Comments by "" (@BobSmith-dk8nw) on "How to Build a Battleships Main Guns - Is a Bigger Battery Better?" video.

  1. Thanks. I knew a lot of that but not in as much detail. Fascinating. My MOS in the Marines was 2131 Artillery Weapons Repair. I went to Ordnance School in Quantico, Virginia for that. This was really interesting and they showed us all kinds of things about working on Artillery Pieces. One thing - was that the Artillery Unit wrote down every single round they fired - and - the charge at which it was fired. Those fired at Charge 7 - using all the little powder bags in side the casing for a Semi Fixed or Semi Fixed Separate Loading round - counted for like 3 rounds at the lesser charges. When the "count" had reached a certain number - the tubes were to be replaced. One thing they showed us - was Magnafluxing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnetic_particle_inspection which could detect little cracks in the metal of the gun tube. About those Breech Blocks The Germans - used Sliding Wedge Breech Blocks on the Bismarck and Tirpitz which meant that they had those giant brass casings to deal with after every round fired. I graduated 3rd in my class and they sent the top 4 people to 5th Echelon Repair Depots where they could do everything but cast the tubes. There I was told that they were transitioning to Civil Service Mechanics - so they didn't need any more Marines - and I was going to assigned to the Provost Marshals Office. And so - my contribution to the Vietnam War - was being a Sentry in California for 15 months ... I did get to use my MOS one time. They had a pair of old 3" Salute Guns on this Parade Ground - that they wanted to fire some Salutes with - so they needed someone to clean the leaves out of the barrels and I was it. Before I went to Ordnance School - I was assigned to Maintenance in ITR and one of the things we did was clean the 106mm Recoilless Rifles. We'd unscrew the breech block then lift the tube out and lower it into a long vat of solvent. They had a dozen of us picking up those tubes and ... man ... were those things heavy ... .
    1