Ahh, now this brings back memories. In first or second grade, we had an assignment over the weekend to spend the weekend learning a family members job. Most kids learned what mom or dad did. I asked my grandfather to teach me about his job before he retired from sales. His response, "Nah, that s&%^ is boring. How bout I teach you what I did during the war?" He was part of the Alabamas 5" gun crew. Monday rolls around, and I give a demonstration to the class about how to load, aim, and fire a 5" 38 gun. At least that was the intent. I was about halfway through when my teacher said that was enough and a parent teacher conference was called.
That's good! After being sent to the principal for correcting my first grade teacher on how a steam engine worked, my presentation on what my father does at work got the same result. My mother and father met in the design Department of General Electric Evendale. So I showed up with a cutaway of a turbo fan engine and Sample compressor blades stator veins and turbine buckets. I then proceeded to explain how jet engines work. The school system was not pleased!
Good Sir I am my wife took the time to walk through BB 60 through every hatch that was available then some that were not I was however able to get into a 5 inch 38 turret and see where the magic in the hustle happens like on Iowa I bet their fire rate was close to at maximum in the 20s where they had to be I think in around 14 to 15 per minute but will train crews excelled and hustled I’m glad I was able to walk on this beautiful boat and travel some of the same grounds that your grandfather did I know he was proud this boat had so many battle stars and such an excellent record for A stellar record for losses of life in the bare minimum
@@Ghauster School administrators have no funny bones and teachers are tired of having to deal with them. Clearly none of the kids is going to hijack a warship, but you risk a bunch of tiring complaints when the parents misunderstand their kids' retelling of it all.
@@markjordan348 i'm in korea, and as a young 15 year old i had a history teacher who thought that FDR was elected thrice, the cuban missile crisis happened in the 70's. i correct him a lot(last week i told him about when Euromaidan happened)but i still havent gone to the principal's office
Charle Adams class DDG, somewhere near the Philippines, around 1978. Doing some gunnery practice with a gunner's mate in control using the sight in the 5"/54 forward mount. As the ship was rolling back and forth, the gunner pulled the trigger when the reticle was on the horizon. As you all know, the gun fires 1.5 seconds after the trigger is pulled (of course, the stable element was disengaged) The shell hit the water about 500 yards off the starboard side and skipped like a stone to the horizon. It was surreal. I have several other stories like this if you're interested
Please share them!!! The more detail, the better! Those who have the attention span of a goldfish can keep scrolling. Those of us interested in hearing all of the stories regardless of length would love to hear your cool stories James. :)
I actually saw a turret going down the freeway on the back of a flat bed trailer. I would guess it was heading to some ship to replace the previous turret. No one was tailgating that semi.
I worked on MT 53 and MT 56. When I first reported on board in 1983 I was a GMGSA. I was put in the magazine as my GQ station and during gun shoots. Eventually I became Mount Captain. I left MT 56 and became ships armorer. Tight quarters yes. Was really fun standing watches 4 hrs on 8 hrs off (condition 3 watch) off of Beirut. Many hours in MT 55 off of Beirut. During 80’s we only had 1 man at the fuse setter station. The “observer” behind the pointer was only there for a gun shoot for safety. Making sure down range was clear. On my time onboard MT 55 was manned by the Marines. We had 1 Gunners mate assigned for maintenance. Also during the 80’s we had 1 person each side of gun opposite the hot case man. He would stand on the platform next to the doors of the mount. He was the gun captain. He was responsible for depressing the lever that would drop the rammer spade. He would also keep an eye on the crew of that gun and make sure they were being safe. After the gun was done shooting he would look down the barrel to make sure it was clear. We always had the mount in auto when shooting. This places the mount under direction of fire control. They would also shoot the guns by sending an electrical current to the firing pin. I blabbed on for to long. Ryan, thank you for this video. Brought back great memories.
There is a plaque outside of mount 55 dedicated to the service of the Marines who manned the mount in her final time in commission. I hope the condition of the mount is generally to your liking. I’m one of a bunch of volunteers who restored 55 last fall, until it got too cold to paint the deck…which was the last thing left. There were issues getting paint due to supply chain issues, and we only had haze grey when it warmed up so that is what i used. Incorrect i know, but we expect to be able to get in there with some deck grey in the spring! Thanks for your service then and comment today. Hearing these stories is a big driver for us who keep her up.
GMG, please blab some more! 😺 Fascinating comment. I enjoyed your stories and information greatly. You could write a comment 4x as long and I'd read it all. My uncle was in the Marine Corp in the 80s and he was in Beirut when the barracks was bombed. He was Motor T. He wasn't inside the barracks, but he was nearby. Apparently the explosion threw him up out of the bed/cot/hammock that he was sleeping on nearby and tossed him onto the ground. He was tasked with combing through rubble looking for survivors. He saw a hand coming up out of the rubble at one point and went to grab it, thinking it was someone needing to be pulled out to safety. Nope. When he pulled it out, there was no body attached to it. :( He was extremely, EXTREMELY mentally damaged by his service there. His PTSD was very difficult to cope with. I surprise nobody when I say that he self medicated with alcohol. :(
@@tonyInPA How cool is it that one of the volunteers who restored the mount gets to talk to a sailor who actually served inside of it and fired its guns in anger?!?! This was such a cool thread to find! 😺
@@tonyInPA When I was on active duty we sometimes had to use haze grey mixed with waterline black, so it's pretty normal. What matters most is you don't have to deal with rust later(and they would make us redo it once we had the proper supplies).
Your Mount 55 is in excellent shape. I was in one of the starboard mounts on the Salem last year and was in need of a good paint job. I will be visiting the Massachusetts on Thursday for a firepower tour with Dr. John Scholes !
when I was like 14 my dad took me down to the USS MASSACHUSETTES.. like 25 years ago before its dry dock.. freaking AWESOME!!! Totally fed my fascination with WW2 Battleships.. Next door there was a Titanic museum.. Definity a full day of Awesomeness!! Have a great time.. I know you will!!
Common misconception. Not true. The modern phrase is, "Not enough room to swing a cay by its tail." Stories of swinging cats by their tails (and myriad other cruel 'games' and torture involving felines) exist in literature predating recorded uses of cat-o-nine-tails in the navy. Besides, sailors were whipped on deck, all other sailors assembled to observe the punishment, the subject usually strapped, chained, or tied to a mast. Stories of swinging cats, bottling cats, and using cats for bow practice exist back to the 1500s, along with anectodes mentioning small spaces and a lack of room to swing a cat. Howerver, cat-o-nine-tails don't appear to be used in the British Royal Navy until 1695, let alone allowing time for the phrase to come into frequent use, as it already had since the 1500s to describe small spaces and swinging an unlucky cat. It is first recorded in writing in the theological and medical treatise by Richard Kephale in London, 1665, who used the phrase to describe the small rooms the poor lived in. "They had not space enough (according to the vulgar saying) to swing a Cat in." Practice at the time would capitalize the name of an animal, such as a Cat, Dog, or Horse, but not a device or weapon, such as a cat-o-nine-tails, sword, or pike.
@@mannys9130 There are few things better in life than having a warm cat curled up on your lap on a cool evening, purring away as you scratch its favorite spot.
@@Smokr Or in Jackson Galaxy training. So fun to see my Joey Bear (all black cat) take the kitty treats right from my hand in front of my Mini Assy Shepherd mouth. I'm trying to have them be partners in my home. My mini still likes to chase her, and chew on her ( licking her) it's amazing what treats will do to get the two together. The former owners of the cat, when I watched the cat never Purred. She was never very friendly. Now she is a very gentle Loving cat. I used to watch her, feed her when they went on vacation. They Declawed her front paws (big No,No in my book) when they moved closer to their children. The owners of Joey Bear. Said you want the Cat, said without Hesitation, by all means YES. I never let her outside,( they would let her out all the time) she is such a great cat now that she lives inside CAT with me and my wife.
Let's face it. Cats are the spawn of Satan. Swinging them by the tail, may induce enough centripetal acceleration to remove the evil spirit....or just be fun. You may remember scenes of this in Monty Python and the Holy Grail. Their love is conditional & temporary, kind of like that high school girlfriend who broke up with you, and then wandered back into your life every once in a while.
As a tank crewman on the M60 Patton tank, I know how loud close proximity firing of the 105 mm main gun can be, although these were not as big as the 5 in., 38 were. But still, I know the 5 inch were labor intensive. Thanks for the video, and Go Navy. Cheers from an old Army veteran from Texas.
One of my favorite tanks! Gotta love a traversing coupola and a huge cast body with round underside so mines deflect off and around if not too big. Those M60's are so huge! One near me here in IA. M1, Merkava Mk4, Tiger II, M60, 38(t), and the IS-10 are favorites of mine.
I'd love to see a short How to Fire the 5" Gun On the Zumwalt Class video and it's just Ryan sitting at a desk. "You can't. nobody can or ever will." 8 second video.
Apart from small arms the only thing i "shot" was trash out the TDU (Trash Disposal Unit) just about every other watch.... oh the joys of being A-Gang....
As an FG3 on the New Jersey, I was assigned to the radar etc for mount 52, in 1969. It was fastinating to me that the actual "trigger" to fire the gun was in the Plot room, mounted on the computer. The loudest biggest gun I was close to when firing was a 3"-50 open deck gun on a DE, Being so close to it, it was VERY loud, you could feel the concussion wave surge right thru you. Unfortunately at the time I had a cold, and there was not ear protectiion, not even cotton. My right ear, the one closest to the gun during loading, STILL rings all these years later, very annoying.
I'm very sorry that you lost your hearing/acquired tinnitus as a result of your service. I often wondered how in the hell ANY of the gunners in ALL branches were able to walk away from a war with any hearing left. I mean...I can only imagine being a 40mm AA gunner yanked out of bed and scrambled to battle stations without time to plug your ears, and firing hundreds of autocannon rounds at attacking aircraft while 5" mounts and maybe even the 16" or 14" mains were firing. There were 40mm mounts on top of the 16" turrets of many ships. I don't know if they suspended firing of the main battery when AA gunners were manning the guns nearest to the main turrets or if they just said "That's part of the job kids; suck it up." Anyway, thank you for serving and sacrificing your right cochlea to the war effort. You are no different than guys who got shot or lost a body part due to shrapnel/blast injuries. Your body was physically damaged during combat.
@@mannys9130 I was an infantry soldier during the Vietnam War. I was not issued ear protection. If you are facing possible death in combat and are expendable, why would they worry about your hearing? The big offenders that wrecked hearing? Feeding belts of ammunition into machineguns, hand grenade simulators used on you during training, and firing the enemy’s rocket propelled grenades.
@@rascal0175 thank you for your suggestion. After I was out of the Navy and realized the ringing was not going away I went to the VA and was tested. It was the crickets and ringing, and after the third test of the same tone I'd report I could hear that tone.. ie I could differentiate it from the other sounds. They said they would get me a 'masker' but that wouldn't take away the noise. I've done ok ..closed captions help.. And serving briefly on BB62 was special. On top of everything, the New Jersey was ported in Long Beach where my girlfriend was in college. We're celebrating 53 years marriage today.
I'll never forget walking up to the Wisconsin as a kid on a field trip in elementary school and saying to my mom "I hope they fire the guns!" She said "Honey those guns don't still fire." And the moment those words left her mouth one of the 5 inch guns barked off! (I think) Absolutely loved that moment as a kid lol
At 22:41. you can see Ryan's hard-won UA-cam experience in action. "It's a fifty-five-pound shell..." (pauses to consider what's about to happen in the comments, as dozens of naval gunnery experts all over the world adjust their keyboards and begin to type _Actually I think you'll find_ ) "... fifty-four and a _half_ pounds... and a twenty-two-pound powder canister." Good save! ;) Biggest gun I've ever fired, at least in terms of sheer projectile mass and diameter, would be a replica .58-caliber Remington 1863 "Zouave" rifle that my late grandfather had. Beautiful gun, and a lot of fun to shoot... even if I did have to wear a welding gauntlet on my right hand to keep the percussion cap fragments out of my arm, being left-handed and all. (Learned that lesson the hard way. Ouch.)
As I've mentioned before, I was on USS Stoddard DD-566, a Fletcher class destroyer, in 1968-69. During my tenure we did a lot of training and one Westpac cruise where we did shore bombardment, and plane guard duties behind USS Intrepid and America, in the Tonkin Gulf off Vietnam. My GQ station was in mount 53, a single 5"-38. I was the trainer, in that right hand tractor seat. We threw something like 5000 rounds (counting all 4 mounts) at targets specified by spotters ashore. My favorite story about those days was the time an observation helo came out to say hi to us when nothing was happening ashore. But there was nobody to wave at up forward, so he came back aft. You see, mounts 51 and 52 were in plain sight of the bridge, so even during dead times the gun crews had to stay inside the mount with the hatch closed, or get yelled at by the OOD. But back aft nobody could see us, so we went out on deck to relax. The night before, we had fired quite a few rounds, maybe hundreds. I guess wind and current forced the ship to be heading maybe 20° to starboard of our target. This nearly put our muzzle into the stops, and quite close to the gun tub of the 3"-50 mount just forward of us and at the next level up. The steel gun tub did not react well to all those muzzle blasts! They actually caved the steel in and cracked it! In the morning someone came out with a cutting torch to cut a semicircle around the crack to keep it from spreading. Ugly, but a good temporary fix. Back to that little chopper, whose pilot saw people out on deck chilling out. We communicated with hand signals, and he had to know what that hole in the gun tub was all about. With hand signals, we told him about last night's action and how we - sort of - shot a hole in our own ship! He got a big belly laugh out of that. I heard later that the skipper was very unhappy, wanted to know what this chopper wanted.
I was aboard the America for the '68 deployment. Thanks for hacking the plane guard duty. Sometimes that looked like a rough ride from the fantail of CVA 66. A couple of our guys from "R" division got a TAD visit to one of the plane guards and were very happy to get home.
@@paullewis5045 We went through two typhoons on that rusty tin can! Oh what fun! From the bridge, trying to keep her on course, we'd watch as the focsle rose HIGH on a monster wave, then slammed into the trough, the water rising above the deck, and all the water in the world slammed into the bridge. 30 foot waves, huge. Up forward I walked aft in a fore-aft passageway which ended at a ladder. I pu my foot on the first step, the ship went into the next trough, and my foot had nothing to step on! Ashore, the ground was moving. Had to turn our sea legs OFF!
@@jimmacaulay844 You guys did stay behind by quite a bit. On rough days there seemed to be more spray over the bow than ship. A big storm must have been real sporty! That is why I thought thanks were in order. Had to be long days and nights. I only remember rigging for rough WX one time off Cape Hatteras. My shop was sitting on the last frame. So, we could hear the props come out of the water. NBD by your experience but plenty unusual to get 88000 tons and 1000 feet of ship moving to that degree.
Good presentation. I visited the weapons training building at Great Lakes a very long time ago. Back when Talos, Terrier, and Tartar were still in Service along with the 3"/70 most of which went to Japan. We spent 20 minutes in the dual 5"/38 mount which had most of the upper armor removed. Fun times. Biggest gun I have fired was a replica cannon that fired bear cans full of concrete with a cloth diaper used as a seal wrapped around it. That was during the hundredth year since the US Civil war had started.
Great video! I didn't realize there was so much manpower in the mount, but I can see it took a lot of stamina to keep those guns firing. The biggest gun I fired was M110A2 203mm (8") howitzer. HE projectile weighed 200 lbs. Standing behind the gun, you could watch the shell leave the tube, until it reached the top of its trajectory. Firing Charge 8 (not the highest charge, but higher than the normal charges used in training) really moved a 32 ton vehicle from the recoil. Our maximum rate of fire was 3 rounds per 2 minutes (for 2 minutes), then maximum sustained rate of fire was 1 round per 2 minutes. In combat, I expect this rate of fire would have been exceeded.
23:35 Yes of course! I have a Replica Montana class in mint condition upgunned to 18" in the pond right behind my house! 😜 I love to annoy my neighbors with blowing out their window glasses with a supercharge broadside going off 😝
I had two twin mounts on the Laffey, the first time I went to sea. But I only had two singles on Koelsch. We trained to fire the single mounts at 25 rpm. I have humped those suckers that fast. I always heard the twin mounts were slower. Also, setting the fuse does not make the shell live. The fuse is armed by three effects: the linear and rotational acceleration of firing and engaging the rifling as it moves up the tube, and finally the set back as acceleration stops when it clears the muzzle.
Seriously!? Laffey is my all time favorite Naval history story. I've been to see her in Charleston several times. I would love to hear more about your time onboard at sea!
Thank you for that further info, on live Ammo warhead. That's the first thing I thought about. Was WOW how much time do you have before warhead goes off.( Bang)
Served my first command as a GMGSN out of GM A school aboard a gearing class Fram destory (USS Bausell DD845) out of Yokosuka Japan early 1970's. Stared out as a trainer in mt51 and within 2 years or so, was promoted to mount captain as a second class GM. I well always remember my second gun projectile man, Dick Dillman a farm boy from Montana , he could pull out and load the right gun with one hand. We always laugh that he could load both guns at the same time, the powder man could not keep up with him. Dick if you're out there watching, FRAM's forever. Years later served aboard USS Wisconsin BB-64 as a GMC
8" S.P. Artillery. Twisted on the lanyard once on my last reserve annual training. Trained on an M60, so NATO 7.62x51mm. As a civilian, and before the Army, was a 30.06 for a modern rifle, or a .58 caliber minie ball from a black powder replica Springfield 1861 (I think) I liked the musket, but I was not sufficiently prepared for the 30.06. My shoulder was bruised for several days afterwards.
I was a Gunners Mate on USS Rogers (DD 876) We had being a Gering Class Destroyer we had two 5" 38 twin mounts. You were correct about Fuze Setter, Sight Setter, Train, Elevation, Projectile Man, Powder Man and Hot Case Man. The Mount Captain and the Gun Captain are two separate positions. The Mount Captain is the person in charge of the Gun Mount. The Gun Captain was the person who lowers the Ramer before the Powder Man places the Powder Casing on the Loading Tray is the person who notified the Mount Captain that the barrel is clear or foul. The Sight Checker is typically a Junior Officer that is there during training exercises.
Was FTG 3 on USS Zellars, DD 777 (Sumner class) 1967-68. Served as trainer, then pointer in the gun director. Pointer's hand wheel grips have one trigger each. The rare times we practiced salvo fire, the left one was a warning buzzer to the mounts, the right one fired the guns. The sequence was 'Buzz, Buzz, Bang.' What a gas to send six 55 pound bullets downrange at 2,600 fps!
I love videos about the 5" 38s! The gun mount 53 experience on USS Laffey is really cool and made me want to learn a lot more about these things. (and the Laffey in general)
I believe the original saying would have been "There is not enough room to swing a cat" This is in reference to the amount of room needed to swing a Cat of nine tails - an British navy sailing era whip about three feet long. So it didn't need a lot of room to swing
My first GQ station was loading shells in the 5 inch magazine on USS Fox CG-33. It does get tiring loading those 55 pound shells. Ours was an older manual loading single barrel gun like those on New Jersey. My second ship had auto loading 5 inch guns fore and aft, USS Harry W Hill DD-986. I was phone talker from DC central to the bridge on there. Quite a difference in GQ stations. I loved my experiences on board during my time in the navy.
Biggest gun I ever fired was a 3 inch/50 aboard the USS Manitowoc LST 1180. I was a 3rd class Midshipman on my summer cruise in 1973. The crew had lashed a bunch of 55 gallon drums together into a makeshift raft (along with a mast covered in aluminum foil to make a better radar target). This was tossed over the side, we steamed away a bit, and some of the middies got to take turns trying to sink it using both optical and radar aiming. We failed miserably, to the point where the captain (a Mustang and one of the coolest officers I met in by brief navy career) got frustrated, had us steam back alongside the raft, grabbed an M14 from the gun locker, and proceeded to sink it himself by filling it with 30 caliber holes. Ahhh... the memories! LOL
This takes me back to about '75, when in the naval cadets at school, we went to HMS Excellent (Royal Navy's gunnery school) on one particular Field Day (Cadet Force events days) and went into the single 3 or 4 inch (can't remember) open mount gunnery trainer. We went steadily through the training process but one MAJOR difference was that you rammed the shell up into the breech with your FIST! (No charge was used as we were a little sub-strength, being in only our mid teens). A fist was used to minimise the chances of your fingers being lopped off as the breech slammed shut, pushing your hand out of the way! We went through the training for this, then each team would compete for the fastest time to "fire off" 6 rounds. I thould add that the competition was done in near darkness, with full volume "battle at sea" sound effects - and the gun platform was moving in all directions to simulate being on a WW1 destroyer at sea in foul weather - complete with wind and (albeit light) rain! Probably THE MOST FUN two hours in my entire time in the cadets!!! This also included a week on a frigate in the North Sea - an absolutely HORRENDOUS time, as I also get violently seasick - and ultimately leading the entire CCF corps on parade as a Cadet Coxswain with a visiting Admiral taking the salute! Fun times!! EDIT: - I think we used the charge cannisters, but not the dummy shells themselves (considered too heavy/risky for us). Also the winning team got their 6 off in well under a minute! Not bad for a bunch of kids!
Oh, what guns have I fired besides being on the crew of the 5". After my 16 months on Stoddard, I took a couple months of training at Coronado, and then went to see what the war was REALLY all about. Won't go into details, but the training included most of the commonly used forearms. What I fondly remember was a Tommy Gun, a BAR, and course the M-16. We were briefly taught how to field strip the M-16. Complicated beast that is! In 'Nam I carried a 45 and only used it for target practice. Never got in dicey situations.
Awesome video. Thanks for posting. I got a chuckle out of the comment about "putting on the asbestos gloves for safety", then missed the distinction between the hot case guy and shell guard.
10 or 12 years ago I toured the NJ...we showed up unknowingly before some event... The fan tail had a huge white canopy over it with at least a 100 folding chairs set up..no idea what it was...but they test fired a five inch gun when we were there on the bow. So like 200' away maybe.it was amazing.. I will never forget it...set off all sorts of car alarms on the pa side of the river. Top ten days to date....👍🇺🇸 btw lots of stairs and ladders. Don't miss the battle bridge its impressive
When I served on the USS Oklahoma City (CLG-5) from 1970 to 1972, the 5"-54 mount was manned by the marine detachment. I remember having to climb over pallets of 5" shells in order to get to my bunk.
I'm sorry, but the "Under Siege" that I know is a hollywood movie, not a documentary lol.🙂🙃🙂 Yeah, just nit-picking. You are the best museum ship channel on UA-cam hands down. Thank you so much for what you do.
My fathers battle station was mount 52 on the light cruiser USS Atlanta. When visiting the USS New Jersey I remember going in one of the mounts that was opened. Amazing how cramped it was.
Recently I had the chance to tour the Battleship Iowa in Southern California with my boys and had the opportunity to step inside the duel 5in guns and inside the 16in main guns-including the one that blew up! Both turets were a bit cramped and if you had any closerphobic issues, they were not something you would want to serve in. Cool opportunity to visit one of these awesome battleships and would recommend to visit one if you have the chance!
The round isn't armed/live until it leaves the barrel and has rotated a specific number of times. The "extractors" located on the breech block, engage the rim on the powder case and as the rammer scoops the load into the chamber, the breech block is pulled up by the leverage of the extractors rotate against the face of the breech.The rammer is push up to the upper track as the block closes. Upon firing, the barrel recoils, the rammer recoils with it, and the upper track is engaged by the rammer and it is powered to the rear, being caught by the rammer release lever at the back of the gun. The release lever hold the rammer in the up position against spring pressure. This allows space for the spent case to be ejected from the gun. After the case is clear, the rammer release lever is pushed down, usually by the gun captain. The rammer is then spring driven to the ram/down position. On a closed mount, the projectile man is called the first loader. He loads and operates the rammer control.
I was in the Army, I was a TOW Gunner later an M1A1 Abrams Tanker. The TOW was a 152mm and the M256 Main Gun was 120mm. I am amazed at Naval Artillery on old battleships.
We say a room isnt big enough to swing a cat. Ive heard it was short for Cat-O-nine tails which was a whip to discipline the convicts who were the first settlers in Sydney (Australia)
Note: sailing ships of the line could man the guns and fire both broadsides simultaneously. Gun crews were often 2x the minimum required. Everyone had a backup so somebody was ready to take over when enemy cannonballs and splinters took out part of the crew. Extra bodies also helped speed up the running in and out of the guns.
Another aspect of metal cased ammo, especially brass cased ammo is that it absorbs some of the heat when the gun goes off and when the case is ejected it takes the heat with it. This is one of the many difficulties of developing personal firearms that fire caseless ammunition.
For those that want to see some vintage 1951's footage of the gun being loaded in actual combat, here is a video of it during the Korean war. ua-cam.com/video/mYpvtU1SDEk/v-deo.html
Best we had were the Mark 38 25mm guns on the Emory S Land. One time I was taking a nap in our compartment that was right below and adjacent to the rear starboard gun mount. It was the end of working hours and I was exhausted, and I forgot the gunners were doing a nighttime live fire exercise. It woke me up from a dead sleep, and I didn't realize it was the guns. I thought it was some rude ass dude banging on our door from the p-way, and I was pissed xD
Does a secondary battery diminish or in anyway compromise the main armament? Could I get another inch or so from the main gun if I eliminated the secondaries?
I was on several destroyers with 5"-38 guns. One with single mounts and the others with twin. I've hand cranked the single mount And it's not too taxing, but the mount isn't armored and probably a third of the weight of BB 5" mounts. Doing gunfire support missions in Vietnam, we fired a lot of shells but usually no more than 5 or 6 in a string. On a six gun ship, that's only one shell per gun. Only a few times did we rapid fire all the guns in some action. And then probably less than 30 shells. We did fire white phosphorous, usually at night. From 1-2 miles away they looked like giant white Christmas trees. While we had good gun crews for the time, we were in no way near the loading speed of WWII. In normal peacetime I doubt we fired the guns once every three months. The practice loading machines were removed on all destroyers, I assume to save weight for something else. I read that in 1980, after Korea and Vietnam, the navy still had 750,000 5" rounds in storage.
This looks like a gun that was installed on so many other types of ships not just battleships and cruisers as secondary guns. Been a long time since I last built a WW US warship Cruiser and destroyer models.
Yep, the 5"/38 dual mounts were very popular and used on many ships. Gearing class destroyers had them as the main battery, for example. Atlanta class light cruisers had them as their main battery. Light and heavy cruisers had them for the secondaries, as did battleships. They were quick firing and dual purpose, and that made them *VERY* powerful and versatile weapons. They could take on small ships like destroyers and cruisers and submarines and PT boats with AP or HE shells, they could do medium and close range shore bombardment with HE shells, they could do long range AA, and they could put star shells above enemy ships and battlefields so everyone could see what they were supposed to be firing at. The Atlanta class was basically an AA platform. Her early config was a broadside of 14 5"/38 guns. All of them firing AA shells with the VTF up in the air would make one hell of a flak cloud!!!
These blank rounds they use for the public are nothng like an actual full charge. I was onboard DD 785 during target practice and even the 40s are deafening. You can feel the concussion wave from the gun going off as well. It is amazing, it is all hell breaking lose. .
I was a 3”50 mk 33 mod 2 gunner. We had on average 7 men in an enclosed “ fiberglass shelled gun mount. . That’s right. These gun covers are for protecting the mount itself from the elements. It’s not armored as many folks believe they are.
shooting off a round from BSNJs 5/38 is a bucket list item for me. "Biggest" gun I've fired so far depends on definition, the Mk19 grenade launcher is the largest diameter, but the M2 HMG is the most powerful.
"Spinning a cat by its tail" is a derivative of "can't swing a cat" - which in turn references the cat o' nine tails (a type of whip/flail that was used in corporal punishment) and the fact that many spaces on sailing ships were too small to deliver lashes to a member of the crew.
I heard the phrase not enough room to swing a cat with any comfort to you or the cat Attributed to Mark Twain on the space n his cabin on an ocean liner. But I did not find it in a collection of his cat quotes. I did learn he was quite a car lover.
Was the "Fuse Setter" position still filled by a crewman during the 1980s or Vietnam deployments? I was just wondering because it seems like the whole point of setting fuses on the shells becomes mute when these guns are only being used for shore bombardment.
@@matthewbeasley7765 but did the Navy even still have shells with programmable fuses that use that setup still in the inventory? That seems one bit of kit that would not have kept well in storage unlike regular HE or AP rounds.
after watching this , knowing atlanta class pretty much uses the identical mounts, atlanta would probably be the worst to rebuild a identical one and put to service, if the gun don’t get redesign to be fully autoloading
Thank you for this video Ryan. It’s mind boggling the scale of the battleship. Then you need to feed and provide laundry for all those guys. Quick question, would the fire computer provide an individual solution for each gun mount or would they all fire exactly the same azimuth and hope one hits?
I'm not an expert (just an interested layperson) but I believe that's what the deflection adjustment is for. The primary and secondary fire directors computed azimuth and elevation based on the range and bearing data fed to the operators by the guys working the rangefinders. These were generally located somewhere amidships at the top of the superstructure, WWII-era battleships and cruisers mounted separate rangefinders for the primary and secondary batteries along with backups for both, and on some classes each primary gun mount had its own local "backup for the backups" mounted on the turret itself, although these obviously had a more limited range than the main units higher up in the ship (I believe all the Iowas had these on the 16 inch turrets, Ryan's done a video about the ones on the New Jersey). The deflection setting input in each gun house adjusted the required azimuth based on the location of the gun mount relative to the rangefinder being used. For example, a midships primary turret located on the vessel's centerline would only require a small deflection value, whereas a secondary mount on the port/starboard wings and located further towards the bow or stern would require a larger adjustment.
@@sixstringedthing Thank you for your reply. How would the local adjustment be calculated? Was it fairly simplistic (so many degrees/feet range) or was it more complex and adjusted for everything?
Swing a cat by the tail comes from the 17-18-19 century British navy ships. You don’t swing a “cat” but a “cat-o-nine tails” a knotted 9 piece section of ships rope. Not being able to swing it on an enclosed gun deck. Thinking of it this way, it makes a lot more sense.😀
@@kpolenz9772 this is true, but the problem with asbestos fabric is chafing, releasing tiny amounts to the air, as the navy discovered with their older FFEs and the like, but at least as late as '07 we were still using asbestos to insulate all kinds of realy hot bits like the drying towers for the HP air system and some steam piping and the like. By the way the older asbestos gloves that came with the FFEs were still floating around when I was in, even if they weren't in the DC lockers anymore.
Sorry that I missed Live Stream , I was on Door Duty 6:09 - 9 : 00 P.M. . Many Trick or Treaters , 2 eggs thrown . I will watch an older Video to make it up to You .
Thank you Ryan for adding such a very important video as to explaining how many people were in the gun house moving it super high speed do you have the ability and or can you find out if the gutters in war two they will practice getting up to 20 rows per second or faster than the auto loader today’s equivalent 5 inch gun Also can you provide more video to be able to show us the internal movements of all the choreographed visuals in the 6 inch guns and the 16 inch ? I’ve seen footage of Iowa or sister firing in Iraq war and Vietnam footage . As being in bb 60s 5 “. And the 16 “ please sir also was there ever a cameraman in the firing and computing room in ww2 or Vietnam falklands ?? Thank you for all you do sir for these gray Lady’s Prost
I would have said "It's in the breech of the gun, BOOM", instead of "BOOM, it's in the breech of the gun". The first form is much more desirable then the second, for the crew.
You can imagine what a bloody mess that gun house would be if it took a hit from a cruiser or BB main battery shell. One would hope that in a major surface to surface ship engagement that they would have de-staffed them. 15 rounds a minute......thats pretty crazy for 125mm artillery.........compared to land artillery.
Seems like the fuse setter and the deflection setter have one thing to set before you start shooting and then really don’t have much to do. Is that right or do they have to do this for every shot?
So Ryan, What is the total count of sailors to keep a twin mount firing, from the magazine , to the transfer deck ( where the shells and powder cans are shifted manually from elevator to elevator to the 14 in the actual mount?
Ahh, now this brings back memories.
In first or second grade, we had an assignment over the weekend to spend the weekend learning a family members job. Most kids learned what mom or dad did. I asked my grandfather to teach me about his job before he retired from sales. His response, "Nah, that s&%^ is boring. How bout I teach you what I did during the war?" He was part of the Alabamas 5" gun crew.
Monday rolls around, and I give a demonstration to the class about how to load, aim, and fire a 5" 38 gun. At least that was the intent. I was about halfway through when my teacher said that was enough and a parent teacher conference was called.
Teachers just have no funny bone.
That's good! After being sent to the principal for correcting my first grade teacher on how a steam engine worked, my presentation on what my father does at work got the same result. My mother and father met in the design Department of General Electric Evendale. So I showed up with a cutaway of a turbo fan engine and Sample compressor blades stator veins and turbine buckets. I then proceeded to explain how jet engines work. The school system was not pleased!
Good Sir I am my wife took the time to walk through BB 60 through every hatch that was available then some that were not I was however able to get into a 5 inch 38 turret and see where the magic in the hustle happens like on Iowa I bet their fire rate was close to at maximum in the 20s where they had to be I think in around 14 to 15 per minute but will train crews excelled and hustled I’m glad I was able to walk on this beautiful boat and travel some of the same grounds that your grandfather did I know he was proud this boat had so many battle stars and such an excellent record for A stellar record for losses of life in the bare minimum
@@Ghauster School administrators have no funny bones and teachers are tired of having to deal with them. Clearly none of the kids is going to hijack a warship, but you risk a bunch of tiring complaints when the parents misunderstand their kids' retelling of it all.
@@markjordan348 i'm in korea, and as a young 15 year old i had a history teacher who thought that FDR was elected thrice, the cuban missile crisis happened in the 70's.
i correct him a lot(last week i told him about when Euromaidan happened)but i still havent gone to the principal's office
Charle Adams class DDG, somewhere near the Philippines, around 1978. Doing some gunnery practice with a gunner's mate in control using the sight in the 5"/54 forward mount. As the ship was rolling back and forth, the gunner pulled the trigger when the reticle was on the horizon. As you all know, the gun fires 1.5 seconds after the trigger is pulled (of course, the stable element was disengaged) The shell hit the water about 500 yards off the starboard side and skipped like a stone to the horizon. It was surreal. I have several other stories like this if you're interested
Please share them!!! The more detail, the better! Those who have the attention span of a goldfish can keep scrolling. Those of us interested in hearing all of the stories regardless of length would love to hear your cool stories James. :)
Yes please!
Always good to hear "war stories" even if they aren't technically in a war 🙂
Yes, please tell them!
Why was it surreal?
Out of curiosity that wouldn’t happen to have been the Benjamin Stodert DDG-22 would it? My dad served on her around that time.
“The documentary Under Siege.” LMAO. You crack me up Ryan!
I have a 5" 38 gun turret at home just taking up space. Until now I was thinking "What the hell am I supposed to do with this thing?"
I actually saw a turret going down the freeway on the back of a flat bed trailer. I would guess it was heading to some ship to replace the previous turret. No one was tailgating that semi.
Well played! (Unless you are serious...in which case can I come over?)
I worked on MT 53 and MT 56. When I first reported on board in 1983 I was a GMGSA. I was put in the magazine as my GQ station and during gun shoots. Eventually I became Mount Captain. I left MT 56 and became ships armorer. Tight quarters yes. Was really fun standing watches 4 hrs on 8 hrs off (condition 3 watch) off of Beirut. Many hours in MT 55 off of Beirut. During 80’s we only had 1 man at the fuse setter station. The “observer” behind the pointer was only there for a gun shoot for safety. Making sure down range was clear. On my time onboard MT 55 was manned by the Marines. We had 1 Gunners mate assigned for maintenance. Also during the 80’s we had 1 person each side of gun opposite the hot case man. He would stand on the platform next to the doors of the mount. He was the gun captain. He was responsible for depressing the lever that would drop the rammer spade. He would also keep an eye on the crew of that gun and make sure they were being safe. After the gun was done shooting he would look down the barrel to make sure it was clear. We always had the mount in auto when shooting. This places the mount under direction of fire control. They would also shoot the guns by sending an electrical current to the firing pin. I blabbed on for to long. Ryan, thank you for this video. Brought back great memories.
There is a plaque outside of mount 55 dedicated to the service of the Marines who manned the mount in her final time in commission.
I hope the condition of the mount is generally to your liking. I’m one of a bunch of volunteers who restored 55 last fall, until it got too cold to paint the deck…which was the last thing left. There were issues getting paint due to supply chain issues, and we only had haze grey when it warmed up so that is what i used. Incorrect i know, but we expect to be able to get in there with some deck grey in the spring!
Thanks for your service then and comment today. Hearing these stories is a big driver for us who keep her up.
GMG, please blab some more! 😺 Fascinating comment. I enjoyed your stories and information greatly. You could write a comment 4x as long and I'd read it all. My uncle was in the Marine Corp in the 80s and he was in Beirut when the barracks was bombed. He was Motor T. He wasn't inside the barracks, but he was nearby. Apparently the explosion threw him up out of the bed/cot/hammock that he was sleeping on nearby and tossed him onto the ground. He was tasked with combing through rubble looking for survivors. He saw a hand coming up out of the rubble at one point and went to grab it, thinking it was someone needing to be pulled out to safety. Nope. When he pulled it out, there was no body attached to it. :( He was extremely, EXTREMELY mentally damaged by his service there. His PTSD was very difficult to cope with. I surprise nobody when I say that he self medicated with alcohol. :(
@@tonyInPA How cool is it that one of the volunteers who restored the mount gets to talk to a sailor who actually served inside of it and fired its guns in anger?!?! This was such a cool thread to find! 😺
@@tonyInPA When I was on active duty we sometimes had to use haze grey mixed with waterline black, so it's pretty normal. What matters most is you don't have to deal with rust later(and they would make us redo it once we had the proper supplies).
How did you pass the time for 4 hour watches with so many of you crammed inside such a small space?
Your Mount 55 is in excellent shape. I was in one of the starboard mounts on the Salem last year and was in need of a good paint job. I will be visiting the Massachusetts on Thursday for a firepower tour with Dr. John Scholes !
when I was like 14 my dad took me down to the USS MASSACHUSETTES.. like 25 years ago before its dry dock.. freaking AWESOME!!! Totally fed my fascination with WW2 Battleships.. Next door there was a Titanic museum.. Definity a full day of Awesomeness!! Have a great time.. I know you will!!
The phrase ‘not enough room to swing a cat’ is actually derived from the Cat o’ Nine Tails, a whip used for punishment in the Royal Navy.
Common misconception. Not true.
The modern phrase is, "Not enough room to swing a cay by its tail."
Stories of swinging cats by their tails (and myriad other cruel 'games' and torture involving felines) exist in literature predating recorded uses of cat-o-nine-tails in the navy. Besides, sailors were whipped on deck, all other sailors assembled to observe the punishment, the subject usually strapped, chained, or tied to a mast. Stories of swinging cats, bottling cats, and using cats for bow practice exist back to the 1500s, along with anectodes mentioning small spaces and a lack of room to swing a cat.
Howerver, cat-o-nine-tails don't appear to be used in the British Royal Navy until 1695, let alone allowing time for the phrase to come into frequent use, as it already had since the 1500s to describe small spaces and swinging an unlucky cat. It is first recorded in writing in the theological and medical treatise by Richard Kephale in London, 1665, who used the phrase to describe the small rooms the poor lived in.
"They had not space enough (according to the vulgar saying) to swing a Cat in."
Practice at the time would capitalize the name of an animal, such as a Cat, Dog, or Horse, but not a device or weapon, such as a cat-o-nine-tails, sword, or pike.
@@Smokr Thanks for the excellent info. I must say, I despise anyone who would harm a cat. I absolutely love cats. They are such amazing creatures. 😻
@@mannys9130 There are few things better in life than having a warm cat curled up on your lap on a cool evening, purring away as you scratch its favorite spot.
@@Smokr
Or in Jackson Galaxy training. So fun to see my Joey Bear (all black cat) take the kitty treats right from my hand in front of my Mini Assy Shepherd mouth. I'm trying to have them be partners in my home. My mini still likes to chase her, and chew on her ( licking her) it's amazing what treats will do to get the two together. The former owners of the cat, when I watched the cat never Purred. She was never very friendly. Now she is a very gentle Loving cat. I used to watch her, feed her when they went on vacation. They Declawed her front paws (big No,No in my book) when they moved closer to their children. The owners of Joey Bear. Said you want the Cat, said without Hesitation, by all means YES. I never let her outside,( they would let her out all the time) she is such a great cat now that she lives inside CAT with me and my wife.
Let's face it. Cats are the spawn of Satan. Swinging them by the tail, may induce enough centripetal acceleration to remove the evil spirit....or just be fun. You may remember scenes of this in Monty Python and the Holy Grail. Their love is conditional & temporary, kind of like that high school girlfriend who broke up with you, and then wandered back into your life every once in a while.
As a tank crewman on the M60 Patton tank, I know how loud close proximity firing of the 105 mm main gun can be, although these were not as big as the 5 in., 38 were. But still, I know the 5 inch were labor intensive. Thanks for the video, and Go Navy. Cheers from an old Army veteran from Texas.
One of my favorite tanks! Gotta love a traversing coupola and a huge cast body with round underside so mines deflect off and around if not too big. Those M60's are so huge! One near me here in IA. M1, Merkava Mk4, Tiger II, M60, 38(t), and the IS-10 are favorites of mine.
Ryan is by far my favourite UA-cam personality. He's always so funny in such a dry way and I am here for it.
Yes! In this video, he cracked me up at 10:48 with "...like in the documentary 'Under Siege!'"
I'd love to see a short How to Fire the 5" Gun On the Zumwalt Class video and it's just Ryan sitting at a desk. "You can't. nobody can or ever will." 8 second video.
I've fired 57mm, 90mm, and 106mm recoiless rifles. For indirect fire, I've fired 60mm, 81mm, and 4.2in mortars. Not bad for a medic! 😊
Apart from small arms the only thing i "shot" was trash out the TDU (Trash Disposal Unit) just about every other watch.... oh the joys of being A-Gang....
As an FG3 on the New Jersey, I was assigned to the radar etc for mount 52, in 1969. It was fastinating to me that the actual "trigger" to fire the gun was in the Plot room, mounted on the computer. The loudest biggest gun I was close to when firing was a 3"-50 open deck gun on a DE, Being so close to it, it was VERY loud, you could feel the concussion wave surge right thru you. Unfortunately at the time I had a cold, and there was not ear protectiion, not even cotton. My right ear, the one closest to the gun during loading, STILL rings all these years later, very annoying.
File a claim with the VA. You may qualify for a hearing aid and/or compensation. Visit the VA on line.
I'm very sorry that you lost your hearing/acquired tinnitus as a result of your service. I often wondered how in the hell ANY of the gunners in ALL branches were able to walk away from a war with any hearing left. I mean...I can only imagine being a 40mm AA gunner yanked out of bed and scrambled to battle stations without time to plug your ears, and firing hundreds of autocannon rounds at attacking aircraft while 5" mounts and maybe even the 16" or 14" mains were firing. There were 40mm mounts on top of the 16" turrets of many ships. I don't know if they suspended firing of the main battery when AA gunners were manning the guns nearest to the main turrets or if they just said "That's part of the job kids; suck it up." Anyway, thank you for serving and sacrificing your right cochlea to the war effort. You are no different than guys who got shot or lost a body part due to shrapnel/blast injuries. Your body was physically damaged during combat.
Welcome to the tinnitus crew! Lots of us engineers, and fun folk in this club.
@@mannys9130 I was an infantry soldier during the Vietnam War. I was not issued ear protection. If you are facing possible death in combat and are expendable, why would they worry about your hearing? The big offenders that wrecked hearing? Feeding belts of ammunition into machineguns, hand grenade simulators used on you during training, and firing the enemy’s rocket propelled grenades.
@@rascal0175 thank you for your suggestion. After I was out of the Navy and realized the ringing was not going away I went to the VA and was tested. It was the crickets and ringing, and after the third test of the same tone I'd report I could hear that tone.. ie I could differentiate it from the other sounds. They said they would get me a 'masker' but that wouldn't take away the noise.
I've done ok ..closed captions help.. And serving briefly on BB62 was special. On top of everything, the New Jersey was ported in Long Beach where my girlfriend was in college. We're celebrating 53 years marriage today.
I'll never forget walking up to the Wisconsin as a kid on a field trip in elementary school and saying to my mom "I hope they fire the guns!"
She said "Honey those guns don't still fire."
And the moment those words left her mouth one of the 5 inch guns barked off! (I think)
Absolutely loved that moment as a kid lol
A case of "Open mouth, insert foot".
Ahh, very useful information! I ordered my Iowa in WWII spec, and I was very confused as to how to use all these 5-inchers!
At 22:41. you can see Ryan's hard-won UA-cam experience in action. "It's a fifty-five-pound shell..." (pauses to consider what's about to happen in the comments, as dozens of naval gunnery experts all over the world adjust their keyboards and begin to type _Actually I think you'll find_ ) "... fifty-four and a _half_ pounds... and a twenty-two-pound powder canister."
Good save! ;)
Biggest gun I've ever fired, at least in terms of sheer projectile mass and diameter, would be a replica .58-caliber Remington 1863 "Zouave" rifle that my late grandfather had. Beautiful gun, and a lot of fun to shoot... even if I did have to wear a welding gauntlet on my right hand to keep the percussion cap fragments out of my arm, being left-handed and all. (Learned that lesson the hard way. Ouch.)
As I've mentioned before, I was on USS Stoddard DD-566, a Fletcher class destroyer, in 1968-69. During my tenure we did a lot of training and one Westpac cruise where we did shore bombardment, and plane guard duties behind USS Intrepid and America, in the Tonkin Gulf off Vietnam. My GQ station was in mount 53, a single 5"-38. I was the trainer, in that right hand tractor seat. We threw something like 5000 rounds (counting all 4 mounts) at targets specified by spotters ashore.
My favorite story about those days was the time an observation helo came out to say hi to us when nothing was happening ashore. But there was nobody to wave at up forward, so he came back aft. You see, mounts 51 and 52 were in plain sight of the bridge, so even during dead times the gun crews had to stay inside the mount with the hatch closed, or get yelled at by the OOD. But back aft nobody could see us, so we went out on deck to relax.
The night before, we had fired quite a few rounds, maybe hundreds. I guess wind and current forced the ship to be heading maybe 20° to starboard of our target. This nearly put our muzzle into the stops, and quite close to the gun tub of the 3"-50 mount just forward of us and at the next level up.
The steel gun tub did not react well to all those muzzle blasts! They actually caved the steel in and cracked it! In the morning someone came out with a cutting torch to cut a semicircle around the crack to keep it from spreading. Ugly, but a good temporary fix.
Back to that little chopper, whose pilot saw people out on deck chilling out. We communicated with hand signals, and he had to know what that hole in the gun tub was all about. With hand signals, we told him about last night's action and how we - sort of - shot a hole in our own ship! He got a big belly laugh out of that.
I heard later that the skipper was very unhappy, wanted to know what this chopper wanted.
I was aboard the America for the '68 deployment. Thanks for hacking the plane guard duty. Sometimes that looked like a rough ride from the fantail of CVA 66. A couple of our guys from "R" division got a TAD visit to one of the plane guards and were very happy to get home.
@@paullewis5045 We went through two typhoons on that rusty tin can! Oh what fun! From the bridge, trying to keep her on course, we'd watch as the focsle rose HIGH on a monster wave, then slammed into the trough, the water rising above the deck, and all the water in the world slammed into the bridge. 30 foot waves, huge.
Up forward I walked aft in a fore-aft passageway which ended at a ladder. I pu my foot on the first step, the ship went into the next trough, and my foot had nothing to step on!
Ashore, the ground was moving. Had to turn our sea legs OFF!
@@jimmacaulay844 You guys did stay behind by quite a bit. On rough days there seemed to be more spray over the bow than ship. A big storm must have been real sporty!
That is why I thought thanks were in order. Had to be long days and nights. I only remember rigging for rough WX one time off Cape Hatteras. My shop was sitting on the last frame. So, we could hear the props come out of the water. NBD by your experience but plenty unusual to get 88000 tons and 1000 feet of ship moving to that degree.
Good presentation. I visited the weapons training building at Great Lakes a very long time ago. Back when Talos, Terrier, and Tartar were still in Service along with the 3"/70 most of which went to Japan. We spent 20 minutes in the dual 5"/38 mount which had most of the upper armor removed. Fun times.
Biggest gun I have fired was a replica cannon that fired bear cans full of concrete with a cloth diaper used as a seal wrapped around it. That was during the hundredth year since the US Civil war had started.
Great video! I didn't realize there was so much manpower in the mount, but I can see it took a lot of stamina to keep those guns firing.
The biggest gun I fired was M110A2 203mm (8") howitzer. HE projectile weighed 200 lbs. Standing behind the gun, you could watch the shell leave the tube, until it reached the top of its trajectory. Firing Charge 8 (not the highest charge, but higher than the normal charges used in training) really moved a 32 ton vehicle from the recoil. Our maximum rate of fire was 3 rounds per 2 minutes (for 2 minutes), then maximum sustained rate of fire was 1 round per 2 minutes. In combat, I expect this rate of fire would have been exceeded.
I have one of those shells here - not the easiest thing to relocate! 😁
That explains the equipment I saw in one the 5"/38 gun house on the USS Salem this past weekend. Perfectly timed video!
23:35 Yes of course! I have a Replica Montana class in mint condition upgunned to 18" in the pond right behind my house! 😜 I love to annoy my neighbors with blowing out their window glasses with a supercharge broadside going off 😝
I love that when you said "Mount 55" I knew exactly what you meant and why. Thank you! My life is better because I watch your videos!
I had two twin mounts on the Laffey, the first time I went to sea. But I only had two singles on Koelsch. We trained to fire the single mounts at 25 rpm. I have humped those suckers that fast. I always heard the twin mounts were slower.
Also, setting the fuse does not make the shell live. The fuse is armed by three effects: the linear and rotational acceleration of firing and engaging the rifling as it moves up the tube, and finally the set back as acceleration stops when it clears the muzzle.
This makes sense as otherwise the timer would be counting down well your loading the shell and waiting for the command to fire.
Seriously!? Laffey is my all time favorite Naval history story. I've been to see her in Charleston several times. I would love to hear more about your time onboard at sea!
Thank you for that further info, on live Ammo warhead. That's the first thing I thought about. Was WOW how much time do you have before warhead goes off.( Bang)
Served my first command as a GMGSN out of GM A school aboard a gearing class Fram destory (USS Bausell DD845) out of Yokosuka Japan early 1970's. Stared out as a trainer in mt51 and within 2 years or so, was promoted to mount captain as a second class GM. I well always remember my second gun projectile man, Dick Dillman a farm boy from Montana , he could pull out and load the right gun with one hand. We always laugh that he could load both guns at the same time, the powder man could not keep up with him. Dick if you're out there watching, FRAM's forever. Years later served aboard USS Wisconsin BB-64 as a GMC
"When you're out of FRAMs, you're out of cans" Poster in the NROTC office at Auburn University.
8" S.P. Artillery. Twisted on the lanyard once on my last reserve annual training. Trained on an M60, so NATO 7.62x51mm. As a civilian, and before the Army, was a 30.06 for a modern rifle, or a .58 caliber minie ball from a black powder replica Springfield 1861 (I think)
I liked the musket, but I was not sufficiently prepared for the 30.06. My shoulder was bruised for several days afterwards.
I was a Gunners Mate on USS Rogers (DD 876) We had being a Gering Class Destroyer we had two 5" 38 twin mounts. You were correct about Fuze Setter, Sight Setter, Train, Elevation, Projectile Man, Powder Man and Hot Case Man. The Mount Captain and the Gun Captain are two separate positions. The Mount Captain is the person in charge of the Gun Mount. The Gun Captain was the person who lowers the Ramer before the Powder Man places the Powder Casing on the Loading Tray is the person who notified the Mount Captain that the barrel is clear or foul. The Sight Checker is typically a Junior Officer that is there during training exercises.
Was FTG 3 on USS Zellars, DD 777 (Sumner class) 1967-68. Served as trainer, then pointer in the gun director. Pointer's hand wheel grips have one trigger each. The rare times we practiced salvo fire, the left one was a warning buzzer to the mounts, the right one fired the guns. The sequence was 'Buzz, Buzz, Bang.' What a gas to send six 55 pound bullets downrange at 2,600 fps!
8”, 155mm, 105mm, and 75mm (blanks on the latter) howitzers. What’s fun is to stand behind the tube and watch the projectile leave the barrel.
Never would have guessed a crew of 14 in a tub that small. Amazing
I love videos about the 5" 38s! The gun mount 53 experience on USS Laffey is really cool and made me want to learn a lot more about these things. (and the Laffey in general)
I believe the original saying would have been "There is not enough room to swing a cat" This is in reference to the amount of room needed to swing a Cat of nine tails - an British navy sailing era whip about three feet long. So it didn't need a lot of room to swing
My first GQ station was loading shells in the 5 inch magazine on USS Fox CG-33. It does get tiring loading those 55 pound shells. Ours was an older manual loading single barrel gun like those on New Jersey. My second ship had auto loading 5 inch guns fore and aft, USS Harry W Hill DD-986. I was phone talker from DC central to the bridge on there. Quite a difference in GQ stations. I loved my experiences on board during my time in the navy.
Love it. Thank you for sharing this gun mount info.
Biggest gun I ever fired was a 3 inch/50 aboard the USS Manitowoc LST 1180. I was a 3rd class Midshipman on my summer cruise in 1973. The crew had lashed a bunch of 55 gallon drums together into a makeshift raft (along with a mast covered in aluminum foil to make a better radar target). This was tossed over the side, we steamed away a bit, and some of the middies got to take turns trying to sink it using both optical and radar aiming. We failed miserably, to the point where the captain (a Mustang and one of the coolest officers I met in by brief navy career) got frustrated, had us steam back alongside the raft, grabbed an M14 from the gun locker, and proceeded to sink it himself by filling it with 30 caliber holes. Ahhh... the memories! LOL
This takes me back to about '75, when in the naval cadets at school, we went to HMS Excellent (Royal Navy's gunnery school) on one particular Field Day (Cadet Force events days) and went into the single 3 or 4 inch (can't remember) open mount gunnery trainer. We went steadily through the training process but one MAJOR difference was that you rammed the shell up into the breech with your FIST! (No charge was used as we were a little sub-strength, being in only our mid teens). A fist was used to minimise the chances of your fingers being lopped off as the breech slammed shut, pushing your hand out of the way!
We went through the training for this, then each team would compete for the fastest time to "fire off" 6 rounds. I thould add that the competition was done in near darkness, with full volume "battle at sea" sound effects - and the gun platform was moving in all directions to simulate being on a WW1 destroyer at sea in foul weather - complete with wind and (albeit light) rain!
Probably THE MOST FUN two hours in my entire time in the cadets!!! This also included a week on a frigate in the North Sea - an absolutely HORRENDOUS time, as I also get violently seasick - and ultimately leading the entire CCF corps on parade as a Cadet Coxswain with a visiting Admiral taking the salute! Fun times!!
EDIT: -
I think we used the charge cannisters, but not the dummy shells themselves (considered too heavy/risky for us). Also the winning team got their 6 off in well under a minute! Not bad for a bunch of kids!
" The documentary - Under Siege".... Bwahahaha, brilliant!. The New Jersey is lucky to have such a top Curator as Ryan
Oh, what guns have I fired besides being on the crew of the 5". After my 16 months on Stoddard, I took a couple months of training at Coronado, and then went to see what the war was REALLY all about. Won't go into details, but the training included most of the commonly used forearms. What I fondly remember was a Tommy Gun, a BAR, and course the M-16. We were briefly taught how to field strip the M-16. Complicated beast that is! In 'Nam I carried a 45 and only used it for target practice. Never got in dicey situations.
Awesome video. Thanks for posting.
I got a chuckle out of the comment about "putting on the asbestos gloves for safety", then missed the distinction between the hot case guy and shell guard.
10 or 12 years ago I toured the NJ...we showed up unknowingly before some event... The fan tail had a huge white canopy over it with at least a 100 folding chairs set up..no idea what it was...but they test fired a five inch gun when we were there on the bow. So like 200' away maybe.it was amazing.. I will never forget it...set off all sorts of car alarms on the pa side of the river. Top ten days to date....👍🇺🇸 btw lots of stairs and ladders. Don't miss the battle bridge its impressive
When I served on the USS Oklahoma City (CLG-5) from 1970 to 1972, the 5"-54 mount was manned by the marine detachment. I remember having to climb over pallets of 5" shells in order to get to my bunk.
I'm sorry, but the "Under Siege" that I know is a hollywood movie, not a documentary lol.🙂🙃🙂 Yeah, just nit-picking.
You are the best museum ship channel on UA-cam hands down. Thank you so much for what you do.
UCGC Sherman 5" 38 single mount, trained as back up crew. I was an Engineer and repair 5 captain.
My fathers battle station was mount 52 on the light cruiser USS Atlanta. When visiting the USS New Jersey I remember going in one of the mounts that was opened. Amazing how cramped it was.
Recently I had the chance to tour the Battleship Iowa in Southern California with my boys and had the opportunity to step inside the duel 5in guns and inside the 16in main guns-including the one that blew up! Both turets were a bit cramped and if you had any closerphobic issues, they were not something you would want to serve in. Cool opportunity to visit one of these awesome battleships and would recommend to visit one if you have the chance!
Got to see one of these fire yesterday! Was a really cool way to end a day at the New Jersey
The round isn't armed/live until it leaves the barrel and has rotated a specific number of times. The "extractors" located on the breech block, engage the rim on the powder case and as the rammer scoops the load into the chamber, the breech block is pulled up by the leverage of the extractors rotate against the face of the breech.The rammer is push up to the upper track as the block closes. Upon firing, the barrel recoils, the rammer recoils with it, and the upper track is engaged by the rammer and it is powered to the rear, being caught by the rammer release lever at the back of the gun. The release lever hold the rammer in the up position against spring pressure. This allows space for the spent case to be ejected from the gun. After the case is clear, the rammer release lever is pushed down, usually by the gun captain. The rammer is then spring driven to the ram/down position. On a closed mount, the projectile man is called the first loader. He loads and operates the rammer control.
I was in the Army, I was a TOW Gunner later an M1A1 Abrams Tanker. The TOW was a 152mm and the M256 Main Gun was 120mm. I am amazed at Naval Artillery on old battleships.
Presumably all of this applies to Summer and Gearing class DDs. My dad used to say the EMs were on light bulb duty when the DDs fired their 5" guns.
We say a room isnt big enough to swing a cat. Ive heard it was short for Cat-O-nine tails which was a whip to discipline the convicts who were the first settlers in Sydney (Australia)
Note: sailing ships of the line could man the guns and fire both broadsides simultaneously. Gun crews were often 2x the minimum required. Everyone had a backup so somebody was ready to take over when enemy cannonballs and splinters took out part of the crew. Extra bodies also helped speed up the running in and out of the guns.
Another aspect of metal cased ammo, especially brass cased ammo is that it absorbs some of the heat when the gun goes off and when the case is ejected it takes the heat with it. This is one of the many difficulties of developing personal firearms that fire caseless ammunition.
"Like the documentary under siege" hahahaha LOL.
LMAO My grandma used to say "you can't swing a dead cat in here without hitting a.."
(Whatever was annoying her at the time). Thanks for the memory!
So, will you be covering the 12 required per each quad 40 next?
For those that want to see some vintage 1951's footage of the gun being loaded in actual combat, here is a video of it during the Korean war. ua-cam.com/video/mYpvtU1SDEk/v-deo.html
That was awesome, thanks for the link. Really made Ryan's video, well, real!
Best we had were the Mark 38 25mm guns on the Emory S Land. One time I was taking a nap in our compartment that was right below and adjacent to the rear starboard gun mount. It was the end of working hours and I was exhausted, and I forgot the gunners were doing a nighttime live fire exercise. It woke me up from a dead sleep, and I didn't realize it was the guns. I thought it was some rude ass dude banging on our door from the p-way, and I was pissed xD
I was the #2 man on a M777 howitzer, miss shooting those 155s
Really excellent explanations, and history review! Thanks!
Does a secondary battery diminish or in anyway compromise the main armament? Could I get another inch or so from the main gun if I eliminated the secondaries?
Fired .50 BMG from friends custom built rifle.
Have lifted dummy projectile of 5" on DDG73 while in the turret.
I was on several destroyers with 5"-38 guns. One with single mounts and the others with twin. I've hand cranked the single mount And it's not too taxing, but the mount isn't armored and probably a third of the weight of BB 5" mounts. Doing gunfire support missions in Vietnam, we fired a lot of shells but usually no more than 5 or 6 in a string. On a six gun ship, that's only one shell per gun. Only a few times did we rapid fire all the guns in some action. And then probably less than 30 shells. We did fire white phosphorous, usually at night. From 1-2 miles away they looked like giant white Christmas trees. While we had good gun crews for the time, we were in no way near the loading speed of WWII. In normal peacetime I doubt we fired the guns once every three months. The practice loading machines were removed on all destroyers, I assume to save weight for something else. I read that in 1980, after Korea and Vietnam, the navy still had 750,000 5" rounds in storage.
...nice and informative. Great job!
I have fire a 155 Paladin A6 as a FA/Army out of Fort Sill....... BIg Guns Rock !!!!!!!!
this is right on par with watching testing of the Saturn F-1 engines
Amazing 14 guys fit in those gun mounts.
This looks like a gun that was installed on so many other types of ships not just battleships and cruisers as secondary guns. Been a long time since I last built a WW US warship Cruiser and destroyer models.
Yep, the 5"/38 dual mounts were very popular and used on many ships. Gearing class destroyers had them as the main battery, for example. Atlanta class light cruisers had them as their main battery. Light and heavy cruisers had them for the secondaries, as did battleships. They were quick firing and dual purpose, and that made them *VERY* powerful and versatile weapons. They could take on small ships like destroyers and cruisers and submarines and PT boats with AP or HE shells, they could do medium and close range shore bombardment with HE shells, they could do long range AA, and they could put star shells above enemy ships and battlefields so everyone could see what they were supposed to be firing at. The Atlanta class was basically an AA platform. Her early config was a broadside of 14 5"/38 guns. All of them firing AA shells with the VTF up in the air would make one hell of a flak cloud!!!
Great video and explaintion Ruan
These blank rounds they use for the public are nothng like an actual full charge. I was onboard DD 785 during target practice and even the 40s are deafening. You can feel the concussion wave from the gun going off as well. It is amazing, it is all hell breaking lose.
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I was a 3”50 mk 33 mod 2 gunner. We had on average 7 men in an enclosed “ fiberglass shelled gun mount. . That’s right. These gun covers are for protecting the mount itself from the elements. It’s not armored as many folks believe they are.
Fantastic walkthrough. Are the shell hoists still functional on the New Jersey's 5" mounts?
shooting off a round from BSNJs 5/38 is a bucket list item for me. "Biggest" gun I've fired so far depends on definition, the Mk19 grenade launcher is the largest diameter, but the M2 HMG is the most powerful.
"Spinning a cat by its tail" is a derivative of "can't swing a cat" - which in turn references the cat o' nine tails (a type of whip/flail that was used in corporal punishment) and the fact that many spaces on sailing ships were too small to deliver lashes to a member of the crew.
"Not enough room to swing a cat" refers to a cat o' 9 tails rather than a feline.
The cat o' 9 tails was a very nasty form of whip with 9 strings that caused big wounds on the unfortunate sailor.
another great video from the battleship. thanks
When you talk about rates of fire, are you referring to both guns in the mount, or per gun?
Per gun
@@gliderdan3153 That's amazing. Thanks. Have a great day.
I heard the phrase not enough room to swing a cat with any comfort to you or the cat Attributed to Mark Twain on the space n his cabin on an ocean liner. But I did not find it in a collection of his cat quotes. I did learn he was quite a car lover.
Absolutely fascinating!
Was the "Fuse Setter" position still filled by a crewman during the 1980s or Vietnam deployments? I was just wondering because it seems like the whole point of setting fuses on the shells becomes mute when these guns are only being used for shore bombardment.
Air bursts above a trench are very effective.
@@matthewbeasley7765 but did the Navy even still have shells with programmable fuses that use that setup still in the inventory? That seems one bit of kit that would not have kept well in storage unlike regular HE or AP rounds.
Largest gun I've fired? US 76mm M1A1 from an M4A3E8 at DriveTanks. Not as large (at 3") but still plenty large! :D
after watching this , knowing atlanta class pretty much uses the identical mounts, atlanta would probably be the worst to rebuild a identical one and put to service, if the gun don’t get redesign to be fully autoloading
Thank you for this video Ryan. It’s mind boggling the scale of the battleship. Then you need to feed and provide laundry for all those guys. Quick question, would the fire computer provide an individual solution for each gun mount or would they all fire exactly the same azimuth and hope one hits?
I'm not an expert (just an interested layperson) but I believe that's what the deflection adjustment is for. The primary and secondary fire directors computed azimuth and elevation based on the range and bearing data fed to the operators by the guys working the rangefinders. These were generally located somewhere amidships at the top of the superstructure, WWII-era battleships and cruisers mounted separate rangefinders for the primary and secondary batteries along with backups for both, and on some classes each primary gun mount had its own local "backup for the backups" mounted on the turret itself, although these obviously had a more limited range than the main units higher up in the ship (I believe all the Iowas had these on the 16 inch turrets, Ryan's done a video about the ones on the New Jersey). The deflection setting input in each gun house adjusted the required azimuth based on the location of the gun mount relative to the rangefinder being used. For example, a midships primary turret located on the vessel's centerline would only require a small deflection value, whereas a secondary mount on the port/starboard wings and located further towards the bow or stern would require a larger adjustment.
@@sixstringedthing Thank you for your reply. How would the local adjustment be calculated? Was it fairly simplistic (so many degrees/feet range) or was it more complex and adjusted for everything?
looks like you cleaned up Mt 55 looks far better than my last visit.... missing the Mar Det art from Beirut
I was always told that "not enough room to swing a cat" came from the Royal Navy of the 18th/19th century referring to the cat of 9 tails
Hey libby!
Great stuff as always
Asbestos gloves for safety. Lol crazy what are guys went through. Thanks everyone for your service
Thank you.
My parents also said the "swing a cat" thing all the time. LoL
Swing a cat by the tail comes from the 17-18-19 century British navy ships. You don’t swing a “cat” but a “cat-o-nine tails” a knotted 9 piece section of ships rope.
Not being able to swing it on an enclosed gun deck. Thinking of it this way, it makes a lot more sense.😀
"Asbestos gloves for saftey" yep welcome to the navy
Asbestos is only dangerous if it's in the air so you can inhale it.
@@kpolenz9772 this is true, but the problem with asbestos fabric is chafing, releasing tiny amounts to the air, as the navy discovered with their older FFEs and the like, but at least as late as '07 we were still using asbestos to insulate all kinds of realy hot bits like the drying towers for the HP air system and some steam piping and the like. By the way the older asbestos gloves that came with the FFEs were still floating around when I was in, even if they weren't in the DC lockers anymore.
To be fair, asbestos was one of the few if not the only material available that was capable of providing the needed insulation during ww2.
120mm M256 is the biggest gun I've fired. We made due with three people in the tank turret.
I had no idea that my dad’s job was so hard! He was a gunner’s mate 1st class during ww2.
That was very interesting. Thank you
The Intrepid reference was great
That was the Marine mount on the Wisconsin
Did you leave the Deck in place where it was damaged by the ejecting shells ?
Sorry that I missed Live Stream , I was on Door Duty 6:09 - 9 : 00 P.M. . Many Trick or Treaters , 2 eggs thrown . I will watch an older Video to make it up to You .
Thank you Ryan for adding such a very important video as to explaining how many people were in the gun house moving it super high speed do you have the ability and or can you find out if the gutters in war two they will practice getting up to 20 rows per second or faster than the auto loader today’s equivalent 5 inch gun
Also can you provide more video to be able to show us the internal movements of all the choreographed visuals in the 6 inch guns and the 16 inch ?
I’ve seen footage of Iowa or sister firing in Iraq war and Vietnam footage . As being in bb 60s 5 “. And the 16 “ please sir also was there ever a cameraman in the firing and computing room in ww2 or Vietnam falklands ??
Thank you for all you do sir for these gray Lady’s Prost
not 20 rounds a second
I would have said "It's in the breech of the gun, BOOM", instead of "BOOM, it's in the breech of the gun".
The first form is much more desirable then the second, for the crew.
You can imagine what a bloody mess that gun house would be if it took a hit from a cruiser or BB main battery shell. One would hope that in a major surface to surface ship engagement that they would have de-staffed them. 15 rounds a minute......thats pretty crazy for 125mm artillery.........compared to land artillery.
Seems like the fuse setter and the deflection setter have one thing to set before you start shooting and then really don’t have much to do. Is that right or do they have to do this for every shot?
So Ryan, What is the total count of sailors to keep a twin mount firing, from the magazine , to the transfer deck ( where the shells and powder cans are shifted manually from elevator to elevator to the 14 in the actual mount?
never mind you just answered it , lol