Dry dock picture

[TN_Mike]

Here's another for you, taken from my work space, Spot 1, the forward main battery gun director. And in case you are wondering, YES, I got to fire the 16 inch guns quite a few times. This was taken in the Gulf of Mexico during shake down, we were doing a high speed turn to starboard. Look closely and you can see crewmembers walking on the deck down there. It gives you some sense of the size of the ship.




One looking forward from the director. The gun director was on the 0-12 level. That is 12 stories above the main deck which was itself 3 decks above the waterline, so my director was 15 stories above the water. I still love heights to this day.



another from the dry dock series of pics....



The screws.....



My director, Spot 1, from the bottom of the dry dock...



And a beauty shot of the ship anchored out taken from up on a hill in St. Thomas in the US Virgin Islands.

[DefensiveCarry.com]

[P95Carry]

Great pics Mike - you are on a roll (of nostalgia!) ........ and justified too.

[retsupt99]

What kind of 'self-defense' round is that?

ret

[TN_Mike]

It has a yellow band so that means it is an armor piercing high explosive round. Usually weighing 2,700 pounds and with a max range (depending on weather conditions of course) of approx. 26 miles. I believe that he text painted on the projectile means it is the 1,000th round fired by the Iowa.

We test fired a 14 inch round from our 16 inch guns once, the projectile had a thicker than normal rotating band that actually fell away after the projectile left the barrel. We achieved a hit on target from 44 miles away. That was impressive.

There was also an area weapon 16 inch round. It was fired over an area where there would be armored vehicles or light bunkers and when it reached its target area, the projectile came apart and scattered 666 shaped charge grenadelets over the area. They had a ribbon on one end that made sure they would fall in the right attitude so that the shaped charge end struck the target. They would penetrate a few inches of armor if I remember right. That was cool to see.

There was also an anti-personnel round. It was very nasty.

Of course all this R&D came to a swift end when the Iowa had its accident. That was pretty short sighted. Those ships were the best Naval Gunfire Support platforms in the world and the Marines loved them. If you had to storm the beach in an amphib landing you'd want a big ship throwing 2,700 pound rounds at the guys trying to kill you when you came ashore too.

[AirMech74]

Cool pics...I was TAD onboard the USS Independence when it went into dry dock back in 95 in Yokosuka, Japan....I always thought it was a small carrier until that morning...as someone said earlier, puts things into prospective. I wish I had pics, I didn't have a camera at the time...but I do have some pics of flight deck ops.

[tanksoldier]

I know those things are expensive to operate, but we should have converted them to nukes and kept them.

[JD]

It has a yellow band so that means it is an armor piercing high explosive round. Usually weighing 2,700 pounds and with a max range (depending on weather conditions of course) of approx. 26 miles. I believe that he text painted on the projectile means it is the 1,000th round fired by the Iowa.

We test fired a 14 inch round from our 16 inch guns once, the projectile had a thicker than normal rotating band that actually fell away after the projectile left the barrel. We achieved a hit on target from 44 miles away. That was impressive.

There was also an area weapon 16 inch round. It was fired over an area where there would be armored vehicles or light bunkers and when it reached its target area, the projectile came apart and scattered 666 shaped charge grenadelets over the area. They had a ribbon on one end that made sure they would fall in the right attitude so that the shaped charge end struck the target. They would penetrate a few inches of armor if I remember right. That was cool to see.

There was also an anti-personnel round. It was very nasty.

Of course all this R&D came to a swift end when the Iowa had its accident. That was pretty short sighted. Those ships were the best Naval Gunfire Support platforms in the world and the Marines loved them. If you had to storm the beach in an amphib landing you'd want a big ship throwing 2,700 pound rounds at the guys trying to kill you when you came ashore too.

I'll tell you what, one of the most memorable ops I was ever on was doing call for fire with naval guns off San Clemente Island of the coast of California, talk about impressive!

[BIG E]

Hey Sig, I don't see a ship, but that sure is a funny looking hat you have on there.

[Rob72]

Cool, Sig! My dad was on BB-62 (USS New Jersey), '54-'56, and my step-dad (coincidentally) was on her around '67-'68.