----- Original Message -----
From: "Olaf Greve" <olaf_greve@xxxxxxxxxxx>
To: <olympus@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Monday, January 08, 2001 2:56 PM
Subject: [OM] Aircraft ammunition pictures [OT for Oly list]
> Then, to take
> things to the extreme: I don't think I would have particularly liked being
> close to the guns that were used on ships like the USS Missouri to send the
> 800+ KG projectiles on a one way ticket towards the enemy. ;)
Olaf, that would be the HC (High Capacity; HE round) rounds at 863 kg. The AP
rounds actually weighed 1226 kg... :-)
Muzzle velocity of the AP shells was 739 m/sec, and 902 m/sec of the HC. Maximum
range AP: 36,700 m, HC: 38,000 m. AP shells could penetrate 9 m of reinforced
concrete. They turned at 4,000 RPM as they left the muzzle. Of the 1226 kg shell
weight of the AP shell the explosive charge amounted to only 18,5 kg of
Explosive
D (ammonium picrate, a crystal-line powder slightly inferior to TNT in explosive
strength but which had the great virtue of withstanding severe shock). The AP
charge was set off by a base-detonating fuze (of lead azide) which functioned
after a .033-second delay, during which time the projectile had travelled 15 to
20
m through the target ship, ocean or enemy bunker. The HC charge indeed contained
more of the Explosive D, but only 69 kg of the substance. Usually equipped with
a
point detonating fuse on the tip of the nose, the HC shell was timed to explode
only 1/100 sec after impact. There was also an optional mechanical time fuse
which
bursted the shells at the optimum height of 23 m over the ground.
The USS New Jersey was activated for one shore bombardment tour in Vietnam in
1968. This is an excerpt from the book "The Iowa Class Battleships" by Malcolm
Muir (ISBN 0 7137 1732 7):
--
"For those unused to working with 16-inch guns - that is, for most military
personnel in Vietnam, the experience was something of a revelation. One soldier
recalled that at night a 16-inch salvo from the battleship [USS New Jersey] lit
up
the eastern sky like the sunrise and that the shell sounded like a train going
by
overhead. The sheer size of the shell craters, 50 ft [~15 m] across and 20 ft
[~6
m] deep, impressed all who saw them. One driver from the 61st Infantry
maneuvered
his armored personnel carrier too close to the lip of the hole and slid in.
Recovery of the vehicle took several hours. In fact, one HC round could create
out
of dense triple canopy jungle a helicopter landing zone 200 yards in diameter."
--
In fact the New Jersey was so effective that she was impeding the progress of
the
peace talks at that time, something which, at the last moment, prevented her
from
making a second tour to Vietnam. If she had been allowed a second tour she would
undoubtedly have saved many more lifes of the US ground troops and air personnel
in Vietnam
Sorry for the OT babble...
Regards,
Per Nordenberg
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