Last use for SL SD captured

Fox2! wrote:

saber964 wrote:
Actually USS Iowa was fully repaired. The ship you might be thinking of was USS Newport News which also suffered an explosion in turret 2, but was never properly repaired. IIRC the gun barrel and handling equipment was removed and the turret opening plated over.

At the time, there were reports that the Navy was recovering (presumably) common parts from Alabama.

Nope, they had parts intended for Kentucky, however they did take parts from North Carolina Alabama and Massachusetts. IIRC the range finders for Wisconsin and Iowa came from Massachusetts and Alabama and the range keeper from NC went into Wisconsin. They used the range keepers from MA and AL as spare parts. Not many people realize that there's about a dozen or so 16 inch gun barrels in various museums. IIRC there's 4 or 5 16/45 and 8 or 9 16/50

saber964 wrote:
Nope, they had parts intended for Kentucky, however they did take parts from North Carolina Alabama and Massachusetts. IIRC the range finders for Wisconsin and Iowa came from Massachusetts and Alabama and the range keeper from NC went into Wisconsin. They used the range keepers from MA and AL as spare parts. Not many people realize that there's about a dozen or so 16 inch gun barrels in various museums. IIRC there's 4 or 5 16/45 and 8 or 9 16/50

Doesn't surprise me about "stealing" the rangefinders from the other ships for the Iowa class reactivation.

During her active service off Vietnam word came down that New Jersey was being placed back into mothballs because the Navy was rapidly running out of 16" barrel liners (the old girl was popular with our troops apparently, not so much with the NVA and VC.)

She was on her way home to Bremerton for layup when some layabout in the Naval Supply System was thumbing through some old files and discovered there was a couple of warehouses or a storage field full of MK-7 barrel liners that had been stored away after the Korean War by the Navy "just in case."

Bureaucratic inertia prevented reversal of the order to retire her again, most of her company already had orders in hand sending them to other ships needing their services, badly in some cases.

These barrel liners became very useful during the reactivation and service of the ships in the 1980's. I have no idea how many MK-7 liners are still laying around or 16" shells waiting in vain to be filled with explosive and fired off.

At least that's the story that I read somewhere around the time I was helping set up Iowa's Intelligence Library right after her reactivation. My skipper "volunteered" me and my services.

robert132 wrote:

saber964 wrote:
Nope, they had parts intended for Kentucky, however they did take parts from North Carolina Alabama and Massachusetts. IIRC the range finders for Wisconsin and Iowa came from Massachusetts and Alabama and the range keeper from NC went into Wisconsin. They used the range keepers from MA and AL as spare parts. Not many people realize that there's about a dozen or so 16 inch gun barrels in various museums. IIRC there's 4 or 5 16/45 and 8 or 9 16/50

Doesn't surprise me about "stealing" the rangefinders from the other ships for the Iowa class reactivation.

During her active service off Vietnam word came down that New Jersey was being placed back into mothballs because the Navy was rapidly running out of 16" barrel liners (the old girl was popular with our troops apparently, not so much with the NVA and VC.)

She was on her way home to Bremerton for layup when some layabout in the Naval Supply System was thumbing through some old files and discovered there was a couple of warehouses or a storage field full of MK-7 barrel liners that had been stored away after the Korean War by the Navy "just in case."

Bureaucratic inertia prevented reversal of the order to retire her again, most of her company already had orders in hand sending them to other ships needing their services, badly in some cases.

These barrel liners became very useful during the reactivation and service of the ships in the 1980's. I have no idea how many MK-7 liners are still laying around or 16" shells waiting in vain to be filled with explosive and fired off.

At least that's the story that I read somewhere around the time I was helping set up Iowa's Intelligence Library right after her reactivation. My skipper "volunteered" me and my services.

Within the last year or so, there was some traffic on FedBiz about the Army issuing an RFI for disposal of some 15000 16 in rounds of various varieties stored at Crane, IN. Don't know if anything more came of that. Guess they figured this time, the Navy really meant it when they retired the Iowas.

Fox2! wrote:

robert132" quote="saber964 wrote:
Nope, they had parts intended for Kentucky, however they did take parts from North Carolina Alabama and Massachusetts. IIRC the range finders for Wisconsin and Iowa came from Massachusetts and Alabama and the range keeper from NC went into Wisconsin. They used the range keepers from MA and AL as spare parts. Not many people realize that there's about a dozen or so 16 inch gun barrels in various museums. IIRC there's 4 or 5 16/45 and 8 or 9 16/50

Doesn't surprise me about "stealing" the rangefinders from the other ships for the Iowa class reactivation.

During her active service off Vietnam word came down that New Jersey was being placed back into mothballs because the Navy was rapidly running out of 16" barrel liners (the old girl was popular with our troops apparently, not so much with the NVA and VC.)

She was on her way home to Bremerton for layup when some layabout in the Naval Supply System was thumbing through some old files and discovered there was a couple of warehouses or a storage field full of MK-7 barrel liners that had been stored away after the Korean War by the Navy "just in case."

Bureaucratic inertia prevented reversal of the order to retire her again, most of her company already had orders in hand sending them to other ships needing their services, badly in some cases.

These barrel liners became very useful during the reactivation and service of the ships in the 1980's. I have no idea how many MK-7 liners are still laying around or 16" shells waiting in vain to be filled with explosive and fired off.

At least that's the story that I read somewhere around the time I was helping set up Iowa's Intelligence Library right after her reactivation. My skipper "volunteered" me and my services.

Within the last year or so, there was some traffic on FedBiz about the Army issuing an RFI for disposal of some 15000 16 in rounds of various varieties stored at Crane, IN. Don't know if anything more came of that. Guess they figured this time, the Navy really meant it when they retired the Iowas.[/quote]


Actually the USN has about 10k 16 inch round in various magazines that have been emptied of explosive filler. Also the tooling dies and equipment to manufacture gun barrels is in storage along with the equipment to manufacture shells. Plus there are roughly 7-9 gun barrels at various museums around the country IIRC the Navy Museum at the Washington Navy Yard has 2 and the ordnance museum at the Aberdeen proving ground has 3 16/50 and 4 16/45 inch barrels.

saber964 wrote:Actually the USN has about 10k 16 inch round in various magazines that have been emptied of explosive filler. Also the tooling dies and equipment to manufacture gun barrels is in storage along with the equipment to manufacture shells. Plus there are roughly 7-9 gun barrels at various museums around the country IIRC the Navy Museum at the Washington Navy Yard has 2 and the ordnance museum at the Aberdeen proving ground has 3 16/50 and 4 16/45 inch barrels.

It wouldn't surprise me at all to find in about 20 to 50 years time there are still empty (I certainly hope so!) 16" shells squirreled away in some forgotten magazine bunker somewhere in Crane or elsewhere and that the tools and dies necessary to reconstruct the shells and the MK-7 16" rifle are carefully stored as well, and not in museums.

As Star Trek's Dr McCoy once noted "the bureaucratic mind is the one constant in the universe." I'd add to that "the conservative military mind is as well."

"What if ..." is always lingering around nearby corners ready to leap out and be recognized which is one reason the Iowa and Wisconsin were kept on the books as reactivation assets for as long as they were even after New Jersey and Missouri found homes as museum ships.

robert132 wrote:It wouldn't surprise me at all to find in about 20 to 50 years time there are still empty (I certainly hope so!) 16" shells squirreled away in some forgotten magazine bunker somewhere in Crane or elsewhere and that the tools and dies necessary to reconstruct the shells and the MK-7 16" rifle are carefully stored as well, and not in museums.

As Star Trek's Dr McCoy once noted "the bureaucratic mind is the one constant in the universe." I'd add to that "the conservative military mind is as well."

A non-military example: UP was rebuilding 844 and stocking parts for their rebuild of 4014. The rebuild involved replacing the gaskets in the on engine air brakes, when they made inquires to Westinghouse, it turned out the exec they talked to was a fan of their steam program and had the tooling to make the gaskets for the locomotives, both of which were built in 1944. Westinghouse made them new gaskets from the original dies.

Castenea wrote:

robert132 wrote:It wouldn't surprise me at all to find in about 20 to 50 years time there are still empty (I certainly hope so!) 16" shells squirreled away in some forgotten magazine bunker somewhere in Crane or elsewhere and that the tools and dies necessary to reconstruct the shells and the MK-7 16" rifle are carefully stored as well, and not in museums.

As Star Trek's Dr McCoy once noted "the bureaucratic mind is the one constant in the universe." I'd add to that "the conservative military mind is as well."

A non-military example: UP was rebuilding 844 and stocking parts for their rebuild of 4014. The rebuild involved replacing the gaskets in the on engine air brakes, when they made inquires to Westinghouse, it turned out the exec they talked to was a fan of their steam program and had the tooling to make the gaskets for the locomotives, both of which were built in 1944. Westinghouse made them new gaskets from the original dies.

If you want bureaucratic inertia, try this. During WWII the OSS was operating in SE Asia and asked if the U.S. government had any flint lock rifles in storage (the hill tribes made their own gunpowder and bullets). The federal government asked how many and the OSS sent back "a thousand would be nice but any will do" The U.S. government had over 700 flint-lock rifles in various arsenals around the country some of which had never been used and were in there original crates. This was in 1943.

robert132 wrote:

saber964 wrote:Actually the USN has about 10k 16 inch round in various magazines that have been emptied of explosive filler. Also the tooling dies and equipment to manufacture gun barrels is in storage along with the equipment to manufacture shells. Plus there are roughly 7-9 gun barrels at various museums around the country IIRC the Navy Museum at the Washington Navy Yard has 2 and the ordnance museum at the Aberdeen proving ground has 3 16/50 and 4 16/45 inch barrels.

It wouldn't surprise me at all to find in about 20 to 50 years time there are still empty (I certainly hope so!) 16" shells squirreled away in some forgotten magazine bunker somewhere in Crane or elsewhere and that the tools and dies necessary to reconstruct the shells and the MK-7 16" rifle are carefully stored as well, and not in museums.

Now, the real question is how many 11,12,14, and 15" gun parts and ammo are sitting in those warehouses and bunkers? While there is still obstensively a reason to have the 16" stuff around, you know the same thinking squirled away the older gun types along with them.

Castenea wrote:

robert132 wrote:It wouldn't surprise me at all to find in about 20 to 50 years time there are still empty (I certainly hope so!) 16" shells squirreled away in some forgotten magazine bunker somewhere in Crane or elsewhere and that the tools and dies necessary to reconstruct the shells and the MK-7 16" rifle are carefully stored as well, and not in museums.

As Star Trek's Dr McCoy once noted "the bureaucratic mind is the one constant in the universe." I'd add to that "the conservative military mind is as well."

A non-military example: UP was rebuilding 844 and stocking parts for their rebuild of 4014. The rebuild involved replacing the gaskets in the on engine air brakes, when they made inquires to Westinghouse, it turned out the exec they talked to was a fan of their steam program and had the tooling to make the gaskets for the locomotives, both of which were built in 1944. Westinghouse made them new gaskets from the original dies.

I hadn't known that even though I'm a railfan among many my other sins. I suppose it's possible that Westinghouse kept the tools and dies because they might be useful in making gaskets for other rail equipment, here in the US or abroad. There are a few steam locomotives still running in revenue service in some countries.

UP 844 has been around for a long time, in service of one type or another since being built with relatively few years out of service. UP 3985 might use brake parts in common with 844, 4014 and several of the other steam locomotives in excursion service or being restored, so maybe it's not so strange Westinghouse would still be able to provide the parts eh?

saber964 wrote:If you want bureaucratic inertia, try this. During WWII the OSS was operating in SE Asia and asked if the U.S. government had any flint lock rifles in storage (the hill tribes made their own gunpowder and bullets). The federal government asked how many and the OSS sent back "a thousand would be nice but any will do" The U.S. government had over 700 flint-lock rifles in various arsenals around the country some of which had never been used and were in there original crates. This was in 1943.

Now THAT ONE does surprise me!