the USS New Jersey battle ship.

For those of you interested.......

A lot of the machinery used to build those Iowa class battleships was bought up out of the Carolina shipyards and transported by rail to Johnson Machine Works in Chariton, IA. That machinery is still in use to this day.

Link to JMW website......
Johnson Machine Works, Inc.: Steel Fabrication Home

In the first video about a minute or so in, you can see the HUGE metal lathe used to turn the gun barrels. It can turn pieces with a 108" swing up to 70 feet long.

My first welding job out of high school was at JMW, and my work area was right next to that lathe. There's also a "tank press" with four 24" diameter rams...each ram can press 2000 tons. They also brought back a HUGE chopsaw that can cut a 2" thick web of any size I-beam in just seconds. Their flame cutting table can cut plate steel up to 12" thick.....