Visiting The USS Iowa 6/1/2015 - Master Of The Sea  

Did You Know? - USS Iowa (BB-61) is the lead ship of her class of battleship and the fourth in the United States Navy to be named in honor of the 29th state. Owing to the cancellation of the Montana-class battleships, Iowa is the last lead ship of any class of United States battleships and was the only ship of her class to have served in the Atlantic Ocean during World War II.

Armor thickness for the Iowa Class (BB-61) :

Face: 17.0 in (43.2 cm) Class B armor over 2.5 in (6.4 cm) STS
Sides: 9.5 in (24.1 cm) Class A armor over 0.75 in (1.9 cm) STS
Rear: 12.0 in (30.5 cm) Class A armor over 0.75 in (1.9 cm) STS
Roof: 7.25 in (18.4 cm) Class A armor over 0.75 in (1.9 cm) STS

Did You Know? - She could go through the Panama Canal with 12 inches to spare on either side!

Did You Know? - The decks outside are teak for three reasons: 1) less slippery than steel when wet, 2) much cooler than steel on hot days in the tropics, and 3) teak does not "spark" when hit my metal - important when handling explosives.

Did You Know? - USS Iowa‍ '​s main battery consisted of nine 16" (406.4mm)/50 caliber Mark 7 guns, which could fire 2,700 lb (1,200 kg) armor-piercing shells 20 nmi (23 mi; 37 km).

Did You Know? - These guns were 66.6 feet (20 m) long—50 times their 16-inch (406 mm) bore, or 50 calibers, from breechface to muzzle.

Each gun weighed about 239,000 pounds (108,000 kg) without the breech, or 267,900 pounds (121,517 kg) with the breech

They fired projectiles weighing from 1,900 to 2,700 pounds (850 to 1,200 kg) at a maximum speed of 2,690 feet per second (820 m/s) with a range of up to 24 miles (39 km).

At maximum range the projectile spent almost 1½ minutes in flight.

Each turret required a crew of 79 men to operate.

The turrets themselves cost US$1.4 million each, to which the cost of the guns had to be added.

Did You Know? - The guns could be elevated from −5 degrees to +45 degrees, moving at up to 12 degrees per second. The turrets could rotate about 300 degrees at about 4 degrees per second and could even be fired back beyond the beam, which is sometimes called "over the shoulder".

Did You Know? - The turrets were "three-gun", not "triple", because each barrel could be elevated and fired independently. The ships could fire any combination of their guns, including a broadside of all nine. The turret interiors were subdivided and so designed as to permit the independent loading, elevation and firing of each gun.

Each turret was also installed with an optical range finder and ballistic analog computer. This permitted the turret's gun captain and crew to locally engage targets, should battle damage disrupt communication with the ship's primary or auxiliary fire control centers.

Contrary to popular belief, the ships did not move sideways noticeably when a broadside was fired. With the damping effect of the water around the hull the pressure wave generated by the gunfire was felt much more than the slight change in lateral velocity.

Did You Know? - The deck of the ship is covered in teak wood. . The main reason the deck is made of teak wood is because of the large amount of gunpowder that had to be transported on and off of the ship. Needless to say, you would not want a metal container carrying large amounts of gunpowder to be accidentally scraping on a steel floor—creating sparks!

Did You Know? - The guns could be elevated from −5 degrees to +45 degrees, moving at up to 12 degrees per second. The turrets could rotate about 300 degrees at about 4 degrees per second and could even be fired back beyond the beam, which is sometimes called "over the shoulder".

Did You Know? - The ship was built for punishment.  All the systems needed to keep these ship's combat effective such as magazines, engineering spaces, steering, plotting rooms, command & control, weapons, etc. are protected by heavy armor. The armor box, referred to as the citadel, extends from just forward of Turret 1 to just aft of Turret III. The top, sides and ends of the citadel are heavily armored, however the bottom is not ballistically protected. Critical systems located outside the citadel such as the turrets, conning tower, fire control, directors, etc. are armored extensions of the citadel.

Did You Know? - Among naval historians, the 5"/38 gun is considered the best intermediate-caliber, dual purpose naval gun of World War II,[5] especially as it was usually under the control of the advanced Mark 37 Gun Fire Control System which provided accurate and timely firing solutions against surface and air targets.

Even this advanced system required nearly 1000 rounds of ammunition expenditure per aircraft kill.

However, the planes were normally killed by shell fragments and not direct hits; barrage fire was used, with many guns firing in the air at the same time.

This would result in large walls of shell fragments being put up to take out one or several planes or in anticipation of an unseen plane, this being justifiable as one plane was capable of significant destruction.

Did You Know? - Millions of rounds of ammunition were produced for these guns, with over 720,000 rounds still remaining in Navy storage depots in the mid-1980s because of the large number of Reserve Fleet ships with 5"/38 cal guns on board.

Did You Know? - A signal lamp (sometimes called an Aldis lamp, named after Arthur Cyril Webb Aldis who invented a widely used design) is a visual signaling device for optical communication (typically using Morse code).

Modern signal lamps are a focused lamp which can produce a pulse of light. In large versions this pulse is achieved by opening and closing shutters mounted in front of the lamp, either via a manually operated pressure switch or, in later versions, automatically.

With hand held lamps, a concave mirror is tilted by a trigger to focus the light into pulses.

The lamps were usually equipped with some form of optical sight, and were most commonly used on naval vessels and in airport control towers (using color signals for stop or clearance).

Aldis lamps were pioneered by the British Royal Navy in the late 19th century, and continue to be used through the present day on naval vessels. They provide handy, secure communications during periods of radio silence as well as other times and were particularly useful for convoys operating during the Battle of the Atlantic.

Sound: Victory At Sea

Victory at Sea is a documentary television series about warfare in general during World War II, and naval warfare in particular, as well as the use of industry in warfare. It was originally broadcast by NBC in the USA in 1952–1953.

It was condensed into a film in 1954. Excerpts from the music soundtrack, by Richard Rodgers and Robert Russell Bennett, were re-recorded and sold as record albums. The original TV broadcasts comprised 26 half-hour segments—Sunday afternoons at 3pm (EST) in most markets—starting on October 26, 1952 and ending on May 3, 1953.

The series, which won an Emmy award in 1954 as "best public affairs program", played an important part in establishing historic "compilation" documentaries as a viable television genre.