Save the Mark 7!

[Subdeacon Joe]

http://www.guns.com/2013/07/03/save-the-navys-mark-7-16-inch50-caliber-cannons-big-sticks-speak-loudly-videos/

 

Some great photos on that page.

[No Horse Hair, SASS #77464]

I gotta good place to store one of those barrels and I'll send a truck after it!

[Hacker, SASS #55963]

The article shows a piece of what is claimed to be a part of the Yamato class armor hit by a US 16 inch shell.

This of course is inconsistent with the reports of the final hours of both the Yamato and the Musashi.

Both were sunk by bombs and torpedoes from carrier aircraft without the aid of naval gunfire.

Closer reading of the article confirms that the plate shown was shipped to the US and fired at in a non-combat situation.

But it does indicate that the 16/50s were capable of penetrating the armor of the Yamato class.

Non of the IOWAs were actually involved in any battleship gun duels.

The opportunity was missed by Admiral Halsey during the Battle of Leyte Gulf.

 

Even the Shinano a Yamato class battleship hull almost completed as an aircraft carrier was sunk by submarine torpedoes not naval gunfire.

 

The 16 inch gun was available on the Colorado class battleship on the Maryland, Colorado and West Virginia commisioned between 1921 and 1923.

Maryland and West Virginia were in Pearl Harbor during the Dec 7the attack.

Their 16 inch guns were 16/45 cal. The term caliber in naval guns refers to the number of bore diameters that the barrel is long.

Term caliber in small arms refers to the number .01 inch units that the bore is.

 

The 16 inch 50 caliber were supposed to be used on the cancelled South Dakota class that was supposed to of the 1920s.

That class was to have 12 16/50s mounted in 4 turrets each with 3 guns. A schema planned for use in the also cancelled Montana class.

Please don't confuse this class with the South Dakotas built in the late 1930s commisioned in the early 1940s.