I had the chance to visit the Arizona state capital in 2018 and view their battleship gun display in front of the Capital building. One gun barrel was a 14" spare from Battleship Arizona and the other was a spare from Battleship Missouri ( 16" ). They also had a large scale model of Arizona in a special room of the old Capital building. Excellent tour all told.
In the 70s/80s there were 16"" barrels at the naval base at Subic Bay, Phillippines. I imagine they were leftovers from the New Jersey's tours off Viet Nam. As an artilleryman, I had to take a close look at them. I don't know what happened to them after the base closed. They were stored at least a half mile from the nearest pier.
@@phil4483 I remember that. There was also a barrel over by Admin in the parking lot. It looked like it was being used as border of the back of the parking lot.
Has New Jersey's barrels been re-lined?? How much life is still left in New Jersey's barrels?? I am assuming something that big and expensive, there are reams of paperwork detailing exactly how many rounds were fired out of each barrel, how many bags of propellant were used, and who knows what else.... Thank you for your time; Monte
There is a 16" Mark IV barrel on display out in the open at the SW corner of Broad Street and Intrepid Ave inside the Philadelphia Ship Yard is a 16"/50 Caliber Mark 7 Gun Barrel Number 293 on display. You can walk right up to it and touch it, photograph it, awe over it. Having started work as a machinist, I am awestruck by the amazing machining of the breech threads. The people who made this all possible were outstanding in their field.
There are at least two 16” barrels at the Kennemetal plant in Latrobe PA that were cut up and modified to make ultra high pressure chambers for the manufacture of carbide tooling. They used the breach end to open and close it. One time an operator forgot to secure it properly and it blew the breach plug through the roof of the building. The remainder of the barrels were buried in the parking lot, but they had to dig one up to take metallurgical samples for the state pressure vessel inspectors.
There was one 16" barrel used as a pressure vessel in a Schlumberger Lab in Salt Lake City, Utah. It was used for full scale drill bit and drilling fluid testing. I saw more than 50 tests. A representative rock sample, which was changed for every test, was installed near the bottom. Oil well drilling fluids were used and a complete drill control room drilled the sample. The instrumentation was straight out of the 1960's until updated in the early 2000's
According to John Campbell in his Naval Weapons of World War Two the approximate figures for battleship/battlecruiser 16in guns produced from the US Navy is as follows: Mk 1 + 5 (odd Mk 8), 45 calibre for the Maryland class, 3 ships plus Washington approximately 40 guns made. Mk 2 + 3, 50 calibre for cancelled South Dakota & Lexington 71 guns including the prototype made and 44 in progress before been cancelled. Mk 6, 45 calibre for North Carolina and South Dakota about 120 guns made. Mk 7, 50 calibre for Iowa and cancelled Montana. No definite figure but approximately 50 made. Giving a total of just less that 300 produced.
2705 W 12th St, Sioux Falls, SD is probably one of the stranger place to find a battleship gun. The nearest major river is almost an hour away. The story behind what it took to get the barrel there is a fun read as well. The impressive part of the museum is realizing just how small "Battleship X" really was for having 2000+ crew living and working on it.
That museum and memorial is a great museum, which unfortunately doesn't get the attention it deserves. They have many artifacts from the ship including its mast, propeller, radar, coning tower door, 5 in barrels, an anchor, and much more, even have a flag captured from the Japanese battleship Nagato there.
Wife and I got a personal tour from John Swantek at the Watervliet Arsenal. We stopped by the museum and no one was around inside. We heard voices and wandered to the back and he was talking to another guy. He showed us a vault filled with small arms of all descriptions. We also went into the back where they machined the big guns. All in all it was a interesting tour. Mr. Swantek also autographed a book he wrote about Watervliet Arsenal.
Tom Scott (the older one) has a fairly detailed video in his collection of USS Texas videos on the making of 14" rifles, and the sorts of physical plants the gun factories require.
Gee thanks...Now I have another rabbit trail to follow. As a "puppy person" in the mid 1960's my mom used to take me there to keep me occupied and her to have a safe place for an energetic 4 year-old to run around while Dad was in college. This should be fun to explore an old friend from my childhood. 😊
The HARP "double travel" 16 inch guns are still sitting on the beach in Barbados. When the Army Research Lab pulled the plug on the project, there were no funds to recover the guns so they were just left there. Charles Murphy, a scientist at the Army Research Lab (then known as the Ballistic Research Lab) and Dr. Gerald V. Bull wrote a book on the project, "Paris Kanonen - The Paris Guns (Wilhelmgeschütze) and Project HARP."
What always gets me when I think about it is what kind of engineering did it take to manufacture these big barrels before computers and modern machine shop equipment and processes.
There was this thing called a "slip stick" (Slide Rule). Also there were "computers". Usually underpaid women tasked to generate tables of data, using the same formula, but with varying input variables, over a particular range. The movie Hidden Figures, was made of a group of these girls working for NASA.
I remember running across a thread in a gun related forum about "several" spare barrels being offered for scrap metal. The breech had to be damaged enough to render them inoperable before they could be removed from their location. I have driven past Hawthorne NV, I'd give a lot to wander through that place with a set of keys!
Mr. Szimanski, This video brings to mind this story told to me in the 1970's. It goes something like this; New Jersey was on station in the waters off of Vietnam, and gunfire support had worn the main battery tubes to the point that they needed to be re-lined (replaced). No one could identify any spare liners, (barrels); so it was decided to decommission the ship. Preparations were being made for this...personnel reassignments, etc. Allegedly, New Jersey was in transit to the US when a stock of liners (barrels) were discovered in a field outside of Washington DC. Consequent to this discovery, decommissioning was canceled, reassignments were re-reassigned, and plans made for the necessary work to be done. Do you know if there is anything to this tale? Many thanks for the work you all put into the preservation of USS New Jersey!
Hey- fantastic videos. You may have gone over this at some point but can you show and explain how the gun barrels are mounted and supported? Id love to see how that massive amount of steel is held in place without levering itself down into the deck.
The one on Barbados is a remnant of Project HARP. The one where they made two 16 inch Army guns into a single 16/89.25 gun with a stabilizer brace. (16 inches in diameter, 119 feet long) Or just shy of twice the length of the ones on New Jersey.
I would love to see some of the paths the sailors had to take to get to their battle stations. Like having to run from the mess deck to forward plot or turret 1.
3 were acquired by a company in Huntsville and cut down to only the breach and used as special pressure vessels. I used to work there. Not sure where they came from but they were 16” guns.
At what point in the manufacturing process were serial numbers assigned to the barrels? I would guess that it happened pretty early in the process, as that would make it easier to keep track of each unit as it was being made. If that was the case, there would be barrels that were assigned a serial number but were never finished.
About 1968 I worked very near the Milwaukee rail road track in Elgin, Illinois. One day someone shouted look at that train flat cars I viewed some very long gun barrels on flat cars heading west on a train.
One is in the (closed) General Electric Tungsten plant outside Cleveland, OH. The barrel was converted into a hydraulic press used to draw the tungsten filament.
Based on one spare for every three barrels, I can see the US Navy placing orders for 152 16" Mark 7 gun barrels. If several locations received contracts to produce those barrels, it could be that each location had a specific range of serial numbers to use. Up to nearly 100 of those barrels likely were canceled prior to the installations that received contracts to make them even starting to get the supplies needed to manufacture those barrels. I also would not be surprised to learn that the serial numbers for the gun barrels allocated to the North Carolina class battleships and Lexington class battlecruisers were assigned even if the actual barrels were cancelled prior to being manufactured.
I used to work at a machine shop that had the lathe that machined the barrels for the Wisconsin. It was brought down to Houston from Pittsburgh. The lathe bed was too long for the building it was to be in, so the bed was cut down in order to fit it in the building
There is a 16" barrel from the USS Missouri and a 14" barrel from the USS Arizona on display in Wesley Bolin Memorial Park just east of the capital building in Phoenix, Arizona.
Fort MacArthur in San Pedro south of Los Angeles had two MK II 16” 50 cal guns. From the Ft. MacArthur Museum website: “Battery construction project 127 began at the Whites Point reservation in April of 1942.Two huge concrete gun emplacements were built at a cost of 1.2 million dollars. The new battery featured such improvements as both radar and optical fire control, substantial overhead protection, and two 16 inch 50 caliber Mark II naval guns. The new battery had a range of over 26 miles and the fort now had the ability to cover the entire northern approach to the Los Angeles Harbor. An identical battery of this design was built at the Bolsa Chica reservation, Battery 128 was intended to cover the southern approach but that battery was never armed before the war ended.” I grew up nearby and remember accounts of many windows shattered in San Pedro during test firings.
When i was driving long hall in the 90s i drove by the Hawthorn arsenal in Nevada there were a stack of 16"barrel outside in front of the old arsenal brick building looked like a huge pile of power poles except for the taper and sealed bore covers.
I’ve seen 3 (not on museum ships) - in the Marin headlands (north of San Francisco); in Phoenix AZ (next to a spare USS Arizona 14” gun); and the Mark 4 16”/Mark 1 18” at Dahlgren. It never gets old seeing one of the big guns!
Ryan; Please check out the history of Pocatello ID. There is a naval complex of large factory buildings which I was told made modules for the Iowa class battle ships. There’s a 10 story building on the north end where I was told the 16” gun barrels were turned in the vertical position. There was a test fire range on a mountain about 7 miles out of town to verify the guns quality. This is what may throw off your count, a WW2 veteran who served there said if a gun failed it’s test firing it was pushed off the mountain and another was made.
The guns on Barbados are the HARP guns. There was a 16 inch gun at the highwater range in Quebec, on a 6,000 acre property stradding the US Border with Jay, VT being the other side. A lot of the buildings are still standing though I don't know if the gun is still there, or which side of the border its on. It apparently could only elevate 10 degrees and fired horizontally on a 1km long range, but I'm not sure WHERE exactly the gun was emplaced. The Barbados guns are next to the airport on the south east portion of the island, and both a regular length 16 inch gun is present along with the monster double-length gun. The ones at Highwater also consisted of a standard 16 inch/50 and an enormously extended length gun, even longer than the Barbados gun and it was still there in 1990 when Gerald Bull was assassinated in Belguim. From a map of the space research center layout, the south range was on the USA side and had the 5 inch test guns and the longer north range was on the Canada side with the 16 inch guns.
Each HARP gun took two barrels to make, and there were, IIRC, three HARP guns built. One abandoned in Barbados, one out at Yuma, I think, that is in preservation, and I forget where the third one was left. Some arsenal someplace I presume. It was used for developing the projectiles for HARP.
The ignition system for HARP is also interesting. One of the things they discovered was that a conventional rear ignition ended up spewing a lot of still burning powder out the barrel. They developed a system with multiple primers between the powder bags that substantially increased chamber pressure, that with the longer barrel gave the projectiles much higher velocities needed for the project.
The germans leaned the hard way in WW2, that counting up from 1 as serial number gives away too much to your enemy! The brits were able to guess the numbers of airplanes and tanks the germans had with an incredible accuracy just by mathematically massaging the serial numbers they found on crashed planes and captured tanks. This gave away the production capacities too.
While barely relevant, I have seen plenty of accounts of firearms history where a particular factory was assigned a block of serial numbers. There were other indicators of which factory supplied the gun, but there were always gaps. So the 01 to 10 might be setting up the production with not all made. 11 to 49 would be the production. 50 to 60 a deliberate gap. A second factory would start at 61. That sort of numbering pattern feels a bit more sensible for the guns carried by destroyers but there's the bureaucratic answer: "That's the Navy way."
@@davebell4917 Ryan mentions the highest serial number of the cannons on New Jersey. Were these fabricated by Krupp, we would have an excellent guess, how many of these have been build😂
I designed a medical device I deliberately started the serial numbers as 0000257. 0000001 might be a good serial for collectors but I wanted my customers to have the added confidence in my product that can only come from a mature design.
My gut feeling about the high serial number is they assigned a number for each gun ordered but the numbers where not re issued after the ship was canceled thus canceling the gun. So there could well have been close to 500 barrels ordered by the time the Montana class had been canceled
Most unusual place I’ve seen one? 1. Watervliet Arsenal outside Albany NY. My grandmother, as a military spouse, had access. Used to go over to have lunch at the O-Club and explore. I remember there being multiple gray barrels of different sizes beside a building, and being allowed to climb all over them. 2. The Army 16” mount on display with the tanks at Aberdeen Proving ground. Most interesting place I *didnt” see a 16” gun: the incomplete coastal defense 16” case mate mounts on Sullivans Island NC. Which are now residences.
Point Loma in San Diego was equipped with 2 16 inch guns. If you visit the monument on the point you will pass the gun ports just outside of the national park entrance.
Wesley Bolin Plaza in Phoenix has a 16" mk7 and a 14" from a Pennsylvania class (to represent USS Arizona), along with part of the mast and an anchor from USS Arizona.
Going by info my grandfather provided me with, the first 1 or 2 numbers are the serial for type, or factory,(4 or 04, 004)the last 2 or 3 are generally the number produced (54) Judging by the number of ships, spares and future builds, he thinks thats all that were made. They had spares at NY until they canceled future builds and he says some went to Letterkenny and the rest to another munitions plant he can't remember(they were the ones that made the bunker busters in the 90s out of gun barrels, but the name excapes us both). He worked in the NY navy yard, but not on the battleships. He built 5" and 3" guns as a machinist. His dream was to work on the Iowa Class but never got the chance because they only built 2. He did big gun work on crusiers and destroyers but can't remember the ships.
@@gregorywright4918 I know, but some of the spare barrels were taken to(and I'm probably going to massacre this name) Watervliet Arsenal. That's the name I couldn't remember
I didn't see them, but heard a story about well after WWII most of these guns were either in museums or scrapped. Sometime around the 80s-90s someone stumbled upon a pile of 16" gun barrels stacked in an overgrown field on a facility. We lived in Colorado at the time but I'd doubt it was Rocky Mountain Arsenal due to its remoteness from any port. My father has worked at Piccatinny Arsenal into the 80s, its a possibility as there was plenty of fallow land there. But really any of the facilities they might have stored these, then forgotten about them as records got destroyed by water, fire & forgotten by retirements over 30-40 years.
If I recall correctly. HMS Warspite's 15 inch weaponry took two years to make. This was an expedited construction as well. As the new gun design was ordered straight from the drawings.
Hey Ryan, my wife and I are coming up there to see Wrexham play the Philadelphia Union on Friday the 28th of July. I was thinking about bringing her to the Big J to show her around. Any chance of stopping in to say hello, I would love to shake your hand and let you know how much I appreciate all the hard work you do. I don't know If I will ever get out to California to see my old ship, the Iowa, but your ship is just a couple of hours from where I live.
got a Barrel from Missouri sitting at an old old old fort next to the chesapeake bay bridge tunnel, stumbled apon it and was surprised that its just sitting there on an abandoned fort
I was going to ask if the Navy ever considered re-gunning the Colorados with the spare Mk 2 and Mk 3 guns, but I think you answered that with the info on the Mk 5s and Mk 8s. Though if there's any other info on them, that could be a fun video, too!
At the casino in Bethlehem PA. But honestly it belongs there because it was manufactured on site . The casino sits atop of the old Bethlehem steel steel mill. Where they built a lot of those guns. But when you first come in and you don't know the history it's pretty weird to see this long barrel just sitting there.
The breach and a portion of the barrel is installed at a Navy contractor's testing facility where it is used as a high pressure vessel to test equipment.
Would love to see a modern eld projectile with a super high BC and some modern powder......like giant Reloader 26 or something...... What's the twist rate on these?
I know for a fact that the watervliet arsenal (I work in close proximity to there) has a 16" gun barrel on display in their parking lot.. it's quite amazing..
Just north of San Franciso, across the Golden Gate Bridge, is a coastal defense battery called Battery Townsley. It has a 16" gun on display behind the mount. At least it had one when I visited years ago.
Pretty common for small arms to start a new serial range with a new configuration. So if they expect continued production of the older guns a new serial range makes paperwork easier
The British Empire when it was planning the 18"/45-calibre Mark 2 initially planned to use a 3320ib APC shell and a 4000ib HE shell which was reduced to either 2,837lb or 2,916lb APC shell and 3000ib HE shell, can you imagine how much of a panic attack the Americans would have if the British Empire had stuck to the 3320ib APC shell and a 4000ib HE shell as they had planned initially and got the N3 into service with that
I learned the New Mexico was fitted with 16in guns in 1944 at Bremerton navel yards. My grandma drove up from Oregon to see my grandpa while it was getting fit to take its last world tour. My grandpa died fighting Kamakazi planes, and a Angel visited my grandma that night. The next day, my mom was born. Bremerton w worked on many ships in the 40’s. That was were the Uss Missouri was docked for years until the put a nuke engine in it and sent it to shell North Africa with be bugs, it the went to Hawaii to retire next to its sister the uss airizona
Tell us about the coastal batteries on Point Loma in San Diego. The one I remember best was Battery Ashburn. I don't remember the names of the other two.
Nothing beats the Yami's 18 inch barrels. I wish we kept one to go on display, a true monstrosity. They had 6 spares i believe but we scrapped them all... the other existing 18 are currantly sitting at the bottom of the ocean .
Would you mind doing a video comparison of New Jersey and the concept of the Iowa class of the project of the ship in 1938 Georgia battleship that was armed with the 457 mm/47 mk 1?
Hey Ryan excellent video good job remembering to mention the Lexington class in the original South Dakota class everyone seems to forget they were under construction when it comes to materials and Armament but they're not just a footnote they were affected evolutionary step that didn't come to pass unfortunately It's unfortunate still more so but nobody bothered to write total production numbers down I'm sure they probably just weren't thinking it would be relevant but future Generations are like how many in earlier Generations are like nobody cares LOL
Skme of this may be a care of serial numbers be assigned to guns that where not completed. They did that with ships as well. They made 72 of the 120 mark 2/mark 3 guns ordered for the lexingtons and south dakotas.
British Nelson Class had 16"/45s and the British did look at 16"/50-calibre but the British looked at 16.5" guns for the G3 frankly 16.5" guns would have been interesting to see how they would have done
When they tested an 18" versus the 16" they found only around 10-15% improvement in penetration, they decided the much heavier gun, mounting, and ammo was not worth it. If they upgunned they would be putting 2 18"ers for every 3 gun turret 16"er, and the rate of fire would be slower.
@@Knight6831 It was the 18"/48 Mk 1, which was relined to an 18"/47 Mark A in the mid 1930s for further testing. I guess I did not specify "they" meaning Americans, rather than Brits.
I wonder how many 16" guns there are outside the USA. I know the Yamato museum in Kure has one of Mutsu's guns, but are there any others, did the UK keep any of Nelson's guns?
Weirdest place I saw a 16 inch gun was wrapped around a standard curator
Lol yes i remember that episode thats what i love about ryan hes not afraid to go anywhere nasty and dirty on the ship
There are , or were-- several in Hawthorne Nev.
Brings Mike Rowe to mind
Ah yes that time he crawled through one from the breach to the muzzle.
My fat ass sure wouldn't have fit down that bore. 😅
I had the chance to visit the Arizona state capital in 2018 and view their battleship gun display in front of the Capital building. One gun barrel was a 14" spare from Battleship Arizona and the other was a spare from Battleship Missouri ( 16" ). They also had a large scale model of Arizona in a special room of the old Capital building. Excellent tour all told.
In the 70s/80s there were 16"" barrels at the naval base at Subic Bay, Phillippines. I imagine they were leftovers from the New Jersey's tours off Viet Nam. As an artilleryman, I had to take a close look at them. I don't know what happened to them after the base closed. They were stored at least a half mile from the nearest pier.
@@phil4483 I remember that. There was also a barrel over by Admin in the parking lot. It looked like it was being used as border of the back of the parking lot.
@@opticschief Pretty impressive border.
Has New Jersey's barrels been re-lined??
How much life is still left in New Jersey's barrels??
I am assuming something that big and expensive, there are reams of paperwork detailing exactly how many rounds were fired out of each barrel, how many bags of propellant were used, and who knows what else....
Thank you for your time;
Monte
There is a 16" Mark IV barrel on display out in the open at the SW corner of Broad Street and Intrepid Ave inside the Philadelphia Ship Yard is a 16"/50 Caliber Mark 7 Gun Barrel Number 293 on display. You can walk right up to it and touch it, photograph it, awe over it. Having started work as a machinist, I am awestruck by the amazing machining of the breech threads. The people who made this all possible were outstanding in their field.
There are at least two 16” barrels at the Kennemetal plant in Latrobe PA that were cut up and modified to make ultra high pressure chambers for the manufacture of carbide tooling. They used the breach end to open and close it. One time an operator forgot to secure it properly and it blew the breach plug through the roof of the building. The remainder of the barrels were buried in the parking lot, but they had to dig one up to take metallurgical samples for the state pressure vessel inspectors.
There was one 16" barrel used as a pressure vessel in a Schlumberger Lab in Salt Lake City, Utah. It was used for full scale drill bit and drilling fluid testing. I saw more than 50 tests. A representative rock sample, which was changed for every test, was installed near the bottom. Oil well drilling fluids were used and a complete drill control room drilled the sample. The instrumentation was straight out of the 1960's until updated in the early 2000's
According to John Campbell in his Naval Weapons of World War Two the approximate figures for battleship/battlecruiser 16in guns produced from the US Navy is as follows:
Mk 1 + 5 (odd Mk 8), 45 calibre for the Maryland class, 3 ships plus Washington approximately 40 guns made.
Mk 2 + 3, 50 calibre for cancelled South Dakota & Lexington 71 guns including the prototype made and 44 in progress before been cancelled.
Mk 6, 45 calibre for North Carolina and South Dakota about 120 guns made.
Mk 7, 50 calibre for Iowa and cancelled Montana. No definite figure but approximately 50 made.
Giving a total of just less that 300 produced.
2705 W 12th St, Sioux Falls, SD is probably one of the stranger place to find a battleship gun. The nearest major river is almost an hour away. The story behind what it took to get the barrel there is a fun read as well. The impressive part of the museum is realizing just how small "Battleship X" really was for having 2000+ crew living and working on it.
That museum and memorial is a great museum, which unfortunately doesn't get the attention it deserves. They have many artifacts from the ship including its mast, propeller, radar, coning tower door, 5 in barrels, an anchor, and much more, even have a flag captured from the Japanese battleship Nagato there.
Father-in-law was a plank owner on the USS Indiana BB-58. Same class and size. Also said it was a bit tight.
Wife and I got a personal tour from John Swantek at the Watervliet Arsenal. We stopped by the museum and no one was around inside. We heard voices and wandered to the back and he was talking to another guy. He showed us a vault filled with small arms of all descriptions. We also went into the back where they machined the big guns. All in all it was a interesting tour. Mr. Swantek also autographed a book he wrote about Watervliet Arsenal.
Where is Watervliet Arsenal? Is it still in existence?
@@wvalmostheaven9342 It's in the state of New York. The museum was closed by the army in 2013 for security reasons.
@@garycb8592 yes - it’s in Watervliet NY - just north of Albany.
Tom Scott (the older one) has a fairly detailed video in his collection of USS Texas videos on the making of 14" rifles, and the sorts of physical plants the gun factories require.
Tom Scott (the older one) is a treasure trove of information and an asset to the community.
I love all his work on the Battleship Texas.
That video is extremely informative.
Yes Tom Scott 's video is great.
@@eddieb1323 Amen to that. I am always humbled by a new video from him.
Gee thanks...Now I have another rabbit trail to follow. As a "puppy person" in the mid 1960's my mom used to take me there to keep me occupied and her to have a safe place for an energetic 4 year-old to run around while Dad was in college. This should be fun to explore an old friend from my childhood. 😊
The HARP "double travel" 16 inch guns are still sitting on the beach in Barbados. When the Army Research Lab pulled the plug on the project, there were no funds to recover the guns so they were just left there. Charles Murphy, a scientist at the Army Research Lab (then known as the Ballistic Research Lab) and Dr. Gerald V. Bull wrote a book on the project, "Paris Kanonen - The Paris Guns (Wilhelmgeschütze) and Project HARP."
There used to be a HARP gun at the Intel Training Center in Yuma, AZ, I think it is still there. I don't remember if it was a 16 ".
Before reading the comments, the HARP gun came to mind. Sadly, it is there rusting until the end of this planet.
What always gets me when I think about it is what kind of engineering did it take to manufacture these big barrels before computers and modern machine shop equipment and processes.
There was this thing called a "slip stick" (Slide Rule). Also there were "computers". Usually underpaid women tasked to generate tables of data, using the same formula, but with varying input variables, over a particular range. The movie Hidden Figures, was made of a group of these girls working for NASA.
Several centuries of gunmaking prior to develop those processes.
I remember running across a thread in a gun related forum about "several" spare barrels being offered for scrap metal. The breech had to be damaged enough to render them inoperable before they could be removed from their location.
I have driven past Hawthorne NV, I'd give a lot to wander through that place with a set of keys!
Mr. Szimanski,
This video brings to mind this story told to me in the 1970's.
It goes something like this; New Jersey was on station in the waters off of Vietnam, and gunfire support had worn the main battery tubes to the point that they needed to be re-lined (replaced). No one could identify any spare liners, (barrels); so it was decided to decommission the ship. Preparations were being made for this...personnel reassignments, etc. Allegedly, New Jersey was in transit to the US when a stock of liners (barrels) were discovered in a field outside of Washington DC. Consequent to this discovery, decommissioning was canceled, reassignments were re-reassigned, and plans made for the necessary work to be done.
Do you know if there is anything to this tale?
Many thanks for the work you all put into the preservation of USS New Jersey!
Hey- fantastic videos. You may have gone over this at some point but can you show and explain how the gun barrels are mounted and supported? Id love to see how that massive amount of steel is held in place without levering itself down into the deck.
The one on Barbados is a remnant of Project HARP.
The one where they made two 16 inch Army guns into a single 16/89.25 gun with a stabilizer brace. (16 inches in diameter, 119 feet long)
Or just shy of twice the length of the ones on New Jersey.
I would love to see some of the paths the sailors had to take to get to their battle stations. Like having to run from the mess deck to forward plot or turret 1.
I also wonder how long it took to get the ship from one "condition" to another.
back about 2007 under US Gov surplus about nine 16 inch gun barrels were sold off as scrap, they were stored in Utah I believe
I’ll bet you they had more spares made than we can think. Spare barrels to be quickly swapped in case of damaged.😊
there was a pile of them in Long Beach in the early 90's.
3 were acquired by a company in Huntsville and cut down to only the breach and used as special pressure vessels. I used to work there. Not sure where they came from but they were 16” guns.
The navy sold some redundant barrels in the 70s
Up until a few years ago, there were a cuople sitting at the front gate of the Hawthorne, NV. Army Ammo facility.
thank you for the share, amazing ! My dad served on the the NJ.
At what point in the manufacturing process were serial numbers assigned to the barrels? I would guess that it happened pretty early in the process, as that would make it easier to keep track of each unit as it was being made. If that was the case, there would be barrels that were assigned a serial number but were never finished.
Weirdest place I saw a 16 inch gun barrel was being sold for surplus for a price I could afford. Shipping and handling, however, was not free.
About 1968 I worked very near the Milwaukee rail road track in Elgin, Illinois. One day someone shouted look at that train flat cars I viewed some very long gun barrels on flat cars heading west on a train.
One is in the (closed) General Electric Tungsten plant outside Cleveland, OH. The barrel was converted into a hydraulic press used to draw the tungsten filament.
Based on one spare for every three barrels, I can see the US Navy placing orders for 152 16" Mark 7 gun barrels. If several locations received contracts to produce those barrels, it could be that each location had a specific range of serial numbers to use.
Up to nearly 100 of those barrels likely were canceled prior to the installations that received contracts to make them even starting to get the supplies needed to manufacture those barrels.
I also would not be surprised to learn that the serial numbers for the gun barrels allocated to the North Carolina class battleships and Lexington class battlecruisers were assigned even if the actual barrels were cancelled prior to being manufactured.
I used to work at a machine shop that had the lathe that machined the barrels for the Wisconsin. It was brought down to Houston from Pittsburgh. The lathe bed was too long for the building it was to be in, so the bed was cut down in order to fit it in the building
Any recollection of who made the lathe? Big machinery is an interest of mine, would love to have toured the MESTA factory when they were still around.
There is a 16" barrel from the USS Missouri and a 14" barrel from the USS Arizona on display in Wesley Bolin Memorial Park just east of the capital building in Phoenix, Arizona.
Fort MacArthur in San Pedro south of Los Angeles had two MK II 16” 50 cal guns. From the Ft. MacArthur Museum website:
“Battery construction project 127 began at the Whites Point reservation in April of 1942.Two huge concrete gun emplacements were built at a cost of 1.2 million dollars. The new battery featured such improvements as both radar and optical fire control, substantial overhead protection, and two 16 inch 50 caliber Mark II naval guns.
The new battery had a range of over 26 miles and the fort now had the ability to cover the entire northern approach to the Los Angeles Harbor. An identical battery of this design was built at the Bolsa Chica reservation, Battery 128 was intended to cover the southern approach but that battery was never armed before the war ended.”
I grew up nearby and remember accounts of many windows shattered in San Pedro during test firings.
Had two 16" guns off of the USS Colorado used as pressure vessels for isostatic pressing at General Electric Tungsten Products Plant.
When i was driving long hall in the 90s i drove by the Hawthorn arsenal in Nevada there were a stack of 16"barrel outside in front of the old arsenal brick building looked like a huge pile of power poles except for the taper and sealed bore covers.
Loving those two hints to an extremely long 16” ‘orbital’ (not sure if correct terminology) gun.
I’ve seen 3 (not on museum ships) - in the Marin headlands (north of San Francisco); in Phoenix AZ (next to a spare USS Arizona 14” gun); and the Mark 4 16”/Mark 1 18” at Dahlgren. It never gets old seeing one of the big guns!
The Watervliet Arsenal ! Where most of our big guns were forged ! That's Watervliet, N.Y. for those that do not know where this is !
Didn't they mostly work on Army guns?
I thought that naval guns were made at the Naval Gun Factory in Washington DC
Ryan;
Please check out the history of Pocatello ID. There is a naval complex of large factory buildings which I was told made modules for the Iowa class battle ships. There’s a 10 story building on the north end where I was told the 16” gun barrels were turned in the vertical position. There was a test fire range on a mountain about 7 miles out of town to verify the guns quality. This is what may throw off your count, a WW2 veteran who served there said if a gun failed it’s test firing it was pushed off the mountain and another was made.
The guns on Barbados are the HARP guns. There was a 16 inch gun at the highwater range in Quebec, on a 6,000 acre property stradding the US Border with Jay, VT being the other side. A lot of the buildings are still standing though I don't know if the gun is still there, or which side of the border its on. It apparently could only elevate 10 degrees and fired horizontally on a 1km long range, but I'm not sure WHERE exactly the gun was emplaced. The Barbados guns are next to the airport on the south east portion of the island, and both a regular length 16 inch gun is present along with the monster double-length gun. The ones at Highwater also consisted of a standard 16 inch/50 and an enormously extended length gun, even longer than the Barbados gun and it was still there in 1990 when Gerald Bull was assassinated in Belguim. From a map of the space research center layout, the south range was on the USA side and had the 5 inch test guns and the longer north range was on the Canada side with the 16 inch guns.
Ryan, 0:25 was the funniest moment in this channel's history. i had a good laugh, thank you!
Maybe we need a VIN Wiki for navy serialized items.
This should be a crossover effort with VinWiki
Each HARP gun took two barrels to make, and there were, IIRC, three HARP guns built. One abandoned in Barbados, one out at Yuma, I think, that is in preservation, and I forget where the third one was left. Some arsenal someplace I presume. It was used for developing the projectiles for HARP.
The ignition system for HARP is also interesting. One of the things they discovered was that a conventional rear ignition ended up spewing a lot of still burning powder out the barrel. They developed a system with multiple primers between the powder bags that substantially increased chamber pressure, that with the longer barrel gave the projectiles much higher velocities needed for the project.
There was a HARP style gun at the Intel Training center is Yuma. I don't remember if it was a16" or not.
The germans leaned the hard way in WW2, that counting up from 1 as serial number gives away too much to your enemy! The brits were able to guess the numbers of airplanes and tanks the germans had with an incredible accuracy just by mathematically massaging the serial numbers they found on crashed planes and captured tanks. This gave away the production capacities too.
While barely relevant, I have seen plenty of accounts of firearms history where a particular factory was assigned a block of serial numbers. There were other indicators of which factory supplied the gun, but there were always gaps.
So the 01 to 10 might be setting up the production with not all made. 11 to 49 would be the production. 50 to 60 a deliberate gap. A second factory would start at 61.
That sort of numbering pattern feels a bit more sensible for the guns carried by destroyers but there's the bureaucratic answer: "That's the Navy way."
Google German tank problem
@@davebell4917 Ryan mentions the highest serial number of the cannons on New Jersey. Were these fabricated by Krupp, we would have an excellent guess, how many of these have been build😂
I designed a medical device I deliberately started the serial numbers as 0000257. 0000001 might be a good serial for collectors but I wanted my customers to have the added confidence in my product that can only come from a mature design.
Same thing with bank accounts and check numbers... who wants check number 6 paying a debt...?
Barrels were stored at naval supply depot at Subic Bay P.I.
My gut feeling about the high serial number is they assigned a number for each gun ordered but the numbers where not re issued after the ship was canceled thus canceling the gun. So there could well have been close to 500 barrels ordered by the time the Montana class had been canceled
Most unusual place I’ve seen one?
1. Watervliet Arsenal outside Albany NY. My grandmother, as a military spouse, had access. Used to go over to have lunch at the O-Club and explore. I remember there being multiple gray barrels of different sizes beside a building, and being allowed to climb all over them.
2. The Army 16” mount on display with the tanks at Aberdeen Proving ground.
Most interesting place I *didnt” see a 16” gun: the incomplete coastal defense 16” case mate mounts on Sullivans Island NC. Which are now residences.
I've only seen 16" barrels on the Missouri in Hawaii. I think I need to see more 16" barrels.
That's what she said.
Point Loma in San Diego was equipped with 2 16 inch guns. If you visit the monument on the point you will pass the gun ports just outside of the national park entrance.
Wesley Bolin Plaza in Phoenix has a 16" mk7 and a 14" from a Pennsylvania class (to represent USS Arizona), along with part of the mast and an anchor from USS Arizona.
I saw a photo of Kentucky
or illinois on the way to the scrapper with unistalled guns, turrets, and armor on the deck
Just a thought: some digits in the serial number might indicate where the gun was cast/assembled or what production contract it was authorized under.
The Watervliet Arsenal, Watervliet, NY, has a 16 inch gun in the outdoor area of the now closed Museum.
Shoot I just like to use one to go squirrel hunting......in the next county over 😆😆😆 great videos thank you an thank those who helps you out
Going by info my grandfather provided me with, the first 1 or 2 numbers are the serial for type, or factory,(4 or 04, 004)the last 2 or 3 are generally the number produced (54) Judging by the number of ships, spares and future builds, he thinks thats all that were made. They had spares at NY until they canceled future builds and he says some went to Letterkenny and the rest to another munitions plant he can't remember(they were the ones that made the bunker busters in the 90s out of gun barrels, but the name excapes us both). He worked in the NY navy yard, but not on the battleships. He built 5" and 3" guns as a machinist. His dream was to work on the Iowa Class but never got the chance because they only built 2. He did big gun work on crusiers and destroyers but can't remember the ships.
I think the bunker busters were made from 8" barrels.
@@gregorywright4918 I know, but some of the spare barrels were taken to(and I'm probably going to massacre this name) Watervliet Arsenal. That's the name I couldn't remember
@@joebeach7759 That's Army, so must have been some of those that were transferred for coastal defense.
There is parts of one in a tank museum in Dubois Wyoming
Full breach and few cut parts
I'd guess that a reasonably logical explanation is that the serials are for all 16" guns *ordered*, given that there were spares made as well.
Two MKII-M1, serials 99 and 104, were emplaced at Fort Dearborn/Battery Seaman in New Hampshire.
I didn't see them, but heard a story about well after WWII most of these guns were either in museums or scrapped. Sometime around the 80s-90s someone stumbled upon a pile of 16" gun barrels stacked in an overgrown field on a facility. We lived in Colorado at the time but I'd doubt it was Rocky Mountain Arsenal due to its remoteness from any port. My father has worked at Piccatinny Arsenal into the 80s, its a possibility as there was plenty of fallow land there. But really any of the facilities they might have stored these, then forgotten about them as records got destroyed by water, fire & forgotten by retirements over 30-40 years.
Good one Ryan. Bb62
Weirdest place? Aegean sea. 87. Iowa shooting.
Check out Midvale right here in Phila., Nicetown. My grandfather said he work on Big guns during WWII
good one
If I recall correctly. HMS Warspite's 15 inch weaponry took two years to make. This was an expedited construction as well. As the new gun design was ordered straight from the drawings.
Hey Ryan, my wife and I are coming up there to see Wrexham play the Philadelphia Union on Friday the 28th of July. I was thinking about bringing her to the Big J to show her around. Any chance of stopping in to say hello, I would love to shake your hand and let you know how much I appreciate all the hard work you do. I don't know If I will ever get out to California to see my old ship, the Iowa, but your ship is just a couple of hours from where I live.
got a Barrel from Missouri sitting at an old old old fort next to the chesapeake bay bridge tunnel, stumbled apon it and was surprised that its just sitting there on an abandoned fort
In the 1980's, I saw a 16" barrel that I was told to be for an Iowa Class battleship at the US Army Yuma AZ proving grounds.
I was going to ask if the Navy ever considered re-gunning the Colorados with the spare Mk 2 and Mk 3 guns, but I think you answered that with the info on the Mk 5s and Mk 8s. Though if there's any other info on them, that could be a fun video, too!
Would you be able to do a video on how the gun barrels are replaced?
At the casino in Bethlehem PA. But honestly it belongs there because it was manufactured on site . The casino sits atop of the old Bethlehem steel steel mill. Where they built a lot of those guns. But when you first come in and you don't know the history it's pretty weird to see this long barrel just sitting there.
I'm curious about the size and caliber that were placed on Galveston for port security. I suspect they were far smaller.
The breach and a portion of the barrel is installed at a Navy contractor's testing facility where it is used as a high pressure vessel to test equipment.
I commented on this use, but couldn't find a reference - do you have a link suggestion (not the actual link, those tend to get removed)?
@@davidb6576 unfortunately I don't, being at a Navy Contractor's test lab, they usually don't advertise their capabilities to the public.
@@thomasprovencher4611 Thanks for the reply! Not a shock that they don't advertise...
Would love to see a modern eld projectile with a super high BC and some modern powder......like giant Reloader 26 or something......
What's the twist rate on these?
There is a 16" gun on display near the cruise ship terminal in San Pedro, Ca. I believe it was from the New Jersey.
likely one of the spares. there was a pile of em in Long Beach in the early 90's.
You want to see a fort with 16in weapons go to Ft Miles in Delaware
I know for a fact that the watervliet arsenal (I work in close proximity to there) has a 16" gun barrel on display in their parking lot.. it's quite amazing..
Barrels versus barrel liners is the to be or not to be of the 16in world.
Just north of San Franciso, across the Golden Gate Bridge, is a coastal defense battery called Battery Townsley. It has a 16" gun on display behind the mount. At least it had one when I visited years ago.
I'll have to look for that.
Still there, according to google earth.
A barrel from the USS Missouri is on display up there. Here it is....
th-cam.com/video/sgjCYDIZiDU/w-d-xo.html
They sometimes used non sequential serial numbers to make it harder for the enemy to count. Not sure if this is a problem with gun barrels.
Possibly some barrels were serialized early during manufacture and some failed causing them to be scrapped? Spare barrels maybe? for replacement?
Pretty common for small arms to start a new serial range with a new configuration. So if they expect continued production of the older guns a new serial range makes paperwork easier
10:59, I've heard that the shell's for one weight as much as a Volkswagen but I didn't think they literally shot out Volkswagen's.
Volkswagens tend to be poor at sinking ships, unless they're electric versions that catch fire during transit.
@@davidb6576
Their bodies would probably rot off on the way there.
I saw a slice of coastal defense barrel at Ft Concrite, just north of the Golden Gate Bridge, outside San Francisco.
The British Empire when it was planning the 18"/45-calibre Mark 2 initially planned to use a 3320ib APC shell and a 4000ib HE shell which was reduced to either 2,837lb or 2,916lb APC shell and 3000ib HE shell, can you imagine how much of a panic attack the Americans would have if the British Empire had stuck to the 3320ib APC shell and a 4000ib HE shell as they had planned initially and got the N3 into service with that
Back in 73-76 several 16” bbls were in a subic bay, p.i. navy base storage yard
Barbados? I smell a BBNJ field trip to film some guns! (Ryan approves of this trip I'm betting).
Oh right, Gerald Bull! And they're STILL THERE, three welded together
i believe back 05-06-07 something like that there where battleship gun barrels for sale online at a government auction out in california.
I learned the New Mexico was fitted with 16in guns in 1944 at Bremerton navel yards. My grandma drove up from Oregon to see my grandpa while it was getting fit to take its last world tour. My grandpa died fighting Kamakazi planes, and a Angel visited my grandma that night. The next day, my mom was born. Bremerton w worked on many ships in the 40’s. That was were the Uss Missouri was docked for years until the put a nuke engine in it and sent it to shell North Africa with be bugs, it the went to Hawaii to retire next to its sister the uss airizona
Where's the link posted to the video that was mentioned in this video, and 'promised' to be 'down below?'
Tell us about the coastal batteries on Point Loma in San Diego. The one I remember best was Battery Ashburn. I don't remember the names of the other two.
Nothing beats the Yami's 18 inch barrels. I wish we kept one to go on display, a true monstrosity. They had 6 spares i believe but we scrapped them all... the other existing 18 are currantly sitting at the bottom of the ocean .
The British Empire had 18" guns too by the way, they just never got the chance to use them much on a warship
There's a piece of one it's in the naval academy in Annapolis
The South Dakota memorial in Sioux Falls South Dakota has a 16 inch gun as well as bits and pieces of 16 inch guns
According to navweaps, 29 16"/45 (40.6 cm) Mark I guns were made by Elswick, Vickers, Beardmore and the Royal Gun Factory for HMS Nelson and Rodney.
Would you mind doing a video comparison of New Jersey and the concept of the Iowa class of the project of the ship in 1938 Georgia battleship that was armed with the 457 mm/47 mk 1?
Between 1976 and 1979 I saw at least 3 16" barrels at Subic Bay R.P>
Hey Ryan excellent video good job remembering to mention the Lexington class in the original South Dakota class everyone seems to forget they were under construction when it comes to materials and Armament but they're not just a footnote they were affected evolutionary step that didn't come to pass unfortunately
It's unfortunate still more so but nobody bothered to write total production numbers down I'm sure they probably just weren't thinking it would be relevant but future Generations are like how many in earlier Generations are like nobody cares LOL
Skme of this may be a care of serial numbers be assigned to guns that where not completed. They did that with ships as well. They made 72 of the 120 mark 2/mark 3 guns ordered for the lexingtons and south dakotas.
Been on the North Carolina twice touring it
I'd like a video about the 16" guns used for HARP, and if such a doubled gun could be fitted to a ship.
I am pretty sure there is a gun sitting out in front of the Watervliet Arsenal in upstate NY.
Yuma,arizona
British Nelson Class had 16"/45s and the British did look at 16"/50-calibre but the British looked at 16.5" guns for the G3 frankly 16.5" guns would have been interesting to see how they would have done
Tilman 3 is really the one the Americans would or should have gone for as they could have actually built it compared to the others
When they tested an 18" versus the 16" they found only around 10-15% improvement in penetration, they decided the much heavier gun, mounting, and ammo was not worth it. If they upgunned they would be putting 2 18"ers for every 3 gun turret 16"er, and the rate of fire would be slower.
@@gregorywright4918 is that the 18"/45 or 18"/40?
@@Knight6831 It was the 18"/48 Mk 1, which was relined to an 18"/47 Mark A in the mid 1930s for further testing. I guess I did not specify "they" meaning Americans, rather than Brits.
I wonder how many 16" guns there are outside the USA. I know the Yamato museum in Kure has one of Mutsu's guns, but are there any others, did the UK keep any of Nelson's guns?
In Norway there is still a german 16"/52 gun left. (Named "Adolf Gun")
In fact there are 4 16" guns left.
Battleships just remind me of how plentiful iron as an element must be on earth 😆