At 'Em Arizona Fans!

[Jeff Sharp]

There are a couple of places you can buy a copy. Here is a copy on YouTube.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=EMlSGtAFi-E

[Franz]

Jeff, really appreciate the link. Thanks for the help.

Franz

[lgmccauley]

Have a couple of more questions. Was the degaussing cable on both sides of the hull?
This one is for Jeff. On your 04/18/2014 blog entry on the Picture Post forum, you attached two images that I assume showed how you ended up routing the cables. These pictures don't open up anymore. Would it be possible to submit them again so I know how to route the cables as I'm sure you researched it fully.
Thanks.

Larry

[SeanF]

Have a couple of more questions. Was the degaussing cable on both sides of the hull?
This one is for Jeff. On your 04/18/2014 blog entry on the Picture Post forum, you attached two images that I assume showed how you ended up routing the cables. These pictures don't open up anymore. Would it be possible to submit them again so I know how to route the cables as I'm sure you researched it fully.
Thanks.

Larry

I don't recall ever seeing a degaussing cable on Arizona... might you be looking at the gasoline line? (In which case, it's on one side only. Pennsylvania, btw, has it on the other side, and routed a bit differently) Last I knew, out of the Dec. 7 Pearl Harbor battleships, only Oklahoma had an external degaussing cable.

- Sean F.

[Jeff Sharp]

Larry,
You should be able to view all of the photos now from my build log. I believe page 8 is where I start installing the degaussing cables. There was cables on both sides of the ship. I now believe each side had 3 cables. I incorrectly only added 2 per side on my kit. The cables were mostly stacked in a pyramid shape with 2 on the bottom and 1 on top except for when they entered the deck at the bow, midship, and stern.

This photo has me scratching my head a little bit. Look at the lower right, you can see the degaussing cables come out of their pyramid formation and flatten out on the deck just aft of barbette #2. I'm not sure why this is happening there. I don't believe the cables entered the deck this far forward.


This view shows how they snake all the way aft until they get to the stern crane before entering the deck. Notice all the brackets holding the cables together.


Here is another look at the brackets as they were on the bow.


Taking a look at my kit, the spot where the cables flatten out is just forward of where the observation platforms are that extend out from the deck. Perhaps they had to flatten the cables here for easier access to the platforms?

[lgmccauley]

Thanks Jeff. That helps a lot.

Larry

[lgmccauley]

Another question about the degaussing cables. I know they followed the waterways, but did that include the hull overhanging extension? I would have to assume they did, but I'm just checking with you guys to be sure.
Also, I'm confused as to how the cable was routed at the deck break. Back in 2014 Jon Ryckert was confident that it entered the deck between frames 84 and 85, but where did it go from there? Jon posted a picture of the West Virginia in 1942 that showed "the cable first appears at the half way point of the curved section of the ships shell plating". Is this overall opinion as to how it was routed? If not, where did it come back out on the deck after the break?

Larry
download/file.php?id=72220

[Jeff Sharp]

Larry,
The photos of USS Pennsylvania at Mare Island are a pretty good reference for us. It appears that both the bow and stern consisted of three cables each, but it appears that it reduces down to one cable through her midships. Where exactly that transition took place I have not figured out yet.


In this pic you can see how the cable snakes along the outer edge of the catwalk platform and then enters into the deck. Not sure how high exactly it exits the bulkhead at the break of the deck.

[lgmccauley]

Thanks Jeff. That answers the question about the platform. Now the $64M question is what you said, where did it come out of the bulkhead?

Larry

[lgmccauley]

Jeff,
Do you think that the object at the extreme right of the photo, just below the round "electrical panel", could be the degaussing cable coming through the bulkhead?
http://navsource.org/archives/01/038/013865a.jpg
Just a point of interest. It appears the cables were either removed from the deck and possibly moved internally as they don't show up in the 1943 photos of the Pennsy.
I want to install the cables before I start planking the decks, which I am just about ready to do. So this is why I'm asking all these questions.

Larry

[Jeff Sharp]

Yeah, I'd say that is exactly what we are looking at.

[BB62vet]

Larry/Jeff,

The photo Larry cited does NOT show the degaussing cable because it doesn't show the extreme right side of the bulkhead at the deck break. However, I have marked another of that series of photos to show where I think the cable actually runs (based on nothing more than shipboard experience on 4 navy warships):

The dashed line is approx. where I think it goes into the hull and up thru the main deck at the curved conduit and then on fwd along the side. Could be that BB-39 had a similar arrangement. This would have been common to both sides of the ships, as well.

Hope this helps,

[Jeff Sharp]

This is the path I came up with. Unless plans are unearthed for the cables, we may never know for sure.

[BB62vet]

Jeff apparently is on the same page - so, additional info: Here is a photo of BB-38 showing the port side bulkhead at the deck break and there is NO degaussing cable shown at all, so it probably must go into the bulkhead and then up thru the fwd. main deck as I speculated in my last post:

If I can find anything on the stbd side, I'll post it, but I'm not holding my breath!

Hank

[Jeff Sharp]

You may be right but I question why not just run the cable all the way to the break in the deck then and just run it down the outside of the bulkhead? The fact that it entered the deck where it did tells me they needed a gradual transition to the main deck.

[BB62vet]

OK, here is the drawing of the bulkhead I drew up in July 2016 for my BB-38 (1:200) model that is yet to be built:

If I can recall or remember WHY I drew the degaussing cable the way I did I will edit this post with that reason, but right now it escapes me. I have the feeling that somewhere I saw a photo of the cable disappearing into the bulkhead about where I have shown it. At that time I was not aware of the port cable and did not show it at all. This section was part of an overall drawing I made while doing some drafting on the tri-pod main mast & main deck area where the mast was mounted.

Hope this helps,

Hank

Edit - well, lo & behold I have found the photo that DOES show the D. Cable into the bulkhead. Here is a clipped portion of the Mare Island Hi-Res photo #1031-42:

So, I think this is the "smoking gun" as it were!

[Franz]

I found these photos in the Navsource for the USS Mississippi. One photo shows the degaussing cables going into the deck prior to the break in what looks like a sleeve or tube and then coming out of the bulkhead at the break in the same sleeve or tube. I know it's a different ship, but they probably added these degaussing cables to the various ships around the same time. Not sure how much the engineering had to vary from one ship to the next as far as implementation goes.

Franz

[Jeff Sharp]

Thanks Hank! That definitely shows us what we�re looking for. It also shows us that at least a portion of the main deck only had one cable. Assuming that Arizona�s configuration was the same way, I wonder why and where the cable was tripled up heading towards the stern.

Looking at this photo, it appears that the transition took place here.

[lgmccauley]

You guys are great. Thanks for all your input and effort. This is what makes this forum what it is. Everyone pitching in to try and help each other create their own personal "masterpieces".

Larry

[Franz]

The first two pictures show how the degaussing cables going into the bow on the Arizona. It looks like they go into some type of cap. I still have not found any good photos of how they end at the stern. The plan of the Arizona on how she looks now (at the Memorial) shows the 3 cables spreading apart and going into the stern deck individually(port side only). I imagine the cables on the starboard side end at the stern the same way but are not shown because of the hole in the deck at that point (this is what the Q indicates on the legend).
The detail at the bow shows both the Port and starboard side cable runs(B on the legend indicates a cable run). If you look closely you can see the entry points into the deck.
Hope this helps.

Note: The plan is from the one drawn in 1986. Also disregard the caption on he Bow plan, I found the cable detail after posting the plan.

Franz