Here's a video showing these Book End Gun Barrels being transported and installed. Hal
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- Thread starter El Toro
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waltdavies
Member
Back in 1962 I was in the Willamette Yards in Richman, CA on the USS Fort Marion LSD 22. There was an 18 in. Gun barrel off a battle wagon I don't remember which one the ship had been scrapped there I understand. Man those things are huge when you get up along side one. Never will forget seeing that barrel lying there alongside the road in the yard.
Walt
US Navy 1958-62 MR-2
Walt
US Navy 1958-62 MR-2
They are huge, not sure all of what was made here, but the nearby Watervliet Arsenal made large gun barrels for the U.S. Navy. They were famous for the manufacturing of the 16" barrel. See the attached link, they have some displays on the premises. I am very familiar with this place, having made deliveries there for 4 years. We supplied all the lumber to stock their internal lumber yard for the dunnage, crating/packing of guns being manufactured. I've been in most of the manufacturing buildings in this arsenal, its an amazing place. Always made me worry because I am sure its a high profile target, maybe more so in recent times, it survived attempts to have it closed. I was the only person from the lumberyard that was allowed in there, well it seems the other driver had a dishonorable discharge, not allowed on any U.S. Military base, he was a great guy, as was his son who, he admitted he went awol, paid his debt too, so I made all the deliveries, they were a regular customer too, I would pick up from local and out of town mills for what they needed and the U.S. government specified top grade lumber for everything. They had this incredible remote operated warehouse, thick plywood, like 2" or better, plates that were on rollers, and they would get sent out into the warehouse with whatever it was, it would place it onto one of the tall warehouse racks, all automated, that was almost 30 years ago now.
Watervliet Arsenal
Watervliet Arsenal
Janicholson
Well-known Member
Nice video. Real machining!, real hauling. Jim
The only ships with 18 inch guns were the 2 Yamato class battleships Yamato and Musashi of the Imperial Japanese Navy , Musashi was sunk at battle of Leyte, Yamato sunk during Okinawa campaign . If those were 18" I wonder if they were captured spare parts from Japan or barrel for a US ship that never got built ?
My Father was involved in a project to machine new barrels for the battle ships in the 1980s. They where needing some new barrels made since they had not made any since the 1950s.
They had the tooling to make the barrels but none of the guys where still around that had done it. It took them some time to get them figures out.
Also a side note. The Navel had the tooling to change the barrels but no one had written down how they actually changed the barrels. In WWII they could change a barrel in under eight hours. It took them over a week on the first one since they had to figure out how to do it. I often wondered if any of the old guys would have still been around that had done it.
I would have like to have been there to see it done. The big guns always fascinated me. I had a Great Uncle that was on a battleship in WWII. He was a gunner on an anti-air craft gun. His gun and bunk where right under the big guns. He talked about being there when they where firing the big guns right over his head. I can remember him talking about being thrown out of his bunk one time while he was sleeping and they used the big guns.
I think the First Gulf War was the last active combat they where used in. There is a good video about that.
Then the second video is about the Arizona. It shows pictures from start to finish of the great ship.
Missouri In the Gulf war
Video of the BB 39 USS Arizona .
They had the tooling to make the barrels but none of the guys where still around that had done it. It took them some time to get them figures out.
Also a side note. The Navel had the tooling to change the barrels but no one had written down how they actually changed the barrels. In WWII they could change a barrel in under eight hours. It took them over a week on the first one since they had to figure out how to do it. I often wondered if any of the old guys would have still been around that had done it.
I would have like to have been there to see it done. The big guns always fascinated me. I had a Great Uncle that was on a battleship in WWII. He was a gunner on an anti-air craft gun. His gun and bunk where right under the big guns. He talked about being there when they where firing the big guns right over his head. I can remember him talking about being thrown out of his bunk one time while he was sleeping and they used the big guns.
I think the First Gulf War was the last active combat they where used in. There is a good video about that.
Then the second video is about the Arizona. It shows pictures from start to finish of the great ship.
Missouri In the Gulf war
Video of the BB 39 USS Arizona .
I would have to believe so, just one piece of the puzzle, I was always curious as to what happens from raw material, to final process, testing or proving as in what they did where you spent a career. I know in the past a lot of people had good jobs because of all of this, the Watervliet Arsenal provided that around here. The neighbor across the road at our other place is a long time and very accomplished employee there, he's been called in to the Rock Island Arsenal as well. Not sure about Picatinny. I have seen an old photo of a large gun barrel on a flat car, coming through the nearby city, right before it crossed the then rail only bridge, across the hudson. It was headed to Watervliet for machining. I am not sure where it came from, as those tracks were D&H, but connected with the New York Central, Boston & Maine, and or from the north the Burlington line from Vermont. It had to be late 1800's or early 1900's, I will have to see if I can locate a copy of it, I think I saw it on one of the historical railroad sites, one that is a pay site, but was documented locally, quite few old photos were in there.
Billy Shafer
Well-known Member
My Grandfather was at Pearl during the attack. Always said he saw the Arizona jump about three feet straight up. Everyone said he was nuts. But I believe the new ways that they can view the film show that he was correct. His ship was hauled out on a scrap barge.
Mel in SW Iowa
Member
Hal, I graduated from Ordnance OCS at Aberdeen Proving Ground in Sept 1967. At that time, once a week IIRC, a 16" shell was shot to high altitude to insure all ballistic data were being correctly updated. We could occasionally hear mini-guns being tested at different rates of fire out of helicopters behind the "fence". At that time, they had some very interesting shot up armored vehicles on display, maybe between gates 1&2? I was recently told that this display had been moved to Ft Meade.
Then I was assigned to Ft. Sill, OK; testing and when due, changing gun tubes on 8" M110 and M107 175mm SP's. We would park an SP, lock out the suspension, depress the gun tube to 0 degrees elevation, back two 5T wreckers up to the gun tube (lifting points were marked)and hook to the lifting chains, unscrew the nut on the recoil rod, hand signal the wrecker operators to lift their end of the gun tube until I had .005" vertical clearance, and then signal the SP driver to carefully and slowly drive forward out from under the gun tube. With careful SP drivers and wrecker operators, we never bent a 5T wrecker boom on my watch. IIRC, the 175's were pretty hard on gun tubes. The ones I dealt with were toys compared to those big 16's.
Then I was assigned to Ft. Sill, OK; testing and when due, changing gun tubes on 8" M110 and M107 175mm SP's. We would park an SP, lock out the suspension, depress the gun tube to 0 degrees elevation, back two 5T wreckers up to the gun tube (lifting points were marked)and hook to the lifting chains, unscrew the nut on the recoil rod, hand signal the wrecker operators to lift their end of the gun tube until I had .005" vertical clearance, and then signal the SP driver to carefully and slowly drive forward out from under the gun tube. With careful SP drivers and wrecker operators, we never bent a 5T wrecker boom on my watch. IIRC, the 175's were pretty hard on gun tubes. The ones I dealt with were toys compared to those big 16's.
Prawn Farmer
Member
The Navy sent me to school there at Bainbridge in 1970. I loved it because when we did get liberty Baltimore and D.C. were both close by and I could buy beer legally at 18 years old. That's all I remember.
Pete in MD
Well-known Member
- Location
- Central Maryland
The big guns on the Iowa,New Jersey,Wisconsin and Missouri were 16"-55 caliber. The barrels were 73'-4" long. They had replaceable liners inside that would wear and get longer as the number of rounds fired increased.
In the early 70s I was the storage officer at the supply depot in Subic. Among some 50,000 spare parts we had 3 spare 16" barrels in outside storage and 3 breech blocks crated in inside storage. Every year the caps on the barrels were removed and the insides were recoated and then resealed. The barrels sat in cradles like the ones in JD's video. They were an awesome sight. The Navy got out of Subic in '92 following the Mt. Pinatubo eruption in '91. Don't know if the barrels were taken out or just left there.
The Arizona is still in commission and flies the U.S. flag.
In the early 70s I was the storage officer at the supply depot in Subic. Among some 50,000 spare parts we had 3 spare 16" barrels in outside storage and 3 breech blocks crated in inside storage. Every year the caps on the barrels were removed and the insides were recoated and then resealed. The barrels sat in cradles like the ones in JD's video. They were an awesome sight. The Navy got out of Subic in '92 following the Mt. Pinatubo eruption in '91. Don't know if the barrels were taken out or just left there.
The Arizona is still in commission and flies the U.S. flag.
buickanddeere
Well-known Member
Apparently with new powders and procedures. The barrel wear and erosion was much reduced. Replacement came to be due to stress cracking rather than wear.
GeneMO
Well-known Member
- Location
- Pilot Grove, Mo.
What is the misconception? I read a lot of WWII history and was sure we never had an 18" gun on a battle ship. And I did know the Japanese did. For all the hooplaa the Japanese big battleships didn't accomplish much.
Gene
buickanddeere
Well-known Member
The Japanese lost moral and their primary leadership and the Allied forces gained moral on April 18th 1943.
Operation Vengeance was the name given by the Americans to the military operation to kill Japanese Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto on April 18, 1943. Yamamoto wasn't there to organize air battles let alone ship to ship battles.
The pacific was a ground forces and aircraft carrier war.
smallercrawler
Member
I'm not saying the Iowa class had 18's. The misconception is that the Iowa class had 18" guns. I've seen it several times over the years. I've also seen the claim the Iowa class had "The Biggest Guns" ever put on a battleship. Nope. The Brits had an 18" gun in WW1 and the Japanese an 18.1 gun in WW2.
The US did have a 36" mortar in WW2. I'd say that wins for largest caliber in the 20th century!
DaninKansas
Member
The US considered using 18" guns on the Montana class - but decided to stick with the 16" 50 caliber guns used on the Iowa class. They didn't gain much in range or accuracy with the 18" gun (that they designed) and the broadside weight with only 8 18" guns (4 turrents of 2 guns) was lighter than the broadside weight of 12 16" guns (4 turrents of 3 guns).
Since they knew this they must have built one or two 18" guns for testing.
The Japanese battleships with 18" guns had a slight range advantage over the 16 50s of the Iowa class - but they couldn't utilize the extra range because they had no means for optical aiming over the horizon - the Iowa class could aim using their radar that was mounted on the highest point of the ship making shots over the horizon possible.
Since they knew this they must have built one or two 18" guns for testing.
The Japanese battleships with 18" guns had a slight range advantage over the 16 50s of the Iowa class - but they couldn't utilize the extra range because they had no means for optical aiming over the horizon - the Iowa class could aim using their radar that was mounted on the highest point of the ship making shots over the horizon possible.
DaninKansas
Member
Jumping 3' up is no big deal (unless of course you happen to on the ship). The British battle cruisers sunk in WW1 and WW2 tended to blow in two and send both halves several feet out of the water - a WHOLE lot more than 3'.
(quoted from post at 09:00:29 02/16/14) We probably tested some of those gun barrels at Aberdeen Proving Ground MD. The M1 Abrams Tank had a 120mm gun with laser sight. Very accurate.
Hal
NO, the M1A1 [b:c5984a1c87]has[/b:c5984a1c87] a 120MM gun with a thermal sight and a laser range finder. The computer takes into account, temp, baro pressure, cross wind and ammo storage temp. When the laser is fired it gives a ballistic solution in 1/100th of a second and applies lead. You lay the aiming dot on center of visible mass and fire. 98% chance of a first round hit. The 2% miss factor is most often crew error, wrong ammo indexed/loaded, bad range ECT.
Rick
bill mart wrote:
"Found this on the net, can anyone explain the caliber part any simpler? Bill
"Explanation of the term Caliber in relation to Naval Rifles[edit]
Naval rifles, although constructed and manufactured in roughly the same manners as land-based artillery, were built to much more stringent and studious standards than land-based weapons, and for good reason. At sea, a weapon had to perform, without fail. There was no ready replacement, nor one that could be readily supplied. Additionally, naval artillery reached sizes and weights virtually unheard of (with a few very rare exceptions) in land-based weapons. Over time, the terms of pound (weight of shell) and bore (the actual bore of the weapon) became confused and blurred. Eventually, when the technology existed, the bore (in inches or millimetres) came to be the standard measure. For naval rifles, the initial change was to actual bore, thus facilitating the manufacture of standard projectiles. Concurrently the practice of presenting the measure of the effective length (and therefore range) of the weapon in calibers began to emerge. These were (and are) a measure of the standardized bore of the barrel versus the rifled bore of the barrel. In other words, a 12/45 is 12"X45= the length of the rifled bore of that gun in inches. This explains the differences in both penetration and long range performance of various naval rifles over the years, as a gun of 12/35 versus a 12/50 in most instances will, when presented without range or penetration data, appear to be nearly the same weapon. In addition to the possible improvements in overall performance (i.e. muzzle velocity and striking force), the increase in barrel length also allowed, in some circumstances, an increase in projectile size as well. For example, the American 14/45, as introduced in the New York-class ships, fired a 1250 lb projectile. Later improvements to the design, lengthening the rifle itself and also altering the breech, allowed a 1400 lb projectile and, overall, a greater barrel life. Again we see this pattern with the US 16-inch guns. The initial design was 45 calibers in length and fired a 2200 lb shell. The later re-design to 50 calibre not only allowed a higher velocity but also a heavier 2700 lb shell, which ultimately came to be accepted as the greatest naval shell ever deployed in combat."
*********************
The starting point is the bore diameter, or what is usually called "caliber."
The bore length of larger guns is sometimes described as a multiple of the bore diameter.
A gun with a 16-inch bore that has a bore length of 45 calibers is 720 inches long (16 multiplied by 45).
Dunno if that helps.
*********************
This post was made to the full discussion/thread, not as a stand-alone post/new topic. It appears within the discussion in Modern View
"Found this on the net, can anyone explain the caliber part any simpler? Bill
"Explanation of the term Caliber in relation to Naval Rifles[edit]
Naval rifles, although constructed and manufactured in roughly the same manners as land-based artillery, were built to much more stringent and studious standards than land-based weapons, and for good reason. At sea, a weapon had to perform, without fail. There was no ready replacement, nor one that could be readily supplied. Additionally, naval artillery reached sizes and weights virtually unheard of (with a few very rare exceptions) in land-based weapons. Over time, the terms of pound (weight of shell) and bore (the actual bore of the weapon) became confused and blurred. Eventually, when the technology existed, the bore (in inches or millimetres) came to be the standard measure. For naval rifles, the initial change was to actual bore, thus facilitating the manufacture of standard projectiles. Concurrently the practice of presenting the measure of the effective length (and therefore range) of the weapon in calibers began to emerge. These were (and are) a measure of the standardized bore of the barrel versus the rifled bore of the barrel. In other words, a 12/45 is 12"X45= the length of the rifled bore of that gun in inches. This explains the differences in both penetration and long range performance of various naval rifles over the years, as a gun of 12/35 versus a 12/50 in most instances will, when presented without range or penetration data, appear to be nearly the same weapon. In addition to the possible improvements in overall performance (i.e. muzzle velocity and striking force), the increase in barrel length also allowed, in some circumstances, an increase in projectile size as well. For example, the American 14/45, as introduced in the New York-class ships, fired a 1250 lb projectile. Later improvements to the design, lengthening the rifle itself and also altering the breech, allowed a 1400 lb projectile and, overall, a greater barrel life. Again we see this pattern with the US 16-inch guns. The initial design was 45 calibers in length and fired a 2200 lb shell. The later re-design to 50 calibre not only allowed a higher velocity but also a heavier 2700 lb shell, which ultimately came to be accepted as the greatest naval shell ever deployed in combat."
*********************
The starting point is the bore diameter, or what is usually called "caliber."
The bore length of larger guns is sometimes described as a multiple of the bore diameter.
A gun with a 16-inch bore that has a bore length of 45 calibers is 720 inches long (16 multiplied by 45).
Dunno if that helps.
*********************
This post was made to the full discussion/thread, not as a stand-alone post/new topic. It appears within the discussion in Modern View
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