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Naval preparation for donating a warship as a museum

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  • Naval preparation for donating a warship as a museum

    Hi all, new here, very interesting forum. Like you all, I am very much into battleships, especially US and German. This question may have been covered and I am sorry I did not do a search.

    When the US Navy donates a warship as a museum, in what way do they disable the equipment in the ship? I volunteered on the NJ before she was moved to her museum berth and I wandered the ship as much as I could. I came across a room that had huge piece of equipment that looked like a bunch of bolts were removed from the covers. This was located a few decks down from the forward conning tower. Do they disable the engines, guns any other equipment? How? Everything on board looks so solid and frozen in place like it is unusable.

  • #2
    Ken:

    In most cases a donated ship remains in their final deactivated condition of sealing out moisture using dehumidification machines and Silica Gel containers to keep things dry.

    Areas to be opened to the public have to be maintained almost constantly by the receiving organization to make sure nothing "grows legs and walks away", and the areas are kept clean and sanitary to satisfy the local health department and have some accesses modified or installed to satisfy the ADA requests for disabled visitors.

    On that last item, a railroad car company built (and donated) two 36-inch wide, no sill water tight doors to be installed on the New Jersey so wheelchair bound visitors can visit at least some of it.

    Technically the Navy's requirements of an organization that receives a donated ship have basically three systems they are not to reactivate BUT keep them in good condition should the Navy need to reactivate them again.

    System 1; They are not to reactivate the Main Propulsion systems. Generally that means you "should not" reactivate the boilers, unbolt the propeller shaft locks and try to move the ship under its own power. However, if it is needed to reactivate a couple of the boilers to run the steam powered electrical generators for on board or emergency power, that's okay as long as the Navy knows about it and approves it.

    System 2; They are not to reactivate the Navigational equipment. Normally you would think this means the Radar equipment. However, to make the ship look "alive" for visitors and historians, you can reactivate the motors that turn the Radar antennas and if you have qualified Radar technicians to service the wave-guides you can turn on the display consoles for visitors to look at. It's obviously just for display. If you can't turn the propellers, then there is no place to navigate to.

    System 3; They are not to reactivate the galley. But that doesn't mean you can't bring in your own cooking and refrigeration equipment and vending machines that just plug into electrical outlets.

    Ironically, by OMISSION, the Navy does NOT tell you not to reactivate the guns. Well, most gun stores don't carry ammunition that size anyway and if you did fire off a full service charge from a 16"/50 (660 lbs of propellent pushing a 2700 lb bullet out the barrel at 1700 mph) your insurance company would drop you after replacing a few thousand windows in town.

    There is a lot more detail to museum ships than that. As a matter of fact, some ships are donated totally FREE where the donee can fully reactivate them. Here in the Los Angeles area we have the SS Lane Victory (a WW II Victory ship) that is fully reactivated. Even her cargo winches and cargo booms are weight tested once a year to satisfy Coast Guard regulations. It goes out to Catalina Island and back 2 or 3 times a year with "passengers" (about a hundred bucks a person) who are fed royally with great food and treated to a display of anti-aircraft gunnery when "attacked" by some "German Messerschmits" (out of Van Nuys).

    The Lane Victory has been rented for a number of commercials (California cheese, Budweiser, etc.) and its engine room starred Maco and Steve McQueen in "The Sand Pebbles".

    Well, that's about the bottom line. If I wrote anymore TopHatter would charge me for the extra band width.
    Able to leap tall tales in a single groan.

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    • #3
      Originally posted by RustyBattleship View Post

      Well, that's about the bottom line. If I wrote anymore TopHatter would charge me for the extra band width.
      Sounds like you have enough material for a new book.

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      • #4
        I thought that I read somewhere that the training mechanism for the big guns was welded so that they could not move anymore.

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        • #5
          Originally posted by DaveinCoalinga View Post
          I thought that I read somewhere that the training mechanism for the big guns was welded so that they could not move anymore.
          Bremerton did do some welding of the gun elevation or traverse machinery in accordance with some "demilitarization" derictive that dropped in out of the sky.

          However, as I understand it but didn't get a chance to inspect it, I was told the welding was only "tack welding" and easy to remove.
          Able to leap tall tales in a single groan.

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          • #6
            Originally posted by RustyBattleship View Post
            Well, that's about the bottom line. If I wrote anymore TopHatter would charge me for the extra band width.
            Not a concern for us, we have a very generous amount of bandwidth for everybody to work with. :)
            “He was the most prodigious personification of all human inferiorities. He was an utterly incapable, unadapted, irresponsible, psychopathic personality, full of empty, infantile fantasies, but cursed with the keen intuition of a rat or a guttersnipe. He represented the shadow, the inferior part of everybody’s personality, in an overwhelming degree, and this was another reason why they fell for him.”

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            • #7
              I don't understand the restrictions they have on the battleships. It's not like they're ever going to get used again. The only remote possibility of that I coud see would be if we lost a carrier or two and had the need to lay some heavy steel on a beach or something close to a shore line. Maybe if another world war started and we needed more naval vessels they might bring them back. I'm sure they can modify a few tomahawks to work in box launchers again if they really had to.
              "If a man does his best, what else is there?"
              -General George Patton Jr.

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              • #8
                Losing a carrier or two won't make a difference to the Iowas. By the the time one could possibly be reactivated, all the dust will have settled on whoever caused the carrier loss. The Americans won't wait 18 months to deal with that, one way or another.

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                • #9
                  Also, would it make sense to reactivate a carrier in that case, rather than a battleship? Sorry for wandering off topic here.

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                  • #10
                    RustyBattleship...
                    Originally posted by Ytlas View Post
                    Sounds like you have enough material for a new book.
                    ... another book, you have a book?

                    Shaft locks, no nav equipment, no galley... sounds like the navy really does not want anything operational and the ship is just there for people to see. I would like to visit all the parts of the ship they do not let you see. Those seem the most interesting. I have read a few threads on this forum and you guys have great stories and seem to know it all.

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                    • #11
                      Originally posted by RmK View Post
                      Also, would it make sense to reactivate a carrier in that case, rather than a battleship? Sorry for wandering off topic here.
                      No need to apologize. Most topics on this board usually wind up wandering one way or another.

                      But in any case, reactivating either a BB or a CVA probably would only be done in extremely dire cases. The Massachusetts and North Carolina were kept under those restrictions until the Iowas were reactivated in the 80's.

                      The Navy's reason for those restrictions is to make sure the new proprieters take good care of the ship. After a generation or two, the restrictions will be lifted but by then you probably wouldn't find any Navy Distillate Fuel for sale that you can drive them with.
                      Able to leap tall tales in a single groan.

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                      • #12
                        Originally posted by Ken_NJ View Post
                        RustyBattleship... ... another book, you have a book?
                        You mean you haven't seen the yellow ad at the top of this page or the "Sticky" Book is Ready on Naval Forces page?

                        cRusty Rattlesnake also goes by the name of Richard A. Landgraff.

                        I must get a book one day..... :)

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                        • #13
                          Originally posted by Ytlas View Post
                          You mean you haven't seen the yellow ad at the top of this page or the "Sticky" Book is Ready on Naval Forces page?

                          cRusty Rattlesnake also goes by the name of Richard A. Landgraff.

                          I must get a book one day..... :)
                          It's behind the seat of my truck all wrapped up in gift paper I made especially for you. (No, it's not insulation - asbestos or otherwise).
                          Able to leap tall tales in a single groan.

                          Comment


                          • #14
                            Originally posted by Ken_NJ View Post
                            Shaft locks, no nav equipment, no galley... sounds like the navy really does not want anything operational and the ship is just there for people to see. I would like to visit all the parts of the ship they do not let you see. Those seem the most interesting. I have read a few threads on this forum and you guys have great stories and seem to know it all.
                            You can see any other part of the ship you like. The Navy doesn't care. But "CARE" is the key word here. The recipients of the ship have to maintain all those areas, cleaning, dehumidifying, painting, etc. and it would require a very large number of employees and/or volunteers to provide this upkeep on a daily basis.

                            Volunteers are one thing, but the equipment and materials needed to keep up the maintenance costs money and the visitor fees and other donations would not be high enough. As it is, most memorial ship groups set aside a percentage of the ticket sales - not as a profit - but to cover a complete restoration every 10 to 20 years.

                            The USS Missouri is a good example right now. Her dry dock work and other restoration will run about 3 months and cost about 8 million dollars.
                            Able to leap tall tales in a single groan.

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                            • #15
                              Originally posted by Ytlas View Post
                              You mean you haven't seen the yellow ad at the top of this page or the "Sticky" Book is Ready on Naval Forces page?

                              cRusty Rattlesnake also goes by the name of Richard A. Landgraff.
                              Sorry new here, don't know who is who.
                              Always though it would be interesting to see how yards operate. I was thinking to see if there was a book on the Brooklyn or Philly Navy Yards since they are nearby, but Long Beach Naval Shipyard sounds just as historic as well, that will be my next book! If the book is anything like the stories or experiences of what I have read here, then it should be a great read!

                              I guess I can go on and on with questions!!!

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