For the milsurp owner that thinks he has everything.

Betcha don't have one of these!

3,600,000 lbs approx Steel Gun Tubes, the shipping cradles and railroad rails that the gun tubes are sitting on are also included in weight and sale. Demilitarization is a condition of sale for Gun Tubes only. Property located at Hawthorne Army Depot, NV, 89415. Qty 15ea Tubes and weigh approx 237,175 lbs ea and are 816 inches long. Tube thickness is approx 15in. at the breach and 4in. at the muzzle, Metal content is approx, Fe 85.3, Ni 6.6, Si 0.5, Mn 0.4, Cr 0.3, Mo 0.2, Co 0.4, W 6.3. Cutting / DEMIL requirements are in the attached DEMIL plan. DEMIL will be completed within a reasonable timeframe not to exceed 30 work days under normal hours of operation (0700-1600). Contractor will attend a start of work meeting before DEMIL can begin. All DEMIL will be performed on site before property may leave. Clean up of all foreign materials and debris in the surrounding work area are required for buyer to fulfill his responsibility for removal. Local disposal of debris and foreign materials are not permitted. Preview available prior to start of sale, appointment date for preview will be one day only and will be on March 17th at 11am. Visitors coming to the preview must have all appropriate base entry forms filled out and back to the Site Manager no later then 12pm Monday 3/14/11 or base entry will not be permitted. Buyer load.


http://www.govliquidation.com/auction/view?auctionId=4229536

Holly Big 16 Incher.................

You would definetly be TOP DOG at the range with one of those monsters. Only thing better would be the whole turrent with all 3 barrels sticking out...............

.

If any of you have not toured a WWII battleship you just haven't lived. I've been on the USS Alabama in Mobile Bay numerous times (of course I lived 10 minutes from her). One of the most impressive things are the gun turrets. You see the barrels, but that's the "tip of the iceberg". The turret goes down like 8 - 10 stories to the keel. It took somewhat over 100 crewmen per turret to operate it. It can't really be described. If you haven't gone, make plans NOW. The only thing cooler MAYBE, is an aircraft carrier.

Wonder if you could reload for that thing??

shoeshooter wrote:If any of you have not toured a WWII battleship you just haven't lived. I've been on the USS Alabama in Mobile Bay numerous times (of course I lived 10 minutes from her). One of the most impressive things are the gun turrets. You see the barrels, but that's the "tip of the iceberg". The turret goes down like 8 - 10 stories to the keel. It took somewhat over 100 crewmen per turret to operate it. It can't really be described. If you haven't gone, make plans NOW. The only thing cooler MAYBE, is an aircraft carrier.

I vote for the battleships. Served on a Carrier and there's not nearly as much "gun" stuff on them as the battleships. Be plenty of bowling ball people that'd love to get a few feet of that.

captain-03 wrote:Wonder if you could reload for that thing??

Yes..... First you find an old VW Bug and stick that in the tube. Then a few BIG sacks of powder. Then some tricky primer stuff.....

Then you stand back and wait for "The Captain" to say.................... FIRE.


And then laugh your a$$ off as the enemy trys to catch that flying VW.....................

.

I think the standard WWII powder charge for a 16" gun was 660 pounds in three 220-pound linen bags to propel the 2,000 pound shell.

Basically it was black powder, which I can buy currently for about $14.00 a pound (price going up if it hasn't already).

So the powder for each round costs $9,240, and each turret has three guns, so that's $27,720. And there are three turrets, so multiply by three to get $83,160 in powder per salvo. Then figure $5,000 each for the shells, and your total reaches $128,160 per broadside.

On the positive side, however:

Cost of watching your enemy's reaction to the freight train roar of the shells approaching and the devastating "KA BOOM" of the shells when they land:

Priceless.

I know I'm chiming in late on this one too, but I just joined!

I was stationed at Terminal Island in Long Beach, CA from 89-93 aboard the USS Frances Hammond FF-1067. This was the last active station of the New Jersey and Missouri until they were decomm'd in Late 91- early 92. We used to do NGFS (Naval Gun Fire Support) training at San Clemente Island with these big boys. Jersey in front 'bout 3/8 of a mile and the Mighty Mo 'bout 3/8 mile behind.

Let me tell ya something, there isn't anything like it anywhere! Most times I was on watch down in the engineroom, 8' under the water line and you could feel the percussion in your chest like catching a 8lb medicine ball. About 20 seconds later the vent supply fans would blow that cordite smell down to you as well! I did get to go topside a couple times and watch these badboys hammer that island. Point detonation rounds threw a huge V of dirt in the the air. The HEMTPD (High Explosive Mechanical Timed / Point Det) were just awesome. They'd set the timers on the fuses prior to "pop" the shell just before coming in contact with the ground. You could literally see a 100 yard wide swath of vegetation disappear from the surface blast.

Sometimes you could get up on the bridge and watch through the Big Eyes and really see it well.

Both these big bad boys were in the our Ranger Battlegroup for Desert Shield/Storm and you felt at ease with these dudes on your six/twelve.

When nearly finished with the preservation for "lay up," we were allowed to go on both ships and pillage spare parts/tools for our own ships. After having been on a tin can for three years, at this point, where the main deck is the same thickness as the hull (about 5/8") where you could close the watertight hathes by hand. It was inspiring (and somewhat remorseful) to walk down the corridors and through the main deck hatches and down into the "Broadway Ave." Where the main deck hatches were 18" thick armored steel that used hydraulics to open and close.

Broadway was the central corridor between the boiler and engine rooms. Hull was 16" thick armor. It was so earily silent without any machinery running. You could not hear anything outside. Made me shiver a couple times. I got a chance to climb up into one of the Boiler Steam drums and see the lads names, stamped into the inside from the last time it was layed up in '46 and the newest additions from '91. Passing of the guard on these guys, maybe an era as well.

Sorry guys, I'm rambling, my mind went somewhere else for a little while.

Thanks for reading this,
Paul

Back in WW1, an american observer with the British Fleet at the
battle of Jutland, one or maybe the last all battleship to battleship
battle including WW2, described the rapid rate of fire of the British
battleships as "filling the air with so many shells(mostly 14 and 15
inches I believe) that it appeared to be a train of blurred hyphens
in the air".

I saw at the USS Alabama visitor center several decades ago
when I used to live in Mobile and my roommate at the time
worked for the Alabama tourism board and had a pass to get
on at any time, a picture from the 1950s of one of the IOWA
class firing ALL 16 inch at once to a target at 90 degrees
to the axis of the ship's hull and it was IMPRESSIVE, it heeled
the 880 ft vessel nearly 15-20 degrees the other way and moved
it laterally 100 yards displacement in the water as it steamed.
One awesome thought.

Just a little muzzle flash...





Rare dual side salvo

The Iowa pulled along side the USS America (our attack squadron was on its airwing) when it was doing work ups. I was working up on the flight deck when it did. That thing rode low in the water with a sleekness that reminded you of a shark, easing through the water until it was ready to strike.
45FlatTop is right, the Alabama is well worth the time. Need to go at least twice, once as a kid to marvel at the coolness factor and once as a man to marvel at the engineering that went into it.
Great pic's BubbaT

Great Pix BubbaT

sid, you are right there on the low slung bit!

We were off the coast of Korea for Colonel Usher Ops in '89. Damn Typhoon formed up on top of the war games and it got rough. The Jersey had an issue one evening that caused her to lose fires in her boilers. My little tin can was assigned for assistance. We were steaming in circles around her ready to render assistance, if required.

I'm on the fan tail, having a smoke watching the waves break over #1 & 2 turrets (Bow) of this heavy duty judy. The mast lights were only moving 3-5 degrees. DIW (Dead In Water) ain't the way to be in a damn hurricane, but these girls just shrugged the seas off.

For perspective, we were rolling upwards of 50 degrees in these seas and that was under power! They are HEAVY.

Definitely, on the USS Alabama, a must see; especially for the techboys.

Here's a couple of pictures and links to the history of the U.S.S. Mississippi BB-41 First built in 1918, refitted in 1931, and decommissioned in 1956 and scrapped. They were trying to make her a museum ship like the U.S.S. Alabama but as usual our State govt. dropped the ball.

After WWII she was assigned to test the new guided missiles, they removed her forward guns and left the aft guns. She was the first ship to test launch the Terrier and Petrel missiles.
Wearing her WWII camo


Testing missiles after the War.




http://www.navsource.org/archives/01/41a.htm
and her WWII cruise book
http://navsource.org/archives/01/pdf/014179.pdf

bubbat wrote:Here's a couple of pictures and links to the history of the U.S.S. Mississippi BB-41 First built in 1918, refitted in 1931, and decommissioned in 1956 and scrapped. They were trying to make her a museum ship like the U.S.S. Alabama but as usual our State govt. dropped the ball.

After WWII she was assigned to test the new guided missiles, they removed her forward guns and left the aft guns. She was the first ship to test launch the Terrier and Petrel missiles.
Wearing her WWII camo


Testing missiles after the War.




http://www.navsource.org/archives/01/41a.htm
and her WWII cruise book
http://navsource.org/archives/01/pdf/014179.pdf

BB-41 fired the last salvo in the last battleship engagement. That was the night the Pearl Harbor survivors scored payback in spades!

during desert storm they would light up the horizon when they fired a broad side, we could see it from Ras El Mishab

Cool Pics Bubba

Great pic's and info all.
Off topic for a moment, son's father-in-law (Mark Bridges of Hinds Co.) drew the insignia for the last USS Mississippi, a nuclear powered missile cruiser. His design was picked when he was in drafting school at Hinds CC. They sent him for the Christening and he and his wife for the decommisioning years later. Hopefully we'll have a new USS Mississippi. The Navy is down to half the 600 ships when Southbreeze and I were in.
Back to Phillip's talk about barrels that morphed into the USS Mississippi.
I remember seeing where a German was building a barrel for Iran or Iraq that could hit Isreal (that really gives you an idea of how far those barrels could sling some payload). He was killed leaving his hotel by Mossad (allegedly).

sidroski wrote:...Off topic for a moment...
I remember seeing where a German was building a barrel for Iran or Iraq that could hit Isreal (that really gives you an idea of how far those barrels could sling some payload). He was killed leaving his hotel by Mossad (allegedly).

Actually the dude was a Canuck...

From Wikipedia article on superguns -

Canadian-born engineer Gerald Bull later became interested in the possibility of using superguns in place of rockets to insert payloads into orbit. He started Project HARP to investigate this concept. HARP was later cancelled, and Bull turned to military designs, eventually developing the GC-45 howitzer. Some years later, Bull interested Saddam Hussein in funding Project Babylon. The objective of this project is not certain, but it is thought to have been intended to develop a gun capable of firing an object into orbit, from where it could then drop onto any place on the Earth[citation needed]. Gerald Bull was assassinated, allegedly by Israeli Mossad, terminating development, and the parts were confiscated by British customs after the Gulf War.