USS North Carolina

Beautiful looking model Chris!

This will be a 'must' on my list of ships.
Looks great for AI and following Willy's highly relevant question

Willy said:
Any chance of a scenery object version that can be placed in various locations?
Click to expand...

Willy, I think we'll be able to use 'Samm' for this purpose. :salute:
 
Drawings of the several measure 32 Camoflage schemes used on North Carolina are available on the internet. Of major note is that the teak decking was painted over, paint being used instead of stain, being easier to remove.

Cheers: T
 
Currently reading a book on the Iowa turret explosion and fire in the 80's. It is apparent that the Navy had forgotten how to operate these systems and lacked interest in the command structure to relearn hoe to operate them well. Just because the systems didn't use sophisticated electronic computers didn't mean they did not require smart, careful and experienced hands!

T
 
During the war the wood deck was un painted. I cant seem to come up with the right color for the teak decking but I'll keep working on it.
 
fliger747 said:
Currently reading a book on the Iowa turret explosion and fire in the 80's. It is apparent that the Navy had forgotten how to operate these systems and lacked interest in the command structure to relearn hoe to operate them well. Just because the systems didn't use sophisticated electronic computers didn't mean they did not require smart, careful and experienced hands!

T
Click to expand...

I remember the explosion your talking about. Seems I remember hearing that one of the loaders did something to cause it, a suicide I believe.
At one time, years ago, they would fire the 16 inchers on the Carolina on weekends. Man did I love seeing and hearing them go BOOM! :rocket:
 
fliger747,
There was no evidence that the Iowa's turret explosion was caused by human error or inadequate training. When they couldn't determine a specific mechanical or electrical source, the Navy's "investigation" into the cause of the blast turned into a witch-hunt to find a "perpetrator", somebody who caused it by carelessness or malicious intent. They zeroed in on a junior Gunner's Mate seaman killed in the explosion and came up with allegations of a homosexual relationship and other sordid details. In much the same manner as the USS Indianapolis sinking many years before, somebody had to take the rap. Fortunately the seaman's family had a sharp lawyer who was a former JAG officer. He jammed it to the Navy and they eventually retracted all allegations against the deceased seaman. The whole debacle was engineered by the Naval Criminal Investigative Service (NCIS). I refuse to even watch the TV show, NCIS is the Navy's Gestapo.
 
TARPSBird said:
fliger747,
There was no evidence that the Iowa's turret explosion was caused by human error or inadequate training. When they couldn't determine a specific mechanical or electrical source, the Navy's "investigation" into the cause of the blast turned into a witch-hunt to find a "perpetrator", somebody who caused it by carelessness or malicious intent. They zeroed in on a junior Gunner's Mate seaman killed in the explosion and came up with allegations of a homosexual relationship and other sordid details. In much the same manner as the USS Indianapolis sinking many years before, somebody had to take the rap. Fortunately the seaman's family had a sharp lawyer who was a former JAG officer. He jammed it to the Navy and they eventually retracted all allegations against the deceased seaman. The whole debacle was engineered by the Naval Criminal Investigative Service (NCIS). I refuse to even watch the TV show, NCIS is the Navy's Gestapo.
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Hey Tarp

Yeah, I remember all that now, never heard about the retraction though. I'm glad they found the truth and cleared the boys name. The military loves a good cover-up but NCIS is my favorite show, just gotta watch Agent Gibbs.
 
Lookin' good NC.

I remember seeing and reading about the explosion on the USS Iowa too. I never heard about the retraction of the allegations. Thanks for clearing that up.

Is the cause of the explosion still pretty much unknown then? I'm sure the powder was made during WW II. That would have made it about 40 years old at the time of the incident, but shelf life on gunpowder is very long when it is stored properly.
 
Very interesting book, quite a scandal in the coverup, indeed the Navy, much to my disappointment attempted to concoct a story blaming a crew member ignoring a great deal of evidence otherwise. Certainly a low point in Naval leadership from the CNO office down. Ultimately a lack of training, poorly maintained equipment and unintentional operator error (by the powder rammer). Some additional crew members died from asphyxiation on the powder flat due to a lack of breathing apparatus.

The teak decks weather to a light gray, I have some recent photos of Missouri at pearl harbor if you want to have a peek at them

Cheers. T
 
Great BB-63 pics, Fliger! is that book you're reading called “A Glimpse of Hell”, by Charles C. Thompson? I have that book. If half of what he wrote is true that ship must have been a scary place to serve...

Here's some pics I took of BB-55 a few years ago. Loved that trip. I especially love how you can go inside turret 2, and down into the barbette structure, right down to the bottom of the rotating structure. Before they cut holes into 16” barbette armor for us tourists to get in there, the only way down there was down a vertical ladder from inside the turret. Awsome!

 
Paul

Yes the book is Glimpse Of Hell. Back in that period I remember they were burning a lot of old lots of bag powder at Bangor Naval Ammunition Depot, outdoors, apparently it doesn't explode if unconfined, which is by my own experiment with smokeless rifle powders, similar in composition, true. Missouri, back in the 60's decks were even more weathered, I believe that during the most recent activation it was all replaced. Currently at Pearl some new decking is being installed on the 03 level.

Not nearly so much of Missouri is available for inspection. Of interest was the counterballancing of the armored hatches in the armor deck, being almost 5" thick they were undoubtedly quite heavy, I would guess 4000 lbs or so? The large internal dogs for the entrance to the coming tower were equally bank vault like, turned by a large wrench. Quite a claustrophobic space, one can see why the ship was often conned from the 08 level!

T
 
One thing the Navy failed to mention about the Iowa explosion was that it had happened twice before onboard USS Mississippi. I figure it to be one of the inherent dangers of operating those large caliber guns. Once in a while, one goes boom when it shouldn't.
 
I guess that's true Willy, when you get right down to it. Still, there are a lot of procedures to follow, written "in blood", as they say, to try to prevent such mishaps. Here's some inside pics of North Carolina's turret 2. The one with the red deck and that silly person looking up at something is taken from the bottom of the structure (the powder flat?). The round thing is the hatch way through which the powder bags come through from the powder magazine. The other pic is from a deck which is unique to turret 2 in all US battleships from BB-55 onwards. Because turrent 2 is one deck higher than the others, this deck is used to store more 16" boolets. Fron there you can look down all the way to the bottom of the powder handing area.

 
An exterior and interior view of the conning tower. Something I though hilarious, Missouri was in the Persian gulf and had an exocett fired at her and everyone inside the conning tower hits the deck in a huge pile.....
 
So that's what 18 inches of steel looks like! :) I remember reading about the Excocet incident. A Royal Navy destroyer shot that sucker down. Thanks, mates!
 
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