While I was in Norfolk for #SMH2021 I got a chance to see the Wisconsin (BB-64), because I am an absolute sucker for museum ships!
So here are some pictures.pic.twitter.com/5rQ8NGhjRh
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If you've never been on a battleship - one, do so, there are a bunch of good museum ships in the USA on both coasts - it's hard to describe just how massive the main battery is.
@pptsapper got a really good picture to give a sense of scale here:https://twitter.com/pptsapper/status/1396567288313221124 …
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The day I was there, there was a commissioning ceremony happening on the bow. For scale, the sailors there are standing where @pptsapper's picture was taken.pic.twitter.com/UDxLufGu0X
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When you are walking the ship, you really get a sense of just how much the whole thing is shaped around that main battery (alas, the interior of the turrets and barbette (the armored cylinder that extends down from the turrets) on BB-64 are not open to the public).pic.twitter.com/NqZuurobGs
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I wrote about that facet of warship-design back when we talked about science fiction warships: https://acoup.blog/2019/12/20/collections-starships-in-silhouette/ … The guns on the Wisconsin can throw a 1,200kg shell just about 21 miles and you can really see how the entire ship is bent around that purpose.
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You also have the secondary battery. As we discussed on the blog, the secondaries really were secondary - you put them where they fit after the primary armament. But this is a double 5-inch gun mount! By land standards, that's still quite big and they mount them in doubles!pic.twitter.com/Pv298u2QBQ
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(This turret has been claimed by the Marines because it was operating by part of the ship's Marine detachment during the Gulf War in a shore-bombardment capacity - if you were wondering about the decoration)
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The 'inches' here refer to the diameter of the barrel (and thus the shell). For comparison, consider the (smaller) 120mm (4.72inch) main gun on an M1A2 Abrams tank. Bigger than the 105mm m119 howitzer and only slightly smaller than the 155mm m777 gun-howitzer.
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Wisconsin has twelve five-inch guns (in 6 double-mounts); on its own that would be a massive amount of firepower, but the 9 16-inch main guns are the stars. That said, BB-64 had 20 5-inch guns when launched. What happened to the others? Well, Uncle Sam got some new toys:pic.twitter.com/1ZzAowHY5i
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So pardon my finger in the frame, but I suck at cameras - when BB-64 was reactivated in 1986, it underwent a refit to get, among other things, eight armored box launchers for tomahawk cruise missiles. Four missiles per box. Can carry conventional or nuclear payloads.
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I should note if you go you can also walk a fair portion of the interior of the ship; for whatever reason I did not take any pictures of that. It really brings home the complexity of the ship - it has its own mail room, laundry, barber, dentist, etc.pic.twitter.com/brHMCqLeqj
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So that's Wisconsin (BB-64), which brings me up to, I think to having been to five of the ten surviving battleships (nine in the USA, but I also count IJN Miksasa). Halfway there!
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