79 men load gun

He's right!

Tis MUCH better to give than receive...

I don't normally waste that much time looking at things but that was cool. If I had joined the Navy instead of the Marines, I'd have loved to work the guns.

Wes

-- "Additionally as a security officer, I carry a gun to protect government officials but my life isn't worth protecting at home in their eyes." Dick Anthony Heller

There seemed to be something left out. There was a mention of a primer man -- but I never saw when he did his thing. There was a glitch between the ramming of the powder bags and the gun officer's indicator showing ready, which is probably where the primer man was to do his thing. I wonder whether it is just damage to the film, or censorship?

Enjoy, DoN.

The USS Iowa had a major disaster in April '89 when a powder charge went off in turret 2 with the chamber door open. 47 crew killed when the fire burned through the turret and down into the lower levels of the turret. Only luck prevented the whole powder magaizine from going off, would have sunk the ship on the spot.

The navy claimed a fellow named Hartwig misloaded the primer and caused the misfire. Sandia labs did testing, concluded that it was possible that improper ramming could cause the premature firing. Still some serious debate in the Navy.

Quick source here

Roy, After what happened to the Brit battleships in WWI everything was designed to keep the powder magazines out of the line of fire... that is everything was done to keep fire in the turrets from spreading to the powder. I really hope it was more than a matter of luck. I have seen the movie that came out of the Iowa accident... at the time the Navy tried to blame it on Hartwig claiming it was a gay spat! I guess I need to read up on the incident sometime.

LLB

On 21 Nov 2008 04:08:18 GMT, the infamous "DoN. Nichols" scrawled the following:

Was the primer inserted into the lowered breech in those guns? I saw a guy working on it in one short clip and figured that was what he was doing. I believe it was between firings that I saw him there. They didn't show him in the original loading footage. It almos appeared that he was on a level below the others in the turret.

-- Laziness is nothing more than the habit of resting before you get tired. -- Jules Renard

The powder used at the time of the '89 explosion was manufactured in

Yup, looked like the primer man was under the rear of the gun and put the primer up through that way. Was there really a mechanical primer, like in a shotgun or was there an electric gizmo? A lot of the jobs involved looked like they took five minutes of training, "pick up this bag and put it over there, ok do it again." I wonder how loud things were in the turret during the firing.

LLB

On Sat, 22 Nov 2008 10:20:30 -0600, the infamous "LLBrown" scrawled the following:

And if you drop the bag or ram it too fast/hard, it can ignite and melt you into a gooey mess of charcoal and molten body.

LOUD! But if you were on deck within 100 yards, your ears would puncture and you'd have blood running out of your nose and ears by the time the medics got you to sick bay. Lots of concussion, ah reckon.

-- Laziness is nothing more than the habit of resting before you get tired. -- Jules Renard

I saw that movie too, I believe it was a HBO film? Blamed it on faulty wiring. That I would believe, I took a tour of the USS New Jersey and that wire was old!!!! cloth insulated and exposed in wire troughs all over the ship.

Regan should have sprung for all new wiring when he had them modernized and retrofitted.

You could see where they torch cut off all the 40mm AAA guns and other stuff, I would guess .50's. and I got some real nice pictures of the CIWS. (20mm R2D2 looking thing).

Thank You, Randy

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Mechanical primers on the big bag charge guns were actuated by pulling a lanyard, kind of like a match-head with a rough wire through it. Had a lot of elaborate gas-sealing measures, too. Superceded for most uses in the early 1900s by electrically-fired primers. That allowed one guy in the compartment where they had the fire-director to fire all the guns at once. I believe they still retained at least some friction primers for emergency use, where the power had died and the turret was locally and manually trained and fired. There were some combination friction/electric primers invented, I don't know if they ever made it into service use, though.

And a lot of the training in the turret was when to stand out of the way of the moving bits, too. Not a whole lot of room in there.

From a 1939 textbook on naval ordnance intended for Annapolis students. Had a couple of hundred pages of fold-out charts and cutaways.

Stan