't going to do anything but scare a bunch of fish and make it more difficult for spotters to disambiguate the various falls-of-shot with their corresponding salvo-of-origin. You can't make adjustment to your firing-solution until you see what the result was and they can take 75 seconds. Once you've got your elevation pretty well measured you can fire for effect and step the pace up a bit. But, slow is smooth and smooth is fast - as is often said in shooting sports. If you're firing at considerable range, even once you get the shell and powder loaded and the breech closed and the gun elevated - you still need the boat to swing through level if it's a bow or stern shot or through even-keel if you're firing broadside and, depending on what the seas are doing, the speed you're making, how the boat is trimmed, how deep you're drafting, etc. - it can take a ship the dimensions of an Iowa well in excess of a minute to go through half of a pitch/roll oscillation. If you assume the ship can detect threats beyond her maximum effective range and is going to be engaging those targets at or near maximum range, the real question becomes: under various operating conditions, how well can you trim the ship to minimize the pitch moment (to use physics terminology), or the roll moment in the case of broadside salvos. A theoretical rate of fire doesn't do anyone any good if the gun-crew is just going to be whistling yankee doodle for 30 seconds after they slam the breech door while they wait for fire-control to actually send the salvo because the ship is swinging around like a crab boat in the Bering sea.

[@steeltrap3800]

A point of trivia some might find interesting is that Bismark in the battle of the Denmark Strait (vs Hood and PoW) was firing her main battery as half salvoes; the front turrets, then waiting to update solution, then aft turrets. You can see it quite clearly in the famous video footage taken from Prinz Eugen. It's been suggested that's one reason why her gunnery proved to be so accurate (for the time), as she was firing with updated firing solutions without lost time waiting for reloads. As to rate of fire vs other considerations, as someone else has noted, the most significant point is being able to HIT something. The less accurate you are, the more sh** you need to throw to hit your target. As accuracy improves, rate of fire is less significant. Added to THAT is the travel time for shells. If the fall of shot is 50 seconds from firing, having a 40 second effective RoF isn't costing you anything much. If the FoS is 20 seconds, then it is. There's the whole question of 'heavy' cruisers (CA, with 8"/203mm weapons) vs 'light' cruisers (CL with 5"/127mm to 6"/152mm) to consider, too, where various navies considered the factors above and largely concluded that the substantially greater RoF of the 6" guns made up for their significantly lower level of destructiveness, particularly when a lot of treaty CAs had armour that made them potentially significantly vulnerable to 6" shells. It's always going to be 'best' if you can have the greatest possible ACCURATE rate of fire as that means the greatest number of hits on target. The question of whether your shells will be effective against the target is ideally something you consider BEFORE you end up in a gunfight, LOL.

[@alganhar1]

Half salvos were a standard practice, pretty much every navy operating gun armed ships at the time used them, especially in long distance gunnery, assuming you had 8 or more guns (does not work on less than four guns per salvo). Firing a half salvo of four guns every say thirty seconds meant you were getting targeting data every thirty seconds, rather than every minute, because as you mentioned, time of flight of shells in most battleship engagements was a factor.

[@steeltrap3800]

@@alganhar1 Hi, I know it was common enough, the reason I mentioned it was specifically within the context of the "RoF vs accuracy" considerations and a practical way of addressing that where the solution was changing significantly while your target is closing on you at a fair rate. I thought those who may not have seen the footage might find it interesting, especially given Bismarck was able to lay all 8 rifles on target. Cheers

[@kilianortmann9979]

PoW was just as accurate in that engagement and I don't think she fired half salvos (probably whatever barrels were operational at the moment). Both had state of the art optical rangefinders (Bismarcks radar was already down), fire control computers, factory fresh ammunition and crews straight out of extensive training. I think the training had a massive impact. When a ship was reported as extraordinarily accurate, most of the time they had been recently training or the captain or another important crewmember put a massive emphasis on gunnery.

[@stephenalexander6721]

You might look into the battle off Guadalcanal involving USS Washington. My impression was that Adm. Lees crew might have been about as good as you'll find.

[@alganhar1]

Yeah, its also not typical of battleship actions as it was VERY close range, in fact for battleship guns that night action was knife fighting range. Which means many of the conditions that were actually TYPICAL in battleships gunnery when engaging the enemy were not present, or were vastly mitigated by the very short range. Observing fall of shot for example, in a typical engagement it may take more than a minute for the shells you just fired to land, but you cannot adjust fire UNTIL you see those shots land, so you know if and how you need to adjust fire. At the something like 7000 yards of that battle that was NOT an issue! Another problem is generating the target solutions, again at the extremely close range of Third Guadalcanal that was not so much of an issue. The gunnery officer could almost direct the guns using a damned telescope they were that close (relatively speaking). Yes, Lee's crew WAS exceptional, but using that battle as an indication of how good they were is incorrect as other than reload speed they did not need any of that exceptional training Lee had put them through. It was all more or less meaningless for that particular action.

[@brianfiebig7403]

@@alganhar1 If you read Battleship At War, all about Washington, one of the gun captains is quoted twice, once prior to the engagement with Kirishima, where the gun captain describes the progress and finishes with "The book rate is 30 seconds, we did it in half that". The observed rate of fire, even with the short checkfire, was something like 35 seconds, I suspect that has more to do with trying to observe fall of shot in the night, described as "Darker than the inside of a cow". The second quote from the gun captain was from the bombardment of Nauru, where Admiral Lee insisted on a 30 second reload cycle due to the stability questions with the high capacity shells, and the gun captain says "we could do that in our sleep"

[@PalleRasmussen]

Except there is records of a target ship reporting extremely fast and very accurate fire from BB56 at distance ​@@alganhar1Glenn B Davis and Lee were just an incomparable pair.

[@bobharrison7693]

Actually that was Capt. Davis' crew. The book "Battleship at War" tells the story of the genesis of Washington's superb gunnery.

[@PalleRasmussen]

@bobharrison7693 it was his crew indeed, but Lee furthered the focus, and The Gunnery Club was Lee's. As I wrote the were an incomparable pair.

[@18robsmith]

Another way of measuring rate of fire would be "Tons of boom donated to the bad guys per minute". One thing that struck me was how similar the rates of fire were, baring a few fliers (Scharnorst, take a bow).

[@greggweber9967]

6:57 Yamato and that other one, Musashi.

[@tylersimplot13]

i was going to correct that myself but ya beat me

[@Philistine47]

High theoretical rate of fire is nice, but in practice - as mentioned - waiting ~1 min to spot the fall of shot at normal battle ranges is going to give heavier shells an advantage in effectiveness.

[@pyronuke4768]

By the time you get to WW2 battle ranges are so long that rate of fire for the main guns really isn't as important. It's all good and well to relaod a round every 20 seconds, but it doesn't really matter when the shells take 50 seconds to reach the target, especially when the target is doing evasive manuvers. Those really high rates of fire really only help at short range, which in WW2 if your opponents have closed to point bank range with your battleship then something has gone very wrong.

[@tidepoolclipper8657]

When it comes to US battleships; the Tennessee class and Colorado class are very good candidates. BB-46 Maryland from the Colorado class actually ended up splitting one of her barrel liners at Roy Island since so much ammo was fired. Not to mention her guns really needed to be replaced sometime after that due to firing so much. As for the lead of the Tennessee class; BB-43; she at Iwo Jima spent 1,370 shells from the main guns, 6,380 from secondary battery, and 11,481 from 40mm guns. Tennessee class had 14 inch/50 caliber Mark 4 main guns (Tennessee was later given Mark 11 14 inch), 5 inch/51 caliber Mark 7 (later replaced with 5 inch/38 caliber Mark 12) secondary battery guns, 3 inch/50 caliber Mark 10 anti-air, and Bofors 40mm anti-air. While Colorado class had 16 inch/45 caliber Mark 5/8 main guns, 5 inch/51 caliber Mark 15 secondary battery guns (though West Virginia and Maryland later had 5 inch 38 caliber Mark 12 dual purpose battery), and Bofors 40mm anti-air.

[@ronaldfrechette2045]

Would think training would have to help as well. Washington with Admiral Lee in command sent a lot of ordinance Kirishima's way in a hurry.

[@cavalierliberty6838]

Knowing how the gun fires, recoils, and where the real sweet spot is helps a lot. Remember, Lee was an Olympic sharp-shooter, the man valued knowing the responses of his weaponry.

[@alganhar1]

True, but the crew of Washington, though very good, did not have many of the issues one would usually be facing in a battleship on battleship action because of the EXTREMELY close range of that particular battle. If I recall it took place at around 8000 yards, which for battleship guns is knife fighting range. As a result there were a lot of things that the crew did not have to wait for. A good example is fall of shot. For the more normal battleship engagement you are talking over a minute for the rounds from your salvo to arrive at the target, which means it does not matter how fast you reload, because you are not firing again until Fire Control can see the shot land, and adjust fire if necessary. At Guadalcanal the battlewagons were so close that it took seconds for the rounds to arrive at target, so the guns COULD operate at actual listed rate of fire, instead of being limited by the Fire Controls ability to CONTROL that fire.... And really that is the fire rate limitation for Battleships in WWII, not how fast can the guns reload, but how quickly can Fire Control locate the splashes/hits, adjust, then pull the trigger, and if your shell flight time is well north of a minute then a thirty second reload means essentially nothing other than the fact you know those guns are ready to go when you press the big red button to make them go boom!

[@RodneyGraves]

It all comes down to how much damage you can do to the enemy before said enemy does unto you. So accuracy (FC, Stability), Rate of Fire (more rounds out better chance one or more hits), Damage to Enemy (Yamato hit numerous USN ships, but the damage inflicted was far less than anticipated)...

[@alganhar1]

Yamato did less damage than anticipated for a very simple reason. She was using Armour Piercing shells against unarmoured targets, so the shells just went straight through them without exploding because the fuses did not activate. Had she been using High Explosive, the results would have been MUCH different. An 18 inch HE round is going to gut one of those Escort Carriers like a fish, and what they would do to a destroyer is nothing short of cataclysmic. The 15 inch shells of HMS Warspite against the German Destroyers she engaged in the Third Battle of Narvik is highly indicative of what happens to destroyers hit by battleships grade Naval rifles using the correct ammunition (high explosive)! Its not good for the destroyers! The issue at the Battle off Samar (and no I did not misspell of, the Naval battle is off Samar, the land battle is of), is the Japanese misidentified their targets as full fleet Carriers and Cruisers, rather than the Escort Carriers and Destroyers they were actually facing. As a result they selected the worst possible ammunition for the targets they were actually engaging.

[@C-Mack1972]

Never mind the rate of gun fire how about kudos to Ryan’s rate of information and facts fire in this video… that is a ton of details to cover straight to camera and still make it interesting. I’ve sat through history Graduate seminars which couldn’t hold a candle to this presentation.

[@johnshepherd9676]

Until you get blind fire capabilty, rate of fire in combat is about a round a minute because you observe the fall of shot. The guns may be ready to go but you won't fire them until you have a solution. Only British and American ships with advanced fire control systems can approach maximum rate of fire since once you have a solution you are always firing at the target. The reason West Virginia went to max rate at Surigao Strait was because she had a firing solution at 30kyds and was tracking Yamishiro all the way in.

[@stevea9604]

There is also the official rate and there is what the crew was capable of…By the book we could load a torpedo in about 4-5 minutes…In actuality we got it down to about 1-2 minutes and still bring safe.

[@alganhar1]

Makes no difference if torpedo targeting cannot get a firing solution for the fish in less than say three minutes.... And thats the real limiter when it came to battleship rate of fire in most engagements. Not how fast can the guns be reloaded, but how quickly can your fire control system spit out a target solution after you have spotted fall of shot.... I know people point to Washington at Guadalcanal and scream, look what she did... And its fair enough, but, people all too often forget that that engagement took place at around 8000 yards and less, which for battleship guns is not just point blank, its literally knife fighting range! For the more normal ranges of a battleship on battleship engagement, the limitation is in that fire control, and you saw that in battleship engagements that actually took place at those ranges. The guns were not firing as soon as they were loaded, but when the Gunnery officers controlling them had a firm target solution, and that usually took a lot longer than it did to reload the guns, if only because it took a minute or more for that salvo to land!

[@stevea9604]

@ Loading is one thing…Shooting is another…

[@RolandHulme]

What a terrific video! Thanks Ryan!

[@douglasthompson201]

I defer to Wyatt Earp, accuracy is more important than speed.

[@gusbuckingham6663]

This got me thinking about rate of fire from oldest to newest US capital ship, or in this case the New Jersey, in WW2. I think the Arkansas was the oldest commissioned ship, but off the top of my head I'm not sure if she saw much if any action.

[@robertf3479]

Arkansas saw action at Normandy, later during the invasion of Southern France and then transferred to the Pacific. In the Pacific she took part in the bombardments of Iwo Jima and then Okinawa.

[@jacobdill4499]

Has the old us battleships, Arkansas, New York, & Texas pulled a lot of the shore bombardment duties.

[@NFS_Challenger54]

If I were to build a battleship tomorrow, I would use a 16-inch/50 caliber gun with a heavy shell (like the Mark 8) over anything else. Perfect balance between weight, reload speed and overall performance. Anything too big is impractical, and anything too small or too light wouldn't yield effective results in my opinion. Which is why I believe the 16-inch/50 caliber Mark 7 gun of the Iowa-class is by far the best gun ever mounted on a battleship.

[@jackwardley3626]

No the 18 inch gun was clearly better if you could get a 21 inch gun at a similar rate of fire to a 18 inch though it would be fewer barrels and twin turrets with top radar it would be the best practical calibre 8 21 inch guns 50-56 calibre

[@NFS_Challenger54]

@@jackwardley3626 You do realize that the bigger the gun, the bigger the vessel, right? And the bigger the vessel, the bigger the infrastructure to support said vessel. All of that combined is a lot of time, money and resources. I doubt any major navy would be crazy enough to actually order such a battleship with 21-inch guns. I know that there were proposals from the Kreigsmarine with Plan Z to build massive battleships that would rival and even surpass Yamato, while the Japanese were drawing out blueprints for a Yamato-inspired battleship with 20-inch guns. But those plans got scraped right there at the drawing board. And even if World War 2 had started later in the 40's, I still don't think any of those monster battleships would materialize.

[@jackwardley3626]

@@NFS_Challenger54 I think if Battleship development continued into 50's 60's 20-21 inch guns would have been built at around 100,000-110,000 tons. If not for the 2 Naval treaties the Royal navy and IJN were moving to 18 inch guns and I think the U.S. would have done to. So we would have seen 60,000-80,000 tons in the 20's-30's. The RN were think about putting 18 inch guns on hood and were considering 8 of them in 1916 during war making Hood 55,000 tons plus. The Japanese got the 18 inch guns firing at a similar rate as the 16 inch guns and even lower calibres than that they were the most advanced turrets ever built.

[@NFS_Challenger54]

@@jackwardley3626 That's all well and good, if you don't factor in the Washington Naval Treaty and the advancement of the aircraft carrier and naval air warfare. In a world where the aircraft carrier is still nothing more than a support vessel for naval groups, the Washington Naval Treaty didn't happen and if World War 2 didn't start until 1945 at the earliest, battleships might've been at those levels of tonnage with those monstrous guns. But there's always some sort of limit. Japan and Britian get a pass, given that they are island nations, and the former is heavily reliant on its navy in terms of military power. Germany would have to do some serious dredging of the Kiel Canal in order to have massive battleships like those stated in their Plan Z traverse freely into open ocean. The US would have to widen the Panama Canal in order for those battleships to have access to both the Atlantic and Pacific, which is easier to do compared to what the Germans would have to do. And that's not even mentioning the technological limits of certain time periods. Around and after the end of World War 1, the major navies were all proposing bigger and faster battleships and battlecruisers. The Tilman battleships were a study of American Standard-type battleship designs that were impossible to achieve at the time. They ranged from 45,000 tons standard displacement to close to 70,000 tons, with guns ranging from twelve 16-inch guns to sixteen 18-inch guns, on top of a speed almost equal to that of the Iowa-class. As a matter of fact, one design featured no less than eighteen 16-inch guns in a three-sextuple turret arrangement. The British (mainly First Sea Lord John "Jackie" Fisher) wanted to build a battlecruiser with six 20-inch guns (albeit it's a lot more practical compared to the Tilman battleships) on an equal 45,000-ton standard displacement with a speed of about 35 knots. And don't get me started on their G3-class battlecruisers and I3-class battleships. The guns are just one thing. You have to remember that these monster battleships have to be armored against their own guns and also have adequate torpedo protection. That's where most of the weight is going to go. Then of course, you need the propulsion plant, berthing spaces for the crew, all the electronics, etc.

[@slimeydon]

I would trade some rate of fire for better accuracy and range

[@Knight6831]

Yeah I would like to point out that the British for the Nelson Class Battleship was suppose to have auto loading technology for the main guns

[@johnsimms6778]

How about a video on the fuse setters for different shells?

[@Bugman-c2d]

They were boatswain’s mates borrowed from the deck division during general quarters when I was in G3 division during the 80s…. pretty cool job for a deck ape.

[@thurin84]

rate of hitting is much more important than rate of firing.

[@myvideosetc.8271]

Admiral's Lee flagship: "Why not both?"

[@alganhar1]

@@myvideosetc.8271 Admiral Lee's flagship managed that rate of hits at 8000 yards OR LESS... Which for battleship guns is barrel to barrel short range! Its literal knife fighting range for guns of that calibre. As a result Washingtons rate of fire and accuracy at Third Guadalcanal while impressive, are NOT indicative of normal battleship on battleship gunnery at the kind of ranges most battleship on battleship engagements took place at. So using Washingtons rate of fire as an example in this case is foolish, as its ignoring the fact that that particular engagement was the ONLY battleship on battleship engagement ever to take place at that short a range. The Prince of Wales and Rodney ended up getting that close to Bismarck when they put her under, but that was AFTER Bismarck had been pummelled to a flaming wreck and her main guns were silent.

[@theilluminatist4131]

Ryan, excellent video. So from a previous video that you made, the standard propellant charge for a 16" shell is 6 bags at/109-110 lbm/bag for a total of 6 bags at 655 - 660 lbm. That represents a linear length of propellant bags placed in the breach at about 108". What I was wondering is, can more than 6 bags of propellant be loaded/rammed into the breach? What I'm getting at is, I am actually wondering what the longest propellant charge is that could be loaded into the 16"/50 Caliber breaches? 💥

[@tobyw9573]

Look at the cruisers too, especially the videos

[@tidepoolclipper8657]

Salem was a champ with the auto-loading and the 8" guns. She even had 3"/50 caliber anti-air gun. Although Japan themselves had the Tone-class cruiser with their own 8" inch guns and 5"/40 caliber anti-air gun.

[@mikeweller9933]

I have always felt that throw weight per minute or hour was the best measure of effectiveness.

[@gregorytoews8316]

In "Battleship At War" the gun crews of USS Washington claim to have reduced the standard 30 sec to 15 sec. No details are provided as to whether this was at optimum firing angle or not.

[@dogloversrule8476]

8:20 why didn’t the US have greater levels of mechanization for the main guns on the Iowas?

[@SedatedandRestrained]

I would assume for the same reason that the M1 Abrams doesn't have an autoloader: the increased mechanization adds complexity and failure points that are difficult to diagnose/repair in combat. If a human gets tired or injured they can get removed/replaced very quickly with backup crew(especially on a battleship with thousands aboard). There's also fewer hands to help repair battle damage and notice minor problems before they escalate to crises. Mechanization is awesome when it works but terrible when it doesn't.

[@leftyo9589]

2 big reasons, weight, and complexity of equipment. lots of men weigh less than the enormous amount of equipment an autoloader of that size would need.

[@barrydysert2974]

​@@SedatedandRestrainedSpeaking from experience, there is nothing quite as frustrating as working with mechanization that randomly misfunctions. Grrrrrrr !:-(

[@jackwardley3626]

it was mainly down to weight Iowa was still built under the London Naval she was limited to 45,000 tons she was also compromised to again save weight by having a 12 inch internal belt and a 1.5 inch external plate which meant that a 5 inch shell could penetrate her exterior and cause flooding effectively getting mission killed by a destroyers gun fire they also didn't have the best torpedo protection either.

[@SedatedandRestrained]

@@jackwardley3626 I would like to offer a few counterpoints: While weight may have been an issue, the USN didn't seem to want mechanization much even without the weight restrictions because Montana would have used the same guns and turrets that were developed for Iowa. Next, there is nowhere a destroyer could hit an Iowa and mission kill it. Wisconsin took 6" shellfire without pause and carried on as usual. The void spaces outside the armor are also subdivided extensively so even multiple hits wouldn't create much flooding or flooding that couldn't be kept up with by pumps. That aside, how would a destroyer or cruiser ever get within range to try that? The only time a destroyer got close to an Iowa it fled at high speed because Iowa or New Jersey straddled it at almost 36,000 yards while pursuing. Ryan has talked about the TDS before and while not as good as what was planned for Montana, it is good given how little volume it has to work with such as beside turret 1.

[@StephenMartin-pc1fo]

I think you will find most Navies gun fire depended on. Sight targets rapid fire ready use ammo and when solution for firing is set a steady rate of fire which well; slows the rate of fire. Stephen

[@cboetigphone]

When accuracy required manual sighting of the fall of the round, rate of fire is less important, especially if you are only firing half of the guns. Once they started to track the fall of shot by on board radar, the ships could better take advantage of increased rate of fire.

[@JKost-rp5um]

The 16 inch guns are powerful. How is the structure of New Jersey engineered to protect it from the recoil of its 16 inch guns?

[@lifigrugru6396]

After Drachniffel practikal rate of fire is around 1 shoot /min because you need to know where end up your ammo. to got correction on target. Later white more precise radarar self guiding ammonition was not that important to correct.

[@philiphumphrey1548]

At longer ranges, you're going to have to wait until you observe where the previous rounds fell and then recalculate the elevation and heading.. So that would be the limiting factor until you have started straddling the target.

[@andyf4292]

I heard the 18 inch monitors, on firing, had a rain of rivets from the over heads

[@notmyrealname8064]

Accuracy is far far more important than reload rate, at least up to the point where the enemy cant negate your fire solution due to shell travel time and manuevering. That said, if we were to build new BBs today the shore bombardment role would suggest a preference for fire rate over time over prioritizing creating a fire solution, as it is far more practical to improve targetting over time than it is to refactor the mechanical handling. (electronic vs mechanical computers)

[@Lemurion287]

Wish you had included, or at least mentioned the French Dunkerque and Strasbourg fast battleships.

[@grizzlyrideemwet1698]

It wasn't clear to me whether the firing rates you are quoting is per barrel, per turret, or for the entire ship. This may be something that is more obvious to those experienced in naval history, but for casual viewers like me this really needed details on that.

[@PembrokeAcre]

So say a shell and 6 powder bags are loaded and ready to fire, but then it's decided to not fire. How is the barrel de-loaded and shell and powder moved back to the storage magazines? I'd imagine the shell hoist could probably be backed up, but a lot of the powder movement seems to be gravity assisted as it moves through blast doors.

[@su-57stealthfighter73]

They don't ,they just fired the gun on the safe angle ,shell and powder bags already in the barrel makes a huge risk of magazine explosion if you try to take the shell and powder charge out of the barrel ...it's much safer to just fired the gun rather than try to remove the ordnance ...

[@philipgadsby8261]

Interesting video, it struck me that possibly there is a different metric to use. I was thinking of weight of shell fired per minute, or other time period. Obviously there will be discussions about the weight of the different types of shell. It is a measure of potential damage dished out.

[@26betsam]

USAF Bomber Pilot here. You can shoot as fast as you want. What matters is what did you hit. Just saying....

[@timpetta2974]

Strategic bombing in www was not very accurate.

[@rogerexwood6608]

Am I right in thinking that very fast firing, whilst impressive, would superheat the barrels causing them to droop and become less accurate? Indeed I understand HMS Belfast was tasked with NGS during the Korean War and ultimately had to cease firing when the breeches became dangerously hot.

[@SpookyDeCat]

Rate of fire as well as shell caliber would be very important in a life or death engagement (I am no solder or sailor). However, I would prefer accurate gun-laying overall.

[@thomasdowling9195]

How did the Alaska class of cruisers do with their 12" guns?

[@bigsarge2085]

I would guess accuracy would ultimately be more important. But maybe not.

[@ranekeisenkralle8265]

27:38 "dump your magazines in five minutes and then go back to port" - the way you put it makes me wonder (in jest) if the construction of the Scharnhorst-class maybe was outsourced to Texas? How much dakka do you want on this ship? Yes! Hmm... but for that to be the case the sheer number of guns isn't high enough...

[@64ankka]

Have any of the tampions of USS New Jersey been preserved? I'm talking about the plugs at the end of the gun barrels that protect them when not in use

[@georged9234]

Although you may have addressed this in other videos, how does brass over bags increase rate of fire?

[@Backdaft94]

Can’t remember the details but supposedly during one of the Marine landings, one of the BB’s got a PUC for setting a record for fastest rate of sustained fire

[@alganhar1]

Yes, a battleship firing at a NON MOVING LAND BASED TARGET..... That is the kind of scenario where battleships CAN use their listed rate of fire because a mountain is not moving anywhere any time soon. But that is not possible in other scenarios, like shooting at a moving hostile battleship 20,000 yards away. Because that target is moving, which means you have to spot where your shots have landed to know if you need to adjust fire.... And then you have to guess where the enemy is going to BE, not shoot at where he IS, because its going to take around a minute for your shells to arrive!

[@keithrosenberg5486]

What about Arkansas? It depends on the situation for rate of fire vs weight of shells.

[@bholdr----0]

I'd be interested in seeing how much influence that a captain (or gunnery officers/dept.) had on firing rates- for example and in particular, I wouldn't be surprised if the Washington under Willis 'Ching' Lee was faster than other ships of the same class during the time of the Solomon Islands' campaign (given Lee's skills (obsession?) with accurate and efficient gunnery... Is there any data on that? I don't know how to start researching such, but I would expect that different captains (with different priorities, within the scope of their command) would have achieved different firing rates. In the case of Lee, maybe even better than the expected maximum rate... Either way, this is a great vid- covering some things that I hadn't considered... Cheers!

[@CLipka2373]

13:00 - 1 round every 45 seconds is 4 rounds every 3 minutes, not 3 rounds every 2 minutes (that would be 1 round every 40 seconds).

[@jackwardley3626]

The problem is when people look at stats and it says 2 rounds a min thats the initial rate of fire not the persistent rate of fire

[@beaugator]

High rate of fire give more opportunities to correct the trajectory so, they would be more effective overall. If, on the other hand, the targeting system is really good, that effective rate will match the fast firing rates. Then it comes down to penetration and charge for the damage effect. A lot of variables involved.

[@alganhar1]

Really? problem is at normal battleship ranges it takes 50 seconds or more for the shells to land on target.... If you have fired five salvos in that 50 seconds, and happen to be a thousand yards short and five hundred astern, you have just utterly wasted five full salvos of fire.... In battleship on battleship engagements, at the ranges they *usually* engaged at, the time it took for shells to land on target was the biggest determining factor for rate of fire, not how fast could the guns reload. Washington at Guadalcanal s NOT a normal battleship on battleship engagement. It was at such close range most of the issues for battleship gunnery were less of a problem, so it can and SHOULD be ignored for this type of discussion....

[@beaugator]

@@alganhar1 Then, why do all the naval historian talk at length about splash reporting and adjusting firing accordingly. Also, what WW2 BB fired at 10 sec intervals? Most were firing at over 1 minute.

[@vincetytler6175]

Shoot as fast as you want, it doesn’t matter unless you can hit what you are aiming at

[@terrymurphy8568]

I would tend to say that weight of shells per minute might be a better measure of efficiency.

[@normcfu]

From one of your other videos, we learned when they pull the trigger on the big guns, there is still a wait for the ship to be level. In rougher seas, this could be longer for a roll. Do you know what the the average roll time these ships took?

[@sidewinder666666]

I want the most *accurate* main guns, Rate Of Fire be damned (at least to a degree). ;)

[@josepha9567]

“Hit first! Hit hard! Keep on hitting”- Jackie Fisher.

[@raykaufman7156]

The rate of fire question really depends on what you're firing AT. If your target is large and lightly armored, more light shells probably means it's out of action quicker, no?

[@Justthatguy420]

how would a ship know if it hit another ship when shooting over the horizon ? Sights up high on mast? sound devices? smoke on horizon?

[@DavidJones-me7yr]

I wonder how many hours it took to do all the research on this?? Maybe the next report should be on accuracy? I hope they also wrote that down when they were doing their research? Well done Ryan!😊

[@herb1794]

What about Washington in the second battle of Savo Island?

[@alganhar1]

Range. In a word. That action is not really useful as a comparison because of the ridiculously short range at which it took place. This was not a 20,000 yard gunnery duel, the action STARTED at around 8000 yards and closed. What that mean is its knife fighting range for battleship calibre guns, which means many of the problems with fire direction and control are not as much of a problem. Its also the only battleship on battleship action that took place in its entirety at that close a range. Prince of Wales and Rodney got that close when they put Bismarck down, but not until after they had pounded Bismarck to scrap iron and her main battery had gone silent. At one point I think Washington and Kirishima were less than 5,000 yards from each other, for battleships thats danger close!

[@herb1794]

@@alganhar1 Thank you. Makes sense. I was interested because I just finished a great book, "Battleship Commander" by Paul Stillwell.

[@andyf4292]

hmm, wonder if they should have put bore evacuators on BB guns?

[@randywarren7101]

Speed doesn't really matter, ACCURACY DOES!

[@bigsarge2085]

💥💥💥

[@imtheonevanhalen1557]

When did New Jersey have it's most intense rate of fire, bar none?

[@mrkeiths48]

With great Navy training, I am sure that fast firing sequences could be achieved. I see lots of moving parts and naturally think that could possibly slow things down. These big ass shells probably make a big blast on a target, but do we need accuracy? How long does it take to aim that big ass turret? You asked and this Electricians Mate is now curious.

[@grizwoldphantasia5005]

Those big ass shells don't have very big bursting charges. The armor piercing 2700 pound shells had only 40 pound bursting charges, says a quick search. Certainly nothing to laugh off, but all that steel was meant to explode behind the armor, and yes, for that purpose, accuracy is essential.

[@mrkeiths48]

@@grizwoldphantasia5005 Thanks. There is a whole science to this battleship shooting scheme. I will go back to my submarine and operate/maintain the electric plant ( as I was trained to do ).

[@aserta]

RoF is important. But not because RoF does something special (mag dump, basically), BUT... being able to cycle those shots at a fire rate that exceeds any potential situation where you get caught with your pants down. If RoF is slow and you have a change in the battlefield that needs immediate response... you can't do anything about it until the load's complete. What that situation may be? Dunno, could be anything, but having the option is what matters. My mind is on the notion that if RoF weren't important, then handguns would still be cap and ball to this day. Just my 2 cents.

[@major0joy]

@20:10 what happened to the gun in the second turret?

[@G41st-Jester]

Not saying definitively, but it could have been an image when the barrels were being mounted/maintained. That or Richeleau (forgive the spelling, but French is weird when it comes to spelling) was the French battleship Germany captured and rushed into service without the guns being fully mounted. I could be wrong, though, and instead be thinking about the Jean Bart by mistake.

[@dutchman7216]

Having uniform rate of fire is great, but having accuracy is better.

[@justahologram2230]

Would you count Fort Drum/USS Nogo as the American 18 inch battleship?

[@timhorton698]

I don't think you mentioned the British 13.5 inch guns from WW1 in the Orion and the KGV (1912).

[@charlesmaurer6214]

I wonder if trading a gun per turret would have been worth it for a system more like a trooper's riffle.

[@F-Man]

Well…depending on how liberal we want to be with our definitions of “its guns” and/or “battleship,” the Iowas by far have the fastest rate of fire of any battleship. CIWS sure can throw some rounds downrange! 😛

[@Norbrookc]

Don't forget the 5" guns...

[@BlahVideosBlahBlah]

​@@NorbrookcSure! Add a few hundred 5" rounds per minute to the tens of thousands per minute from the angry R2-D2s!

[@Portuguese-linguica]

​@@BlahVideosBlahBlah when did R2D2 leave space and join the battleship 🤣.

[@davidbatinich1528]

Negative....during ww 2 that is

[@shubinternet]

Ryan did say “their main battery guns”. So, that eliminates all smaller calibers.

[@Joemama555]

i suppose a follow on question is the accuracy of the main guns....

[@davegoodridge8352]

Were the Japanese beehive shells the only antiaircraft shells used on Battleships?

[@Doctors_TARDIS]

The bigger question is how many rounds can it put ON TARGET per minute.

[@PalleRasmussen]

BB56 Washington under Willis "Ching" Lee and Captain Glenn B Davis. Ask Admiral Kondo.

[@seatedliberty]

Speed is pretty, accuracy is final.

[@allensanders5535]

Yamato is not the only one to have 18.1" guns you forgot its' sister ship the battleship Musashi. (Yamato-class BB) are the only one's

[@jeremyparr2047]

Without taking the ship to dry dock can you get the 5 and 16 inch guns firing as the ship is? That the question I want to ask

[@peterkoch3777]

There is a whole bunch of support machinery needed to make the turrets work. You'd need the boilers and generators working for example. None of these have seen any action since 1995. The turrets are locked in place but that can be easily removed. The guns itself have been raised/lowered by hand on a few occasions. Iowa recently got one of her turrets turning - it was blocking a needed hoist so they made that effort to rotate it.

[@christianjunghanel6724]

I think rate of fire only matters if you have the right fire control to actually take advantage of like the american with their radar controlled fire direction !

[@tuxedotservo]

Yamato and her sister ship, Musashi, both had 18.1" guns...

[@BalshazzarWastebasket]

quoting russian firing speed is like quoting their projected armor strength or their boiler psi capacity. the engineers needed to put out a plan, or they get a one way ticket to the gulag. no one expected for things to work according to specs, and whenever there was a snafu somewhere , then they couldnt blame the entire work unit, so they just gave everynone vodka and kept on working..which is why the soviet battlship was so successful

[@robertpatrick3350]

(Volume of fire x weight of fire ) / rate of fire….. and then how long that can be sustained for……

[@JeffUmstead]

Whichever one “Ching” Lee was commanding would be a good guess.

[@neonhomer]

I have a question that doesn't really pertain to this video directly but to the battleship itself (or any other ship as a museum)... it's for a story I'm writing... hypothetically, if the ship was to be reactivated (and not cut up for scrap... actually brought back to service), how would that go down? Not the work required, but how would the Navy do this? Send a couple of guys down to the Home Port Alliance's offices and say "we want our ship back", or certified letter... ? This is just hypothetical, but I'm trying to be as accurate as I can within the bounds of the storyline...

[@dlifedt]

But then New Jerseys shells weigh 3-4x more than Scharnhorsts, so she's throwing more weight per minute.

[@johnjones5354]

Is this 30 second firing time per turret, or per barrel?

[@BattleshipNewJersey]

Barrel

[@johnjones5354]

@@BattleshipNewJersey Thanks. That makes much more sense. Keep up the good work.

[@tombakabones274]

I'd want the guns that are big enough to penetrate my enemies armor and accurate enough to do it in a few shells as possible because it's not the number of shells you put down range it's how accurate those shells are because you can dump an entire powder mag and not hit a damn thing

[@Ganiscol]

Rate of fire is absolute king when the conditions allow to take advantage of it. Like, clear weather, calm sea and reasonably short distance to target. That is when punching more holes into your target outweighs punching fewer bigger holes.