Originally posted by FlankDestroyer
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Now with your permission I shall again second your motion of the Charles Adams class, they were also beautiful well proportioned ships, one could consider them "Eye Cand" full of power hungry electronics. The Navy developed the 1200PSI 950degree superheat boiler from a merchant "D" design uncontrolled superheat, where all steam leaving the boiler was superheated, with some of the steam going back into the "mud drum" through a "desuperheater" to bring the temp of the steam back down to an acceptable temp-levels for auxiliaries and "hotel" steam. This boiler design lent itself to automation, since all that needed to be controlled were FDB (Forced Draft Blowers), the burners for steam pressure, and feed water delivery, which necessitated FP (feed pump) and BP( booster pump) automation. The 1200psi plants were difficult to maintain as well as touchy to steam. Many BT's were scared of them. If the truth be known the Navy had many problems, especially in the beginning. Extensive welding of the system, new valve design (seal ring valves or commonly called "silver seal" valves) metallurgy changed with a whole host of new and scary things. One example is that due to the welded main steam system most of the valves had to be repaired in place. One machine used to reface valve seats was a "Dexter Grinder", worked well if one could figure out how to use it, but before you could use it, one had to remove the "bonnet" (removable section of the valve where the valve stem protrudes beneath the valve wheel) from the valve body.... no simple task on one of those valves by any stretch of the imagination and often times turned into a nightmare for the BT or the MM! However in the end these plants proved themselves worthy. On the Fletchers most info all valves were flanged and gasket, therefore removable and taken to a work bench or to a repair ship and overhauled, brought back and reinstalled in the system--Hopefully in the correct orientation : )
However the 1200 pounders were not faster than the Fletchers, but then again they were larger, with greater displacement and extensive electronics so with all that said perhaps the were perhaps comparable to the Fletchers.
Sorry I digress hope I did not confuse the issue to much, I steamed a 1200 pounder for few years, when she was in tune just sit back and watch it happen, when out of tune a nightmare!!
One can guess which there was more of :)
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