The Ship Model Forum

Phil,

As far as I recall, it had nothing to do with insulation, sound protection, or tradition. And, as for splinter protection - if that were true, then wouldn't destroyers also have had wooden decks? The reason I was given when I served in NEW JERSEY was that the teak deck provided a shock protection when the 16" turrets were fired. To a lesser degree, some splinter protection from incoming shells, but since the main deck was an armored deck (below the teak), that would have been the 1st line of shell protection. I wish I could recall EXACTLY how this was explained to me but that was in 1968 and all I can recall is that all large caliber bag guns required wood decking in their design. Remove the turrets and you basically removed the expensive need to keep the wood decks. Sorry I can't be more technical in my explanation. I would assume that CLEVELAND class CL's having 6"-47 cal. guns would also fit into this category. As our teak decks went up to 04 Level, this would also provide some shock protection around the 5"/38 mounts located on the 01 & 02 Levels.

As for a fire hazard, the greasy powder residue that covered the teak decking after securing from firing was more a nuisance than a fire hazard. You could pick up a shard of it and light it like a match, but that was about it - really nasty stuff and usually required a holystoning to clean the decks. I recall that usually the boatswains were out with saltwater hoses to wash down the deck and then later a scheduled holystoning by the division responsible.

And yes! - I also remember a 2-3 day long fire support mission where the 5"/38 mounts were kept busy day & night in support of USMC/USA ashore - our berthing area on stbd side main deck had one of the powder cannister drops in the overhead, so I ended up staying in the Enlisted Personnel Office (port side, my normal work area) with the other PNs, during this period as we were not at GQ for this type of event. The berthing area was full of spent 5" brass and once they had secured from firing, everyone E-4 and below was assigned to police brass under the guidance of the GMGs. It's too bad that Capt. Snyder is no longer with us as he was an expert in the history, function, technical aspects of the bag guns and probably could have completely answered your question without any hesitation.

Perhaps another BB vet with shipboard experience can provide a more informative and technical explanation.

Hank

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HMS III
Mocksville, NC
BB62 vet 68-69

Builder's yard:
USS STODDARD (DD-566) 66-68 1:144, Various Lg Scale FC Directors
Finished:
USS NEW JERSEY (BB-62) 67-69 1:200
USN Sloop/Ship PEACOCK (1813) 1:48
ROYAL CAROLINE (1748) 1:47
AVS (1768) 1:48

To me this is a funny topic. Everyone I have talked to about it has had a different answer - and of course they were all correct!

I suspect wooden decking was kept as long as it was because of tradition. Just as tradition required me to have a sword on a cruiser with 6" and 5" guns, a nuclear armed missile system and a Marine detachment. I guess if everything else failed I was to use my sword to repel boarders!

But I don't know this for sure.

However David is correct about one thing - missiles and wood decks don't mix. Our Talos missile booster was a blowtorch with a 60-70 foot flame. It burned the paint off the decks, launcher and missile house. We had to repaint after every shot. The wood deck ended about 100 feet forward of the missile launcher, and the blueprints say this was done to avoid damage to the wood decks from missile launches.

Phil

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A collision at sea will ruin your entire day. Aristotle

I can only add that to my knowledge it was used to reduce skid (indeed water and especially ice on metal was very slippery) it could also soak up various liquids like water, oil or blood. Also it is easier to replace some wooden planks then an entire metal section. Though they are quite hazardous to the crew in case of battle damage due to the numerous wooden spikes and parts flying after an aircraft starfing run or shell/bomb/rocket hit. That is why Admiral Arbuthnot Fisher wanted to introduce the linoleum (also called corcetine) deck on RN warships before WW1 and only succeeded on the Renown class.

Some of you might be interested of these official sketch drawings showing preliminary studies for missile conversions for the Baltimore (CA-68) Oregon City (CA-122) Des Moines (CA-134/139), Cleveland (CL-55) and Worcester (CL-144) classes.

https://i.imgur.com/2GOxgam.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/M8n0zvq.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/s5ImXRX.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/hP82WAd.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/QPQm1cP.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/nXLaSwz.jpg

And these drawings show me what I've suspected that the Albanies were designed with twin 3"/50 RF guns in mind and not the old and by that time useless 5"/38 Mark 12 guns.

Norman Friedman has a lengthy discussion of the proposed missile conversions in "U. S. Cruisers" (Naval Institute Press, Annapolis, Maryland, 1984, 496 pages).

Phil

_________________
A collision at sea will ruin your entire day. Aristotle

Somewhat humorously a gal Navy vet was on New Jersey (Instagram) explaining why there were wooden decks, there was the heat/cold explanation, the then statement that the "wood was cheaper than a steel deck?"

During the WWII period the absorption of steel splinters rather than having them bounce around was perhaps a benefit. A wooden deck underfoot is also much more comfortable over long periods at sea. Hence the grates at bridge positions. Capital ships had for most of their careers the duty of showing the flag. This may have also been a consideration.

TZoli,

There's a difference of opinions about how "useful" the twin 3-in RFG were compared to the 5-in/38 guns. First off, depending on the fire control systems (GFCS) installed for them, the 5-in guns would have a longer range. Where as the 3-in RFG guns would have a higher rate of fire, but much shorter range. The 3-in RFG were designed as replacements for the 40-mm guns of WWII. But, by mid-1950s, the USN realized the 3-in RFG guns (and their GFCS) had themselves become obsolete against modern jet aircraft with longer range stand-off weapons. This understanding is what had further upgrades of destroyers and other ships with 3-in RFG guns in place of the 40-mm, cancelled, and the near crash program to introduce in the fleet Anti-Aircraft Missile ships into the fleet.

But, the first generation of AA Missiles had issues of reliability, etc. A story I remember reading many years ago about President Kennedy in the early 1960s (before many of the more elaborate conversions were compete) upon watching a demonstration of one (or more?) of the new missile ships firing at target drones and saw the missile(s) fail, ordered that further missile ships to have at least a couple of guns (assuming 5-in) as self defense and last ditch weapons. Whether the story was true or not, there was recognized a need to have something as a backup on the missile ships. Plus, even an old WWII era destroyer could do considerable damage to a missile ship caught at relative close "5-in gun" range.

Rick,

As I recall, Kennedy (a former PT boat skipper) asked how the USS Long Beach CGN-9 was supposed to defend itself from small boats? The brass just looked at each other as if they hadn't thought of that! Actually, Pacific Fleet had complained about the lack of guns. I have heard that Kennedy personally ordered the installation of the guns, but I don't have a reference.

The original "3 T's" Talos, Terrier and Tartar were all pretty unreliable. The Talos missiles were very reliable - better that 80% success rate, and because of the size of the missile and warhead, plus the attack from above, a large percentage (more than 50%) of the Firebee target drone kills were from direct skin-to-skin contact. Anything that was hit by a 3500 pound Mach 2.7+ missile was toast! An unarmed (no warhead) Talos missile blew a DE in half in surface to surface firing tests!

However, the SPG-49 target tracking radars were operational only 50% of the time. This limited a ship to engaging only one target at a time with each Talos battery (with two SPG-49s). It was very easily attacked with multiple missiles or aircraft. Even with both tracking radars working each system could track only six targets at a time (using the SPS-43 and SPS-30 long range air search radars).

Phil

_________________
A collision at sea will ruin your entire day. Aristotle

Interestingly a number of the known (From Friedman's US Cruiser book) Long Beach preliminaries featured one or two 5"/54 Mark 18 single guns. But some are quite ambitious: 2x2 Talos 4x2 Tartar, 2x2 Talos 2x2 Tartar, 1x2 Talos, 1x2 Terrier 2x2 Tartar +5" gun,
And the Regulus I equipped variants

Friedman also says the ship had foundations for Polaris missiles but they were never installed. It was an interesting ship, ahead of its time in ways and obsolete in other ways before it was launched.

You used to be able to get the blueprints from the National Archives, but after 9-11 everything with the word "nuclear" was classified (even though the ship was long out of service and being scrapped).

Phil

_________________
A collision at sea will ruin your entire day. Aristotle

Phil,

It has been so long ago, I maybe mixing up stories or what I read wasn't completely true as to who ordered guns added to the "All-missile" cruisers/frigates/destroyers. But I do remember reading that it was a major embarrassment when a staged demo of shooting down a drone target with a AA missile failed. There is a book written by an engineer (and US Army enlisted tech) who worked on the early missiles in the 1940-50's. (I can think of the title or who wrote it) It was eye-opening. The Loon missile was a real mess and could be considered as useless operationally.

Your are right that the electronics and hardware for the Fire Control Systems had issues of being available when needed. And this wasn't a new thing. In my destroyer research, I was always amazed that the FIRST SC and FD (Mk 4) radars on a destroyer were installed prototypes installed in SEPTEMBER 1941. Serial installations started in about DECEMBER 1941!!! When I went through the BuShips files for early BENSON-GLEAVES destroyers in early 1942, I found that the SC and FD radars broke down often. There were multiple issues with how effective they were. Breaking down was one, lack of enough spares to provide to each destroyer, new systems that had undertrained crewmen, etc. Each ship with a new SC or FD had to provide MONTHLY reports on how well the radars were performing (detection ranges for specific target types ... BB, DD, aircraft, etc). Detection ranges slowly reduced in time as vacuum tubes deteriorated. Reliability improved by late 1942. It isn't mentioned, but criticisms that Ship CO's under utilized radars onboard their ships or didn't trust them, didn't factor that it was in part due to the issue that the systems didn't perform well. If a ship had both SC and FD, a ship would only use one at a time to save them when really needed. Multiple ships (particularly destroyers) in a task force would take turns using their SC radars.

A lot of maintenance and training was required to make the AA-missile systems effective. However, until solid-state electronics and development of systems like AEGIS and vertical launch getting rid of the launch rail-arm systems, did AA guided-missiles for defense and offense come into their own.