Working with bigger guns - BB-35 Battleship Texas

[Mk42gunner]

Speaking as the owner of some of the last 20mm on active duty: the 20mm is a big PITA to do maintenance on. They were pulled off the salvage ship I was on about a month and a half after I checked on board, we decommissioned a few months later. I never could get the skipper to let us fire them.

I remember looking at the cartridge board in the Greenhouse and thinking, "Those clipped 40mm look an awful lot like an overgrown .22 Hornet."

The only 40mm I ever saw fired were used in saluting batteries. Another big PITA.

Something tells me those CAB units were replaced as a unit, but GM's do have a lot of ingenuity when it comes to tying things down, or up as the case may be.

Most of the older guns were positioned by two men. One trainer (rotates the mount in train) and one pointer (runs the elevation).

If I lived closer, I would love to help. Alas, not many ships in Missouri.

Robert

[DocWatson]

A Bofors Quad 40mm gun on the deck of an unknown ship, not the USS Texas. (Internet photo)
Attachment 297052

A Google reverse image search (using the browser add-on extension "Image Search Options" (Firefox version); Google Chrome version; note that it's mostly aimed at anime fans like myself, but it does have general options, too) turned up a Russian-language LiveJournal post (many large images at link) entitled "USS Massachusetts" (via Google Translate, though only the first 5,000 characters of text are translated). The image is number 22. I've been there, to Battleship Cove, three or four times (because I grew up across the bay in Rhode Island), and I don't recall the mount being in that nice a condition, though I could be mistaken, and it has been years (1996?) since I was last there. Oh—it's on the upper rear deck (per the LJ post), and I may have missed it. I recommend it, along with the similar museum in Buffalo (though that one is smaller, but one of the ships has a mounted Oerlikon 20mm, which I had not seen before, and it was very interesting to see the cruiser's magazine arrangements for its missiles).

Edit: Clarified a link's label.

[David2011]

This is a mount base for a 20mm Orelikon. The castellated base provides attachment points to pull the recoil system back.



This one is for the long distance shooters. Note the range set markings. It's electronic so I assume it's part of the WWII radar.



More hardware waiting for restoration. Some is in better condition than others. The 40mm systems have deteriorated badly.

[David2011]

This is on the 3rd deck, an ammunition locker for the 3" guns. The 3" ammunition was the largest loaded round and each round was stored in one of these tubes. There are 900 in the room. That's me in the background for a scale reference. More crankiness from an iPhone.



Steam engine driven anchor capstans.



Clouds coming in; it was about 60 degrees and blowing 20 across the foredeck all afternoon.

[David2011]

A Google reverse image search. . .

Thanks. My point was that they were not my photographs and that I was not trying to take credit for them. As a former professional photographer, that is important to me. I avoid Google as much as possible.

David

[Rapier]

A great restoration project.

[DocWatson]

Thanks. My point was that they were not my photographs and that I was not trying to take credit for them. As a former professional photographer, that is important to me. I avoid Google as much as possible.

David

You're welcome. ^_^

[Tazman1602]

Man that’s really cool!

Art

[David2011]

Early on the morning of August 31, 2022 the USS Texas was pulled from its berth for the first time in 32 years for long overdue maintenance. A small crowd was in attendance. The road into the park and the Houston Ship Channel were both closed during the move. Passes to attend were extended to news media, special guests and restoration volunteers that had donated enough hours in the service of the ship. The passes were for the vehicle so we were allowed to bring guests. I took a friend along and he shot this video with an iPhone. I'm disappointed; I bought a new GoPro for the event and his iPhone made a much better video in low light. It's only 31 seconds long and well worth watching. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rzsfxs0O2d4

The ship was freed from the last mooring monopile at approximately 6:00 AM and the tugs began putting a strain on the lines. Civil War re-enactors fired field cannon salutes and the ship's steam whistle that had recently been put back in service on compressed air was blown. In about 30 minutes she was out in the ship channel and turned for departure. It took about another half hour to reconfigure the tugs for towing. There was a large tug each attached to the bow and stern with two other similar tugs running unattached on each side of the ship. For a while the smaller tugs that helped move her out of the berth remained alongside. They left once the ship was beyond the twisty portion of the channel and had entered the long straight runs of the Houston Ship Channel in Galveston Bay. A mix of Coast Guard small boats, a cutter and local law enforcement vessels escorted the Texas and maintained a 1000 foot separation between the ship and the large flotilla of private boats that joined the ship on its 35 mile trip to the dry dock. A group of us that volunteer on the ship followed her down Galveston Bay from numerous vantage points and encountered huge crowds at every place we stopped. The patriotism on display at every stop we made was incredible.


The Texas as she heads down the Houston Ship Channel before sunrise.


The sun rising on the USS Texas on the way to Galveston.


Two other volunteers and myself at the end of the Texas City Dike as the USS Texas passed. That's me in the middle.

[jonp]

Still ready to lay a world of hurt.

[popper]

When I was at Norfolk, IIRC the Mass. was across the bay and mothballed. Dang it was BIG. I'm on the 02 deck (heavy cruiser) and can't see anything but the domes covering the stern guns, probably the 3". Actually did pull up next to the Jean Barte.

[David2011]

The Massachusetts is quite a bit bigger than the Texas; a new generation of much larger battleships. The Texas has 10x14" guns and triple expansion steam engines. It's 680' long with a beam of 108' vs. the 578' x 95' of the Texas. The Texas displaced a little over 28,000 tons at full load. The Massachusetts displaced over 45,000 and was about 6 knots faster with 130,000 hp. The Texas was the last large ship to be built with triple expansion steam engines (they're HUGE!) but only produced 28,000 hp; the later large ships all had steam turbines which are physically tiny by comparison. The Texas originally had coal fired boilers, changed to oil in 1925.

[DougGuy]

I'm enjoying following. I was a shipyard worker for many years, put in many hours on USN vessels of all kinds, welded hull patches on Sinkin' Sara, etc..

I worked on a bunch of old liberty ships, during the war they were built unbelievably fast! Cutting hull plate off one with a hand torch to be replaced with thicker plate for strength yielded a few surprises, ran into a chunk of cast iron engine block, complete with half a bolt hole with threads still in it, hit a piece of a chrome bumper, this is how they turned out steel from the mill during the war. Amazing stuff.

[pworley1]

That is a great project. I greatly enjoyed your post.

[Gewehr-Guy]

I think my parents still have a photo of my brother and I on a 3 inch gun, back in 1967. I was 5 and my brother 7. Would love to see the ship in dry dock.

[Cast10]

Thanks for all the hard work on BB35; a Texas Treasure! Can’t wait to see her when complete!

And, a BIG thanks to all of you who keep history alive! A dedication worth every moment!

My dad, now 91, has had a Korean War Willy Jeep in the family since 1959; before me! We have kept it as original as possible and still use it on the ranch. It has run through our local parades more than I can count. I think, How many of today’s Jeeps are going to last over 70 years?

[David2011]

As we cleaned the old grease and rust off of a 3"/50 caliber Mark XX this week we were surprised to find that Savage had produced the barrel. It was a big jump from making shotguns and .22 rifles to this! The ship was moved to dry dock for major repairs on August 31, 2022.



Just to put the size in perspective:


After cleaning up another 3"/50 barrel we reinstalled it back into its slide and mount. It was both amazing and satisfying to see that roughly 2,300 pound barrel slide home so gracefully. It took a huge effort of about a half dozen people and two overhead cranes to replace the barrel. No pictures of the operation. We had our hands full just getting the job done safely.

A few weeks ago three of the six 5 inch guns and their mounts were removed and brought to the warehouse for restoration. The 5 inch guns are beasts! The barrels alone with no attachments weigh approximately 10,770 pounds. For an update on the restoration of the USS Texas: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZSAWHsKaDaA

[MUSTANG]

Thanks for keeping this post active. Enjoying the progression.

[Char-Gar]

The Battleship Texas was purchased by the school children of Texas about 1948. I was in First Grade and we each received a stiff 8 X 10 card with pocket in which to place our save coins. I did my part.

[David2011]

Overdue for an update. The shipyard is making great progress in removing the old torpedo blisters and building new ones. They can't just be removed to restore the ship to its original hull shape. The buoyancy they provide is needed to float the ship out of the dry dock. Without the torpedo blisters the dry dock would rest on the bottom before the ship started floating. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uN8yPqVw7pM

Meanwhile, back at "the warehouse," work is continuing on the 3" and 5" guns. These guns are being stripped down to their component parts and every piece is getting cleaned to bare metal and painted before lube and reassembly; then there's the inevitable touch up after assembly. The work is excruciatingly slow just because of the number and sizes of the pieces to be handled. Some major parts are being reproduced by a machine shop including bevel gears, gear racks, shafts, etc. Their work is beautiful. They have been careful to bark each piece with all of its original nomenclature plus the new date of manufacture.

The power of water to corrode and erode metal is incredible. These are pieces that I bead blasted yesterday. They're clips that hold the training (rotation) ring gear in place on the 5" gun mounts. The hexagonal flat spots are where the nuts prevented (or didn't) corrosion. These pieces are around 110 years old.


These two pieces will bolt together and attach to the 5" mount. Their function is to give the training and elevation information to the gunners. The worm gear is about 5"-6" OD x 10" long and like many of the gears and housings, all bronze as are the housings pictured. Bronze doesn't corrode in the harsh environment like steel does so there is a LOT of it on the ship. It's hard to imagine how much is bronze. After cleanup, replacing bad bearings, lots of grease and reassembly, these pieces operate very smoothly.


A 5" barrel and breech with the trunnions and recoil absorbers in place. Total weight is around 16,000 pounds/7250 kg.