Battleship Texas, Getting 3,500 Shots Out Of A 250 Shot Barrel!
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- Опубликовано: 22 сен 2022
- We address two subjects in this last of the videos that describe the design, construction and operation of the 14" guns and ammunition on Battleship Texas. The first discusses an interesting point of history about the barrels and how their histories are actually marked on them. The other is a detailed look at how the barrels wear when fired and why they actually had little wear, even though they fired more shots than they were rated for.
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Fun fact, the MK-8 Rangekeeper analog fire control computer on the Iowa could correct for barrel wear. As part of the firing solution you input the number of rounds fired through the barrel since the last time it was relined.
Another fun fact: The Space Shuttle had rocket nozzles for attitude control. The nozzles were eroded by the fuel, but a very fancy autopilot calculated the erosion and kept track, optimizing and compensating for the change in thrust. Probably copied from the MK-8?
Thats two really cool fun facts!
Very interesting stuff! And it's crazy awesome that 90% of her original main battery found their way back home.
The six 5 inch 51 caliber guns used by the Marines to defend Wake Island in 1941 were from the USS Texas.
Similarly in the Army, we could fire hundreds of Target Practice rounds through a 105mm Tank gun. Actual Combat rounds had a LOT more energy and recoil.
Yes, I didn't even discuss practice rounds. They had even lower reduced charges, so their wear was practically nothing. The only reason I show them in the "proof/practice" rounds on the bar graph is because they had to be listed since they were fired. However, pretty much all of the wear was caused by the 5-10 proof shots. These typically used 125% charges and 1,500 lb. shells that resulted in wear that was more than 1 ESR. That was done to stress the barrel and liner to bring out any flaws. This action did not damage a good barrel since the guns were designed to withstand twice rated pressure before suffering deformation.
Sounds like you were a 19E or 19K.
@@markmclaughlin2690 Lol, both actually. M60a3 and M1IP, 1983-87. Good times!
Thanks Tom 👍 for bringing battleship texas to life with the intricate detail. The crews skills involved just to fire a 14" gun kinda blow your mind.
Thank you for this very enlightening video. This battleship continues to amaze me.
She's my favorite battleship Mary Babiec
Wow. We had to keep track of the number and type of rounds fired through our tanks' main guns for much the same reason. This was a great explanation of the effect each type of round has on barrel wear.
Well done!
Thanks! One of my greatest wishes is to find a copy of some gunnery logs where they kept track of each round fired in each barrel. One point that I don't think I made clear enough is that tracking bore wear was not directly measured, but was made through statistical averages. In fact, between when the barrels were first produced in 1912 and when they were relined and used in the 1930's, bore life had increased from 150 to 175 rounds. The increase wasn't because of improvements made to the bores, but due to gaining more knowledge by firing a large number of shots through a large number of barrels in actual service. It is likely that they may have initially known they would last longer than 150, but there is a common thread of conservative estimates on these things in gunnery and ordnance manuals of the era. It wasn't until they had a lot of supporting evidence that they increased life.
@@tomscotttheolderone364 you can talk to any artilleryman who works in the FDC, that stuff is tracked and accounted for. The more bore wear, the slower the round comes out as well, so you have to raise the barrel a little more. You can calculate the loss of velocity, but direct measurements are always best. If you ever doo find those numbers and make an episode about it, I will contact you again to help get the firing strength of the guns.
Tom, another great video. I must admit since coming across your well made you tubes I have been binge watching them. Thanks again.
Cool information!
Having learned barrel relining from the Battle Ship New Jersey channel, I find the facts of the improvements over the years could be used on the original barrels and make them reliable, and improved accuracy for more rounds fired, is so important for the service life of the Battle Ship Texas!
It is always interesting when the original installed equipment is found. I always tried to do that when I was a service tech on aircraft.
Oh neat! I wouldn't have thought that using less powder would have made *that* big of a difference. Very cool and thanks for sharing. 🙂
Many thanks for that very clear explanation. It has answered something that had puzzled me for some time about Texas' barrel life after Iwo Jima and Okinawa.
This was not just a big gun issue, all naval rifles had this kind of life span. My dad’s DD, after supporting operations against the Axis in Italy and Southern France had to make a trip back to the states for new 5”/38 barrels. Anzio alone took a tole on them.
Thank you again Tom for all you do!
Out of curiosity Tom, with the change in lining material and boring, is it known whether the barrels gained or lost or maintained their weight as originally stamped? Also, could the barrels develop a "warp" if lining is not maintained properly? Your knowledge of the USS Texas is impeccable Mr Scott, thanks for bestowing it upon us. 🍻
I created a video that discusses barrel construction and rebuilding them with liners. The "built up" construction uses forgings that are largely stress relieved, so while warping still occurs, it is minimized. The same is true of liners. However, some still occurs during assembling, that involves heating and shrinking pieces together. That is largely controlled by following shrinkage tables created for every piece as they it is heated and shrunk onto other pieces. What little remains is carefully measured. If it falls outside of tolerances, the barrel is disassembled and they try again. If it is within tolerances, they will true the bore during the rifling and final finishing process. What is left is a tiny amount that they offset rather uniquely. All of these big barrels droop a tiny amount, so the minute curvature of the barrel's warp is used to offset droop by making sure the barrel is installed with the curve pointing up.
Another excellent explanation, thanks!
Excellent Work! Thank You!
Awesome explanation
Thank You Mr. Scott, most informative !
Magnificent Lady! Navy Strong!
Fun fact: the numerous variables involved required for accurate artillery fire is what brought about the development of the first electronic computer. The rest is history. Everything has its origins. Check it out.
*_Was it high? Was it low? Where the hell did that one go?!_*
When I first saw the title of this video I remembered a parody of the army artillery song "as the caissons go rolling along"
Amazing the data presentation
I didn't realise the shot limit was so low. I suppose accuracy was the limiting factor.
That is 100% correct!
@@tomscotttheolderone364 I wish Britain had preserved more Ships we only have HMS Belfast and a few smaller ships and submarines. We do have a lot of spitfires though they fly over my house almost every day. Best wishes. Mike.
Awesome presentation. Thank you for posting.
Another great one, Tom!
There would probably be an increase in Drag which eliminated the possibility of another driving ring not for driving, but to keep it pointing in the right direction and not wobbling.
Great video, very well done!
Very interesting - as always!
Excellent work, thank you
Great video as usual, thanks for the explanations.
Excellent work
Great stuff!
Awesome info
Fantastic!
Loved today's math lesson, Tom!
Very interesting!
i think you might have answered some of my previous questions regarding gun droop and general life span of a gun
very educational - there's some frightening numbers there
and that's an awful lot of steel that came down on the islands of Iwo Jima and Okinawa - i wonder how much of that has been recovered or treasure hunted since - incredible
Very informative. And just to think, those same rifles were aboard Pennsylvania, too.
Good video
Thanks
fascinating.
Army and Marine Corps artillerymen use the term Equivalet Full Charge (EFC) tracking bore life similarly. Careful documentation, gaging and inspections are also applied.
DA 2408-4
Wonderful.
I love your airplanes!
What do you know about the "Swedish Additive" which was used to greatly increase the service life of the Iowa class barrels well after the war?
IIRC they had to re-designate the methods for determining barrel life to Fatigue Equivalent Rounds (FER) rather than actual wear. The additive increased the barrel liner life to over 1,500 rounds. I think the stuff is some titanium dioxide and wax blend that was placed between powder bags during the loading process.
Forgot to mention, great video as always.
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You are probably right. I remember reading in a manual that there were barrels that had been relined a number of times that started fracturing. That wasn't a problem with most 14" barrels since few were relined more than 3-4 times.
I wonder what the lifetime was for my great grandfather's 10 pounder Parrott rifle?
Probably a whole lot more. Bore erosion dramatically increases with the size of the barrel and bore, but only if it is a replica that uses modern steel. All bets are off if it is cast iron.
Thanks so much for this! Did that article mention anything about the 9 historic original Texas guns' service history on USS Pennsylvania? Were they actually on Pennsylvania during Pearl Harbor? If so that means they are some of the only original surviving historical artifacts that witnessed and survived Pearl Harbor. The only other one to survive to today is the USCG small ship Taney.
The guns now on Texas and installed in Oct. 1944 were on Pennsylvania from 1925 to 1940, so they missed Pearl Harbor.
@@tomscotttheolderone364 Thank you very much. Fascinating history. And we are lucky Texas was reunited with 9 of 10 of her original 1914 guns. And I am sure that USS Pennsylvania, her crew, and her state are happy that guns that were on her still survive fully intact on Texas.
I was always wondering "how in the world did the original 1914 guns on Texas survive two world wars and 44 years without ever changing those barrels" when I kept reading about how the original 1914 guns are still on the Texas, haha. Your video answered everything. Thank you and thank that journal's in-depth article on Texas' main guns.
I visited the Texas a few years ago and the guide said the main guns were 14" 45 caliber. I wish I'd ask him what made the 45 caliber. Does anyone know.
The gun's bore diameter is 14" and its caliber is 45, which is used to indicate that it is 45 calibers long. So, bore length of 14" X 45 calibers= 630" or 53.5 feet long. Likewise the 16"/50 cal guns on the Iowa class battleships are 16" X 50= 80" long, or 66.7 feet long.
Is there a video of the turret officer booth on Texas?
Sorry, no. The space is far too cramped to produce a decent video.
curious- HOW did they know the weight of the gun barrel? done with mathematics? or was there an actual scale, etc? thank you
Each may have been weighed after initial construction, or they simply used the same weight for all. The latter may be most likely since all guns showed the same weight, which is highly improbable. Also, there are no grind marks on the breeches to suggest that weight was ever corrected, so it appears they have simply used the same weight for all rebuilds. That's probably good enough since it probably wouldn't vary more than a few hundred pounds on barrels that weighed 65 tons.
I wonder what it would have been like if they had Teflon readily available back then and they coated the shells with it. would they get more life out of the barrels? would the shells gain velocity and penetrating power?
No, they didn't have Teflon back then and I don't know coating a shell would offer any big benefits since only to parts of a shell touches the bore. While a friction free surface would likely increase velocity and reduce wear, it is really doubtful that there would be enough improvement to make the effort worthwhile. There really isn't much of the shell that contacts the bore. There's a gap of around .005-.010" between the rifling and the major part of the shell body, so little of it actually contacts the bore. There's only a slight bulge in the forward part of the shell, called the bourrelet, makes contact over perhaps a 1/2" wide patch act as the shell's forward bearing surface. The driving band in the back is made of copper alloy and supports the rear of the shell. It must be several inches wide to act as as a gas check that seals gasses behind the shell, and It must provide a large enough gripping surface for the rifling to grab and spin the shell. Regardless, applying an anti-friction coating would likely only provide very small improvements since friction is not a major issue.
@@tomscotttheolderone364 by comparison, a small arms rifle uses high friction between the bullet and the barrel to build pressure for necessary acceleration if I remember correctly. Was the high friction not needed on main battery battleship guns because of the much longer barrels?
Teflon (PTFE) would not make a difference. It's really not a very good anti-friction material, to the point where it's no longer used in prosthetic joints, as it wore out too quickly, and has been replaced by HDPE. As others have noted, there really isn't much friction between the projectile and the barrel - really just the rotating band (either copper or iron, I think). The primary source of wear is the propellant - flame temperature is your enemy there.
@@jamesbeaman6337 I don't think that friction is ever a good thing or particularly useful. Either jackets on rifle and pistol bullets or the lead that makes up cast bullets, should tightly fit in the bore grooves to act as a gas check kind of in the same way the flared back of the 14" shell's driving band does. Friction is an unwanted component, but necessary since it is impractical to have bourrelets and driving bands on small arms projectiles. It isn't that high friction is not needed, it was completely unwanted, so contact with rifling lands is limited to the bourrelet and driving band.
That makes good sense, Tom
Slightly off topic is there a reason why you can't go up the forward fire control tower or is this a subject for a future video?
Folks aren't allowed up there because it requires a somewhat hazardous climb that includes using rungs welded to the side of one of the mast struts. Also, there is nothing to see in the space once you are there. All equipment was stripped out by the Navy when the ship was decommissioned and being prepared for museum status. I won't be shooting a video up there because while I know the major equipment that was there, I don't know all of it or how it was positioned within the space. Any video I shot would consist of a lot of arm waving and guessing.
I noticed that the liners on the rifles in this video seem to be slightly extruded. I assume this is due to the number of rounds fired. Have you discussed this issue in any of your video's yet?
I have not discussed liner extrusion. I did not intentionally create the drawing with an extruded liner, but you are obviously aware that it happened. There's not a lot to say beyond that it happened and that it took a special jig and cutter to cut it off flush with the muzzle.
I love big guns
You would think that slightly increasing the diameter of the rifled gas rings on the shells as time goes bye would allow the guns to be used longer,"?"
Also you would think that because the weight of every shell fired from the gun would tend to keyhole the bore of the gun tube downwards. The shell would press down on the barrel as it moves through the tube. wearing the bottom of the gun tube faster than the top.
If it were posible to rotate the gun tube 90 degrees every so often the gun tube might last longer.
(like rotating the tires on your car.)
Just a thought,
And yes I know the tube is connected to the breach,
That would be the biggest problem with rotating the tube.
One point of the video is that practically all significant bore wear was caused by erosion. Wear caused by the shell rubbing against the rifling was practically nonexistent, so there would be no "keyholing". The shell touches the bore at only two places, the bourrelet which is where a bulge in the shell makes contact over not more than perhaps 1/4-1/2" and at the driving band that is made out of copper alloy and will not wear the rifling. Bore enlargement caused by erosion occurs with every shot and its amount is tracked statistically based upon number of shots fired and the ESR rating given to each one. Actual wear can only be determined by direct measurement using a somewhat complex device called a star gauge that was not commonly kept on ships. So, knowing bore and rifling diameter is nothing more than a good guess. The danger with having shells with different size drive bands to compensate for wear is that you end up with a large number of shells on board that are unusable at any one time. Accidentally firing shells on hand that are too small will not only give very bad ballistic results, high velocity gas blowing by the band can actually gas-cut the bore, which is a really bad thing. Shells with too large bands that are accidentally used will not only cause over pressure, but will smear copper on the bore and foul the gun. A significant amount of that will cause copper choking that drives up chamber pressures to dangerous levels that seriously damage the gun and make it unusable. Therefore, the only practical way to do things is to statisticlly track number and types of shots to indirectly account for wear. By the way, a major consideration when calculating firing solutions included factoring in estimated bore wear. That not only worked pretty well, it allowed the use of identical rounds and the ability to use all shells on board.
👍👍👍
Why don't they use smooth bore like on the Abram's tank?
Smooth bore guns required shell with fins to create the spin. That means either using sabots to contain shells with fixed fins or using shells with folding fins. This was beyond the technical reach of guns before and after WWII. I think they saw limited use on the Iowa class 16" guns but not on a regular basis and certainly not at all with the older 14" guns since they were pulled from service at the end of WWII.
The discarding sabot technique wouldn't work for a naval gun like a BB uses. A rifled barrel imparts spin to a projectile which is important for long range accuracy. A main gun AP round might spend 45 seconds in flight at extreme range, and in that amount of time a non-spinning round would become unstable and ruin accuracy. A tank's APFSDS dart is in flight for a second or two, not enough time for the instability to really set in. A round that is designed to be a DS won't have any room for an explosive warhead either, which is an important part of a naval gun projectile. You must also consider that discarding sabot technology wasn't even rolled out until the mid-40s, which was at the end of the development cycle for battleships of all nations, with the US Navy retiring all but the Iowas in the late 40s, so even if DS had merit in large, long range guns, nobody was going to spend the time and money on developing guns using them on obsolescent battleships.
@@dougthompson1598 I agree on all points!
I think the cordite ate up the refiling in the barrels
Cordite is a double base powder that was used by the British and Japanese, but not by the U.S. Navy. The U.S. used a single base nitrocellulose propellant that burned cooler and was more stable. Regardless, erosion to the bore and rifling was primarily caused by extreme heat and temperature produced by either type, but more so by cordite. See this video for a discussion of U.S. propellants. ruclips.net/video/Ywb2XoNY4C0/видео.html
Phase 4 of the restoration shall be the reactivation of turrets 2 & 4.
Just imagine our Texas functionally standing sentinel over our coast with 14” rifles at the ready. Every March 2 and July 4 could be ‘test day’ with tiny loads and light shells :)
What work besides the hull will Texas get ? 🤔
That is the primary goal. While there is a long list of things they want to do, like replace the wood decks, they are limited by limited funds. Besides, they need to concentrate on things that can only be done with the ship out of the water. Everything else that can be done with her in the water can wait.
Many of the facts about barrel wear apply to your hunting rifle.
True, much of what is discussed in these scales up pretty nicely.
I want these guns to be fired once again because well its the last dreadnought
Sweet
following her on You Tube Mary Babiec
May want to Get it Running Again! 🙏🇺🇸🪖