Most Impressive Interwar Ship (Civil or Military)

[Guest]

My kids have big rooms.

[Guest]

You'd be quite surprised how small normal marine steam turbine have gotten by WWII. A 20,000 shp turbine with reverse stage and cruising stage will easily fit a kid's bedroom or a large walk-in closet.

A matching single reduction gear box will also fit into walk-in closet.

Not true in any way. The turbines from the USS Amsterdam (Late Cleveland class with no cruising turbines) were used at the S7G or MARF submainre nuclear prototype in Balston Spa New York. They were 25,000 shp at 600 psig steam. They were 3 stories tall including the condensors. The footprint was about 25 ft by 25 ft, if you added the reduction dear it was closer to 25 ft by 50 ft long. Not a kids bedroom by any means. The 2500 kw SSTG's in the engine room where from the California Class CGN's they would have fit into a 3 story tall kid's bedroom each.

BTW, they could not be 3 stories tall because they would not fit under the armor deck in that case. In any case, the condensors are not part of the turbine. The rotor stack is probaBLY 15 feet long and 5-8 feet in diameter at the most.

[Lesforan]

Chuck's description of geared turbines is what I have seen myself.

Three stories high seems tall to me even with condensors. Pretty much rules out installation in a nuclear sub.

Ungeared turbine plants had to be large to allow more leverage on the turbine blades to make up for torque lost by lack of reduction gearing.

I don't know how big Chuck's kids are, but turbine gear boxes I have seen would fit in my kitchen. Add the turbine itself and it would still fit in my living room with room to walk around it on all sides.

Compare that to the massive vertical triple-expansion plants, which would fill my entire house, including the basement!

[bengtsson]

Last year I dedicated an afternoon to looking over every aspect of the engine room of HMS Belfast in London. I was surprised at how small the actual turbine itself was. It was open for view of the blades and rotors. Even including the casing, they were quite small. Not sure about bedrooms, but for just the turbines, maybe so.

Bob B.

[Guest]

S5W sub turbines were about 6ft diameter including the case and 6ft long. The condensers directly below about 6ft deep.
Most non-geared turbines used many stages making for great length to obtain efficient expansion and use of the available steam.
The Narwhal used a direct drive that was about 20ft length with the idea that the lack of gearing would make her quieter.
I suspect the turbine arangement described included extra space to allow teaching and maintenance not requiring the compactness of an at sea plant. Additionally, surface ship plants are considerably different from submarine units.

[Werner]

Narwhal spent most of her life chained to the dock, like the turboelectric Glenard B. Lipscomb.

Look at the numbers I gave you for a Knox. I think battleworthiness is at least part of the difference in weight and size between commercial and military systems.

[Guest]

[quote="Werner"]Narwhal spent most of her life chained to the dock, like the turboelectric Glenard B. Lipscomb.

Werner, Absolutely right about the Lipscombe fish. She lived dockside the entire three plus years I was on Lapon.
Can't vouch for Narwhal as she operated (or not) from elsewhere.

[Laurence Batchelor]

Not sure if this has been posted here before, but I just noticed the original 1942 news report and footage of the fire and capsizing of Normandie.

It starts with Peal Harbour attack then the Normandie report follows:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GmDVxRyI ... ed&search=