16in Barrels: Construction and Maintenance
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- Опубликовано: 14 дек 2020
- In this episode we're answer a few viewer questions about the 16in gun barrels:
How are they constructed?
How do you change the liner on the barrel?
To learn way more about this process, go to:
drive.google.com/file/d/1Tl0l...
Barrel Locations:
Turret 1 (R/C/L)
#291 - Battery Lewis, Hartshorne Woods Park, Highlands, NJ
#293 - Philadelphia Navy Yard
#292 - Battleship New Jersey
Turret 2 (R/C/L)
#276 - Yuma Army Test Range, AZ, used in HARP tests and holds the world record for firing a projectile 110 miles into space
#278 - On display at the parade field at NSWC (Naval Surface Warfare Center) Dahlgren
#277 - In storage at NSWC Dahlgren
Turret 3 (R/C/L)
#366 - Mahan Collection Foundation, Basking Ridge, NJ
#290 - Norfolk Naval Shipyard, on display in their trophy park
#289 - In storage at NSWC Dahlgren
Please consider donating to the museum:
www.battleshipnewjersey.org/v...
Building up the gun from multiple parts stacked inside of each other wasn't done because they couldn't cast it all as one piece, it's done because it makes the gun stronger. What they figured out when they started building these giant cannons was that by shrinking a tube over a liner they could squeeze the liner down so that instead of the powder charge expanding it from a relaxed state the charge would encounter the metal in a compressed state, which gave it almost double the strength. Without this technology huge cannons are actually impossible, because simply making them thicker will not stop cracks from forming in the barrel if the force inside exceeds the metal's elasticity.
Huh ok
you are correct, and the technical term for what you are talking about is "autofrettage"
Thanks!
Autofrettaging/auto fretting is a method of prestressing monobloc (single piece) gun tubes. I believe this type of gun tube (in the video) is called an Armstrong Gun.
As with everything the many make the better whole. Shame this seems to skip most people, dead set on blasting so much blood, sweat and tears spent over the decades of US' existence.
During the Viet Nam era we shot so many 16" rounds that the inner liner, the tube with the Lands and Grooves. Would stretch out the end of the barrel. One center gun stretched 3inches out. There was a special tool used to cut this off. You can imagine the projectile with its copper ring fitting in the Lands and Grooves slowly stretching the liner as each round was fired.
Wow, that is interesting! I can see that happening, tho I never would have even thought about it if you hadnt told us. Thanx.
USS Houston, CA30, sunk by the Japanese Mar 1 1942, went down with the barrel liners sticking out a bit. She’d been fought HARD since December 1941.
Yes, I can understand that. What were your targets for that kind of fire? I was with a LRRP team - just 5 guys - and we were taught quite a bit about calling for and adjusting supporting fires, naval guns included if you were near the coast.
What was the tool, and why did the excess actually need to be removed?
Vietnam era murderers.
30 years ago I was working at U.S. Steel in Gary, Indiana. Part of my job was to perform structural inspections of old buildings and we had an entire abandoned plant (I'm talking many square miles, a small city) full of WWII tooling and armaments that were exactly the same as they were the day the plant was shut down and everyone walked out of there. The locker rooms still had pin-up posters, lunch boxes, and all kinds of stuff. One building the size of a football field was essentially a giant lathe and it still had an unfinished HUGE shaft or barrel fixtured in it. Was mind boggling. Maybe this is where my WWII obsession started 🤔
oh man its 12 am and im gonna binge watch everything i can on this channel, what a treat to see and I am incredibly grateful this guy and others like him are taking the time to make videos about stuff like this. so happy the youtube algorithm served this up.
Welcome aboard!
I’m doing the same thing right now. This is good stuff. I’m a USCG veteran but I love all things naval and militaria.
The most annoying thing that you’ll find atleast for me is that he pauses when he’s talking a lot 😂😂😂not hate all jokes it’s just like he needs a breather
@@coltonboone641 he has William Shatner esqu pauses. I’m ok with it. He’s a cool dude and it gives his teaching style character.
@@coltonboone641 he's got alot to say, It's a big ship, lotta stuff to convey.
Making the Welin breech deserves a video of its own.
The knowledge in this guys head is beyond comprehension. Amazing content
I remember seeing gun barrels from the cruisers and I thought New Jersey at the Navy supply depot Philippines in Subic Bay that had been fired so many times they were warped this was. Early 1970s.
I have used the shrink fit method many times in my 36 year aerospace manufacturing career and it is amazing how strong it is. I built a 1974 Sharps rifle in caliber 50-90 and named it "the Missouri" after the great battleship with it's 16 inch guns. With 80 grains of black powder and a 650 grain cast lead bullet it is a wonder to behold when you fire it. Like the battleships of old a great big boom and lots of smoke...
This guy is literally the saying "If you love what you do you will never work A-day in your life" personified!
I like how he stumbles over his words because he knows so much about it that he doesn't know what to talk about next.
At 40yrs old I am extremely fascinated in our heritage. Thank you for keeping our history alive.
My uncle was a machinist in WWII and was involved in the manufacture of the 16" guns. He talked about how they were rifled and the machining or the breechblocks. One of the machinists made a mistake machining a breechblock and they made a patch that the inspectors didn't detect. I always wondered if that was the gun that blew up.
They were supposed to be proof tested before installing on the ship, so it is not likely that was the one, but very interesting.
@@thomasmoore8142 A defect could make it through proof testing. That's where x ray inspections are crucial but don't know if they did it with these.
the gun that blew up did so with the breech open
@@bugs19682 I was not aware of that.
The barrel didn't explode
There is also a process called "autofrettage" which involves inserting a slightly smaller inner liner into the barrel, capping both ends, and pressurizing the liner internally with water to say 60,000 - 70,000 psig to stretch fit the liner in place. This process is still used today to reline barrels used in large two stage light gas gun launchers. Autofrettage is useful when the heat treatment of the barrel alloys could be weakened by heating and cooling processes that were used in the 16" gun barrels. The art of building large caliber gun barrels is almost lost these days and there is literally no place left that could build one from scratch without reproducing the facilities of old. Glad that some of this history is being preserved and documented.
During WWII, the city I currently live in had a Naval Ordinance Plant. Relining these gun barrels was one of the many jobs they did. The huge pit also existed at the local plant. Then they'd ship the gun barrels to a testing site in the desert about 75 miles away, and test fire them. In 1949, the site where they used to test the guns and barrels became a National Lab which is still around today. The buildings of the Naval Ordinance Plant still exist, and is currently used by many companies for steel fabrication, and construction of the large power transformers used at power plants and substations.
Pocatello, Idaho was where this plant was located. The guns were “proof fired” into what is called the Big Butte, west of Blackfoot, Idaho.
@@bobathay1877 At today's Idaho National Lab.
I worked at a company that was tied to the plastics, food, and rubber industry. What we manufactured was referred to was a bimetallic cylinder. The main part for the simple ones was sometimes a grade of steel like 4140 with a hardmetal lining that was centrifugally spun cast in the inside. At one point we were boring out the inside of the larger and longer ones followed by honing it smooth and dropping in a new liner pretty much as described in the video. We aimed for a .003 to .005 shrink fit. The longest one I worked on was 300 inches long. The heaviest was over 8,000 pounds. That one was for making pellets out of crude oil out at the oil well for I believe for the rubber industry. The hardmetal liner was various metals like cadmium, tungsten carbide, and others depending upon what was needed like wear factor. Sadly the company was purchased by competitor and auctioned off. So keep your friends close, keep your enemies closer. I skipped about nine to twelve steps in the process depending what was needed for design and application like pressures in service use. One time some were held up in customs in South Korea or Taiwan because some customs officials thought they were some sort or gun or missal barrel. They were for plastic injection cylinders.
Everyone should look up "changing Steam locomotive tyres" to see the equivalent to changing the battleship gun liners. They are basically the same thing.
Replaceable liners on naval rifles were not used solely on the 16"-50s. 5"-38s (very common WW II-vintage rifles) used them also. As 5"-38s were fired, the liners would slowly work their way out, to be periodically hacksawn off clear of the tube. Construction methods of the various naval rifles would be an interesting topic.
@@jacquesblaque7728 Very good suggestion. Would like to see that vid.
Good observation. Similar to mounting a ring gear on a flywheel.
Shrinking the hoop tyres on wooden wagon and carriage wheels uses the same process
They are shrunk on hot and cooled to shrink the tyre, so it grips the wheel.
@@davidpowell6098, there is a guy in Montana,
that made reproductions of the 20 Mule Team
wagons. The complete wheels that he made,
were over 1000 pounds. Tires, 1 inch thick, 8
inches wide. He heated the tires up in a fire,
that burned up a lot of the scrap from making
the wagons.
Watching that construction, was amazing.
When I worked at Douglas Aircraft, they used
an almost similar process to put aluminum
plugs in stuff that was needed. Drill the hole
0.001 too small, make the plug 0.001 too large,
put the plugs in dry ice, until WELL chilled, and
just put the plug in the hole. (Holes 1/4 to 3/4
inch in diameter.)
steve
Ryan, just a heads-up: wire-wound guns were exclusively British. America never made them in standard models. Modern guns aren't cast, they are radially hammer-forged on incredibly impressive machines (dedicated specifically to that purpose). It should be noted that forging cannon barrels over mandrels (using large hydraulic presses) was pioneered by Krupp in Essen Germany in the late 19th century. The Germans didn't need to wire-wound guns, they were already miles ahead by forging them.
Sooo cool. You are a natural at lecturing interesting stuff.
Your videos get better and better. There's not very many places to get this education. Thanks for making the videos
I'm an Army veteran and a Rifleman. I found this video interesting. Tgey can recline rifle barrels in the same manner you described in this video. Of course there is no rifling in the leade. I want to see more videos like this. Well done.
Always enjoy Ryan off the cuff explanation.
Should have watched the video before going to the museum. So many things I have missed
I believe the process to make the barrels is called “shrink fit.” Many years ago when I was a mechanical engineering student one of my profs (actually many) was a WWII vet and he taught us how to calculate the temperatures needed to fit the tubes inside each other, the resulting compression, burst strength, etc.
When I took drafting in high school, we had to annotate type of fit, I don't remember the others, but this was FN, for Forced Fit. One piece got heated, the other frozen, and then shoved together.
Tony-The-Tiger Johns, also called an "interference fit." Common when installing bearings and gears onto shafts.
In the era of Steam locomotives, a similar process was used to attach the outer steel "tire" to the cast driver wheels. They were laid dow_ Once sufficiently heated up, the outer flang and contact was then released, and it could be pried off.
I literally cannot comprehend the intelligence of men who figure this stuff out…
I certainly consider myself to be pretty smart, but I’m acutely aware of all that I **DON’T** know, and stuff like this…. 😮😮
just blows my mind… 🤯🤯
This is the same process used to make engine blocks, the cylinders have liners that are heat shrink in place, just like the liners of these guns.
Gotta love the beauty of old war machines, especially when they are built around their guns. Battleships are one example, another I can think of is the A-10, without the gun it’s an ugly bird. But once you know why she’s ugly, you appreciate it.
Fully agree. I first saw the A10 in 1976 along with the F16 (the version I saw was the centennial version (red white and blue with flags of country visited). Later when I served in the military I definitely liked seeing the a10.
Barrel crawl was awesome
Excuse me sir.... that is a big beautiful, ugly bird.
I was thinking about the A-10 when I started to read your comment and then you went right to it.
That "gun" was built first and then they designed and built the plane around it.
The gun alone is the size of a compact car.
@@anaetadesireechandler4122 The A-10 is my favorite. Besides the 30mm of course the next most awesome thing is how slow they can fly. I've seen them flying just above stall speed and it looks like you can walk along side it. I was lucky to work on F-16s in the Air Force mostly because they were so easy compared to the heavys but they're pretty cool too. They didn't seem get enough credit.
You know so much about ships. It's awesome to watch this content
Hiking today at Hartshorne Woods Park in Monmouth County NJ I stumbled across the original No. 291 16 inch gun of the battleship New Jersey on display at the former Army base Battery Lewis to represent one of the guns that had been mounted there in 1942 to protect NY harbor and the NJ shore.
Back in the late 70s and early 80s I worked for the Navy. Sometime about 1980 or so we were tasked with doing a review of the Naval Surface Weapons Center which was in White Oak MD and Dahlgren, VA. I was part of the White Oak group and when we finished there we joined our coworkers who had been in Dahlgren for several months. Part of the function of Dahlgren was to test fire gun barrels before they are installed on ships. The base is located on the Potomac below DC where it is very wide and they would test fire the shells into the river. (They used to do it on land in Indianhead MD years ago until they started putting shells through farmer's barns so they decided to use the Potomac instead).
Our office was located in an old wooden WWII (or maybe WWI) "temporary" building that was just off the firing range. After I was there a couple of days an old lady who worked at the base came to the door of our office and very excitedly exclaimed "They are going to fire off the 16" guns!!" Now I figured she probably had worked there a long time, and been through a lot of test firings, so if she was excited, this must be something special. Right after that, a very loud siren went off and there was the loudest explosion I ever heard. I remember the whole building shook so much that the window blinds (which were down) flipped up and hit the ceiling and went back down again. My coworkers had been through at least one more test before this one, as the whole time, they were staring at me to see my reaction. I was just sort of stunned. It was explained to me that they were refitting out the battle ship New Jersey so when I saw this video I thought I would pass along the story.
This shows how much the sailors had to go through during a battle as I understand that the New Jersey had 9 of these guns and the noise and vibrations must have been terrifying.
Dahlgren investigated the open breech explosion on the Iowa by using a shell, bag charges, and the correct rammer. I believe there were 27 test firings and one of them caused the rammer head to break off and get launched through a shop. They determined where the bags ignited and how the disaster happened. During the tests, to remove the stuck projectile from the rifling and send it back out the breech, they installed a device to hold C-4 explosives, then filled the barrel with water and detonated it. The shock spit the stuck shells back out the breech. One of them came out with such force that it bounced off come concrete and landed in a swampy area.
I'd love to see the Lathe that turned those babies.....
Merry Christmas from British Columbia 🇨🇦🇺🇸
Thanks very much for this video, it "scratched" an intellectual "itch" I've had for some time.
I love reading documents like the pdf you provided, thanks!!
I chuckled when he said the the barrels were bored on drill presses.
It was in 1969 or 70 when I was on the U.S.S. Virgo AE 30. We brought the 16 inch projectiles and powder, that were stored in Sasebo Japan, back to CONUS . It was forward stationed there for the New Jersey, for use in fire support in Vietnam. The N.J. had been ordered back to CONUS for decommissioning and we were to bring back said munitions. North of Hawaii we got into a typhoon, when at some point we took a 40+ degree roll to port. Some of the projectiles broke loose form their shoring and tore open some of the powder canisters and powder bags. To say it was a very interesting 12-16 hrs would be to vastly understate. Eventually things were gotten back under control and we arrived safely at Port Chicago. I have left out some of the details as this would be lengthy with them, but you get the idea.
Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck me.
My dad's ship used to make round trips to load up munitions at Port Chicago and then board troops in San Francisco to take to Honolulu during WWII. This was early in the war. Later, Port Chicago and a few ammo ships detonated while loading ordnance. The ships all but disappeared in the detonation and the facility was destroyed, and chunks of debris landed as far away as Concord. I can imagine how you felt at sea with loose projectiles and damaged powder cannisters. It must have been very unnerving.
This man really loves his work!!! Excellent work!!!
Thanks for another informative video Ryan, watching and commenting from the UK, loving learning about your BB's in so much detail :)
Ive already learned so much about 16 inch gun powder from your other video. Very informative and captivating. Thank you so much!!
Astonishing…I had never really given 16” gun barrel manufacturing a second thought….new found respect for the men 100 years ago….
Great post. The pdf is excellent. Thanks so much for the steady stream of interesting content. We battleship nerds can’t get enough!
Thank You. You always answer more questions then I can think to ask. Your presentations are well thought out. Thank you for your hard work .
So glad I stumbled on this channel! You have so much insane information on these ships, it's fantastic. Cheers from Canada!
Amazing the construction of these guns.
Love these videos. We have the Wisconsin in my town.
Another great video, thanks Ryan from Atlanta.
These barrels were re-conditioned and sleeved at the former Naval Ordinance Plant in Pocatello, Idaho. They were then loaded onto a rail car, and test fired out on the Idaho Desert. Formerly known as the Naval Ordinance Test Site (now the I.N.L).
They were then shipped by railcar back to be fitted on board the ship.
The Naval Ordinance Plant buildings are still in Pocatello, and are easily visible on google earth. They are the largest buildings in the city.
Thanks for the explaination and the historical perspective. Its really cool to see the inner workings of the Battleship from a crew perspective.
Thank You for these videos. Very interesting. Happy Holidays to you all.
Good job. Thanks for all you do!
The Washington Navy Yard is not that easy to get into anymore... when I went, in 2010, it wasn't easy either, but then the shooter incident happened... so call ahead and plan your visit accordingly. You can only get in the eastern entrance, but that's pretty close to the museum. I got to see an admiral ceremony while I was there... nice. They have the Trieste bathyscaphe hanging from the ceiling... super nice! The big crane was there... lots of ship models... lots of Admiral Byrd polar stuff... some warbird airplanes... cannon... etc. Highly recommended!
I only started watching this channel perhaps 2 or 3 weeks ago. I really like it a lot. The big battles and whatnot which gets the focus from documentaries and whatnot got old for me years and years ago, so its places like this where one can delve into the more nerdy aspects of ship design that are the most interesting to me.
Hope for many more great vids from you guys in the future and perhaps some collaborations with some of the other creators who focus on steel & steam era ships.
This is the best explanation I’ve seen on how these huge guns are made.
Great job, Ryan.
i could watch these kind of videos for days.....:)
I remember seeing several 16” barrels in a storage yard at Subic Bay, P.I. in the 70s(73-76)
Really amazing content Ryan, and props to the videographer(s?) in all your videos!
Great description, thanks.
I asked before about the escape hatches from the engine room to Broadway. Maybe. Video on the different escape paths and abandon ship protocol/safety drills & plans. Keep up the great work
Were these for escape only and not general traffic or were they hatches designated emergency use only ? And is the New Jersey a positive pressure engine room like some ships that required a airlock ?
There is an escape trunk. This was some what different than modern steam ship. The Escape trunk door on the Jersey was a water tight door. More modern steam ships have an automatic door. There is a strict requirement that they close within a specific time. They were also light tight rubber strip alongside of the door. On steam ships if there was a major steam leak . The crew was required to go to the bottom of the engine room enter the escape trunk and exit that way. The Jersey the Engine rooms escape exit on the middle of broadway. the time given to exit is 8 seconds I think (been a long time, 30 years since I worked in a Engine room.) almost 40 since I was on the Jersey. No 1 Engine Room MM2 at the time.
During a med cruise on The Saratoga Radm Borda had the Iowa make a pass up the port side and when she cleared us they fired a full broadside. It was a memory to never forget!
Cool video.. I've been on the Jersey twice , both were turret craws down to the magazine. One of the coolest things I've been lucky enough to do.
Thanks Chris and Jim I still have broadways I beam imprinted on my forehead.
Thank you for showing us this amazing and scary piece of technology. I remember fondly my several visits on the New Jersey, where some of the tour guides were WW2 veterans. What amazed me the most was how gracious the ship looked from the Philadelphia shore and how massive it looked from up close. Would dearly like to go one day to visit all the four sister ships. The closest would be the Wisconsin, I think at Norfolk.
Well, it's off the subject a bit, but one night in 1966, I witnessed a breachblock blowing out of a 175mm gun. Messed up some people. You just might guess where that was. Oh yes, they shut down every such tube in the country for a while. That gun was well within it firing count, I believe.
Amazing to consider that the liners would often be forced out of the ends of the barrels over time. Says something about the sheer power of the thing even before it exits the barrel
I don't think much needs to be said about the power of a gun that big. I'm honestly not surprised.
The projectile is moving at its highest speed as it leaves the barrel and slows down from there. And I just realized he didn't climb through an installed barrel...does not count...he has to do it again...but in a barrel on the ship I it's turret......
@@bentboybbz He could get tips from Cheftain.......
Great video. Interesting info...
some barrels were milled and turned into bunker busters thanks for all these informations : )
I remember my father telling me that they had races to see who could crawl thru the barrel of the turrets on the USS Missouri in WW2. He was stationed on Turret 1.
Thx for sharing this with us!
Naval guns shop used to be in Pocatello Idaho. The lathe to turn a barrel was a cage you sat in. It took 8hrs to make one pass.
Excellent videos
Great video , I love this stuff , more please 👍
Really fascinating. It takes a lot to handle a service pressure of 18.5 tons per square inch - or 444,000 ft.-lbs, and muzzle energy of almost 262 million ft.-lbs. Lots of heat, friction, and pressures involved here.
Awesome video
my mind is saying its a tank barrel really near the camera and then he puts his hand in front of it and u realise how big it is lol
Fascinating! I didn't know they were sleeved! I look forward to checking out your other videos. Good stuff! Visited the Missouri when I was a kid and remember standing next to a shell and thinking' you can throw something like THAT 20+ miles!'
Indeed, they launched what amounted to a small car twenty miles with ease.
My gosh, you have given us so much information, which is wonderful. It's it's amazing that your head hasn't expended, just kidding, I'm hanging on every word, 🙂thanks.
Learned something new thanx for posting
God Bless America and the ingenuity and grit of its citizens.
The smooth portion foward of the breech and rear of the rifled liner is called the chamber.
I wonderd how thay relined one
Cool to watch
Thanks
Very interesting and informative.
Interesting video. Thank you.
The navy used to proof fire the Mk 7 guns 40 mile outside of Pocatello Idaho. Pocatello used to have a Naval Ordinance Plant which relined Mk 7 barrels until the mid 1950’s.
Fun to watch. Great info👍👍👍👍👍👍👍
This is absolutely bonkers!
Ryan, please Google "Naval Ordinance Plant Pocatello Idaho"
The Naval Ordnance Plant was commissioned in April 1942. It was a huge facility. The shop where the big 16” ship cannons were refurbished was 840 feet long and 352 feet wide. Eventually about 50 buildings were constructed on the site.
Manufacturing and refurbishing enormous guns for battleships was the main focus of the facility. Artillery needs to be refurbished after a certain number of shots are fired because the spiral grooves inside the barrel wear down. Those grooves set a projectile spinning, improving its steady trajectory.
The Pocatello plant was one of only two in the country to do this kind of work, and the only one west of the Mississippi. The site was chosen because Pocatello is far enough inland to make enemy bombardment less likely, and it was a major railroad and highway hub.
An ancillary part of the operation took place on the Arco Desert. About 50 miles northwest of Pocatello, the Navy picked a 271 square mile site from which they could test fire the big guns. It was called the Naval Proving Ground. The site contained some 27 buildings; shops, administrative operations, powder magazines, warehouses, and housing for personnel. During World War II the Navy fired most of the ordnance into the desert to the north. For a time, during the Vietnam Conflict, projectiles were aimed at the side of the Big Southern Butte. The change in targeting was due to development in the area of the original site.
Copy and pasted from site
1st time viewer , love it , subscribed!
Welcome aboard!
Barrels were made at Naval Ordnance Station Louisville (NOSL) as well. When I worked there in the 90s they still had the machine to straighten barrels after rifling and one old guy still worked there who knew how to operate it.
These are great videos. I have learned way more about battleships and how they are built, maintained and operated than I ever thought I would. My inner history nerd appreciates this
Bull was assassinated, murder never solved. He was working on BIG “base bleed” shell guns. The base bleed idea allows for a very long extended range.
Great comments on here! So refreshing not to read a bunch of garbage posted by trolls. Thanks!
Cool video. My father worked as an engineer at the Naval Gun Factory in Washington DC and would tell stories about relining them.
I'm leaning stuff I never knew I wanted to learn 😁
Do a segment about the interlocks in the fuses to keep them from detonating early. There is an extant photo showing a shell detonating several hundred yards from the ship.
Ryan I enjoy this channel. You should compare built up vs British wire wound gun construction.
Very informative!
I don't usually post on youtube videos since most of the time i watch it and say "Meh" and go to the next. But this channel is different.... I feel compelled to write something here. I just have to say that this is my favorite channel...i watch and rewatch the videos, and say "OMG --- that is soooo cool" so many times, my wife says "Another New Jersey video". Mr. Ryan --- i absolutely commend you on these, especially given that you are on furlough. Your exception knowledge of literally every part of this beautiful ship, and your infectious enthusiasm as you crawl through this amazing vessel....well...it make me very happy. :-) I have learned so much about these ships --- i had NO idea how complex they were...IN THE 40'S!! I sit glued to the screen as you crawl through parts of the ship that no one has seen since the war..especially since i have horrible claustrophobia ....I had no idea what a splinter deck was, but I watched the video and felt REAL concern that you were going to get lost, and I laughed when you said you go cave exploring --- it makes sense now.
But again --- thank you for these. In a sea of "influencers" and exabytes of junk --- these entertaining and educational videos about American history are very much appreciated.
We're so glad to have you with us!
My late Uncle served on the New Jersey during WWII.
Looking to come down to Camden for a visit!
I used to work in building 197 on the Washington Navy Yard. The crane is still there that was used for this.
I bet all the tooling is gone to scrap yard by now. I would love to see it.
Interesting that you only posted this alleged fact after the curator announced it.
Really interesting.
Many years back I read that when a liner was being installed, there was a cap at the bottom and it was filled with dry ice. Once installed in the tube, the cap was released and the dry ice fell out of the liner.
The Watervliet Arsenal (just north of Albany, NY) does this type work. They have a 45 caliber 16" barrel they made in front of their museum. I understand they are doing all of the large tube work for the military now.
There are a couple barrels sitting on the ground at St. Julians annex in portsmouth, Va
Thank you for answering something that I was wondering about, where were they made
Turret 2 Gunner in 1988, We used to crawl through the Barrels as an initiation . That was a long 66 ft and about 20 minutes. When you get half way through the barrel and start realizing that maybe you are closterphobic and wondering what the hell have you got yourself into.....
There's so many damn things we just can't make anymore. It's sad.