5 in Guns 

And his sweet last name !

@@deadendfriends1975 )

Came here to say the same thing.

well said

Amen

The Wisconsin took that personally.

Ha Ha Ha

@@anonnimoose7987 To be fair, she was known for being a bit volatile in temperament. I'd suggest asking a certain North Korean shore battery, but it ceased to exist after it provoked Whiskey's Wrath.

@@RaderizDorret it was wiped off the face of the earth , absolutely and totally deleted…

​@@anonnimoose7987 The Wisconson has a mean streak.

Thanks for the clarification. In heavy seas a ship would never be on an even keel (in both the roll and pitch axes simultaneously).

Sounds a lot like the gyro stbilizers in modern tanks. No matter haw much the the tank's hul pitches up and down/front to back, the gun always remains level pointing at wherever the gunner or TC is aiming it.

Great information! -Thanks for the explanation.

@@Riceball01 In fact it also sounds a lot like the gyro stabilizers on the sherman tank !

That makes sense. If you were in evasive maneuvers heeling over due to a turn the guns wouldn’t never level out so the computer had to compensate to keep them firing.

Holy cow! Wearing out barrels is a big deal when you consider it was 1972. Thank you & yours for your service, brother!

What ship did you serve on?

@@cassidy109 I checked on board USS Floyd B. Parks 3/1972, USS Gridley 5/1973, USS Samuel Gompers 4/1975, USS Acadia 9/1981, USS O’Brien 11/1984, USS Gary 7/1990 and USS Antietam 7/1992.

Wow, that is amazing. A very underrated comment.

@@martinwalker9386 Thank-you for your service.

My ship, USS Floyd B Parks DD-884, could put over a ton on target in one minute with 2 mounts.

Overkill is underrated

@@anthonysacco5010 There is no Overkill. There is only Open Fire, and I need to reload.

@@martinwalker9386, well done, for missing his point.

@@johnnunn8688 he did not only miss the point, he also did not do the math: 1t x 9 = 9t per main battery salvo 😏

L

With a last name like that, I'll eat my hat if nobody ever called the man "Smokey".

@@Rutherford_Inchworm_III It would be a miracle if his shipmates didn't. Young men being what they are, in the spirit of fun and camaraderie!!

@@WhatAboutTheBee My college roommate was "Booby" Bubanowitz. He didn't like it, but it was inevitable.

@@TheCementpond ?

A physical computer is actually more complicated than a digital one, since they need hardware to do the same things we use software for now.

@@jamesharding3459 Which just makes it twice as awesome

We went to the moon on a slide ruler.

@@deadendfriends1975 The Apollo had a digital computer. Curiousmarc on RU-vid has a whole series on restoring an Apollo Guidance Computer ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-2KSahAoOLdU.html

@@davidlockett5563 you know what I meant.

Had to be AWSOME! Wish my grandfather could have taken me into his flush deck destroyer from WW1 & 2 as you did.

RIP

I was on a Knox class DE. We had a 5" 54. The Garcia class had 5" 38.

😂🤣🤗

That kinda reminds me of that viral video of a canadian in the army being woken up by artillery by his men 🤣

Yamato : I fear no ship , but that THING *it scares me*

"They fired all their Arnor Piercing, then swapped to High Explosive, they rapidly ran out of High Explosive, they then swapped to Anti Air Craft shells. After expending all of her Anti Aircraft Shells, the Roberts, as a last resort she loaded and fired Star Shells, which had the unintended effect of setting off high temperature Phosphorus fires." - Dracfinel (Idr how to spell the dudes name, hes on yt tho)

@@tucker1012 best comment ever

@@aceofthesky1247 Which video of his? I'd like to catch it!

@@MHTfueler He hints at it in the short "USS Samuel B. Roberts - Guide 208". For the full battle and probably the quote above the 45 minute long : "The Battle of Samar - Odds? What are those?"

Actual combat statistics line up. When the VT Fuze was introduced, japanese aircraft found approaching a ship equipped with them basically suicidal. Of course they didn't know _why_ American AA became so potent, but it's actually one of the main reasons why they resorted to kamikaze attacks. If the airplane is going to get shot down anyway, and the pilot has little chance to survive, you might as well throw the whole plane at the ship rather than hope it'll survive the trip home with enough parts still attached to fly again. The Luftwaffe also made the same bitter discovery when flying missions over water, which blunted the effectiveness of the already crippled air force even more.

Didn't the British develop the concept of VT fuse or proximity fuse early On in the war ? Tizzard mission or something where the British handed over all there top secret hi-tech stuff and the cavity magnetron which they had managed miniaturise it which produce more powerful radar then anything available some other stuff got handed over jet engine captured German magnetic mine technology and important atomic data on developing the atomic bomb by British scientist in the manhatton project

@@soultraveller5027 the British sent all of their secret weapons and the crown jewels to the us early in the war in case of German invasion. The prox fuse and the magnetron both proved critical for victory for the allies.

@@soultraveller5027 yes. It was invented by the Brits and then developed to something that can be made in large numbers with high reliability rate in the US.

@@leonedralev3776 yeah interesting how. War developed things faster then in peace time.

God bless men like Stanley, my father, father-in-law, that fought in the Great War WW2. Their bravery they fought over there so the war would not come here.

Amen, brother!

🍻🍻🍻🍻🍻🍻🍻......🥃

For higher precision, mechanical calculators were available. A computer was a job description of a person, usually female, who knew how to operate one.

@@machintelligence my mom during the war in England was a high school math wizard. She was tapped on the shoulder to go work with the Navy artillery group I'm not sure what their name is to develop and calculate the gunners tables and books used to fire all kinds of big guns. I don't remember what they were but I remember her telling me there were about 10 different variables that went into the calculations for artillery rounds. Some of the ones I do remember were humidity, temperature, density altitude, etc. Smart girl who in the late sixties used to tutor me in calculus :-)

@@stevewhite3424 Back in the early days of digital computers the men worked on the hardware (toys for boys) and women did the software programming (women's work) mostly in machine code or assembly language.

@@stevewhite3424 Yeah, we were still using the info from those tables for manual gun firing solutions, if the main fire control system was knocked out. I left the RN in 87 and the gun direction platform (GDP) manual calculator was still in use then. We did a surface shoot on a Type 21 frigate in '86 and managed to put a manual solution together quicker than the stone age Ferranto computer! Might have been a fluke...

Ferranti...

each shell IS the size of a Volvo, but I get what you mean 😂😂😂 in a perfect world battleships would fire off loads of candy and toys, but in our unfortunate world sometimes high explosives are the answer 😘

@@RealJohnnyDingo Compacted was a better word now that I think about it.

Not hate…that’s a ton of freedom.

@@jimreilly917 they hate our freedom, that's for sure 😂😂😂

@@jimreilly917 I mean to fire a sixteen inch shell at someone you have to really dislike them...

My girlfriend is 😁

@@idahorodgersusmc side to side, or front to back?

IdahoRodgers USMC need more info sir.

😂

I'd like to see that on a t-shirt.

Thanks for your service, Guns. Fair Winds & Following Seas.

Who doesn't want to pump out things that go boom at max rate?

G2 Div 84-87, 87-89 G4 div. Gun Capt for 5"/35 middle mount on stb side, dont remember the number. But painted Rodger Rabbit's face on the view finder in 88 before arriving Australia. Then Armory. GMG2 Valor

Hey I was in Mt. 53 on the New Jersey Dec 1981-Jan 1984. Please get back to me. GMC (SW) Terry Hooker-Ret

@@terryhooker Hey Chief, This is Davis. I worked for you. You were GMG2 then. I was a GMGSA. I got onboard just before we went to shoot the Tomahawk to White Sands Missile Range that took 2 weeks because of weather. If I remember correctly you were the one that trained me for the shot line on that 2 week operation. We refueled an Oliver Hazard Perry Frigate.

Most tanks nowdays are armed with a 120 or 125mm gun, which is five inches. Even those with a 100 or 105mm gun are still 4 inches. The guns are relatively small, what they're encased in tend not to be. Having visited the Jersey, I will say the 5 inch turrets are about the size of a couple compact cars.

They're ven more impressive when firing. Yeas ago, I was lucky enough to visit the MO when she still was in service as part of a friend's and family. As part of the day ,they fired off everything they had, minus the 16 inchres since this was during moritorum on firing the 16 incidents after the tragedy aboard the Iowa. While I was somewhat disappointed that I didn't get to see the 16 inchers fire, the 5 inchers were still impressive in their own right.

I worked for Naval Supply Weapons Systems Support when the four Iowa class BB's were being restored in late 80's. My job was to find sources for spare/repair partsto restore and outfit the ships. It was very difficult as technology had long ago bypassed the machinery on board. I found a stash of condemmed syncros and servos for the MK 1A computers that were marked beyond economical repair. We had them repaired as there was no source for new. It was a very interesting evolution. Also, some time later a US Army engineer contacted me to obtain a turret base ring assembly from a 16 inch gun. He wanted it to build a turn table to hold an Abram's tank. I suggested he only needed a 5 inch gun turret. He said it would not work as the Abrams was the biggest tank the Army had. Put him in contact with a Naval gun engineer who provided a 5 inch 38 caliber base ring turret that easily did the job. Naval 5 inch guns are big.

@@edwaggoner7403 I'd suspect that engineer secretly wanted to turn his whole block with 16" ring... ;-)

@@realulli One 16" barrel is about gun (barrel) weighed 239 000 lb without the breech x three per mount. The 5" 38 caliber twin mount has two guns weighing just under 4000 lbs each plus breech, loaders and the housing so could easily handle the tank. .

For Sure

Freedom through firepower!

Seafodder..That's what they told me before Vietnam...Just like Afghanistan today...See how they both worked out...

what an awesome name too, perfect for a gunner 😜

That's one hell of a storm.

The Des Moines is such a beast. In case some people haven't seen them, there are a couple of great old school USN videos on it: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-ICifnf63lCs.html&ab_channel=usssalemca139 and ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-AXJIE50jxdw.html&ab_channel=BobFreeman

Even tenders and some other support ships, along with some invasion small ships for fire support.

And pretty much anything that didn't have a 5"/38 had a 5"/25 if it was older dual use or a 5"/54 if it was only for surface engagements. Most of the ammo was the same for all of the US 5" guns. Even today you'll find 5"/54 guns on the Arleigh Burke Destroyers with improved mounts to allow the 5"/54 to be used for AA.

Hey, if the basic gun system works, no need to change it up.

Many of these empty shell casings became outdoor ashtrays !

@@oceanhome2023 I have one. It's one for the desk. Edit: it is made from a shell fired by the USS McCaffery DD-860.

Which ship was that? I was stationed on the Gearing which was a reserve training ship, homeported at New London. This was 1971-1972. Gearing was scrapped in 1973. I didn't know they replaced it with another Gearing class DD. I was an FT and worked on the MK 1A computer and MK 37 director.

@@wallyjohns7312 …. I can’t remember. I was a submarine FT. Had A and C schools there at the sub base. Someone put together a field trip for us to see an actual gun fire control.

That would be the USS Charles P. Cecil DD835. I was in the Forward Fireroom from 1(973 to 1974.

He has shown some tools for them. But yes yes yes . Procedure for 16 inch as well as 5 inch rifle cleaning

They have shown in other videos. It's a brass slightly-sub-caliber plug. Has a fitting on the end for a cable to attach to, and vents through it's length to pass air. The cleaning part is several patches of short stiff wire, that spiral along the long axis of the plug. It's drawn through the barrel one way, and then put back in, and pulled back. I don't know how many passes they make. Or if they have some sort of industrial version of Hoppes #9. Hope this helps you.

Does anybody know the name of the video?

@@alexam694 I checked my history from yesterday. The title you're looking for is: "Tools of the 16" guns"

There is a reason that barrel cleaning solvents come in gallon jugs, and cleaning rags are issued by the bale. For the 5 inch guns there was a long wooden pole that was used for swabbing the barrel.

Ha Ha Ha, Right ON

Considering the main gun on most MBTs is 120mm, and most field artillery tends to max at 155mm, there is a reason naval fire support is friggin SCARY. And for a good bit of reach, well, sometimes all you got is that 1 ton of hate and indiscriminate justice.

5 in. mounts were made to be lifted off the ships and replaced in one piece. Not the handleing room just the mount.

My neighbor was on a tanker in 1945 T age 16 then destroyers in Korea. He said the Brits were known for phenomenal gunnery even then. His DD had been banging away at a factory of some sort for a while with limited success. So,e Limeys sailed up in a similar destroyer and asked if they minded if they had a crack at it. My. Neighbor was a chief radio was a radioman so he heard it all himself. The Limeys just wailed on it for a few minutes then sailed off thanking them for the target practice. They totally destroyed that factory. They were just that good with their gunnery back then.

I could be remembering it wrong, but I think most of the time you weren't supposed to sink the target. You'd enter an offset into the FC system, bang away and observe the results. If you sail out and sink the target in one go, how much training did your crew just get? Or the crews of any other ships scheduled for range time that day?

Thanks for the suggestion, I'm interested in this. All that's left is to find a woman, propose to her, then get my friends to organize the party on BB-62. I seem to be stuck at step 1, finding true love :)))))

@@tamaslapsanszki8744 there's a Filipina mail order bride for everyone. Lol

@@tamaslapsanszki8744 I can’t think of a better place to find a good wife than at a warship museum. The pickup lines practically write themselves.

@@SkinnerBeeMan Just double check to make sure it's a girl.

@@Valorius if you drunk or desperate or woke enough will it matter. Haha. Woke. Jk.

Good question. The BBs destroyed a lot of aircraft with their guns. Both 5" and 16" guns. So I wonder which one destroyed more aircraft, an aircraft carrier or a BB bombarding land positions including airports. In Japan, they had a LOT of airports within the reach of a BB. Maybe all of them. Obviously for ground support an aircraft carrier is close to useless compared to a BB. It was so much more effective in Vietnam that they wouldn't even come to the peace table as long as the New Jersey was off their coast. They didn't care about aircraft carriers. A BB simply outclasses a carrier. Far more dangerous to have around than a carrier. After all aircraft, you can have AAA and other anti-aircraft measures. There is no shooting down a 16" shell.

I believe the battle you're thinking is the Battle of Samar, during the Battle of Leyte Gulf. An escort carrier task group came under attack by a huge Japanese force, and three Fletchers and four destroyer escorts fought off four battleships, the Yamato, Nagato, Kongo, and Haruna, six heavy cruisers, two light cruisers, and 11 destroyers. The Musashi was part of the Japanese force, but was sunk by US aircraft on the way to the battle. The USS Johnston did indeed charge the Japanese force, launch torpedoes at Yamato, and start firing at the enemy cruisers and destroyers, quickly joined by USS Hoel, USS Heermann, and the destroyer escort Samuel B. Roberts. They fought off the entire Japanese force and bought time for four of the six escort carriers they were escorting to get away. There's a very good video on the Battle of Samar done by Drachinifel. Those men are legends. And the 5'38 is a legendary gun.

There is a huge difference in these guns. The weight of the round in a tank gun is about the weight of the projectile in a 5 inch 38.

Hi Bob! On the Missouri, we didn't get to use our 5 inchers very much (if memory serves, it was 11 shells) and they weren't aimed at the airport (they were used on a tower that had snipers in it, who were holding up the 1st Marines - I was later able to confirm our kill by speaking with a Hospital Corpsman attached to that Division). I do not recollect ever firing on an airport. I do remember firing on gun emplacements and bunkers as well as other targets of opportunity. We could have fired on the airport, but according to the maps it was likely out of the 16 inchers range. @Ryan Another interesting tidbit about the M1A - if my memory serves me right, if you put all of the gears and shafts end to end, it would circle the globe.

The Big Whisky fired on the airport

Actually, 3 inch (76mm) guns are about as small as land based artillery goes and they're uncommon nowadays. In US military terms, the smallest caliber land based field gun is a 105mm howitizer, which is about 4 inches. Then comes the 155mm howitzer, which is the most common caliber of field artillery in the US military with 518 M777 guns and 998 M109 Paladins in current service with another 500 Paladins in storage. In fact, none of the Big Five (US, China, France, Britain, Russia) use any field gun under 100mm. The 155mm (6 inches) tends to be the most common.

@@randomlyentertaining8287 Exactly the point. In WW2 land based guns were on a par with the smaller naval ordinance. In 1942 the 155 and even 105’s while in service were uncommon. The 75 and 37mm cannon as found on the Mark 2 tank were the norm. As was the 50 and 75mm pack howitzer. On smaller naval ships like the flush deck destroyers the 3 and 4 inch guns were common. Things changed so quickly. The 5in-38 became common at sea and the 105 howitzer ashore. Yes they had 155 guns but proportionally few until after WW2. So my point was to show the dichotomy of “small” naval guns filling the role of “large” army ordinance in breaking a concerted tank attack on our foot soldiers. And done so at a time when coordinated “close support” and shore to ship radio communication had not been developed to the extent it would be by 1944-45, much less as it is today.

Do you have any histories that describe the naval gun strike? I guess the strike didn't come from a ship because the ocean is 140 miles from the pass. Were naval guns used on land somehow?

@@Lawman212 ok. This can get long. There are tactical studies of this. Use Google. I got my background at the war college 50 years ago. From memory: The Pass is about 150 miles from the coast. The major battle occurred on the north coastal side. The army suffered 1000 casualties and lost all major equipment. A retreat due north....I’m sorry...advance to the rear....was performed. There followed a series of running engagements on a line due north to a small coastal city called Bone. The idea was to evacuate the survivors off the beaches to the east of Bone a’ la Dunkirk. They never made it. They were overtaken to the west of Be’ja, about five miles from the sea. This is where naval gunfire from the destroyers sent to recover the troops were able to stop the 5th army tank attack. These destroyers were of the “flush deck” or four stack type typical of WW1 service. They were obsolete at that time and had been selected for operation torch because they could operate in shallow water and naval losses were expected to be high. They were considered expendable. The ships typically carried the 4 inch 50 and 5 inch 25 guns. The 4 inch gun was capable of greater range and had an explosive capacity somewhere between that of the 105 and 155 army howitzer. Very effective on the German mark IV at that time. Especially with shore spotters calling corrections. This stopped the German advance and a British tank regiment came in from the east to save the day. The survivors of II Corps rejoined US elements to the west and so the beach evacuation never came to be. This was an embarrassing situation for the army. Reports were conflicting and purposely vague. The British, German and American recollections seldom agreed. In total II Corps lost 3300 killed or wounded and about 4000 captured, plus all their armour and heavy guns. As I recall a Corps then was about 16,000 men. Do the math. There is considerable confusion about naval rifles vs army artillery. The difference is far beyond the inch-to- metric bore conversion. Naval guns were often encased as coastal artillery. But never mounted for use as mobile artillery. Field artillery tend to fire a large projectile relative to the propellent charge. As howitzers they fire in high trajectory to drop shell into an enemy position. Much like a mortar might. For example the 105mm which was the most common “heavy artillery” round used in WW2. A regiment had three batteries of 105, but only one battery of 155. The most common 75mm pack howitzer out numbered the heavies ten to one. So. Look at the encased 105. The projectile appears quite long and is in a rather stubby looking case not quite as long as the projectile. Naval rifles are designed for direct fire, though the larger ones actually fire on a trajectory at range. The smaller naval guns had an AA role. As such the tube tends to be longer and velocity much higher as you would expect of an AA piece. If you examine a 4 inch naval shell you see an encased projectile slightly larger in diameter than the 105 round with a projectile slightly shorter, but a case at least twice the length of the projectile. So. Roughly speaking the naval rifle round is longer and throws about the same projectile with 2-21/2 times the charge out of a barrel substantially longer than an artillery piece. The naval rifle is attached to and supported by a ship. Army artillery must be towed. The 105 by a two and a half ton truck. The 155 by a treaded tractor. Ammo must be moved from truck to gun, and loaded by hand at the breach on artillery. Not hoisted up the barbet and mechanically loaded as with most naval rifles. Thus the navy typically has much larger guns. Except for coastal batteries which mount obsolete naval guns for potting at ships offshore. I hope that helps. Study. History is made up from the broad brush strokes. But there is detail that ads depth to every story.

@@MrJento Thanks a lot for that explanation. I hadn't considered that the battle was a continuous affair over many miles.

How long did that take to print? ...Actually, how did you even print it? Did you have to print it in sections and glue/put them together? Not many 3D printers can handle 5 feet in length. Would be interesting to see it.

We've got a 4ft Sq ft 3d print of the first NJ ships bell. We had to print it in 2 pieces just to fit through the doors but they could have done it in 1 big piece

@@matchesburn I printed it in sections on an ender 3. It is something like 30 peices, not including radars and AA mounts. I soldered it together with filament. I printed it in PLA and gue doesn't bond on PLA very good so I figured attempting to glue would not hold well enough. It took about a month to print everything. Only took about 5 hours to assemble it and paint, but I haven't finished all the detail paint such as the numbers and namesake

@@BattleshipNewJersey must have been done on and industrial printer. I have always been in love with the Iowa class battleships. I'm also from Missouri though so that may have had some influence

Would love to see your model!

We had three twin 5 inch 38's on one of the ships I served on, the U.S.S. Laffey (DD-724), and yes, I ma a grandfather!

@@seadog686 The ship that wouldn't sink! I hope to visit her one day, Hell from the Heavens was a superb read.

yes the Marines had there own mount. except during Vietnam. No Marines were on board then

@@dannyisaacs7552 Ty

USS Long Beach CGN-9 had two single 5" mounts amidships crewed by our MARDET.

She fought to the end!