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  • 12-567 WWII Marine Application

  • Discussion of Electro-Motive locomotive products and technology, past and present. Official web site can be found here: http://www.emdiesels.com/.
Discussion of Electro-Motive locomotive products and technology, past and present. Official web site can be found here: http://www.emdiesels.com/.

Moderator: GOLDEN-ARM

 #24387  by LCJ
 
I recently discovered that the ship my father served aboard (LST 26) for the US Coast Guard in WWII was actually powered by twin 12-567 diesels -- much like an enlarged E6!

LST stood for landing ship tank. Also, "large slow target." They were used to take men and machines right up onto the beach, with the bow opening up to unload.

Anyone have any other WWII (marine or other) applications for these power plants?

Webpage with link to a picture of LST 26 in South Pacific:
http://www.navsource.org/archives/10/160026.htm

 #24412  by mxdata
 
EMD built over 1200 ship sets of 12-567ATL engines for US Navy marine propulsion applicatons, most of them going into the LST vessels. They also constructed the "pancake" engines and produced the propeller shafting and controllable pitch propellers for USN subchasers, and assembled the "quad" installations of four Detroit Diesel 6-71 engines for infantry landing craft. The role of EMD in producing diesel engines for the Navy gets very little publicity because Cleveland Diesel (the former Winton Engine Company) was the marine marketing branch for GM products during the WW2 period, and all the EMD production tends to get wrapped into their wartime engine production which included engines for many classes of USN vessels, ranging in size from landing craft all the way up to cruisers, battleships, and aircraft carriers.

Many machine tools in the EMD plant in La Grange were supplied by the government during WW2 and wore "Property of the US Navy" tags up into the 1970s.

 #24629  by 498
 
Military applications of EMD engines (567s and 645s) include: LST's (wartime and postwar), fleet tugs (prewar, wartime, and postwar), YTB's, aircraft carriers (all postwar), Coast Guard Cutters (180s and high endurance cutters), hundreds of generator sets on islands, and at Navy, Army and Air Force bases and radar installations, and the tank retriever at Aberdeen, to name just a few. Other government related installations include NOAA vessels, oceanographic research ships, and emergency generators at numerous federal agencies.

Cleveland Diesel 248/248A/258/258S/268/268A/278/278A engine installations included almost every class of vessel built for the US Navy in World War Two. It is easier to name the types of vessels that did not have them :PT boats (Packard M2500s); small ships boats and small landing craft (various engines); and unpowered barges; than the ones that did.

ALCO, Baldwin, Fairbanks Morse, and many other engine builders also provided power for wartime construction programs. The Fairbanks Morse 5-1/4 and 8-1/8 opposed piston engines were widely applied to many classes of vessels.

 #25652  by Engineer Spike
 
There was a program about a LST on the History Channel recently. It was one that was in a foreign country, I don't know which one, as I missed the beginning. The crew was all WWII Navy vets, and they sailed it back.
In one part, the engine shut down. Everyone was concerned until the engineer discovered it was just the overspeed. It was the same as on every 567, 645, and 710 I have ever worked with. I did not see a governor in front of it. Did marine applications have a diferent location?

 #25698  by mxdata
 
The governor used on most of the WW2 567 engines was built by Marquette Metal Products rather than Woodward Governor. It is a small rectangular box which is very smooth and easy to overlook, smaller than the Woodward SI and PG series governors. It was mounted in the conventional location on the front of the engine. The connecting linkage looks similar to the Woodward PG Governor installations on most postwar EMD products, however.

That was an excellent documentary! Those veterans are still brave men, sixty years later. Their trip with the LST was the cause of massive concern with the Coast Guard, over the question of whether it was "safe" or not. Back in 1942 the Navy considered an LST might survive two or three trips to the beach, if it was a lucky ship. Some of them only made one.

 #29172  by Engineer Spike
 
One engineer that I work with is a former Navy man. He was on a sub with Cleveland 278 engines. He later worked at Alco on their test engine, and also did time in the mechanical dept. He is now involved in restoring a DE USS Slater. It has the same engines. The ship is docked near the yard. He was onboard ship, and I stopped for a visit. He was showing me the engines. He said that many of the dimensions were close to the 567. My question is why did GM make 2 similar sized engines?

 #29181  by PCook
 
The Cleveland Diesel 278 and 278A (which the USS SLATER has for propulsion) and the Electro-Motive 567 are very similar in size and horsepower rating. The Cleveland Diesel models were designed to meet the requirements of the US Navy diesel qualification tests of the late 1930s, while the 567 was designed primarily around the requirements of railroad service. However the 567 proved quite adaptable to marine use, beginning with three of the CHEROKEE class fleet tugs, and during the war emergency programs the 567 engines were applied to many types of military applications.

For the benefit of our readers who may not recognize the various classes of US warships from World War Two, let me explain that the USS SLATER is a diesel-electric drive Destroyer Escort which is docked as a museum ship in Albany, New York. A destroyer escort is a very maneuverable vessel which is slightly smaller and somewhat slower that a conventional destroyer. They were used primarily as anti-submarine escort vessels for convoys, although some were also converted to serve as troop transports, radar picket vessels, and other uses. The USS SLATER is one of the most authentically restored museum ships in existence, and also one of the few which has the potential to be returned to fully operational status with future work.

"Gus" is doing a great job rebuilding those engines!

 #32172  by Engineer Spike
 
I just saw Gus, otherwise known as Mr. Alco at work the other day.
The job that he has done on the engines is tops. Gus does not do anything second rate. I know that he really wants to get into the engines when he soon pulls the pin.
I kid him that he should replace the 278 engines with 251 Alco.

 #33566  by n01jd1
 
I believe you can add submarines to the list of naval vessels that did not have EMD/Winton prime movers as Fairbanks Morse OP engines were used
498 wrote:It is easier to name the types of vessels that did not have them :PT boats (Packard M2500s); small ships boats and small landing craft (various engines); and unpowered barges; than the ones that .
 #33594  by Allen Hazen
 
Actually, I think about half of the "Fleet" submarines built for the U.S. Navy in WW II did have GM diesel engines. The other half (about), as you say, had FM. (A small number had engines of other types, including an unsuccessful "HOR" engine built by General Equipment, the Hamilton, Ohio, company that later merged with Lima Locomotive. I don't believe, however, that the engines used on submarines were of the same design as those used on Lima diesel locomotives.)

 #33617  by 498
 
A very large number of USN fleet submarines (about half the total production) had engines built by General Motors (Winton and successor Cleveland Diesel). The engine models used in fleet submarines (GATO and BALAO classes and their predecessors) included the 201A, 248, 248A, 278, and 278A. In addition several of the large "cruiser" subs had GM engines. This is all very well documented in the book "The Fleet Submarine in the United States Navy". A number of the preserved museum submarines have GM diesels so you can see and touch many of them to this day. The distribution of other manufacturers engines in fleet subs is exactly as Allen pointed out.