[learning with wren time!] I was doing some research the other day when I came across this image of a battleship. Just exploding. It's pretty gnarly photo I mean you can clearly see the blast wave hitting the water after staring at it a moment I realized I wasn't looking at an explosion hitting the ship. I was looking at the most absurdly oversized muzzle flash I'd ever seen. The ship was actually firing several massive guns all at the same time And that's when I realized that I know almost nothing about Battleships or naval warfare for that matter. All of these questions come to mind, like how big are the ships, how powerful are they? What kind of guns do they have? How do they float? And the more I research the more I discover just how impressive these vessels really are and the feat of engineering It takes to create them So when world of warships reached out to me asking if I would like to make a video I was like yes Please let me do it because I wanted to share some of the crazier things I've learned So sit back relax and come on this journey with me while we discover some cool fun facts about warships We're going places that we can't normally go First things first, why don't battleships just sink. They're these huge Amalgamations of metal and concrete that somehow float. How is this even possible? Well, something you might not realize that is actually really interesting about water is that it is heavy like really heavy. A 1 meter cube of it weighs a metric ton, or 2,200 pounds this box of water weighs more than 16 people and that's just because water is super dense it weighs a lot. The whole idea of Floating is based on the fact that if something is lighter than water it stays on top of that water But boats and ships are heavier than water as evidenced by all the ships at the bottom of the ocean and yet there's somehow normally Floating on top the thing is though is that they are shaped in a way to displace water pushing it aside Replacing it with just empty air. And even though boats are heavy the water they push aside is heavier. And that's the entire idea They're pushing aside water that weighs more than them. That displaced water exerts an upward force on the boats keeping them afloat And that is called buoyancy and that's what keeps pretty much all boats afloat The crazy thing is that there's not really an upper limit to this concept You could have a boat the size of a city as long as it weighs less than the water it pushes aside. Our limits There are mostly with materials science and engineering, but it's certainly not for lack trying We've tried to make some very big boats. Aircraft carriers are some of the largest floating things in existence take the USS Enterprise For example, it was commissioned in the mid 23rd century by the Federation Starfleet to help explore Oh wait, that's no that's not right. Wrong Enterprise. Hold up back up the USS Enterprise Aircraft carrier, which is actually the eighth ship to carry that enterprise name was the first nuclear-powered aircraft carrier and served for over 50 years Aircraft carriers are massive because they're not only actual runways for airplanes But they're also home to thousands of sailors and dozens of aircrafts. Friggin floating aircraft hangar! The USS Enterprise in particular is the longest warship to have ever been created with a length of 1123 feet. If stood vertically it would stand about a hundred feet taller than the u.s bank building in downtown Los Angeles that would make it taller than every single building in the entire state of California. Even in new york city it'd become the seventh largest Building and actually maybe blend in? You wouldn't be able to tell it's there. Okay Yeah, warships are big but let's bring it back to battleships for a moment. Remember that photo from the beginning of the video? Well, it turns out that that ship is the decommissioned USS Iowa, which is now a museum here in Long Beach That's actually really close to us. So obviously we had to go check it out. Look at these guns Oh my god, the most interesting thing about this ship in my opinion is the fact that it has three turrets each with three guns and each of those guns have bullets that are 16 inches in diameter. This was also outfitted at one point to take on nuclear shells So imagine like a bullet that's also a nuclear bomb This is the biggest bullet barrel I've ever seen pull it parallel Bullet Bill I mean, obviously it's not the Paris gun shooting from other countries, but you know Fun fact this ship is about four feet longer than the Titanic This entire thing is the turret and this isn't even actually attached to the ship. It's just sitting here It's just like dropped in if this was the capsize it would fall out and sink These guns are so powerful that they've created this misconception that if you were to fire all nine of them sideways at the exact same Time that the ship wouldn't be able to handle it and it would just rock over upside-down but that doesn't happen because water is super heavy don't forget and then acts as a buffer so yeah the ship might move like maybe three to six feet sideways, but it's not gonna capsize not even close and These are 50 caliber guns meaning at the barrel length is 50 times longer than the diameter of the bullet that it fires in the Bullets. Oh my god. The bullets are massive. They're 16 inches in diameter 6 feet tall and weighs 2,700 pounds They weigh as much as Nick's car So every time this ship fires one of those boats is as if it's firing a Kia Soul. That's a lot of hamsters So as you can see We have six of these 110 pound explosive bags and they're filled with just like this explosive propellant that all explodes at the same time firing this bullet It's super far but here's where my mind was truly blown away regarding these guns. Not only are the bullets themselves like Stupid heavy, but they can be fired really far the mark 8 gun turrets of this ship can actually fire projectiles 24 miles away now 24 miles might not seem like all that far It's less distance than a marathon but that's still so far away. The ship can't even see the target. It's shooting it Let me show you what I mean So if you were to actually look out at the horizon while standing on the coast of the ocean You'd only be seeing about 3 miles before the curvature of the earth starts hiding everything behind it because you know the earth is round And we're actually standing about a hundred feet up on the water right now so we can even see further But even the rangefinder of the USS can only see about 16 miles. So anything beyond that is just hidden by the horizon Imagine this, you know JPL the Jet Propulsion lab in Pasadena. They're the ones responsible for putting, you know robotic Rovers on Mars Well, let's say that the Martians aren't too happy about us driving around on their turf and they decide to invade the JPL Facility in order to stop us. Theoretically to defend ourselves we could just dock the ship in Santa Monica and be within firing range of the mothership talk about defending earth with 1940s technology and fire! Now even though this round is flying at a crazy fast velocity at maximum range It still takes about a minute and a half to reach the target It has a time of flight of about 86 seconds And since I wanted to play this entire shot out in real time That actually gives me a moment to talk to you about world of warships Legends It is the latest version of the warships franchise built from the ground up with console gaming and mind I've personally been playing on the PlayStation 4, but you can play on xbox or PC as well Legends puts the power of history's greatest Warships into your hands allowing you to recruit legendary commanders in fight for naval supremacy with other players around the world The game has officially launched with more content achievements and ships than ever before including the infamous German battleship Tirpitz Which is now the most powerful ship in the game and only available for the next few weeks world of warships Legends is available to play right now for free and if you want to experience what it's like to fire all nine of these guns at the same time click the link in the description so you can start playing it today and Boom the Martians have now been taken out and earth has been saved again But you know what could have also taken out the Martian ships freakin guided cruise missiles, dude And that's actually why we don't see battleships anymore in any Navy they've become obsolete in today's modern world It's all about air superiority unless about direct naval engagements battleships like the USS Iowa were all about having thick armor and big guns But we're alternately too costly to operate Compared to smaller and faster cruisers that could launch missiles from a much longer range in spite of that However, battleships are still incredibly impressive feats of Engineering especially considering that the ship was built almost eighty years ago It stands as a testament to human ingenuity and gumption in a time where problems couldn't be solved by just simply googling the answer.
This is so cool. I was actually going to post this too. It's really fascinating to learn about the true scale and power of these machines.
However, i would have liked for them to explain things a little bit better, like, how indirect firing works when the ship can't get line of sight on the target.
I read up on a BB shell vs a tank, a top end tank like an Abrams might have effectively 800mm of armor vs other tanks but even if a BB shell may not penetrate that at range, that’s not what it’s doing, which is really more like shearing off the section of tank being hit and anything behind it.