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That depends upon the interpretation of someone in Capitol Hill who doesn't understand anything about guns. When New Jersey was inactivated, Bremerton was ordered to "demilitarize" the 16" guns by welding up the gears so a thief couldn't steal one and use it to hold up a liquor store. Fortunately it was only some tack welds that were easily ground off.Originally Posted by shadow01
My question is how do they intend to keep up the machinery that operates the 16" guns.
I understand that they may never be used again, but I would hate to see that kind of machinery go to rot.
BATFE rules state that guns that use semi-fixed ammunition do not fall under regulations for registration. Though the rule was made to allow people to own muzzle loaders of any caliber, it technically allows unfettered ownership of the 16" guns that use a separate primer, separate powder bags and separate projectile. Even the 5"/38's fall under that category as the propellent case is manually dropped into the loading tray first and then followed by dropping in the projectile ahead of it.
A 3"/50, 40 mm Bofors & 20 mm machine guns however use pre-fixed ammunition where primer, powder and projectile are all in one piece. I think you have to have a class 3 license to own one. However, they can be legally demilitarized but still legally able to fire blank cartridges. This is done by welding a plug with a sub-caliber hole in it near just behind the muzzle. The plug allows enough gas pressure from the blank cartridge to operate the mechanism and the hole is large enough to throw out flame and smoke but not a projectile.
This is a trick the movie studios came up with for automatic pistols, sub-machineguns, M-1 Garands, etc. But rather than welding a plug in the highly desirable Garands they tapped a thread in the muzzle and merely screwed in a holed plug. I inspected a number of Garands and Lugers at the preview weekend of the MGM studios auction several years ago and noticed the threading in the muzzles. But of guns being put up for auction, every one looked like it had been through every battle of WW II, dropped several times and never cleaned up. So I didn't bid on any of them (they were used by other actors in the background while the up front camera stars had better grade weapons that were NOT put up for auction).
Back to your question: The main and secondary batteries of a museum/memorial warship can be maintained for rotation and elevation. Perhaps even made allowable to fire blanks for celebrations. But it takes people to do so. So every memorial ship we have can use as many volunteers as possible to work on these things. And not just the guns but other maintenance items such as power, lighting, plumbing, etc.
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