At 'Em Arizona Fans!

[Tracy White]

Everything I've seen would indicate round. I don't have any really clear close-up photos of the waterways they were laid in. I saw a diagram at NARA San Bruno over a decade ago of the initial implementation put in place on cruisers of the time and those were round cables. Lexington and Yorktown class aircraft carriers had round cables. I would expect that Jeff Sharp should have something photo wise that will clear it up though

[ModelMonkey]

Hi Chris,

The cable you are seeing in the January, 1941 photo is not a degaussing cable. It is the aircraft fuel line, fitted only to the port side.

Arizona's degaussing cables were fitted to the deck, just inboard of the waterway, port and starboard.

It's difficult to tell exactly how many cables there are from this photo but it looks to my eye to be three round cables. They are arranged two cables on bottom with a third cable on top the two, in the form of a pyramid. I may be wrong.

Three cables is consistent with the number of degaussing cables of other large US Navy warships of similar tonnage. Here's the three-cable layout of USS Yorktown CV-5:

Jeff Sharp did some really good research on the cables and found that they transitioned from the upper deck forward and midships down to the quarter deck (main deck) in an unusual way. Here's how Jeff modeled the transition and their terminus at the end of the quarterdeck (Jeff's photos).

Jeff will be able to provide you with more information.

Arizona's the aviation fuel (avgas) used for its scout floatplanes was stored in heavily protected tanks located on the lowest decks near the forward magazines and armor protection. The avgas tanks were securely placed below the main decks where the heavily armored structures were designed to protect the powder magazines from the highly flammable gasoline. The ship's avgas storage compartment held roughly 3,500 gallons. For deployment, the aviation fuel was pumped up to the quarterdeck through a pipe mounted to the exterior of the ship on the port side.

[Tracy White]

Arizona's the aviation fuel (avgas) used for its scout floatplanes was stored in heavily protected tanks located on the lowest decks near the forward magazines and armor protection. The avgas tanks were securely placed below the main decks where the heavily armored structures were designed to protect the powder magazines from the highly flammable gasoline.

Slight correction - both Arizona and Pennsylvania' armored box stopped at frame 20 and the avgas was outside of the box. It was, however, under the waterline and the hope / plan was that any rupture of this tank would be mixed and diluted with seawater. Not armored, but danger somewhat mitigated.

The explosion that killed Arizona built up an enormous amount of pressure within the armored box before bursting out the sides. The forward armored bulkhead contained the explosion, but the bow was nearly broken free of the hull by the force. This is why the very bow of the ship is still visible today close to the surface of the water whereas the rest of the deck aft of the forward armored bulkhead has collapsed into the shell (what's left of it).

[Jeff Sharp]

Hello,
The degaussing cables were indeed a bundle of 3 cables at the forward and aft sections of the ship. The mid section was just one cable. In the lower right of this photo, you can see that two of the degaussing cables separate from the bundle and entered the deck just aft of #2 barbette. The third degaussing line continues aft, enters the deck at the break in the deck and re-emerges on the main deck. It picks up two more cables just forward of #3 barbette, then continues aft as a bundle again.

[Chris Preston]

'Afternoon All,

Many Thanks to everyone who replied. Part of my confusion is the Chesley plan, which shows the "cable" on the side of the hull, just above the top of the Torpedo Bulge - it's incorrectly labelled the Degaussing Cable. The external aviation fuel line makes much more sense, but I'm still wondering about the cross-section of it (and what to use to replicate it).

Cheers,

Chris

[FFG-7]

Chris, what scale is the model?

[Chris Preston]

My build is 1/96th scale, using a fibre-glass hull from the Scale Shipyard.

Cheers,

Chris

[Jeff Sharp]

Ah! You are referring to the aviation fuel line!

[Chris Preston]

Yes - exactly.

Those are excellent photos. I haven't seen them before - perfect.

Cheers,

Chris