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Old 02-26-2008, 03:32 PM
Seascamp Seascamp is offline
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There was ‘open’ 5 inch mounts, meaning no armor on any side and that may have had a hand operated breach block and some husky gunner loading, but even a 5 inch projectile wasn’t a light weight; 60 lbs plus, and usually needed a hydraulic ram to seat the projectile up in the breach. Post WWII there was experimental stuff going on with fixed 8-inch ammo and auto loading turrets such as on the Cruiser Newport News but, alas, turret 2 went sky high during a fire mission in VN and enthusiasm for the rapid fire 8-inch turrets kind of went away.
As to the come-on poster, looks like a dramatization and not realistic ammo for the time. Not shown is what the Sailor is doing with the fixed ammo. A turret gun or deck mount of WWII, 5 inch and up, would have some kind of loading ramp and hydraulic projectile seating mechanism. 3 inch and lower is where fixed ammo and the ability to hand load would be found. Maybe the Sailor is a munchkin and is handling a 3/50 round. Those weren’t so heavy but still not altogether light either; I guess about 10-20 lbs or so. But at the rate a twin 3/50 fired, the loaders had to be quick movers, able to handle a real work out, plus nimble footed enough to dodge the hot shell casings that came a popping out the breach.

Scamp

P.S. Navy gunfire doesn't look like the poster representation at all. Ya get the ring of fire out the 5 inchers and a ball of fire out the 8 or 16 inchers. I talking big ball of fire.
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