Naval History Forums

Anybody knows how the boilers and machinery are changed in a battleship, I mean, is the ship cut open to change them?

Explanations and photos (if available) are welcomed.

Thanks in advance.

I imagine it is not much different than when I had my furnace replaced. They went to the basement and cut it into pieces and took out through the back door upstairs and through the basement window. Then they brought the new one in and assembled it in situ. In a battleship I think the same process would be used. I cannot imagine it would involve cutting holes into the decks etc. and provisions for replacing boilers etc. are probably quite routine and anticipated jobs.

If I am not mistaken I think that every ship has her own replacement pieces in her magazines, in order to achieve reparations directly in the sea, if the entity of the damage make it possible.
I guess Ulrich is right, I cannot imagine a whole battleship being disarmed, semi dismantled in order to change machinery...
Even if knowing something about turbines I think it was very difficoult repair them in situ or completely replace them...

I refer not to a reparation, but to an upgrade of the machinery, meaning complete change of boilers and turbines.

Marcelo,

Try looking for photos of the USS Texas (BB35) during her major modernization overhaul in 1925-1927 at Norfolk Navy Yard. At this time the ship was retrofitted from coal burning to fuel-oil, and the original 14 boilers were replaced with 6 fuel-oil boilers. I couldn't find any photos myself.

José

Ciao all,

Conte di Cavour class ( Cavour and Cesare ) and Duilio class ( Duilio and Doria ) battleships had the machinery replaced just like the USS Texas, from coal to oil.

Ciao Antonio

USS TEXAS that looks like the mess in my basement when my boiler was replaced!


http://www.navsource.org/archives/01/013563a.jpg

I know a person whose father worked lots of years in the Fincantieri Shipyard in Riva Trigoso, near Genova.By disgrace our problems with reciprocal feelings deny me to ask her if her father knows something about machinery replacement...

Matthias wrote:....By disgrace our problems with reciprocal feelings deny me to ask her ...

Now this has come out of your translator all “cock-eyed” but I think there is a normal story here.
Her father worked in a shipyard but since your relationship with her ended unhappily you can not ask questions about her father?

Regards Steve

Kit-Builder wrote:Her father worked in a shipyard but since your relationship with her ended unhappily you can not ask questions about her father?

Is not that I can't ask her...simply, she won't reply...


You know pride...

Ok guys, now I have a clue.
I was yesterday reading Campbell´s Jutland, and in a paragraph he says that a pump was downloaded into a boiler room thru the cut funnel´s armour grating. Is it posible that the same procedure is employed to take to the boiler room and machinery room (which is inmediately behind) the largest pieces that would not pass thru doors?

I guess it depends on how big this pump was...