I’m sure a lot of you have seen his reviews. Always make me chuckle - especially his hatred for metric but this one made me laugh.

Someone in the comments calls the Phalanx CIWS an “R2D2 with a murder boner” and coffee bout ruined my iPad.

I'm a member of the recommissioning crew and plank-owner of the New Jersey and earned my surface warfare pin on her so yeah, I had to watch this.
It's pretty entertaining and he had some pretty good comments.

"Range 24 miles, not meters, not Commie miles, real miles" Love it.

Don't these have a terrible maintenance burden and can be overwhelmed in a modern missile exchange? Don't the Russian ship counterparts have larger missile counts.

The old naval tactics don't interest me much. History is interesting but from a warfare standpoint I often wonder how things will really play out in an over the horizon all out missile battle.

The Lord’s flannel….

This guys talks about the fundamental doctrine difference between Russia and the US when it comes to naval weapons system load outs on ships. Kind of interesting.

My pap served on the Iowa during Korea.....



showimg off the big guns...

Oldhat,

I was a MK15 Phalanx Sailor for 22 years and then did 14 more years working on it as a contractor.

CIWS is pretty damn effective, which is why the land based variant CRAM ( counter rocket, artillery, mortar) was used in the green zones in Iraq and Afghanistan. Shot down lots of RPG's and mortars. Maybe as importantly when it detected an incoming it blared a base wide alarm to give you a few seconds to find cover.

Any weapon system can be overwhelmed given circumstances.

FCC(SW) Ret.

I was in the third class ever held for CIWS in San Diego. The first two were for the instructors.

FC1(SW) Ret

The USS New Jersey has a YouTube channel. The curator who is the host isn't very polished in his delivery, but gives out a lot of good information. Go to YouTube and search "Battleship New Jersey".

A history teacher like that would get schit done.

That's interesting. Thanks.

I have no doubt the phalanx is highly effective given the right circumstances.

I went to CIWS C school in Feb 83, USS Reeves CG-24 out of Yokasuka in Oct 83. Good times, playing with the commies in the south china sea.

I read that one of the Seabee's standard weapons is the Tommy gun. Is that true? I've never heard of that before. Are they even made now? I thought they went out with the end of WWII.
It was on the web, though, so it MUST be true.

I remember hearing the shells flying over head and hearing the rumble of their impact in the far distance. Almost felt sorry for the Gooks.

Semper Fi

Thanks, Andrew.

I literally LOL’d watching that.

So many one liners.

Got a tour of the New Jersey as a kid...Bad Mo Fo

All his vids are like that.

My father served aboard the New Jersey. Never spoke much about it, not many of that period did.

Osky

wasn't there a member here that used to get to be the trigger man in one of those big bastards?

I have fired them.

How's the recoil? cause a flinch? LOL

Look at the shock waves. Wow.

No more tommy guns. Replaced by the M16 long ago.

Hammers, saws, screw drivers and pipe wrenches are still carried into battle though!

Can do.

2700 lbs of freight.

Iowa Class

The US Navy's Iowa (four ships) class battleships carried a main armament of nine 16"/50 caliber guns in three triple turrets. The previous North Carolina (two ships) and South Dakota (four ships) classes carried a very similar main battery of nine 16"/45 caliber guns. These 10 ships, completed between 1941 and 1944, comprised the USN's "third generation" battleships and all saw service in WW II.

The designation 16"/50 means a 16" diameter shell and a barrel 50 calibers long. That would be 16x50=800 inches, or a barrel 66.66 feet long. The 16"/45 gun fired the same shells from a slightly shorter barrel 60 feet long.

The specifications for these hugely powerful naval rifles are interesting, although the details vary somewhat depending on the source. According to the American Rifleman magazine in 2017, each 16"/50 gun weighed around 390,000 pounds. Remember, American battleships carried nine of these guns!

The barrel had 96 rifling grooves (shades of Marlin's micro-groove type rifling, which is typical of cannons). The twist rate was one turn in 25 calibers, or 1:400". The maximum service pressure was 18.5 tons psi, or 37,000 pounds psi.

Shells of different weights were fired, weighing from approximately 1,900 to 2,700 pounds. The heaviest shell was the AP (armor piercing) projectile, which had a maximum range 42,345 yards from the 16"/50 gun, or 39,000 yards from the 16"/45 gun (about 22 miles).

According to Jane's Fighting Ships (circa WW II), the muzzle velocity (MV) was up to 2800 fps with a 2100 pound shell and muzzle energy was 98,406 ft. tons. The rate of fire was about two rounds per minute.

The 2700 pound "super heavy" 16" AP projectile, developed in 1939 for the third generation battleships, was supposed to be able to penetrate 16" thick steel armor plate at 28,000 yards. This gave the USN battleships' 16" guns penetration close to that of the Japanese 18.1" guns mounted on the contemporary Yamato class battleships, which fired a 3200 pound AP shell.

[img]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_The_Sullivans_(DDG-68)[/img]

The sideways movement of the ship caused by the 16" guns recoil may have been folklore:

math for nerds

INDEED!!!

the battleship New Jersey has a youtube channel. It covers every little detail of the ship

https://www.youtube.com/c/BattleshipNewJersey

My father was on an LST for the Tarawa, Kwajelein, etc landings and he said that at night you could see the red hot shells from the bombardment as they flew overhead. He also said later when going ashore there was unexploded ordnance all over.