I was reading the Wikipedia page for USS Nevada and this link had been added.
According to the story, USS Iowa was one of the ships firing on her and couldn’t sink her. They don’t make them like they used to. 
It takes a lot to get a heavily armored capitol ship to sink.
This was seen with Bismark early on. Until you get hits that punch through larger compartments, like engineering spaces, there’s just too much bouyancy built into the ship.
Nevada was meant to be proof against 14" gunfire, so anything less was going to take a lot of hits. But, even a a lot of 5" ammo is going to have trouble getting through heavy armor.
Also, there’s a “thing” where ships are designed to resist both horizontal fires, and also vertical fires, which has to do with the balistic tragectory of the main gun ammo expected.
This is where aviation munitions have a leg up. Both Yamato and Musashi only needs a handful of torpedo and dive bomb strikes to be sunk.
Even less-armored ships can be tough to sink. There was a SEATO naval exercise with a SinkEx that used a retired Amphib ship. Pretty much every one had a go (about 8 vessels) with 5" guns, and a couple of anti-ship missiles were put in. It took a USN Harpoon to actually break the ship’s back and sink her.
They usually do that during RIMPAC exercises. Back in 2020 they sunk the ex-USS Durham (LKA-114), one of the ships I served in, ‘back in the day’, before I went diver.
From what I saw, the Canadian ship, HMCS Regina, got the go to launch two harpoons at her.
There’s a short but pretty impressive video around if you look it up.
I would think that there are two big disadvantages to sinking these retired ships. The first is that they have a lot more bouyancy (due to being basically empty of fuel and ammo), and second, there are no munitions to give secondary explosions on board. So you litterally have to just punch enough holes to get them to sink.
Just sad to see the old “legends” go out as target practice.
Bob
I would suspect that in Nevada’s case, she was closed up at battle stations with most all of the watertight doors and hatches dogged down to see how well she could take the nuclear blast.
Even with a wash down probably too hot to get personnel in to open things up to hasten flooding.
My thoughts as well.
Okay, curious question . . . Through the majority of the video the ship appears to be painted a dark gray or sea blue, with white on the turret sides.
BUT, at her final sinking the bow appears to be the orange the she was painted for Bikini.
Very interesting . . .
Alright, it wasn’t worded as a question, but you see where I’m heading.
the Nevada would still be in orange paint when sunk being she was now highly radioactive after the underwater Baker nuke test.
Well that’s what I thought, but the video seems to indicate otherwise. Besides, it wouldn’t be the first time the military exposed personnel to hazardous materials, and probably without telling them. I know, been there.
The dark appearance is maybe due to scorching from the Able test, with some orange undamaged.
That’s an often quoted phrase, that never has much context applied.
50 mSv is the maximum yearly dose for 'radiation workers." 6 mSvis about one chest x-ray (or the weighted average dose from spending an hour in Priapat ±5 KM from Chernoble). Threshold for increased cancer risk is around 100 mSv.
Mind, eating one banana exposes you to 0.1 µSv.
An airline flight from LA to NY is 40 µSv
And, as always, “The Danger is in the Dose.”
There was not a lot direct exposure to ionizing particles at Crossroads. The Able shot was a significant “miss” of its Air Zero. The Baker shot was submerged, and most of the radioactivity was in the irradiated, pulverized, coral sea bottom which was deluged in the water blast and sea fog.
So, the level that was “dangerous” is a vague and shifty number. And less well known in 1946, as well.
Diving in Bikini Lagoon is around 10-20 µSv, depending on where and if one goes deeper than 20m. And which ship–USS Arkansas was right in the “sea ball” and picked up vertically; she got a serious dose.
Actually sinking a sealed up WWII BB is very difficult - but also unnecessary. Forget the issues with keeping the thing running (equipment and crew skills) - you just need to kill the crew. One big fuel-air bomb and there aren’t many survivors.
LonCray, that type of bomb was not used against ships till decades after the war so your statement will not work.
And, you set Condition Whiskey and hyperbaris are only going to affect things on deck sensitive to overpressure and/or heat.
Naval Warfare is a complicated business with many moving parts to it.
Not to hijack the thread, so I’ll be brief.
The damage reports from the sinking of PoW are interesting.
Relentlessly attacked by large twin engined torpedo bombers out of Indo China, she survived four torpedo hits and went into damage control.
An attempt to restart an engine that had a prop shaft hit resulted in vibration destruction of the gland at the end of the shaft.
Water from that flooded the engine room, and because the ship had a longitudinal bulkhead, that caused a list from which she could not recover.
She would not have sunk except for poor training of damage control.
The point is that I would suggest that ships are more likely to sink with a crew on board than without.