Working with bigger guns - BB-35 Battleship Texas

[michael.birdsley]

Watch some of the videos about Vice Admiral Willis Agustus Lee. In his early days in the navy he was a competitive shooter on a navy marksman ship team. When he got to a leadership role he insisted his men spend way more time on marksman ship with the ships guns and knew so much about them he corrected the charts the navy had on elevations. I forget the battel, but his ship made accurate hits from the get go to win the day, I think this was the last battleship on battleship duel in history.

it wasnt the last battle ship on battle ship battle. it was americas first battle ship on battle ship victory in the 2nd battle of guadalcanal. USS Washington sank IJN Kirishima at point blank ( 8,000 yds) range. at night with the help of radar directed ( first time ) gunfire. USS Washington put over 20 16 inch shells and pumped an additional 55-65 5 inch shells into kirishima. kirishima limped away while washington was evading torpedos. eventually 2 hrs later kirishima rolled over and sank.


admiral lee was an early proponent of radar directed gun fire. not using the radar directed gun fire when available cost the US dearly in 1st naval battle of guadalcanal to the tune of 4 heavy cruisers and 5,000 men


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[David2011]

Very interesting thread David. Should you get to fire one of the guns, I would suggest a load of 13 grains of Red Dot behind a cast boolit

LOL! I'm not sure that would constitute a primer charge!

[David2011]

For anyone that's interested, one of the battleship volunteers has a YouTube channel that has very high quality information on the ship. Tom puts a huge amount of work into every video.

https://www.youtube.com/@tomscotttheolderone364/videos

[David2011]

I was given a fun little project that could be started and finished in an evening. The guys needed two replacement screws that retain part of the windage adjustment mechanism in the big bracket that attaches at the trunnions. It was also a chance to try out some new brand name carbide inserts that I had just bought; first time using anything other than cheap Chinese carbide. The screws are 1/2" x 2.7" overall.