Working with bigger guns - BB-35 Battleship Texas

[David2011]

Over the past couple of years I've been reading and studying the main guns of battleships. In the process, I saw that the Battleship Texas Foundation was using volunteers to help with the restoration so I signed up and started working one day a week. The deck guns smaller than 5" have all been removed and taken to a warehouse for restoration. The elevation and azimuth mechanisms are being repaired and the exteriors of the guns are being stripped, sandblasted and painted to as close to new appearance as possible. The 5" guns will be removed in the coming months and they, too will be brought in for restoration.

The guns smaller than 5" are all WWII additions since battleships had little threat from aircraft in WWI. There are 20mm Oerlikons, 40mm Quads on hydraulic mounts and eleven 3" antiaircraft guns. The mass of these guns is impressive. A 3" barrel assembly complete with the sighting systems and recoil assembly weighs around 3,500 pounds and "a bit more" on the deck mount.

3" Guns:

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40mm A-A having paint removed

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[Winger Ed.]

Way cool.

I've helped with some museum restorations, but nothing as cool as that!

[elk hunter]

What a great way to experience history.

[farmbif]

you fortunate to be able to be involved in such a project, im not exactly jealous, well yeah maybe just a little bit

[MaryB]

Local WWII aircraft collector asked me to help restore some of the electronics. I did the radio systems in a B25 for him and have a P38 radio coming in to work on. It is amazingly CRAMPED in a B25! I had to have one of his kids shimmy into tight spaces to pull new wiring harnesses(old ones were mouse chewed) for me.

Not from the plane I helped on, owner only allows his authorized pictures...

https://www.maam.org/airshow/images/b25_waist_8.jpg

[MUSTANG]

Looks like "Fun" reminds me of my early days in the Corps floating around on Amphibious ships (for several years I thought the only ship the US Navy has was the Dubuque - known by Marines as "De-Puke"). Found the ships guns on the various Amphibs, Destroyers, Carriers, and the Command and Control Ships the USS Blueridge and the USS Mount Whitney I was on fascinating - particularly the Gun Command and Control features most people never see.

[David2011]

Chipping the paint on the 40s isn’t bad. The needle guns pop the old, brittle paint away easily. All we’re doing is getting them ready for sandblasting. After years in a higher pressure corporate job this is mostly relaxing. There are no finely ground Grace screwdrivers. Disassembly is mostly with impact wrenches and large hammers used delicately.

There are some really precision pieces and one of them is extremely challenging to reassemble. The 40mm Bofors mount is hydraulically driven with a bent axis pump. It was disassembled before I came on board so I didn’t get to see it in one piece. It’s in amazing condition to be early 1940s vintage. It’s been immersed in hydraulic fluid its entire existence. The hitch is that the seven pistons, dog bone and the bronze pump housing all have to line up while holding the heavy (15-20 pound) piston assembly. The pistons are 7/8” diameter and about 1-1/4” long. The entries into the pump are square edges with no chamfer and the tops of the pistons have equally sharp corners. Just getting one piston in is a little bit difficult. Getting them all in has been seemingly impossible.

How in the world did the assemblers put these pumps together by the thousands? If anyone knows the secret, please chime in! I’m thinking of making a small gantry from scrap lumber to suspend the piston assembly so we don’t have to hold it in our hands. Some sailboat pulleys would make adjustments in small increments easier.

[1hole]

A 14" or 16" BB rifle is something that gives serious meaning to "knock-down" power.

[45workhorse]

Jealous I am!

[Winger Ed.]

Just getting one piston in is a little bit difficult. Getting them all in has been seemingly impossible.

How in the world did the assemblers put these pumps together by the thousands?

Like so many other things the factories produce stuff in numbers that are beyond belief-- they had a special tool for it.
If it takes us about two days to put something like that together-- using the special tool would get it down to about a minute.

Maybe that's why the call them 'special' tools.

[David2011]

This is the hydraulic motor that operates part of the Bofors 40mm Quad mount. It was disassembled by someone else with no plan on how to put it back together. It was made in the early 1940s and is in amazing condition. After two days of head scratching, I figured out a different way to try to assemble it and two of us had it together in a couple of hours. There was still a learning curve due to having to fit all seven pistons in and at the same time get the drive dogbone in correctly. The next one should be relatively easy. There are ten of the Quad 40s to restore.

Bronze housing. There is an unbelievable amount of bronze on just about everything. It holds up very well in harsh environments.
The dogbone is in the background
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The pistons have to go into the housing while the housing is at an angle to the input shaft (visible in the last photo.)
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Pistons and dogbone in place
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The assembly was stood on end and the outer housing was lowered over it. Previous attempts were with the bronze piece already inside the outside casting and it was nearly impossible to see and get fingers inside the casting.
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[David2011]

This is the platform for the Quad 40 mount. Severe pitting can be seen around the outsides of the two double gun mount locations. Eighty years of exposure and poor maintenance due to limited finding has taken a toll on the ship. The motor at the right rotates the entire platform and can operated by the ship's fire control director or by the gun crew.

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Four round clip. The Bofors 40mm guns are select fire with a big semi/full lever on each pair. (Internet photo)
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A Bofors Quad 40mm gun on the deck of an unknown ship, not the USS Texas. (Internet photo)
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[Thumbcocker]

Just wow.

[farmbif]

that hydraulic pump design is tried and true. ive pulled apart much smaller versions but had no idea how versatile the design was until just now.

[Bmi48219]

Chipping the paint on the 40s isn’t bad. The needle guns pop the old, brittle paint away easily.

I’d guess somewhere in under that paint there’d be some lead based primer?

I saw a video about the 20 mm Oerlikon gun. It was a blow back action with massive recoil spring(s), something like 180 pound tension, way too strong to manually pull the bolt back for charging. There were three ways to charge the first round. The third and final resort was an ingenious solution. A rope or cable attached to the back of the gun and bent over a pulley. The tag end fastened to the gun mount base. By elevating the barrel the cable pulled the bolt back to let a round feed up in front of the bolt. Sure be cool to have the opportunity to fire one.

[popper]

They use a precision tapered 'tool' that takes all pistons at the same time. Cylinders are tapered at top. Used them for missile hydraulics and were run by a solid propellent gas generator. GM AC compressor, power steering pumps and Mercedes 300sl FI fuel pump - same design. We called them wobble pumps. How is the restoration of the Texas coming along? Though it was pretty rusty by now, leaking through the hull. Fill with concrete?
We has 2 3 gun mk15 300 ton turrets.

[lightman]

That sounds like a fun project. Good on you for volunteering.

[David2011]

I’d guess somewhere in under that paint there’d be some lead based primer?

I saw a video about the 20 mm Oerlikon gun. It was a blow back action with massive recoil spring(s), something like 180 pound tension, way too strong to manually pull the bolt back for charging. There were three ways to charge the first round. The third and final resort was an ingenious solution. A rope or cable attached to the back of the gun and bent over a pulley. The tag end fastened to the gun mount base. By elevating the barrel the cable pulled the bolt back to let a round feed up in front of the bolt. Sure be cool to have the opportunity to fire one.

There’s red lead primer everywhere. It’s done a remarkable job of preserving the guns. Unfortunately the Oerlikons were all restored when I started working on the restoration but I drool when I walk by them sitting on the shelves. The 3” guns can be pulled against their recoil systems in a similar fashion but they have to be mounted either to a factory floor or the deck of the ship. A chainfall hoist is attached to a bulkhead to retract the barrel.


They use a precision tapered 'tool' that takes all pistons at the same time. Cylinders are tapered at top. Used them for missile hydraulics and were run by a solid propellent gas generator. GM AC compressor, power steering pumps and Mercedes 300sl FI fuel pump - same design. We called them wobble pumps. How is the restoration of the Texas coming along? Though it was pretty rusty by now, leaking through the hull. Fill with concrete?
We has 2 3 gun mk15 300 ton turrets.

These bores are straight making it difficult to start the pistons. I did a fair amount of measuring with a mic and internal gauges. We decided early on that they had a better way for wartime assembly. The manual, as thick as it is, says nada about disassembly and assembly of the motor/pump.

The restoration of the ship itself will begin mid-summer. At the moment a dry dock is being prepared for a trip from Freeport, Bahamas to Galveston. The Coast Guard wants it in Galveston before hurricane season. The Texas will be towed to the dry dock when it arrives but the CG will allow it to be moved during hurricane since it’s only a one day daylight trip. It’s terribly rusty. The space between the torpedo blisters and the original hull has been filled with foam and there are pumps on board. The original plan was to remove the hull plating and weld on new but later it was decided that the new plating will be welded over the existing plating. There is just too much risk of opening too many cans of worms removing the original plating. The 5” guns will be brought ashore to the warehouse for restoration while the ship is in dry dock. There are still 10 quad 40s, 10 more 3” and six 5” guns to restore.

The ship will be opened for visitors on March 12/13 2022 for anyone that might be interested and in the Houston area.

[jonp]

Jealous I am!

Thats no lie

[popper]

https://battleshiptexas.org/battleship-updates/
We had 4 dual 3" that never even got manned during quarters. 5 rnd clips were carried from the magazine to the gun and sailors had to run fast to keep up firing rate.
Suspect the pumps were contracted and not repaired. Breaking the top edge won't hurt the pump and makes installation of pistons easier.

[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)
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A Google reverse image search (using the browser add-on extension "Image Search Options" (Firefox version) (https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/image-search-options/); Google Chrome version (https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/image-search-options/kljmejbpilkadikecejccebmccagifhl?hl=en); 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" (https://vova-modelist.livejournal.com/42829.html) (via Google Translate (https://vova--modelist-livejournal-com.translate.goog/42829.html?_x_tr_sl=ru&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=en-US&_x_tr_pto=wapp), though only the first 5,000 characters of text are translated). The image is number 22. I've been there, to Battleship Cove (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/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 (https://buffalonavalpark.org/) 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.

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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.

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

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[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.

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Steam engine driven anchor capstans.

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

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[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.

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

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

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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.

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Just to put the size in perspective:
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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.
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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.
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A 5" barrel and breech with the trunnions and recoil absorbers in place. Total weight is around 16,000 pounds/7250 kg.
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[David2011]

This is an elevation disc for the 5" gun. Each side is engraved for a specific muzzle velocity. This side is engraved for 2,300 fps from 100 to 7,800 yards.

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This is the moving part of the 5" mount. Behind it and just in front of the cutting torch bottles is the fixed portion of the mount that bolts to the deck. About all that can be seen of it is the big gear and the deck plate full of mounting holes.

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Restored mounts for the 20mm Oerlikons. After looking at 5", 3" and 40mm guns for a year the 20mm Oerlikons look pretty small. I lifted the receiver end of one while I was working yesterday. They're not as small as they appear!

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One of the ship's searchlights waiting its turn for restoration. There are some of this size and some smaller ones; all are carbon arc lights.

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[Kestrel4k]

Thank you for the restoration pics; in our years of reading military history we get to admire pics of the classic hardware, but never what the disassembled components looked like. :-)

[David2011]

You’re welcome. Before long I hope to have some closeups of the internals of the training and elevation “displays.” All analog, operated by some of the most beautifully machined gears I’ve ever seen and all made with manual machines.

[buckwheatpaul]

Went to: Texas Battleship Foundation last night. They have videos of what is going on right now; their is section if you want to volunteer, have a tour, or things available for sale to help fund the restoration. It is worth the look if ya are interested....

[David2011]

Thanks, Paul. We could definitely use a few more volunteers with good mechanical skills. There is such a thing as a free lunch, on workdays! The CEO and I were talking while I was shooting video this week. He's a major fund raiser and was commenting how incredible it is to see things that they didn't foresee just 2-3 years ago, like the insides of the machinery and to have the guns off of the ship for restoration. The dollar cost of the restoration is mind boggling but it's finally to the point of improving the ship instead of just literally keeping her afloat.

[David2011]

Wow! Can't believe it's been over 3 months since I added anything. The state Legislature has allocated an additional $25 million for repairs while the ship is in dry dock. That will help with some superstructure repairs and hopefully a new wooden deck. Meanwhile, back at the warehouse, now dubbed "The Texas Gun Factory," we're banging away trying to get the 5" guns restored because they have to go back onto the ship while still in dry dock. One of the goals is for this to be a "Please touch and feel" museum ship. We expect that all of the 20mm, 40mm Bofors Quads, 3" and 5" guns to be moved in training and elevation by the visitors. A grade school child can elevate a 3" gun to full elevation. The staff and volunteers are doing a phenomenal job of repairing the guns.

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This is what the 5" mounts look like coming in straight off of the ship. The rust and corrosion is incredibly bad. Fortunately, many of the add-on accessories are bronze and in much better shape.



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A 5" mount base after quite a bit of cleanup.



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A 5" mount nearing completion. Not only are the gears that you can see bronze; the entire gear housing is bronze as well.



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This is the sight windage adjustment for a 5" gun.



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This is a repeater that tells the gun crew what the training (azimuth) and elevation need to be set at. The internals are beautifully machined steel, much like a fine wall hanging clock. The housing is all bronze.



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A 5" barrel is on the way to the sandblasting booth with a nearly finished 3" gun behind it and a 5" mount in the far back.



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How do you move a barrel that weighs 11,000 pounds? Very slowly. The block of wood is on machinery skates.



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I machined these Fillister head screws on my home shop lathe. Nobody sells them that big (1/2"x1") any more. They secure a big cover plate in the top center of the 5" mounts.

[armoredman]

Nifty, thanks!

[buckwheatpaul]

David, I cant tell you how impressed I am with all the work you and the other volunteers are doing to restore this treasure for the Great State of Texas....please keep up the good work and keep the pictures coming.....the work and the pictures are wonderful!

[Mk42gunner]

Always interesting to see your updates.

It is amazing just how little effort it takes to move a gun mount manually.

Robert

[David2011]

Thank you all. The ease of moving the big stuff is made up for by the amount of effort to do the little things. One day my entire accomplishments were to remove a taper pin, get a bronze bushing off of a steel shaft and get the bushing to rotate freely on the shaft. It wasn’t big stuff either. The taper pin was 3/16” at the big end and the bushing was on a 1-1/4” or so shaft. I’m getting more bold about heating bronze until it glows. Saves tons of time. Even when we have manuals we don’t always have good assembly drawings. Lots of guess work when it comes to taking 100+ year old things apart.

[Rapier]

The first few hundred years of the big gun navies of the world were all about battleships, floating big gun platforms. Being a Forward Observer I have a real appreciation for the navy gunners and their equipment. We shot field artillery and navy guns, both, and the moving ship, on a moving sea, with changing ranges, moving guns on mounts, hitting a target and then another target at 10-20 miles is quite impressive. Really, compared to a lot of our field artillery, on the ground guns, that many times had trouble getting to within 50 yards of a target at 5-7 miles. Causes a FO to pause shooting when they get a crew behind them, shooting a shotgun pattern with HE. Been there done that, including having a short round.
Hats off to the navy gunners and their guns.

[popper]

Yupper, Navy gunners are pretty good. I was skippers tele talker for a while, got to watch all the gun shoots. Them 8" went a long ways.
330# @ 2500 fps for 17 mi range.

[Mk42gunner]

One of the weird things I remember about the fire control system on my first ship is that you technically couldn't shoot a target that had zero speed, such as something on shore. The FC's said they had to input the ship's speed at zero and the target at whatever speed we were actually moving.

Robert

[David2011]

Robert, one of the upgrades to the Texas was a fire control system. Once the guns were loaded and the ready signal enabled, Fire Control set the guns to fire. When the fire control (analog) computers detected that the ship was level, the guns were electrically fired.

A little trivia, maybe not so trivial at the time. The USS Texas never engaged another capital ship in combat. All of her combat activities were shore bombardments. At Normandy the ballast tanks opposite the beach were flooded to give the guns more elevation, allowing them to reach farther inland. At the last public visitation before taken to dry dock I had the pleasure of visiting with one of the Texas crew that was there as a special guest. He’s now 101 years old. Nearly deaf but his mind is razor sharp. I didn’t record the visit because a reporter was already recording it. Since I was once a television reporter I thought it was inappropriate to piggyback onto his work. Anyway, he mostly talked about his many assignments on the ship including being a spotter way up in the forward mast. He said it was a wild ride up there in big seas.

The ship was retired from active service and came to Texas in 1948 with the support of Admiral Nimitz, a Texan. Any sailor that was on the Texas at her retirement in 1948 would have to be at least 93 years old now if my math isn’t too faulty.

We frequently talk about the sailors who were most likely the last people to touch the innards of the guns until now. When we’re on board the ship there is a mixture of awe for the quality and precision of the design and reverence for the Men that served. I also envision row after row of draftsmen and engineers in a huge room each working at a large drafting table with pencil and vellum drawing every single detail of their assigned area down to the last rivet and screw. The magnificence of the engineering accomplishment is apparent in a deep tour of the ship. In 1910 a great deal of the engineering was based on what worked on the last design. One of the most fascinating aspects of the design is the capacity for the generation of electricity. Originally the ship was fully DC powered. The capacity was huge. By the time she was refitted in the mid 1920s AC was commonplace. There are lots of AC generators powered by DC motors, often set immediately beneath the equipment that they were to power, on the deck below the equipment they powered. All of the guns 5” and smaller were AC powered for the WWII upgrade as were the newly added radio and radar equipment. I helped build the worldwide network for a Fortune 100 company 25 years ago and from that perspective, the technology of the Texas is amazing.

[David2011]

We had an interesting project yesterday. I'm not sure how it happened; I usually get called in after-the-fact. Somehow a massive bronze casting was bent while removing the shaft from it and in the process of straightening it one corner of the casting cracked. When someone heated it to try to braze it the corner came off completely. So, NOW they want me to try to fix it. This is about 100 pounds of bronze. As I've posted before, the amount of bronze on the ship is incredible. I wouldn't be surprised if the total amount of bronze on each 5" gun was a ton or more. Almost all gear housings from the "petite" aiming indicators to the big gear boxes are bronze. After looking at the area to be repaired I told the Battleship Texas Foundation employee that I had concerns that it may end up being worse off after I heated it. He told me that someone had to try; didn't matter if it was him or me if it got worse and he understood the risks.

Beyond the obvious broken corner, the metal between the corner and the web was cracked and broken away and that had to be addressed before there was any chance of making everything line up again. With trepidation I heated the cracked area with a rosebud torch tip and worked it back into alignment without it breaking off. Hallelujah! In the process of realigning it some of the cracks opened up more and I took tat as a good thing. That allowed me to flow some bronze brazing rod into the cracks to stabilize that piece. Once it cooled enough to work with I started grinding the rough edges and also ground some Vs into the mating surfaces. That allowed the parts to align plus it made room for filler rod to fully flow into the crevices. It took a tremendous amount of heat to get the casting hot enough for the brazing rod to flow freely. By the time the corner was fully brazed the casting was hot all the way to the end farthest from the work area. There was also a small crack in the web. I just filed it open a little more and added some new metal. A proper structural repair would have called for deeper grinding but the gun will never be fired again so a cosmetic repair was adequate. The paid staff knows that they can't torque a nut down on the repaired corner but it still has 5 good holes to bolt it down with so it should be good permanently. It felt fantastic to save this piece. The staff was prepared to have a reproduction made if necessary but that would have been very costly.

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[Dusty Bannister]

And your efforts will preserve this piece of history, well beyond any one reading this today.

[WILCO]

Incredible!!

[steveu]

Outstanding!!!

[ebb]

Watch some of the videos about Vice Admiral Willis Agustus Lee. In his early days in the navy he was a competitive shooter on a navy marksman ship team. When he got to a leadership role he insisted his men spend way more time on marksman ship with the ships guns and knew so much about them he corrected the charts the navy had on elevations. I forget the battel, but his ship made accurate hits from the get go to win the day, I think this was the last battleship on battleship duel in history.

[RayinNH]

Very interesting thread David. Should you get to fire one of the guns, I would suggest a load of 13 grains of Red Dot behind a cast boolit [smilie=l:

[michael.birdsley]

Watch some of the videos about Vice Admiral Willis Agustus Lee. In his early days in the navy he was a competitive shooter on a navy marksman ship team. When he got to a leadership role he insisted his men spend way more time on marksman ship with the ships guns and knew so much about them he corrected the charts the navy had on elevations. I forget the battel, but his ship made accurate hits from the get go to win the day, I think this was the last battleship on battleship duel in history.

it wasnt the last battle ship on battle ship battle. it was americas first battle ship on battle ship victory in the 2nd battle of guadalcanal. USS Washington sank IJN Kirishima at point blank ( 8,000 yds) range. at night with the help of radar directed ( first time ) gunfire. USS Washington put over 20 16 inch shells and pumped an additional 55-65 5 inch shells into kirishima. kirishima limped away while washington was evading torpedos. eventually 2 hrs later kirishima rolled over and sank.


admiral lee was an early proponent of radar directed gun fire. not using the radar directed gun fire when available cost the US dearly in 1st naval battle of guadalcanal to the tune of 4 heavy cruisers and 5,000 men


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[David2011]

Very interesting thread David. Should you get to fire one of the guns, I would suggest a load of 13 grains of Red Dot behind a cast boolit [smilie=l:

LOL! I'm not sure that would constitute a primer charge!

[David2011]

For anyone that's interested, one of the battleship volunteers has a YouTube channel that has very high quality information on the ship. Tom puts a huge amount of work into every video.

https://www.youtube.com/@tomscotttheolderone364/videos

[David2011]

I was given a fun little project that could be started and finished in an evening. The guys needed two replacement screws that retain part of the windage adjustment mechanism in the big bracket that attaches at the trunnions. It was also a chance to try out some new brand name carbide inserts that I had just bought; first time using anything other than cheap Chinese carbide. The screws are 1/2" x 2.7" overall.

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