William Devane gold commercial on the big battleship. Gun bore beside him appears to have a rifled insert in the barrel. Is that they way they were made?

RMD

Yes. Rifling was over 1/4 inch deep, and bit into a copper band on the shell. I'm sure some of our battleship sailors will be on soon with better info. I grew up in Massachusetts and toured the Battleship Massachusetts many, many times. At one time, they had a light bulb down at the breech end, and a set of wooden stairs you could climb to look down the barrel from the muzzle. There were a ton of lands and grooves in there.

Nothing like a 1600cal rifle...

Yes, it is rifled, but is the rifling in an insert placed in the barrel? Or cut into the barrel itself. Looked like a big insert that was changeable.

RMD

It's an insert. Barrels could be shot out and then relined. Rifling was a wear part in those things.

I have some 16" shells where I work. They are inert. The band is about 2" wide by 1/4 thick. The shells themselves are pretty cool.
They are becoming ornaments for some office entrances.

There are some cool videos of lathes turning barrels.

Thanks. that's what I thought. I'm going to search for a cross sectional diagram. I would love to know how you keep the gas from blowing that insert out when firing.

RMD

quote:

Originally posted by ArtieS:
It's an insert. Barrels could be shot out and then relined. Rifling was a wear part in those things.

http://navweaps.com/Weapons/WNUS_16-50_mk7.php

Excellent reference.

RMD

Dig the caption on that first picture.

"It should be clear from the photograph that firing a broadside does not push the ship sideways."

! I can the ship rocking a bit, but pushed sideways?

quote:

Originally posted by Il Cattivo:
Dig the caption on that first picture.

"It should be clear from the photograph that firing a broadside does not push the ship sideways."

! I can the ship rocking a bit, but pushed sideways?

No rocking either. Just a bit of a shake. And always remember to roll down the windows on the bridge - that way the don’t get blown in.

I recall reading that the barrel lining (the part with the rifling) would stretch out a bit after repeated firing, so that it protruded past the muzzle. It would have to be periodically trimmed (it was called 'circumcission') . . .

Can't remember if I posted these before, but here is the story. About 5-7 years ago, the Gov't had an auction at the Hawthorne Army Depot in Nevada. They had ~25 of the 16"/50 naval gun barrels. One caveat, the buyer had to haul them off. They sold, someone got some good steel:







As a side note, my Brother in Law was on the USS St.Paul during Vietnam, and I remember him telling me that after awhile on the "Gun Line", they had to withdraw and get their 8" barrels relined. This was always a treat he told me, because they were relined in Sydney, and a liberty in Sydney was well, a liberty in Sydney

quote:

Originally posted by feersum dreadnaught:

quote:

Originally posted by Il Cattivo:
Dig the caption on that first picture.

"It should be clear from the photograph that firing a broadside does not push the ship sideways."

! I can the ship rocking a bit, but pushed sideways?

No rocking either. Just a bit of a shake. And always remember to roll down the windows on the bridge - that way the don’t get blown in.

The biggest surprise for me and a sound I'll never forget was the sound of every steel ventilation duct on the ship flexing in and out every time a round was fired. I also remember reseating chips on computer boards and the sound of HP air blowing the smoke out of the barrel.

quote:

Originally posted by Sgt Neutron:
Can't remember if I posted these before, but here is the story. About 5-7 years ago, the Gov't had an auction at the Hawthorne Army Depot in Nevada. They had ~25 of the 16"/50 naval gun barrels. One caveat, the buyer had to haul them off. They sold, someone got some good steel:

As a side note, my Brother in Law was on the USS St.Paul during Vietnam, and I remember him telling me that after awhile on the "Gun Line", they had to withdraw and get their 8" barrels relined. This was always a treat he told me, because they were relined in Sydney, and a liberty in Sydney was well, a liberty in Sydney

Uncle Sam might just be asking for them back soon. A one-ton sixteen-inch bullet with 20,090,000 ft pounds of ME energy is an unjammable FoG descending on your sorry ass , no matter how well-made your bunker might be...

tac

Yup,
Lined barrel.
The liner was basically stretched and would often extend past the end of the barrel..
IIRC after about an inche stuck out it was trimmed off and after two time the barrel was relined.
The liner was basically glued on and wouldn't come out when firing.

Many many guns were lined.

If not originally lined, after the barrel was shot out, they were lined...take a look inside a M2HB barrel..seven or eight inches down the barrel you may see a circle-that is the edge of the liner.

Back them it cost too much time and expense to just toss a shot out barrel, so they were re-lined. Faster & cheaper to get the gun back into service.

There is a PMS cycle that controls all aspects of the gun, and after a set number of rounds thru the tube, it's pulled and reworked..The navy and CG all use the 3m system.

When I got out of the Navy I was in Wilmington NC and got a summer job while in college working on the Battleship North Carolina BB-55.

While I was there Navy reps and Pentagon/spook characters came in to inspect the ship to determine how much work it would be to put her back in commission. I was curious and followed them around as they discussed using the big guns and possibly for other purposes, etc. Cable runs, fire control, logistics, etc were all discussed.

From what I ran across online... and there's probably someone here who was there and knows- the final decision was that the Iowa-Class ships- New Jersey, Wisconsin, Iowa and the Missouri offered more refined designs/capabilities and were in better condition and cost less to renovate and prepare for the mission.

I understand that it was initially suggested to reactivate only two (USS New Jersey and USS Iowa) to satisfy the US Marine Corps need for gunfire support and as mounts for the new Tomahawk cruise missile. The Iowa class had everything the US Navy’s “Tomahawk lobby” could want. They were highly survivable, as fast as any nuclear-powered surface ship, had excess tonnage; and most importantly, were already built. There would be no teething period for their hullforms or propulsion plants; long since proven during WWII. The cost of reactivating them would roughly equal the cost of a new destroyer each. The only foreseen downside was their high peacetime operational costs.

35 kts for a WWII Battleship is not bad, considering.


Greenpeace weasels harass the Iowa

My first department boss in the Navy in subs (XO on Bonefish), was the late John Joseph Chernesky.

He later was the recommissioning Executive Office of the USS Iowa. He was quite a character and a brilliant man.

Reading on how they brought those post-treaty battleships back into service is pretty interesting.

Below is a link where they discuss all of the proposals they had for the project and what happened-

Battleships after WWII

quote:

Originally posted by MikeinNC:
Yup,
Lined barrel.
The liner was basically stretched and would often extend past the end of the barrel..
IIRC after about an inche stuck out it was trimmed off and after two time the barrel was relined.
The liner was basically glued on and wouldn't come out when firing.

Many many guns were lined.

If not originally lined, after the barrel was shot out, they were lined...take a look inside a M2HB barrel..seven or eight inches down the barrel you may see a circle-that is the edge of the liner.

Back them it cost too much time and expense to just toss a shot out barrel, so they were re-lined. Faster & cheaper to get the gun back into service.

There is a PMS cycle that controls all aspects of the gun, and after a set number of rounds thru the tube, it's pulled and reworked..The navy and CG all use the 3m system.

Years ago, if I remember the article correctly. it stated the barrels had to be refitted after 300 rounds. Does this sound right to you?

I read an article by a WW II US battleship officer. He said that it was interesting to be shot at by a Japanese battleship. The shell glowed red (visible at night), as a result of the heating caused by the supersonic speed of the shell. Since it was coming almost directly at you, there was little apparent motion – it appeared to be slowly floating. Interesting only if it missed! Despite the tremendous speed, it could be as much as 30 seconds from firing to impact.

quote:

Originally posted by rtquig:

quote:

Originally posted by MikeinNC:
Yup,
Lined barrel.
The liner was basically stretched and would often extend past the end of the barrel..
IIRC after about an inche stuck out it was trimmed off and after two time the barrel was relined.
The liner was basically glued on and wouldn't come out when firing.

Many many guns were lined.

If not originally lined, after the barrel was shot out, they were lined...take a look inside a M2HB barrel..seven or eight inches down the barrel you may see a circle-that is the edge of the liner.

Back them it cost too much time and expense to just toss a shot out barrel, so they were re-lined. Faster & cheaper to get the gun back into service.

There is a PMS cycle that controls all aspects of the gun, and after a set number of rounds thru the tube, it's pulled and reworked..The navy and CG all use the 3m system.

Years ago, if I remember the article correctly. it stated the barrels had to be refitted after 300 rounds. Does this sound right to you?

from the website referenced above by rduckwor:

When first introduced into service during World War II, the barrel life was 290 ESR, the lower of the two values given above. At that time, Smokeless Powder Diphenylamine (SPD) was the standard propellant. HC rounds at 2,690 fps (820 mps) were 0.43 ESR and at 1,900 fps (579 mps) were 0.03 ESR. The Target rounds at 1,800 fps (549 mps) were 0.08 ESR. Some unspecified improvements raised liner life to 350 ESR by the start of the Korean War. In the 1967 and 1980s deployments, the use of "Swedish Additive" (titanium dioxide and wax) greatly reduced barrel wear. It has been estimated that four AP shells fired using this additive approximated the wear of a single AP shell fired without the additive (0.26 ESR) and that HC rounds fired with the additive caused even less wear (0.11 ESR). The "Swedish Additive" was issued in a packet that was inserted between two of the propellant bags. Later developments during the 1980s deployment led to putting a polyurethane jacket over the powder bags, which reduced the wear still further. This jacket is simply a sheet of foam with a fabric border around the ends that is tied to the powder bag. When the jacket burns during firing, a protective layer forms over the surface of the liner which greatly reduces gaseous erosion. This wear reduction program was so successful that liner life could no longer be rated in terms of ESR, as it was no longer the limiting factor. Instead, the liner life began to be rated in terms of Fatigue Equivalent Rounds (FER), which is the mechanical fatigue life expressed in terms of the number of mechanical cycles. The 16"/50 (40.6 cm) Mark 7 was ultimately rated at having a liner life of 1,500 FER.

The New Jersey was my first choice on my dream sheet out of OCS. It was just coming back on line, reputedly with a half crew.

The company officer at OCS warned me that if I got that duty, I would probably be the 3rd Assistant Forward Coke Machine Officer, and secondly, after going to the expense and trouble of refitting it, there would be very little time tied to the pier.

I didn’t get those orders, of course, but when I arrived at North Island, there was the New Jersey at the dock. I got to know one of the JOs and got a very comprehensive tour.

Too bad!