For those interested in BB Iowa

[tbm3fan]

Remember on April 19, 1989 the Iowa had a gun explosion in Turret 2. I have known three people closely involved with the aftermath. One was the Hornet's Ship engineer who was tasked with entering the turret after the ship pulled into Pearl. Another, a Navy Captain, who doesn't say much to this day. The other is "Rusty" from the Long Beach Naval Shipyard. He was very busy the day after the incident. He had been asked back then and to this day is still very quiet on saying what he thinks happened. Needless to say he did not believe all that Navy crap about Hartwig being the guilty party.

The whole thing was as though the Navy was trying to sweep it under the rug quickly. Sandia Labs opinion was that it was an over ram mistake. Rusty, back in 2004, requested that forum members not ask him about that day. No one has but sometimes things come up which can give you an idea indirectly as seen below. Bob would understand this. The Iowa was on a gunnery exercise that day most likely using reduced charges.

The 16"/50 main batteries of an Iowa class Battleship have a recoil slide of a full FOUR FEET. That's for full service loads of SIX 110 lb bags of propellent. Many shoots use reduced service charges. A reduced service charge could be fewer than six 110 lb bags or a number of 55 lb bags of "reduced" charge propellent.

But there is a problem with those smaller bags. They are loaded behind the projectile while the barrel is at "Battery" position (about 3 degrees above zero level). Sometimes those smaller bags get pushed a tad too far in. Then when the barrel is elevated, they slide back against the mushroom head of the breech block and often "tilt" or "sag" just enough so the primer cartridge in the breech (sort of a modified 11mm Remington or a .43 Spanish) does not line up with any part of the red quilted patch of black powder that sets off the main propellent.

Check out Paul Stillwell's book on the New Jersey during her Viet Nam deployment. There is a photo of a 55 lb bag with a hole burned through the silk covering but a couple of inches away from the edge of the black powder patch. After that bag was thrown overboard, Admiral Snyder (then Captain of the Big J) ordered NEVER to use those small reduced charges again.

Unfortunately many of today's experts overlook such historical documentation and we have had some incidents of Reduced Service Charge bags not going off. If that gun had already fired some rounds just before the "miss-fire" you have to wait up to an hour for any embers left in the chamber to set off a "hang" fire.

Out all the chances I had to cross train while in the Army Reserves (tank crewman) or the Naval Shipyard (shipfitter, draftsman, Naval architect), I always stayed away from Ordnance. I've had hang fires before with old .22 rimfire ammo (and even my .45 target pistol using archaic ACP steel cased ammo made in the 1940's) to EVER want to remove a "suspected" miss-fire and it turns out to be a hang fire.

 

[cantflip]

Actually makes sense to me too, but a large part of my shooting experience was muzzle loader... Rapid fire percussion, not flint, muzzle would get an ember and light off when you dumped the tube... took a long time for all the power to work its way back out of your hand.