The Ship Model Forum

I'm reading "Hue 1968: A Turning Point of the American War in Vietnam" by Mark Bowden and it includes the following description of support provided by an unnamed battleship (USS New Jersey?):

"There was a steady roar of gunfire and explosions that would be eclipsed at intervals by the sound of a shell fired from one of the warships anchored fifteen to twenty miles east in the South China Sea. The biggest of their guns were sixteen-inchers, a term referring to the width of the barrel's bore. The gun itself was fifty times that long. It could hurl a projectile as heavy as a small car twenty-five miles. This would emerge in the general din as a low whistling that grew louder as it approached until it became a thing felt as much as heard, passing above the opaque ceiling of clouds like an airborne locomotive. The hurtling projective moved with such force that it pressed on the grunts' eardrums, and when it hit the ground, even at a distance, the earth shook. Walls crumbled."

The last few sentences really impressed on me the power of those guns. Is there footage that shows sustained bombardment from the ship's perspective or books that describe the effect of being on the receiving end? I've seen short clips from World War II but usually they're a few seconds at best. Also, would it have been the norm to anchor when providing shore support or was that specific to this situation?

There are a lot of clips showing bombardment from the Gulf war using the same guns and a lot off accounts from times naval gunnery was used to break up German tank formations in France and Sicily

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The most attractive project, to me, is the one that I've just heard someone say can't be done.

I believe that the reason why they rarely would fire multiple guns on the same turret at once, was due to the fact that the concussion from the blast would force the shells away from each other. This would cause decreased accuracy.

This may also be completely incorrect. I don't remember were I heard it or if it is from a reputable source.

If it is true, that's a lot of power! Thinking about how much force it would take to move one of those shells off course with just the concussion blast makes my brain melt.

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Completed models:
1/350 USS Texas: http://www.shipmodels.info/mws_forum/viewtopic.php?f=60&t=165724

1/700 USS Massachusetts: http://www.shipmodels.info/mws_forum/viewtopic.php?t=166495

Working on:
1/700 IJN Musashi

At the muzzle, a nudge of a few seconds of arc would, after a flight of 25 miles, result in missing the target by a large margin.

To mitigate this, the guns are not fired simultaneously but, with use of an intervalometer, are ripple fired.

Solid. Thank you for making that point. This was actually a big deal with the New Jersey when reactivated in the 1980s. The GFCS was modified to fire simultaneously. It was immediately reversed, returning to ripple fire.

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Proper Preparation Prevents Poor Performance

The delay between firing the guns within the turrets is to distribute the recoil stress.

The source of the New Jersey's accuracy errors in Viet Nam was investigated and found to be discrepancies in the way the Mk 8 system calculated initial velocities (IV). There are a number of factors which affect IV, the solution was to fit a small Doppler radar on top of each turret to measure the actual IV of each projectile as it left the barrel. Turret Officers paid particular attention to ensuring the powder used during a shoot was from the same lot if possible, as the slight variations in powder composition between lots was enough to introduce accuracy errors.

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https://inchhighguy.wordpress.com/

Just to digress, here is a link to a very interesting article regarding shipboard HIMARS use

Marines Fire HIMARS From Ship in Sea Control Experiment With Navy
https://news.usni.org/2017/10/24/marines-fire-himars-ship-sea-control-experiment-navy?utm_source=USNI+News&utm_campaign=336284f665-USNI_NEWS_DAILY&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_0dd4a1450b-336284f665-230398533&mc_cid=336284f665&mc_eid=6659c3f603