Ask An Expert- Naval Forces

[Dreadnought]

I would venture to think that the Forrestal is a bit different in concept and design according to men that have sailed upon her. They say many things about that ship continue to be secretive. For what reasons Im not exactly sure of but supposedly continue to this day.

Also, the very first KC-130 landing and take off's on a CV ever. Over 20 of each.

http://www.navsource.org/archives/02/025982c.jpg

[blidgepump]

Good example of a " current pilot ".....

I would venture to think that the Forrestal is a bit different in concept and design according to men that have sailed upon her. They say many things about that ship continue to be secretive. For what reasons Im not exactly sure of but supposedly continue to this day.

Also, the very first KC-130 landing and take off's on a CV ever. Over 20 of each.

http://www.navsource.org/archives/02/025982c.jpg

Your recital is a perfect example of a pilot practicing his skill set for a specific event.
Hours and hours by this pilot and crew made this possible....

[dundonrl]

Forrestal et al. is what Rusty, 5/8"- to 7/8"-thick HY-80?

I took some of the deck plating home (they were cutting it out on the Momsen DDG 92, to mount tripods for .50 cal mounts, thinking this would be GREAT targets to shoot my hunting rifle at. It would make lots of noise hanging up, and since it's heavy thick steel (HY-80) I couldn't penetrate it. YEAH RIGHT!! MUCH to my surprise at 50 ft, my hunting rifle poked holes I could stick a finger through. I still have some of them, and think they are about 5/8" thick.. (and the cut outs are about 10" in diameter). I was just thinking, if a hunting rifle with Nosler Partitions can do that, what on earth will something like a .50 cam BMG do, and at what range.

(OK, my hunting rifle is a Remington 700, 28" bbl and I shoot 300 grain Partitions right at 3000 fps, or 260 gr Accubonds at 3200 fps, measured through a chronograph)

[surfgun]

You must be running a .300 Ultra Magnum?
If one could do that with a bullet less than half the weight of a .50, one could shoot through 3 to 4x as much with a standard .50 ball round (never mind AP rounds).

[RustyBattleship]

I took some of the deck plating home (they were cutting it out on the Momsen DDG 92, to mount tripods for .50 cal mounts, thinking this would be GREAT targets to shoot my hunting rifle at. It would make lots of noise hanging up, and since it's heavy thick steel (HY-80) I couldn't penetrate it. YEAH RIGHT!! MUCH to my surprise at 50 ft, my hunting rifle poked holes I could stick a finger through. I still have some of them, and think they are about 5/8" thick.. (and the cut outs are about 10" in diameter). I was just thinking, if a hunting rifle with Nosler Partitions can do that, what on earth will something like a .50 cam BMG do, and at what range.

(OK, my hunting rifle is a Remington 700, 28" bbl and I shoot 300 grain Partitions right at 3000 fps, or 260 gr Accubonds at 3200 fps, measured through a chronograph)

Could you please provide me with a more accurate dimension of the thickness of the plate? Such as using a caliper rule? Also, are you absolutely sure it is HY-80? As I recall, the steel used throughout that class of ship is HSLA (High Strength LOW Alloy). It is designed more for fragmentation protection rather than machine-gun fire from a strafing Me-109.

HY-80 has pretty high percentages of Chromium and Nickel in it and is a very tough steel as well as high strength. It's alloy and heat treatment was based upon the WW II STS plate that was designed as armor in various thicknesses from 1/4" (that might stop M2 ball but not AP) to 4" thick such as the plot room on 03 level of an Iowa class Battleship.

I know your frustration. I was tasked to review the basic plans of how to install resin impregnated Kevlar armor. And we installed Kevlar on two classes of ships (Ingalls installed it on a third class). I stacked three plates, each 3/4' thick against a rock for 2 1/4" of "armor". Zipped an AP from my M1 Garand right on through all three. I didn't bother with ball ammo as only one plate just barely stopped a single round from my .41 Magnum Blackhawk.

[Albany Rifles]

I took some of the deck plating home (they were cutting it out on the Momsen DDG 92, to mount tripods for .50 cal mounts, thinking this would be GREAT targets to shoot my hunting rifle at. It would make lots of noise hanging up, and since it's heavy thick steel (HY-80) I couldn't penetrate it. YEAH RIGHT!! MUCH to my surprise at 50 ft, my hunting rifle poked holes I could stick a finger through. I still have some of them, and think they are about 5/8" thick.. (and the cut outs are about 10" in diameter). I was just thinking, if a hunting rifle with Nosler Partitions can do that, what on earth will something like a .50 cam BMG do, and at what range.

(OK, my hunting rifle is a Remington 700, 28" bbl and I shoot 300 grain Partitions right at 3000 fps, or 260 gr Accubonds at 3200 fps, measured through a chronograph)

My late uncle was an F4F/FM-2 piot in World War 2.

He stated that the way to attack Japanese escort vessels up through and includding DDs was to strafe with the fighter .50 cals.

There are ample examples of photos and videos on the intertubes of fighters blowing up Japanese vessels by hitting the boilers with .50 caliber fire (similiar to steam engines in Europe as well).

The Mother Deuce is a fearsome weapon and the API-T rounds can punch through an amazing amount of materiel.

I personnally drilled 2 inch deep holes into the frontal armor of the rolled homogeneous steel of an M-47 tank hulk on Red Cloud Range at FT Stewart from about 500 meters away. Didn't penetrate but it also showed that from 1000 meters a BMP could be killed by .50 cal on our M113s.

Ships plate (not armor plating) would be childs play.

[blidgepump]

Photos ?? ....

I took some of the deck plating home (they were cutting it out on the Momsen DDG 92, to mount tripods for .50 cal mounts, thinking this would be GREAT targets to shoot my hunting rifle at. It would make lots of noise hanging up, and since it's heavy thick steel (HY-80) I couldn't penetrate it. YEAH RIGHT!! MUCH to my surprise at 50 ft, my hunting rifle poked holes I could stick a finger through. I still have some of them, and think they are about 5/8" thick.. (and the cut outs are about 10" in diameter). I was just thinking, if a hunting rifle with Nosler Partitions can do that, what on earth will something like a .50 cam BMG do, and at what range.

(OK, my hunting rifle is a Remington 700, 28" bbl and I shoot 300 grain Partitions right at 3000 fps, or 260 gr Accubonds at 3200 fps, measured through a chronograph)

Do you have any jpegs to share?

[RustyBattleship]

My late uncle was an F4F/FM-2 piot in World War 2.

He stated that the way to attack Japanese escort vessels up through and includding DDs was to strafe with the fighter .50 cals.

There are ample examples of photos and videos on the intertubes of fighters blowing up Japanese vessels by hitting the boilers with .50 caliber fire (similiar to steam engines in Europe as well).

The Mother Deuce is a fearsome weapon and the API-T rounds can punch through an amazing amount of materiel.

I personnally drilled 2 inch deep holes into the frontal armor of the rolled homogeneous steel of an M-47 tank hulk on Red Cloud Range at FT Stewart from about 500 meters away. Didn't penetrate but it also showed that from 1000 meters a BMP could be killed by .50 cal on our M113s.

Ships plate (not armor plating) would be childs play.

When John Moses Browning of Ogden, Utah (visit his great museum up there some time) designed the .50 caliber round in the First World War for a single shot ANTI-TANK rifle, it has been considered to be the most perfectly ballistic bullet of all time.

In WW II, armor piercing EXPLODING rounds were also developed as "Train Busters" to knock out German armored trains. That round is still in service today -- with a couple of added design mods.

It took the military a long time to realize that the 20 mm machineguns were a waste of time, money, space and weight. You can install twice as many 50's, 4 times as much ammo, fire 2 to 3 times faster and have a better hit ratio with a set of "Mah Deuces" than any set of 20 millimeters.

As for burrowing in 2-inches on the armor plate of an M-47, you must have been using some special AP rounds. We used an old M-46 up at Camp Roberts for target practice and the standard issue (ball) 50 cals dug nice pock marks in the armor but didn't burrow in that deep. Well, maybe up to 3/4" if hitting the side plates square. But usually the tank was driven at us at about a 45 to 60 degree angle so most hits were whiners into the back hills anyway.

However, I can believe that properly designed AP rounds from a .50 hitting square can make any tanker wish he chose Supply as his M.O.S. instead.

[desertswo]

When John Moses Browning of Ogden, Utah (visit his great museum up there some time) designed the .50 caliber round in the First World War for a single shot ANTI-TANK rifle, it has been considered to be the most perfectly ballistic bullet of all time.

In WW II, armor piercing EXPLODING rounds were also developed as "Train Busters" to knock out German armored trains. That round is still in service today -- with a couple of added design mods.

It took the military a long time to realize that the 20 mm machineguns were a waste of time, money, space and weight. You can install twice as many 50's, 4 times as much ammo, fire 2 to 3 times faster and have a better hit ratio with a set of "Mah Deuces" than any set of 20 millimeters.

As for burrowing in 2-inches on the armor plate of an M-47, you must have been using some special AP rounds. We used an old M-46 up at Camp Roberts for target practice and the standard issue (ball) 50 cals dug nice pock marks in the armor but didn't burrow in that deep. Well, maybe up to 3/4" if hitting the side plates square. But usually the tank was driven at us at about a 45 to 60 degree angle so most hits were whiners into the back hills anyway.

However, I can believe that properly designed AP rounds from a .50 hitting square can make any tanker wish he chose Supply as his M.O.S. instead.

In fact, the .50 caliber bullet was used as the template for the design of the X-1 rocket plane that Chuck Yeager flew to break the sound barrier. It was chosen because aeronautical engineers knew that the round was supersonic, and the idea was, assuming there is no "wall" up there that will destroy the airplane that collides with it, the round would have the best chance of punching through. And so it was.

[Albany Rifles]

Rusty,

They were API-API-T 4:1.

[SteveDaPirate]

So if you ever come out to the Southern California area and visit the Midway, remember that the Battleship Iowa is only a 2 hour drive North of her.

See you on board.

Damn... I was out in San Diego last year and spent all day on the Midway. I had no idea the Iowa was only 2 hours away! Guess I need to plan another trip to the West coast.

The Midway was fantastic, I wish I could have spent a week there. The guys volunteering on board really knew their stuff.

[desertswo]

Damn... I was out in San Diego last year and spent all day on the Midway. I had no idea the Iowa was only 2 hours away! Guess I need to plan another trip to the West coast.

The Midway was fantastic, I wish I could have spent a week there. The guys volunteering on board really knew their stuff.

Actually, some of them don't. Long story, but let's just say I was unimpressed with the knucklehead leading the tour of the navigation bridge. He really needed to stick to talking about the F-4 he flew, and leave the ship specific information to someone who'd actually done it.

[Dreadnought]

Actually, some of them don't. Long story, but let's just say I was unimpressed with the knucklehead leading the tour of the navigation bridge. He really needed to stick to talking about the F-4 he flew, and leave the ship specific information to someone who'd actually done it.

Or witnessed it being done.;)

[SteveDaPirate]

Actually, some of them don't. Long story, but let's just say I was unimpressed with the knucklehead leading the tour of the navigation bridge. He really needed to stick to talking about the F-4 he flew, and leave the ship specific information to someone who'd actually done it.

I guess I got lucky, I remember spending quite a while talking to a couple of the guys down in the propulsion area. One of them had been on board the Franklin D. Roosevelt and had some pretty interesting stories about how one went about cleaning out the boilers. I don't know what the guys who did that got paid, but I doubt it was half enough.

[Tamara]

I guess I got lucky, I remember spending quite a while talking to a couple of the guys down in the propulsion area. One of them had been on board the Franklin D. Roosevelt and had some pretty interesting stories about how one went about cleaning out the boilers. I don't know what the guys who did that got paid, but I doubt it was half enough.

Oh, you mean cleaning out the mud drum?

That was usually reserved, where I first learned about them, for the people on extra duty!