On January 17th, 1950, the battleship Missouri was headed to sea after a refit at Norfolk Naval Shipyard, Virginia. Thanks to her connection to President Truman, she had remained in commission when the rest of the American battleships were in reserve. In command was a new Captain, William D. Brown. Brown was an experienced officer, but he had never commanded a ship the size of Missouri and had been on shore since the end of the war.

Missouri in 1949

The first task for the ship, before heading to Guantanamo Bay for maneuvers, was a run through a nearby acoustic range, part of a navy project to identify ships by their sound signature. This run was a last-minute addition to the plan, and the range itself, while deep enough to take the battleship, was dangerously close to shallow water. Worse, three of the five buoys which had previously marked the range had recently been removed, and the charts onboard had yet to be updated to reflect this. Some members of the crew did know, but there was a communication breakdown, and Brown didn't realize this.

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The Battle of the Atlantic saw several fascinating innovations put into large-scale service for the first time. One of these, the Admiralty Operational Intelligence Centre, was an important stage in the development of information-based naval warfare, and formed a critical part of the campaign against Donitz's U-boats.

The Admiralty Citadel in London, home to OIC

The OIC had its roots in the concepts developed by Jackie Fisher to synthesize information from multiple sources. These were tested during WWI, where they allowed the British to track German sorties into the North Sea, most prominently at Jutland.

In 1937, Lieutenant-Commander Norman Denning came to the Naval Intelligence Division, and set about putting together an organization charged with handling the data coming in from the Government Code & Cipher School (which relocated to Bletchley Park at the beginning of the war) as well as direction-finding data. He also began to coordinate with Lloyd's, who basically had a monopoly on shipping insurance. Denning's focus on handling data, as opposed to simply collecting it, would make all the difference in the coming war. His organization's excellent performance during the Munich crisis convinced many of its value, and the process of expansion began.

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It's time to officially start with planning for the next Naval Gazing meetup, this time at home. I'm going to be giving a tour of Iowa on the afternoon of September 8th, starting at 1:30. I'll try to be available starting at 1, and I'll post meeting place and recognition signal when we get closer. I'd appreciate an RSVP, although I'm certainly not opposed to getting walk-ins if you find yourself available at the last minute. Price is $20 for general admission ($18 if you book online),¹ and parking is $2/hr after the first hour. I expect us to finish between 4 and 5, when the ship closes. It should be a lot of fun. To people from SSC who aren't regular readers, you're very welcome, but be aware that this is kind of going to be the geek tour. I won't be holding back from waxing lyrical about the fire control system, for instance.

Why are we starting so late, you might ask. The reason is to give anyone who wants to a chance to do the Full Steam Ahead tour, which will take you down to the engine rooms and aft plotting rooms. It's $50, but that includes general admission. Space is limited, so I'd encourage you to get your tickets now. It's a true behind-the-scenes tour, with a lot less roped off and otherwise inaccessible than on most ships.²

MEETING PLACE: We'll meet at ticketing. I should be recognizable from the various pictures posted here. I'll be wearing the Iowa hat and shirt, and carrying a Naval Gazing sign. Read more...

We've discussed naval aviation for our hypothetical navy quite extensively, but the discussion isn't over. Here's the third installment.

Davy Jones: Even if we created our own STOVL fighter, would we still want a CATOBAR or STOBAR system? We'd still need to get some other planes in the air, wouldn't we?

Bean: No. To some extent, STOVL can be thought of as moving the cost from the carrier to the planes for a given level of capability. Flying STOVL planes off of a CATOBAR carrier gives us the worst of both worlds. We'd have to go for helicopter AWACS, and it denies us the opportunity for other fixed-wing support aircraft. I'm not sure we need fixed-wing ASW, but it would be nice to have a tanker. Maybe a drone, maybe manned. I don't think John's idea is such a bad one, although I want a carrier big enough we don't need to go for it.

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The biggest challenge of war at sea has always been figuring out where the enemy is and controlling your forces against him. For centuries, options were very limited. Your sensor was a man at the top of the mast, maybe with a telescope, and your only option for communication over any distance was signal flags. The world ended at the horizon, or maybe a little further if someone else was signalling to you. Information traveled at the speed of ships, which meant that it was next to impossible to build up a useful picture of the movements and intentions of an enemy before it became obsolete.

A sailing ship signalling with flags³

This began to change when the telecommunications revolution kicked off. One notable example of the shift that resulted was a change in British press policy. During the Napoleonic Wars, it was common for troop movements to be publicly announced when they happened. This was still policy at the start of the Crimean War, but it was soon realized that the telegraph meant that the news of the troops departure reached the Russians long before the troops did, and the policy was changed.

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It's time once again for the biweekly open thread. Talk about anything you want, including things not naval-related, so long as it isn't culture war.

The security certificate has been updated, so life should be back to normal on that end.

A while ago, I discussed my ride from San Diego to LA on the USS America, in preparation for the first LA Fleet Week. Obviously, I couldn't miss Fleet Week itself, which was Labor Day weekend. Besides the fact that they were screaming for tour guides due to the expected crowds, Iowa had tickets for tours. I wanted to visit the Arleigh Burke class destroyer Wayne E. Meyer, which we'd passed on our way in.

Wayne E. Meyer⁴

It was the busiest day I saw during my time as a tour guide, and the entire event was a huge success. The line to get into the Fleet Week pavilion, which included gift shops for the visiting ships, a STEM expo, and a bunch of other booths, went all the way from the pier to Harbor Boulevard, and the line for Iowa was nearly as long. I don't remember how many visitors we had that day, but it was a record.

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When Andrew Hunter came through Oklahoma City, I asked him if he'd been to Turner Joy, in Bremerton, near where he lived. He admitted to having never heard of it, so I decided to put together a list of museum ships in the US. It's sorted by state, then city, so it should be fairly easy to get an idea of where the nearest ones to you are. I apologize for not being able to provide links to the ships directly, but they can be found in the Wikipedia list I got the data from. The Historic Naval Ships Association is also an excellent resource.

Anyway, I highly encourage you to go and support these ships. A museum ship is also a fiscal black hole, and we should all try to preserve them for the future. I've put asterisks next to ships I've visited personally.

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We've previously looked at the process by which the first ironclads developed into the dreadnought, and further into the super-dreadnought with guns larger than 12". The next stage in British dreadnought development was driven by a man who later became one of the 20th century's greatest statesmen. In October 1911, as the Iron Dukes were being ordered, a young, ambitious politician named Winston Churchill became First Lord of the Admiralty.

HMS Queen Elizabeth, 1916

Churchill, for all of his great virtues as Prime Minister during the Second World War, had serious vices as First Lord. He was greatly influenced by Jackie Fisher, now retired, who had never quite given up on the battleship/battlecruiser fusion designs first proposed as a direct follow-on to Dreadnought. He proposed⁵ a ship with full battleship armor and a speed of 28 kts. Fisher also argued for an increase in gun caliber to 15", which Churchill agreed to.

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The first shots of the Second World War were fired by a battleship. The German pre-dreadnought Schleswig-Holstein signaled the start of the German assault on the Polish supply depot of Westerplatte by opening fire. Commandoes carried aboard the ship attempted to assault the base, but were repulsed, and the Poles held out for a full week in the face of heavy German attacks, including bombardment from Schleswig-Holstein.

A camera crew filming Schleswig-Holstein's bombardment of Westerplatte

A total of six German battleships served during WWII, the most diverse mix of ships of any of the major powers.⁶ Two, Schleswig-Holstein and Schlesien, were veterans of Jutland, built to designs pre-dating Dreadnought. The next pair, Scharnhorst and Gneisenau, were among the handful of interwar capital ships that didn't approach the 35,000 ton limit of the Washington Naval Treaty. Armed with 3 triple 11" turrets, they were designed to fight the French Dunkerque class, and proved quite effective during the war. Bismarck is probably the most famous battleship in history⁷ and her sister Tirpitz is also well-known. Possibly the most powerful battleships ever completed in Europe, mostly due to their designer's blatant disregard for treaty limits, these were essentially modernized versions of the WWI Bayern class, with 4 twin 15" turrets, a speed of about 30 kts, and an armor scheme of WWI vintage, instead of the all-or-nothing schemes used in the allied treaty battleships. Read more...