Comments by "" (@BobSmith-dk8nw) on "John Dahlgren and the Half Charge Myth - Did USS Monitor go into battle under-powered?" video.

My MOS in the Marines was 2131 Artillery Weapons Repair and I went to Ordnance School in Quantico for that. One of the things they taught us - was about the Charges used to fire shells. These Charges could be adjusted so that in addition to elevation - you could use a specific charge to control how much power was behind the projectile. They had tables they used for combinations of charges and elevations for where they wanted the rounds to go. The Artillerymen would write down EVERY Single Round an artillery piece fired - the type of round and - the Powder Charge that was used. Artillery tubes were authorized to fire a certain number of shots - but - that varied with the Powder Charge used. If they used Charge 7 - which was all the little powder bags - this significantly cut into the number of rounds that piece was allowed to fire. As you might imagine - igniting gun powder in a tube - is going to create wear and tear on said tube. Mostly what would happen as the tube wore out - was that it would become less accurate - so that the margin of uncertainty about just exactly where the shot might go - increased with the wear on the barrel. They were also very much aware that an artillery piece could fail catastrophically - giving anyone in the vicinity a really bad day. So - as I said - they recorded every single round they fired and the powder charge at which that round was shot. When a tube reached a certain number based on the effects of the different combinations of powder charges it was taken out of service and replaced by new tube. During WWII - there were several Battleships - that had to have their guns replaced from having fired so many shots of Shore Bombardment in support of troops. All this stuff is taken very seriously. If you make mistakes with Artillery - you can get people you didn't intend to kill - killed - including your self. .
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