Not quite obsolete...this film was made in the late 1940's. I got to see what those 8-inch guns could do against a North Vietnamese regiment. The NVA regiment lost that one...and that was in the 1972. The cruiser was the USS Newport News.
Mike Halvorsen I hadn't know that. Scary to contemplate. I was just thinking how useful these guns would have been in 1942. By the time the USN started receiving new heavy cruisers most of the fighting featuring heavy cruisers was over. They were mostly used as AAA protection for carrier groups.
IN WW2: The older Battleships & older Cruisers did the Majority of the Bombardment for the newer Battleships & newer Cruisers screened & protected the fast Carriers! Great footage shown here! The older Battleships & older Cruisers were in the greatest ship to ship naval battle ever - SURIGAO STRAIT!
My dad who is 92 years old and was on the Heavy Cruiser USS Louisville CA 28 from 1943-46: USS LOUISVILLE CA- 28 Heavy Cruiser 1944-45 1 - Extensive shelling Island of Wotje in Marshalls. 2 - Bombardment Roi & Namur Islands. 3 - Led gunfire support Eniwetok Island. 4 - Bombarded Palaus Island. 5 - Bombarded Truk & Sawatan. 6 - 11 days of continued fire support Siapan. 7 - Bombarded Tinian & Guam. 8 - Enter Leyte Gulf - support major allied invasion force & shelled shore installations for 7 straight days. 9 - Battle of Surigao Strait - Flagship for Rear Admiral Jesse Oldendorf. 10 - Support landings at Lingayen Gulf. Hit by (2) kamikaze & killed Rear Admiral Theodore Chandler & many sailors. 11 - Fire support for Okinawa. Hit by another Kamikaze. 12 - Delivered Bull Halsey’s officers & staff - (150) to USS Missouri. 13 - Continued fire support duties. 14 - War ends. 15 - Escorted surrendered Japanese ships from Tsingato, China to Jinsen, Korea.
I was a gunner on an amphibious ship with 4 3inch/50 twin mounts on board. I can remember repainting the guard walls after firing exercises from brass shell casings striking it. They showed it in an open environment on video. In an enclosed mount with twins. It is a big difference. God bless all our servicemen and women. I will never forget you
When I transfered from the deck force to the gun gang, the first class told me if ever I droped a 3inch round I was supposed to pick it up real fast and throw it over the side. Well guess what one day we were dry cycling dummy rounds thriugh the loading system. I droped a round. I quickly picked it up and threw it over the side. My nmae became Dummy Round the rest of the time I spent on that ship. This was 1962 on the USS Suribachi AE21.
My Dad was stationed in Southern France aboard the Salem in 1956 and when the ship was in port my two brothers and I got a chance to see these guns from inside the turrets go through these same exercises. For a 5 yr old it was LOUD. Never knew the significance of these guns until I started studying the literature of the USS Salem. I have many memories of approaching the ship miles off shore, climbing the stairs to the deck, eating in the officer's mess, watching cartoons and a movie.
Nice piece on the 3"/50. I was a Mount Captain for one of two twin enclosed mounts while serving aboard the USS Spartanburg County. I used to know the gun like the back of my hand. Hot Gun/Cold Gun Misfire procedures are still permanently burned into my brain. Thanks for bring back good memories when I was a young man.
Yeah, except for the Newport News, which now has a museum on board the Salem. The NN was a later design and had a couple "tweaks" that gave her an advantage, such as loading speed of the turret guns.
@@Cpt_Boony_Hat I just re-read my post and that is NOT what I said. It was indeed a Des Moines class heavy cruiser but by all measures, it was in a class by itself. At the time I was on board her, she was the most dangerous all-gun heavy cruiser in the world. And why are you trying to discuss submarines in a video about heavy cruisers?
Drachinifel had a tour last year of the Salem and got a good look at the 8" guns in his video. So fantastically designed. It's a shame they never saw the enemy they were designed for even once.
My great uncle was always called gunner. That was his name to us. I did not know why. I asked him one day. He told me about his service on a ship called the USS Missouri. He said it was Korean War era. But he was a ww2 vet also. I did not know what the USS Missouri was. I was just a kid. He showed me video of the ship firing. My jaw just about hit the floor. At that age I did not know there were guns that big.
Hehehe, yeah now you can just go online and watch those 16in rifles fire then go off to Pearl to see her. There is still bigger, Yamato class had 18.1in guns that used 800lbs of propellant to sling a 3,219 lbs shell at 790m/s. I have found a animation of the loading mechanism on youtube and wow it's ingenious, could do a round every 30 seconds AND then there still is BIGGER! The 31in Schwerer Gustav railway gun that thing was just so impractical. The shell is like 10ft tall and one is in the Imperial War Museum. However, guns drools and missiles & aircraft now rule.
As a former USN Gunnery Officer I would frequently have given a lot to have something larger than a 5"/54 main battery. 8" with cased ammo would have been sweet, but even a converted Army 155mm long barrel (preferably with a modified, larger volume powder) would have been fine. As for the 3"/50, the less said the better. I wonder how many film takes they had to do to get half a dozen rounds to fire without a stoppage? They were generally a maintenance headache and "less than fully reliable"...just what you don't want in an anti-aircraft gun. Thankfully, my 2 ships had been re-equipped with 20mm CIWS so I could watch the commodore blister the other ships in the squadron when their 3" didn't work. Even more thankfully one of my CIWS techs had gotten factory-trained by the manufacturer and knew all the built-in maintenance & test modes that the Navy didn't teach C-school trained technicians so our CIWS availability ran between 97 and 99% and I never had both mounts down at the same time.
Not sure what ship your 3"/50s were on, sir, but the 3"/50s I worked on had exactly one stoppage during my time aboard, and that stoppage was due to a shattered recoil spring, something BuNavOrd said they'd never heard of happening before. It was later put down to being caused by an overcharged round. Regular maintenance by well-trained gunners led by involved and driven gunnery chiefs and division officers not afraid of getting grease on their hands was the key to keeping those guns firing smoothly, sir.
I wonder if that CIWS tech is the reason your Phalanx shot so well, I've consistently heard the moniker of "Captain It Won't Shoot" for the 20mm rotary guns, both land-based and sea. I have a feeling improper cleaning plays a large part in that. A high school buddy of mine had a cousin that went to Iraq as a C-RAM operator, so the sand couldn't have been good, and at sea you have non-stop salt spray to corrode the motors and ammunition feed.
@@MUJUNKY the factory tech was most certainly key to keeping them both up and running. At that time at least there were a number of troubleshooting modes that existed in the system that the general Dynamics factory reps knew from their factory training but the Navy training pipeline didn't teach the Navy techs. Not sure if that was GD trying to make a little extra money by concealing those Modes existence or the Navy being dumb about their training. But our guy has an ex-factory tech knew about those modes used them and taught other people to use them.
@@MUJUNKY we had the m61 in the usn A-7E Corsair2. As far as keeping the gun running you had to use it frequently to keep it operational. We went about 6 months without running any gun in the squadron. Getting them up and running reliably took about 4 months. The G forces wreak havoc. The magazine sits behind the pilots back and theres about 4-5' of feed chute to the gun near the nose landing gear. The drive gears and feed chute were our biggest headaches. Once we got things sorted the final issue tended to be tweaking the feed chute. Once we got them fully sorted they pretty much ran trouble free so long as got to eat on a regular basis. Once in awhile a hard trap or overzealous aviator would bend the feed chute. Our aircraft type tended to be spotted on the bow so the corrosion issues are familiar.
I was gun captain on Mount 51, an open-tub 3" 50 aboard the USS Mahan '69-71. Kind of fun to see the 'mount in full action' in the video. Ours never operated that smoothly. These twin mounts were so loud, so jerky (under fire control) and so hot (everyone had crispy eyebrows when we were done), not to mention ship rolling, that it was almost impossible to keep them firing continuously. Between hanging on and being scared half to death of the loading mechanism (ours were different than the ones in the video), it was all you could do to throw the rounds at the pawls that grabbed them and hope they 'stuck'. Lots of dropped rounds, but amazingly few actual loader malfunctions. If the ship was rolling, the empties would start rolling around tripping guys, too. LOL. I suppose if our lives depended on it, the efficiency would have been better. But all we ever fired at was sleds.
Wow! Amazing! Is the video accurate? Could you really maintain 8 rounds per minute per gun? If true, that's one heck of a broadside! Thanks for your service. Edited to add, I was referring to the 8 inch guns by the way. :)
Not 8 rounds per minute, upwards of 10, sustainable until you run completely out of ammunition. With automatic radar-ranging and gun-laying via the Mark 1A fire control computer. Do not fuck with USN firepower.
No, no, no! Nothing beats a 1903 Springfield bolt action rifle being propped up on a stick by a soldier on the ground and fired at German biplanes and triplanes, one shot at a time! I see NO reason why we'd ever need anything more than a 180gr .30/06 bullet, even against today's mach 2.5+ jet fighters and bombers that often fly several thousand feet higher than the 30/06 bullet could ever hope to reach! We need not these newfangled 20mm and 40mm guns, let alone these "space-age" 3in cannons!! Lol
When I was a seaman I was a second loader on one of the 3 inch mounts on USS Newport News (CA-148) We could fire 90 rounds of 8"55's before the first one hit the target and do it while making 33 knots. Vietnam 1968-69.
@Jay Barker Great to hear it Jay thanks for your service my brother Mike was in there to, I had a nicer life aboard ship but we did our part. "Fair Winds and Following Seas" Brother .
@JAG That's good to hear after all these years. I was one of the guys that set up secure coms with the Marines.We were glad to the job, my younger brother was in the Army there in 69-70 and got shot up pretty bad, to me your brother in law and my brother were hero's. If your brother in law is still with us tell him that I said thanks for your service.
The Des Moines Class had the rapid fire 8 inch 55 caliber guns & they have a large catcher net to catch the shell casing. There are no nets catching casing in this video. The USS Newport News (Des Moines Class) had a turret explosion killing many sailors & that turret was never used again. The center gun was removed & the turret was locked in position. The ship show firing the 8 inch 55 caliber guns is a Baltimore class heavy cruiser which used (2) powder bags per shell & the whole shell was fired either a 260 lb shell or a 335 lb AP (Armor Piercing) shell. Tony Trotta
Well it is possible that it is not a Des Moines class, but I'd argue that it is not a Baltimore either as the superstructure does not match, old or new.
@@tovoklore6356 You maybe correct: Here is a more detail operational Y-tube - at the end the casing comes out of the front of the turret. Later they added catcher nets. ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-AXJIE50jxdw.html. My friend served on the USS Newport News CA-148 in Vietnam.
Somewhere, I read that the decision to switch from the Bofors 40mm to the 3in at the end of WW2 was because the proximity fuse with 5in was very effective. the smallest gun the VT could fit on was 3in. Later, it was also possible on 40mm. the Oerlikon 20mm was credited with many downed aircraft, but usually after it reached weapons release. The 40mm could hit planes before they reached the release point, hence was the favored weapon. The 5in was not much more than nuisance fire until the combination of radar fire control + proximity fuse.
Huh, I was under the impression the Bofors had a VT fuse soon after the war in testing (for M19 SPAA) but it was the limited range (3-4 miles if inordinately lucky) that rendered it obsolete. Good to know the VT fuse did not, in fact, exist for some time.
@@gabethedespote-1105 that was my recollection, but be sure, I started looking. the wiki page for the 3"50 en.wikipedia.org/wiki/3%22/50_caliber_gun says the 3" started to replace the 40mm from 46 on, and that a proximity fuse was available, but not specifically when. The Bofors 40mm page says the proximity fuse became available in the early 70's. In the WWII, the effective aircraft attack methods were dive bombing and torpedo. the Mk 13 torpedo has a range of 6000yd (runtime just under 6 min), and I imagine recommended release point was much closer. If any one has the tactical data folder for the old 22kt battleships and the newer 27kt BB's, I would like to know turn time, radius & transfer. Dive bomb release point was 1500ft? depending on whether the pilot was inclined to continue flying? I would say that fire control radar and VT rendered both methods obsolete. This made a radar guided missile the only viable method of attacking a warship, also greatly extending the launch range, meaning any gun system was no longer sufficient. It would have been retained to ensure no close approach, as missile systems were not always reliable.
@@gabethedespote-1105 It's a slight crossing of terms - The Bofors began testing Variable fuses programmed by the rangefinder in the way described here, as opposed to the actual VT fuse which was still classified and was infact a proximity detonated shell that contained its own radar
that star wheel mechanism is the key way to make large caliber weapons fire incredibly fast. when they develop a way to make the primary anti ship ammunition work like that, those guns could pound any ship to rubble within a few minutes
I served on the USS Newport News, CA148 and there is a video of her doing shore bombardment in 1972 off the coast of Vietnam. It is one of the most amazing demonstrations of overwhelming fire power you'll ever seen. A projectile explosion due to a malfunction in the center barrel of the #2 turret killed 20 men.
The "Gray Ghost from the East Coast". Call sign "Thunder" Notice the small inset during the first 26 seconds. That is eight 5" guns and nine 8" guns. Somewhere there is an aerial video of where those shells were landing and you really didn't want to be there. ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-04Efnm6ikpQ.html
The first 30 seconds of the following video is a sample of what eight 5" guns and nine 8" guns are capable of. Somewhere there is an aerial video of where the shells were landing and you didn't want to be there. ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-04Efnm6ikpQ.html
They are forgetting about the VT fuze, thats the main reason for the switch from the Bofors to the 3in AA gun. That radar fuze really kicked ass, for WW2 took about 500-1000 5in rounds from the 5in 38 cal gun to take down an aircarft. With the VT that dropped to just a 100 or less...
From the figures I've seen VT dropped the shell count from 600 to 300 given early war fire control systems. Your 100 round figure probably includes late war fire control.
WOW! Awesome mechanics on those rifles! I love these old military produced flicks and love to read stories from the men that served on the same or similar ships! It strange how the narrator calls them "Rifles" I guess anything with lands and grooves is a rifle...I thought they were cannons...USAF 81-85...Our Butlers didn't teach us anything about large bore weapons...:)
Today, 'cannon' tends to refer generically to anything bigger than 50 cal, but historically there were a lot of different names for different types of artillery, and 'cannon' was a specific type of gun. Technically, yes- these are 'naval rifles.'
kimmer6 I managed to acquire the shell casing for a 5 inch gun shell off of an Arleigh Burke a while back, and I still thirst for an 8 inch casing and a 16 inch to use as a waste paper bin
*SCREAMS INTERNALLY* ah. I have the absolutely vaguest memory of being on board the New Jersey when I was younger, and seeing a large shell of some sort used as a display in the museum area, to compare in size to, say, my father. Ah well, 'twas a good dream while it lasted.
@@redjive_industries3760 you should still be able to get that 8" shell casing, it's not impossible. Just probably expensive. I'm sure a Gunner's Mate from one of the Des Moines class "acquired" one or two and might be persuaded to sell. Or his family might be persuaded, after he passed. But I think the 8"mk16 is the largest brass cased gun ever made.
The LEXINGTON carrier museum got one of the dual 5-inch DP mounts the DES MOINES carried. I wished they could have gotten one of the 8-inch mounts for display as well...
Naval gunfire support for amphibious operations will never be out of need. Air power is great but shells don't risk pilots and can put a lot on target quickly. We brought the Iowa's back because we ran the heavy cruisers into the ground. They had an idea to mount an 8" single barrel on a destroyer and it seemed to work. Modern materials would be light enough to make this work. We need to upgrade our gun systems. Missiles cannot be used every time. You cannot jam an incoming "dumb" round. Something to think about.
Point Defense systems have become accurate enough to intercept large caliber shells in flight. The Israelis have a system what I cannot remember the name of that is intercepting MORTAR rounds in flight. Something to factor into the desire for Naval Gunfire support.
> Missiles cannot be used every time. Incorrect. Unguided rockets are about as cheap as large shells (e.g. Grads and such), can be fired at much higher rates, and can fly farther. For cases where you need moderately improved accuracy for modest cost increase, they can be equipped with "simple" inertial correction electronics (not a full-fledged guided round, just one which reduces dispersion) and due to much lower G-loads at launch, these electronics would not need to tough enough to survive 20000g -> cheaper. > You cannot jam an incoming "dumb" round. Or incoming "dumb" missile. Large guns are obsolete. 6in~8in is about largest which makes sense. So far, even 8in weapon systems have hard time surviving in today's armies/navies.
My dad was a GM and worked on 3"/50 mounts when they were fairly new in the '50s. I was on amphibs that still had 3"/50 mounts that weren't removed until the mid-'90s. Never heard of the 8"/55 being touted as having AA capability before-the 6"/47 yes, but not the 8"/55. Maybe it had the rate of fire but did it have the ammo?
well, the Tirpitz used it's 380mm guns to fire at (and even kill) aircraft, so technically every gun should be capable of it, probably just not as effective as others
That AA capability just means that you can screw a proximity fuse to the shells and that someone once calculated the firing tables to shoot at planes. It’s possible that some of the people who crewed them didn’t even know about it.
The "Salem"'s crew still wore their U.S. pale-blue helmets in the deck-shots of the "Salem" that were used in the "Graf Spee" picture: the "Spee"'s producers couldn't get them to wear German helmets and/or uniforms for the filming.
~was a loader and passer on Mount 31 on the USS R K Turner DLG-20 until they took me off as I was a commissaryman and the crew needed to be fed~never went back there to do that duty again~
to answer some people questioning the 8 inch AA capabilities i suggest you think about what that many guns loaded with canister type shot. think 8 inch shot guns.
Aaron Neumann frankly iv seen cannon rounds with both for aa secondary roles for main batteries. plus there is the tactic the bismark used against sword fish too. which was shoot theh water in front of the low flying planes to try and take them out with the water spray. i remember reading some quotes from the guys who engaged the musashi and the musashi used this same tactic and they said that flying through them water sprays was like flying through a wall.
+Weesel71 The Yamato and Masushi could fire San Shiki 18.1 inch 460mm 3000 lb anti aircraft shells. They were beehive incendiary rounds. That's just astounding. Apparently some bursts were caught by USN photographers and pilots said they looked like spectacular fireworks. It was not a successful weapon. The blast from the large caliber guns disrupted all other anti aircraft fire on the ship.
It seems to me this video was made with the intention of persuading the public that we needed to keep our fleet at or close to, WW2 strength as one of the first things the government wanted to do was essentially strip the navy down to bare bones. This was the big fight between the navy, the public and Washington that ultimately ended with the Navy being stripped and a great chunk of it "mothballed" and also when the Air Force became its own thing instead of being under the Army. Sad to think that had the Navy been allowed to maintain its strength that we may have had a lot more historical museum ships these days but since the navy didn't need them anymore after the strip down, they blew most of them in A bomb tests which is heartbreaking. Not as heartbreaking as the original Enterprise being scrapped but definitely heartbreaking none the less.
True, false or somewhere between....I lived across from the yard when she was brought home. I was told when a team went to inspect her for use as a museum her interior was in near perfect condition as she was favorite of someone in Norfolk and was kept buttoned up tight with dehumidifiers always running.
im not sure. its old but theres probably loads of them floating about in the world so eehhhh. but its alot of brass so thats a plus. fair value maybe :)
The Northampton class CA 26 - CA 31 with (2) powder bags fired the 8 inch 55 caliber guns at 2800 feet per second muzzle velocity with a max. range of 31,860 yards & the fully auto 8 inch 55 caliber guns fired at 2500 feet per second muzzle velocity with a max. range of 31,350 yards. That is 510 yards short of the world war 2 heavy cruisers & velocity was 300 feet per second less. Also, note the USS Newport News had a gun jam & a major turret explosion in 1972 knocking out the turret completely & with the loss on many sailors. Tony Trotta
+Jeannemarie Trotta The casualty to the NN was not the result of a "gun jam", it was the result of an 8" shell which had been fired detonating in the barrel of the center gun in Turret #2 before it left the muzzle. This type of failure is referred to as a "premature detonation", and in this case, a defective fuze on the shell was responsible for the premature detonation.
+OtisP Driffwood. Otis is correct. I was a gunners mate on Thunder and finished my enlistment in 1964 just before she made her last Med cruise. I have often told what Otis is saying about the explosion that way. I was in turret two and we held a record for sometime under chief Prefix, a wonderful person.
+Dick Martin Thank you for the information & for your service. I had a friend from Philly that was on the USS Newport News CA 148 prior to the turret explosion. He was part of the helicopter crew on the fantail & was always proud of that large ship with her large guns & nice lines! Tony Trotta
+Jeannemarie Trotta I just found out from the USS Louisville CA 28 Wikipedia site that an 8 inch turret was found in the Nevada Desert along with the below link story. www.independentnews.com/news/mystery-in-the-desert-is-a-mystery-no-more/article_a7a8e6c4-fc66-11e5-85c9-3b9a185e5a6d.html#.VxjqIN1Cunw.email
those rapid fire 3 in would be useful now in the Persian gulf. dependence on missiles, two or three CIWS mounts aren't going to provide sufficient fire coverage.
PatentSTM No, the loading process of a battleship was too complicated to be automated. If they did put them on the battleships, it would be dangerous, because if the autoloader made one mistake, the magazine could detonate and rip the ship in half.
Grait video! We would glad to use in our movie but have to be sure abouts rights Could you please tell us who is the owner of this archive for we could us them if we can us it public. Thank you.
The Navy used a single 8" 55 on the USS Hull DD-945. It looked rediculous on that 3000 ton Forrest Sherman class destroyer. The Navy SHOULD have used that same 8"55 on the 7000 ton Arleigh Burke DDGs!
+gunnergoz Different times, different budget, different enemy, different mission, different needs. If push comes to shove, the Navy has other ships for that.
It's almost like a ship required to have greater range and operational independence ends up needing more tonnage is fuel, engineering, and personnel facilities for the same amount of weaponry as a corvette that will never leave home waters. This is a stupid comparison anyway a PT boat carried half the torpedo load of a full sized destroyer, do you think that made it half as effective as a destroyer? Particularly in a modern ship there's a hell of allot more to capability then guns. Also I was unaware Visby class had embarked helicopters, anti-mine capabilities, or ANY form of surface to air missile (this was considered but cancelled). and tonnage already allocated for growth including expanded ant-aircraft. The delay in getting modules that had more potent ant-air or anti-ship weaponry onto the LCS is a legitimate criticism, but the tonnage is there for future growth. The current planes already call for the later ships in the class to carry at least eight or so full sized ASM each. It also ignores that the USN can afford to have lower capability ships for less important jobs, if it needs a DDG or a CG it has literally a about ten times more of those then any navy not called China or Russia (it only has like twice to four times as many as them). Not every ship needs to be a billion dollar multi-role monster fuck if anything that's the PROBLEM, so many of our weapon systems end up getting bogged down trying to do so much shit and being gold plated. The military really can't win if it tries to make something bare bones and cheap people bitch that it's 'vulnerable' and 'under-equipped' if they try to make something super advanced people bitch that it's 'unrealistic' and 'overly complex'.
