I am curious as to the accuracy obtained by really big stuff, such as tank, naval and field artillery. I've always been impressed by the Victory at Sea films of the 16" battleship rifles. (Who wouldn't be?) How does it compare, MOA-wise, to our accomplishments? Correct, I was never in the military.

I doubt that we have a rifle that will shoot one-hole groups at 24 miles, but the Missouri's 16's could do it all day long.

quote:

Originally posted by Smokin Joe:
I doubt that we have a rifle that will shoot one-hole groups at 24 miles, but the Missouri's 16's could do it all day long.

Especially considering the size of the entrance holes:

Here is a shell fragment.


You should see the exit holes!

WOW


Cal30

This thread leads me to ask....have any of you ever seen or read any factual material about the 18" naval rifles? I know the Japanese had a few and I think maybe the USA did too.

quote:

Originally posted by Alberta Canuck:
This thread leads me to ask....have any of you ever seen or read any factual material about the 18" naval rifles? I know the Japanese had a few and I think maybe the USA did too.

The Japanese built two 18" gunned Battleships.

The IJN Yamoto & IJN Musashi

Each had nine 18.1" 45Caliber Type 94 Naval Rifles

The British built ONE Battlecruiser, HMS Furious, with two single gun turret BL18" Mk1 Guns that fired a heavier shell than those fired by the later Japanese warships.

This ship was considered an Expensive joke and converted into an Aircraft Carrier

So Far as I know single common factor shared by all of the 18" gunned ships is that none of them ever had the opportunity to fire their guns in anger against an enemy combatant ship

Frankly between the greater maneuverability, superior mechanical gunlaying mechanical computers, FAR superior gunlaying radar and slightly superior penetrating power of the US Mk7 16"-50cal, one of the Japanese "super-battleships" encountering an Iowa class Batleship (Which in WW2 always "played" in pairs) probably would have been in Deep trouble.

Remember in the Encounters of Battleship-on-Battleship between the IJN and USN the IJN lost every time
one of the Iowa Class

i remember tanks snipping off nva at 3000+ meters and calling their hits in the chest area

In Field Artillery we typically depend on the burst radius of the shell to take out area targets. Laying the piece was done to the nearest Mill. Considering that the effective or burst radius of a 155 or 8" shell was considered to be 50 meters for soft targets how accurate did you need to be? Precision fire missions were a different matter with adjustments being made to fractions of a mill with adjustment by observation of the fall of shot. With an 8" howitzer a tank size target was not safe at 10,000 meters or more. I don't recall having a precision mission at longer range but I'm sure we could have done it.

Jerry Liles

I forgot to mention that terminally guided munitions can put all rounds in the same hole even at extreme range. More like seconds of angle than minutes.

Jerry Liles

I retired as a Master Chief Gunners Mate ( Guns) Surface Warfare Specialist.
I spent 18 years at sea on Destroyers that were armed with rapid fire 5"/54 caliber guns. Some ships had one,others two.
The 5"/54 gun was the bad boy of the Navy's fleet. While not the impressive 16" shell, we could fire 40 72 pound shells out to 27,500 yards with extreme accuracy a minute.
While in Vietnam we had to engage a cave that had an opening of four feet. Aircraft and ships armed with the 5"/38 guns could not get the job done. We were called in and fired for effect. After our second round at the target our Spotter " Wolf man 33" told us to "go right just a teensy". Our Fire Control Chief knew what he needed to do and made the correction to my gun. We fired ten rounds into the opening and had Secondary explosions that blew out a whole hill side.
While that sounds impressive it was not the best shot I ever did. On my last ship we had the new 86 RADAR to aim the ships guns that was so precise that our then new unmanned 5"/54 gun that was touted to be just scary accurate due to digital controls that we knew that the second round fired would be a 100% hit dead on target. We engaged a pulled target sleeve doing 500 knots and opened fire at 12,500 yards the target being at 10,000 feet. My forward gun fired six rounds before the first round had hit the target. The first round hit the 7/16" tow cable and cut it in half! The fuze never triggered and the shell self destructed a 1,000 yards past the target. The other four shells hit the sleeve itself as it fell towards the ocean and blew it into ever smaller and smaller pieces. No one in the Navy had ever done that before. That ship won the Golden Gunnery "E" later on and had set records that still stand today. All of those rounds were "dumb"
The shells today are mini-guided missiles. No aircraft in the world can escape them. They will chase a fleeing target for a very,very long range. The pilot may never know it is coming. How it does this is classified.
Troops and vehicles on the ground do not stand a chance. While todays anti-incoming weapons are very good at shooting down projectiles,remember that there are many in flight heading towards the same target in a time of war.They can't get them all.
I worked on a very early version of these "Guided Projectiles" GLGP's as they were called. We called the round "Copperhead" It followed a LASER beam out to a still classified range. I will post a few photo's of a M-48 Tank we shot at White Sands Missile Range.
The target was the US Army star painted on the turret. The "bird" missed the dead center by 6". The engineers said we could have done better. After all the tank was only 25 miles away; the shell doing MACH 3 as it coasted to the target. The damage done to the tank was very impressive. The blast of the shaped charge warhead was so powerful that it went completely through the tank. The blast blew the turret straight again,blew off the fume extractor off of the muzzle. Both tracks were blown off of the bogie wheels. The engine was torn from it mountings. most of the external fittings were blown clear of the tank. No one could have survived.

Rapidrob, well done !!
We only made the Navy's little Rockeye.Could punch a 1/4 " hole through 12" steelwith it's shaped charge.Not too much use in VN but later in the desert they were perfect against the tanks especially dropped by the Harriers.