5" Gun Battery

These are what I think of as the almost cool cousins of the 16" guns.  I guess whether or not I'm impressed by them depends on what they're used for.  As a ship-ship weapon, I'm betting that similarly armed/armored ships wouldn't sweat a 5" shell against their hull.  However,  a 5" shell could take out some important equipment on the superstructure (antenae, gun directors, etc.) and would definitely ring the bell of the guys working in spot 1 or spot 2.  That said, any of my doubts about the 5" guns' power were pushed aside during a recent trip to the ship's Memorial Day ceremony where they dry-fired a 5" gun mount 21 times.  

Video of a few shots.  The sound is horrible, and doesn't have the bass necesarry to convey how loud this was.  

The type of 5" mounts on the BB-59 were listed as "dual-purpose" because they could be elevated nearly vertical, allowing them to be used against surface vessels or aircraft.  However, these guns were used primarily as an anti-aircraft weapon during their heyday.  They had a lot better range than the 40mm AA guns (another post), but didn't have nearly the firing rate of the 40mm mounts.    

Solution?  Put 5 mounts on both sides of the ship!   Problem solved.

Inside the mount closest to the foreground in the picture above, you can see how cramped it for these guys too.  Seems to be a running theme on this vessel.  Having spent a little time at sea myself, I'll vouch for the extreme lack of "personal space" aboard ship.

What are you looking at you ask?  You can see the opposite hatch from the one I'm leaning into, as well as the breech for each gun of this twin mount.  Unfortunately, the passage of time and the salt air hasn't been kind to this mount.  When you decide to open one of these to the public, it's expected that it will take a beating.  Fortunately, this is the only one opened to the public but I still enjoy looking around in it.  Can't have it both ways, right?  It's either opened or it's not.

Notice the difference in the condition of this mount?  I took this picture during just prior to the Memorial Day shoot when I was talking with the guys running the mount.  This one is NOT open to the public and is in much better shape.  Lesson?  Tread lightly when enjoying the spaces that are open and knock out people that you see abusing them.

Here's a shot of one of the local sighting operator's positions.  Suck it in, duck and squeeze in there.  Hope you took a leak before general quarters was called!

Same position, opposite side, better shot.

I'm including this one just because I like it.  Boom.

16" Gun Battery

Okay.  These are why the battlewagons of old were built.  Battleships were the bearers of naval artillery and these guns delivered.  There are endless videos and pictures of the 16" guns blazing away raining down hate and discontent on the enemy, and BB-59 was my first opportunity to crawl around in the inner workings of these monsters.  They just make you feel small when you stand underneath them.  

When you crawl into the gunhouse (and I do mean crawl - the hatch requires some maneuvering to get through), you really get a feel for how crowded it must have been for the gun crews.

Here is the inside of the #3 (aft) turret.  Once you haul yourself up through the hatch, you get a face full of sighting tube housing.  That trench running through the bottom middle of the shot is where you end up.  Note the operators seats; imagine sitting at general quarters for hours on end in those!  The tube is like a giant, transverse-mounted telescope.  This enabled the gun house crews to sight targets locally if the radar fire control failed.  

On the other side of the tube, which dominates the space in the gun house, there are several other operator stations, and a bit less head room.   Those red, square-shaped tubes about shin level house the rammers that pushed the shells and powder bags into the breech.  The first shot is from the starboard side, the second shot is from the port side.  In the port side shot, you can clearly see the local targeting computer (black box with large knobs sticking up vertically on the top).  There is a similar aparatus down in fire control well below decks.

Shown below is the top of the local firing computer.

Of course, no trip to the gun house would be complete without a shot of the breech.  The setup shown below in the #3 turret port starboard side gun assumes that the shell has already been rammed home and the first of three bags in this load is already in.  The powder load was typically 6 bags.  The door in the upper right of the shot is where the powder came up from the powder handling areas below decks in the magazine(s).  A car with two compartments, each holding three powder bags, rode up an elevator.  At the top, the crew would roll them onto the loading tray and the rammer would push them forward into the breech.  The shell would come up a different elevator system, and would emerge into the gun pits vertically to be tilted forward where the loading tray would extend down and forward to span the distance to the opening of the breech.

This shot is pretty bad due to the reflection, but with the plexiglass in the way, there wasn't much I could do about it.  This gives a much better view of the powder car door.  Also, notice the large lever to the side of that door.  That is where the rammer operator controlled the rammer.  The space these guys had to work in was very tight.  When the gun recoiled, it often came within a few inches of the crew so they had to keep on their toes to avoid being turned into a greasy spot on the wall.  Finally, notice how the spanner tray is fully enclosed toward the back end of it.  That is where the shells come through when it is in the vertical position.  It acts as a support to lower the shell to the horizontal position, then as a spanner tray to shove the shell along its path to the breech.

Here's the view from the gun captain's position looking toward the access hatch from the main area of the gunhouse.  Sitting there on a day when there was almost no one on the ship but me, it was great to sit here and soak in the sights and smells.  I find that whenever I'm on board, the smell of ship brings back a lot of memories of my own time aboard the USS Tarawa.  The gun captain's position seems to be one of the best spots in the house because it is largely apart from the flurry of activity in the other areas.  

For some reason, the gun ready switch right in front of me made think about the clockwork chaos that must have revolved around pushing buttons and throwing switches.

Finally, here's a shot of the #3 turret from the main deck.  The lowered gun is the breech demo in the shots above.  

Plan of the Day

This is my effort at channeling my enthusiasm, curiosity, and respect for the USS Massachusetts.  During World War II it brought the fight to the enemy in both the Atlantic and Pacific theatres, firing the first 16" shell of the war off the coast of Northern Africa, as well as the last 16" shell during the bombardment of the Japanese home islands.  It's laid up as a museum now at Battleship Cove in Fall River, MA where it continues to serve this country as a means of educating the public and maintaining a tangible link with our nation's past.  I didn't "discover" the ship until I had already been in Boston for some time, but in the year and half I've known about it I've been aboard nine times.  The ship has been the subject of many an extended afternoon Google search.  After reading a ton about the ship and bothering the ship's curator, my wife prodded me to start writing some of the stuff down before I forgot; so here it is.  Nothing profound, just some thoughts, observations, and points of interest (admittedly, mainly just interesting to me).

Most, if not all, the pictures I post here are taken by me.  The ones I've borrowed will be cited appropriately.  I'll label all posts so that they archive in a way that's easy to search through to find points of interest.