That's a lot of men trying to get out of a tight space if things go bad. I'm guessing there were a lot of drills, but I imagine survival rates were low when something did go wrong.

Thank you for your service.

@@zugy if things went bad, it was quick enough that most, if not all of the crew was lost.

Thanks Andrew

@Stimpy&Ren you show an amazing lack of knowledge about battleships. BBs suffered losses but if you would care to tell the class which US battleships sunk after Pearl, I'll wait. . . . BBs pounded the shores, softening up enemy placements, sometimes almost entirely deforesting an island prior to landing by ground troops. Skip forward to the first Desert Storm and there were large groups of Iraqis surrendering to the UAV spotter plane from the Missouri. They quickly learned when they saw that little plane, death and devastation soon followed from Mighty Mo's 16in guns. BBs were never "easy pickings".

Considering it was built without computers it is amazing! Sad part is I think it would take nearly a decade for our modern industrial complex to even start building one of these ships.

Looking at the Yamato class their loading system I find is much more impressive than what the Iowa class is.

these ships really are marvels of engineering.

jth877 I find it amazing what they built, but one has to understand that most men where mechanically inclined then, engineers and draftsman were highly talented and professional and substandard work was a fireable offense. Today with this new generation , even with computers , these push-button wiz kids and the guys who have to call in a plumber to change a washer, probably couldn’t design and build a ship like this. Reliance on computers doesn’t make people smart. It’s just the opposite. This ship instead is a monument to the last generation of men who could literally build anything, design anything with a drafting board , slide rule, piece of paper and a pencil. Their “computers“ where their brains and their hands.

More like, designed over 90 years ago. Men now can't operate it, ma'am...they are too weak to train, so we've found other ways to keep them busy. Most of the men today can't handle even taking a TOUR of such a fine piece of history.

I can't imagine the horror the crew of the HMS Royal Oak experienced when it was attacked in its own base at Scapa Flow just before the outbreak of WWII. Basically, it was Britain's Pearl Harbor but this was a single attack by ONE U-boat, the U47, captained by a rookie named Gunther Prien. He was awarded the Knight's Cross for this. It still doesn't make sense how he was able to break past the underwater gates without being caught. My best guess is they had no boats patrolling the perimeter of the Orkney Islands. The British were just as devastated by the loss of the Royal Oak as we were by the loss of the USS Arizona.

Agreed. I was inside the number 3 turret of the Alabama a few years ago. Not a place for a claustrophobic. Tight quarters, dark, lots of places to smash a knee or elbow, and the noise must have been horrific. All that coupled with moving machinery that would make quick work of any body part that it came in contact with. A person would have to have nerves of iron to survive and function in there.

Scooter Tramp, I visited that turret as well. It was remarkable that it seemed as big as it was at the same time it was as full, cramped and difficult to move in as you could imagine. It reminded me of being inside a tank, though with everything supersized. All of it gave me a sense that anyone responsible for manning those positions had to be damn sure about what they were doing, and extremely precise in doing it.

@@oh8wingman They had a nerve tougher than Iron, perhaps heat treated alloy steel to endure all that.

Gribbo9999 my poppop was a gunners mate back in these days. Always was a brave guy. He’s passed now, but seeing things like this I know would make him proud! Cheers!

You should go to the USS Alabama in Mobile, Al. You can enter the turret on that battleship.

Imagine the maintenance that went into keeping that ship operational.

@@justevil100 can confirm, the Alabama is amazing. even got to move the guns of the 5 inch turrets

Imagine building it without computers, all hand drawings!

Thanks for saving the free world to the and men that died to save the free world

ur telling me ur 95+ years old?

Kikoredog: Milton (1967-1989), 21, was the son of Milton F. DeVaul, Sr. and Shirley Lukins DeVaul. He had a brother, Stephen, and two sisters, Dawn and Brenda. He graduated from Solvay High School. He was killed in the explosion of gun turret #2 on the USS Iowa, during training maneuvers in the Atlantic Ocean off Puerto Rico.

If a god exists, it didn’t bless Milton. It let him die.

I'm sorry for your friend. My father was the Dental Officer on Iowa when it happened. Just a few months prior to the accident, I was given a tour of the ship which included going in Turret 2. The Marine detachment officer who gave me the tour and a t-shirt got 1st, 2nd, and 3rd degree burns trying to pull bodies out of the outside hatch. Dad has only recently opened up to me with the stories from what happened. I received a Purple Heart and fought in Iraq, so we understand each other now. I was 11 when the turret blew.

@@kikoredog There are a few good men left to tell the story!

Those old analog computers factor in such variables as ship speed, barometric pressure, humidity, temperature, and even the curvature of the Earth when computing the trajectory of the shells to get them to fall on target. And when radar was added to the mix, the fire control was state-of-the-art back in the 1940s; far superior to what the Japanese warships had!

@@Platyfurmany When I was in Field Artillery School at Ft Sill we learned to compute quadrant and elevation with all those things factored in manually using slide rules, pocket calculators, and firing tables. And that was barely ten years ago! The amount of math needed to deliver rounds down range accurately is just astounding.

Wow.

@@erwin669 A computer the size of your finger nail does it all in a fraction of a second, today. Truly, humans are amazing. We taught rocks to think.

@@haydentravis3348 except for those tiny computers aren’t hardened for EMP. The AFATADS is about the size of a brief case

Only on the first one I think the men and women that built them had a challenge all that wire that’s in that ship and bolts welding .

That is quite a burden....bless you...

God rest their souls Amen.

Sorry for your loss :( Thank you for serving.

Thanks for your service. Tough boat to crew.

Mark Zarraonandia I don’t think we met but we were shipmates 😎 I was on board for 1988 and 89

I don't hear much about Scharn or Gneisenau anymore! Respect to your grandfather for serving aboard a great fighting ship!

Hope you do get here and WHEN you do, be sure to let us know you're coming. We'll take great care of you!

when your GQ station is in deep mag and you didn't need hearing anyways

I spent 3 years with 155mm field artillery which was loud enough and we were always outdoors. It had to be worse in an enclosed room.

You think that’s impressive, take a look at the Japanese battleship Yamato, the largest battleship ever built. 72,800 tons, supporting almost 3,000 crew, to support it’s nine 18.11 inch guns

To be fair, up until the 1930s it wasn't unknown for even Destroyers to have exactly that setup for their guns and possibly some cruisers as well.

The Navy calls sailors who work with guns "Gunners Mates". When I was in, we also called them "Cannon Cockers". Of course, guys like me who worked with radars were called "Scope Dopes". Electronics guys were "Twidgets" , Pipe fitters were called "Turd Technicians" ,and Signalmen were called "Skivvy Wavers", just to tell you of a few nicknames we had for people and things.

@@lewiswereb8994 Cannon Cockers seem to have the coolest name I guess.

Lucky if you died quickly. Reportedly after Pearl Harbor surviving crewmen lived on for a week or more, trapped in sunken ships. Have to wonder, when a capital ship would ' turn turtle ' and sink, how many trapped crew would survive, briefly, in trapped air spaces ?

Three shipmates were trapped onboard USS West Virginia when she turned over at Pearl Harbor. Trapped in a storeroom, they marked off the days on a calendar they found there: sixteen days after the attack, the last day was marked. Sixteen days. They were 18, 20 and 21 years old.

during a big storm going to japan a cruiser ran out of fuel and sank all men lost 1944

dark labyrinths of death

@@xzqzq It can be quick or it can be longer, it just depends on how many are using the available oxygen in a small place, what noxious fumes could be present, how their own bodies coped, and if they gave up or not -- we only hope it was quick if they were not rescued. Our hearts go out to all those who were lost on ships in Pearl on 12-7-41, may they all rest in peace. I visited the Arizona Memorial a couple of time, it is VERY sobering to know that there are lost souls beneath you. WE honor, respect and thank ALL warriors from every war. Like Gen. Sherman said, "War is Hell" and we certainly agree. So many families lost loved ones during all our wars, it is very sad, but they WILL BE REMEMBERED, for all time!

I forgot to mention my dad was Seaman Jack Thomas Ethington. He passed away in 2017. I made a special trip with him so that he could see his beloved ship again. He talked about it often.

@@tommohler1853 Was about to ask if he was still with us. Sorry he's not, but glad you got to visit the ship with him. We'd love to have a photo of him for our archives if you'd like to share.

That's why it's worthless for modern warfare, unless you need some big guns to shell under equipped enemies (desert storm).

@@5000mahmud Advances in aircraft, guided missiles, submarine warfare, among many other fields have rendered this doctrine obsolete. Other futuristic concepts like the rail gun are on the very verge of becoming reality, and will force ships like this even farther down the power scale.

As far as I can tell, none of the Iowa class ever served much purpose other than for coastal bombardments, they were obsolete to begin with. The only exception I can find is during attack on Truk, when admiral Spruance decided to actually halt airplane attacks on stricken Japanese destroyers so he could have the pleasure of getting the last licks in with Iowa and New Jersey before they disappeared under the waves. New Jersey almost got torpedoed for the trouble. That's pretty much the only case I know of where Iowa class battleships sunk any other ships, though Wisconsin did come close to sinking a ship, by ramming a friendly. Japanese and German contemporary battleships didn't really perform any better, giant coffins with big targets on their back the whole lot of them. Too few to make a difference, too precious to risk and juicy targets for bombs and torpedoes.

@@aleksandersuur9475 wow, how about the Battle of Casablanca? Or the Second Battle of Guadalcanal or the last official fight between battleships, the Battle of Suriago Strait?

@@Cleaveland72 which of the Iowa class battleships did Casablanca or Guadalcanal involve, weren't all battleships in these engagements from older classes? Iowa and New Jersey were present at Leyte Gulf, but they didn't end up doing much did they? All the battleship action came from older classes if I remember correctly.

He's our COO and chief engineer, and he's done lots and lots of homework on top of a long career in the maritime industry.

But the problem was and the reason they were decommissioned was they were very costly to maintain and crew at least 1,500 sailors were needed to man them

We're doing everything we can to preserve this one!

Dad served on The New Jersey in Vietnam , 1tour in a 5 in turret 2nd gunners mate. When I turned 51 we drove up from San Diego and toured the Iowa while he was visiting. Very worth while trip. Just wished we could’ve got inside turrets. His turret had been replaced with a Tomahawk launcher. Still, a great ship

welcome home and thanks for your service...

Robert N pop pop

Sooo your saying your in a war and your pissing yourself over the sounds of a battleship???

BUT . . . a B-52 strike was three aircraft, each bomber carried 108 500 pound bombs, and the target area was not a dot on a map as with most airstrikes, but a blocked out area two thousand meters wide by 5 000 meters long, from which the US Troops on the ground (me) had to give final approval to insure all friendly troops were nowhere near that target area. I would be called hours before, and asked to clear target number _ _ _ after which the planes would need no other approval before their time on target. The planes would drop half their bomb load, then turn around and about 15 minutes later drop the remaining ordinance. I once stood atop the operations command bunker during the strike at a distance of about 2 miles from target, the night was clear, the bombers could not be seen or heard from the ground, and once the bombs began to explode the concussion from each would cause the skin on my face to ripple from the effect for each explosion. It was then apparent why these strikes demoralized the NVA and VC who witnessed them. When one considered how minimal their defense was in these areas, and how massive the attack it felt like killing flies with a pile driver. The NVA had SAM sites near cities and ports, but this was in areas along the Cambodian border that had no such defense weapons.

I've heard that approximately 80% of all targets in Vietnam were within range of the 16" main guns. I sometimes wonder if pilots and planes might have been spared if the battleships had been used a bit more in the war. (Micheal, I think only the New Jersey was activated during the Vietnam war.)

it is a god damned monument to human ingenuity for what can be done with mechanical computers.

And no one will see again. You lucky dogg

I was onboard the USS Monongahela AO-178. I was with the first group of 20 women onboard. Some of the Mono guys were sent to the Iowa to make room for us women. We had just finished refueling the Iowa on that tragic day. I have a picture of a couple of Mono shipmates sitting topside with the Iowa in the background after the Iowa broke away from us. The picture was taken a few minutes before the explosion. Any loss of life while serving is sad, but having a history like we've had with the Iowa makes it even more touching to us. RIP shipmates, you all are not forgotten.

The USS Coral Sea CVA-43 had 5" guns when I served in 1970-71. Even the 5" guns shook the entire ship. I just couldn't even imagine being there with 16" guns ablaze. Very nice video.

Agree 100%! Completely amazing.

War brings out the very best in terms of innovation , production, and invention.

ville hirvonen Maybe you should go first then

ville hirvonen Actually nazis were more oriented towards killing the human race

ville hirvonen Also, you were the one who said that the human race deserves to be extinct. It’s worth noting. Cheers!

@@xzqzq ummm what? There were LOTS of shit designs and huge failures.. and still are today.

When you're 18-22, you have no fear. You wouldn't find as many 30-40 y/o men willing to do that...

Very perceptive...

Michael One of my favorite BBs in World of Warships, it's so fast and the main batteries are so accurate. It's AA defense is so good most players playing CVs often avoid Iowas lest their squadrons get slaughtered 😈

General, we here on the ship helped with the detail rendering of the WoW Iowa class. The ship you are playing is a pretty accurate portrayal. Fire control was vastly superior to the Japanese, and the AA defense was virtually impenetrable. I see the aft plot room fairly often, and all those old, incredibly accurate clockwork analog computers are still there. They are incredible machines.

Lots of gauges on the ship, where'd be the best place to look? With my experience in a fireroom, it was not uncommon to change them out...

Worked shop 36, Fire Control. Those were fond days.

I was able to climb around the upper part of this turrret and work the range finder. Very exciting.

Absolutely have been going there since I was a kid and have brought my kids several times you see something new every time you go

I got to sleep over on that ship as a young boy scout. It was awesome! Go up on deck and move the machine guns and then hope over the submarine they had on display as well. This was over 30 years ago, so not sure if it's all still there.

Same here. My mother wondered where I disappeared to when I found the hatch into the turret from the deck. That was probably 50 years ago.

Marines did not sail them, sailors did.

boy ain't that the truth, I was thinking good lord I'd hate to be in there. especially under fire. Jesus, I just can't imagine how terrible that is. I toured the USS Texas and couldn't get over how cramped and claustrophobic it was. No thank you . My father in law who was in Korea advised me to join the army which I did we were outside in the fresh air. 1st cav. 8th eng. battalion. blowing the hell outa stuff, good times ; ).But I salute all sailors that served aboard ships at sea because i wouldnt want to do it,so someone else had to. thanks guys.

Nor is the ball turret on a B-17! I went from a video of that to this film. The engineering on the big guns is awe inspiring!

It would be incredibly expensive to power up the machinery to do that and about 50 more guys to operate it.

​@@lewiswereb8994 lol