Battleships (Iowa?)and 406 mm guns (1.333 feet)

To the gentleman, Mark? … thanks for the correction on the BIG guns (IOWA, etc. ) that i posted awhile back.

My data as to these big fish is ages old (3 years or more) . But the scuttle on the one used in GW 1 is for real..

A “Shipsup”, i talked to 3 months ago at the San Diego shipyard i worked for ( DDG Burke class overhaul ing ) said….. ” the battleship (forgot which one he said) can sail in 6 weeks if need be” .

sounds good to me :rolleyes:

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Okay….. 16″ guns

When i was at Mare Island NAVSHIPS / Napa channel, just around the corner from San Francisco Bay…. this was 1979 (Mare island ship yard was a SSBN capable submarine repair base). I was a machinist @ X31 , the huge machine shop. One day a low-boy rail car brought in a “shore gun from Hawaii”. It was made in the lery late 30s or earily 40’s.

The tags on the breach said134 feet or 134 tons (i cant remembver which…. cause i waz 27 years ago !!!) . Any way they cut the barrel off with a big “air arc” cutting lance and left the breach on the rail car and dragged the barrel to the scrappers.

The breach was left and we were to plug the end and make it a “JIT” pressure chamber for testing sensitive components.

As a machinist…… i remember the “rifling” maybe 2 or even 3” deep WOW. But for me, the 10 or 12 start buttress threads that ended up terminating into the square sholder of the breach was unforgetable. I think i got a woodie. It was in near perfect condition. Double WOW.

( The angled buttress threads is the curved thread form that allows the breach cap to be rotated closed + / – 15 degrees , and close the breach for detonation. ) I had never seen so may “start” threads in my life….. very cool!

thats it folks

GD

Anyway we started some work on how to plug it…… then they took the rail car and the breach out of the shop for mor trimming or we needed the main bay space for more current work,,,,,, then i lost track of the breach cause we were doing so many other cool stuff.