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17 days
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Boeing B17 Flying Fortress


Boeing C-17 Globemaster III swallowing a C-130 fuselage


Hornady .17 Hornet


PT 17


M17A1 Quadrant used on M777 and M198 155mm towed howitzers for setting vertical angle (quadrant)




USS Rhode Island BB-17


Omega Nebula M17

F-16 in orange livery




M-16 variants

16 days
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M16 as I first learned of it at Ft Leonard Wood.

16 days
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Armament of the Iowa-class battleship - Wikipedia, the free ...
en.wikipedia.org3000 × 1998Search by image
USS Iowa fires a full broadside of nine 16 inch (406 mm)/50-caliber and six 5-inch (127 mm)/38-caliber guns during a target exercise.

Look at the precussion cones in the water from the guns firing. Think what that would do to a person in it.

oljames3 wrote:16 days
https://countingdownto.com/countdown/ev ... 19c43f2239

Armament of the Iowa-class battleship - Wikipedia, the free ...
en.wikipedia.org3000 × 1998Search by image
USS Iowa fires a full broadside of nine 16 inch (406 mm)/50-caliber and six 5-inch (127 mm)/38-caliber guns during a target exercise.

Okay, this brings up a question I've long had about large guns, but never looked up. How are large guns classified in caliber? A 16" gun is a 50 caliber? A 5" gun is a 38 caliber?

Chas.

Charles L. Cotton wrote: Okay, this brings up a question I've long had about large guns, but never looked up. How are large guns classified in caliber? A 16" gun is a 50 caliber? A 5" gun is a 38 caliber?

Chas.

Ok, I wanted to know too. It appears the caliber referrence for a big gun is the ratio of the barrel length to the barrel inside diameter.

16"/50 caliber Mark 7 gun

These guns were 50 calibers long—or 50 times their 16-inch (406 mm) bore diameter which makes the barrels 66.6 feet (20 m) long, from breechface to muzzle.

Charles L. Cotton wrote: Chas.

On a big gun the caliber is the length of the barrel in units = diameter of the bore. The barrels on the Iowa are 50x16" long = 800 inches = 66.66 feet (so the caliber is "50"). Why, I dunno, you'd have to ask the Navy. My understanding this is how the Navy measures barrel length, the Army uses feet.

I think we have an arty guy on the board, maybe he can give the why.

Charles L. Cotton wrote:

oljames3 wrote:16 days
https://countingdownto.com/countdown/ev ... 19c43f2239

Armament of the Iowa-class battleship - Wikipedia, the free ...
en.wikipedia.org3000 × 1998Search by image
USS Iowa fires a full broadside of nine 16 inch (406 mm)/50-caliber and six 5-inch (127 mm)/38-caliber guns during a target exercise.

Okay, this brings up a question I've long had about large guns, but never looked up. How are large guns classified in caliber? A 16" gun is a 50 caliber? A 5" gun is a 38 caliber?

Chas.

Caliber on ship guns is the designation for their length in relation to their bore. A 50 caliber is 50 times the 16-inch bore diameter which makes the barrel 66.6 feet long, from breech face to muzzle. The 5" 38 caliber is a little short of 16 feet.

EDIT TO ADD: ELB beat me to it. :-)

Those projectiles are extremely huge and heavy. 2,700 lbs and for those who reload propelled by 660lbs of smokeless gunpowder.

ELB wrote:

Charles L. Cotton wrote: Chas.

On a big gun the caliber is the length of the barrel in units = diameter of the bore. The barrels on the Iowa are 50x16" long = 800 inches = 66.66 feet (so the caliber is "50"). Why, I dunno, you'd have to ask the Navy. My understanding this is how the Navy measures barrel length, the Army uses feet.

I think we have an arty guy on the board, maybe he can give the why.

Imagine for a moment if a 9x19mm cartridge were to be fired in a pistol with a 5" barrel. If we were to express that pistol barrel in naval gun terms, we would need the following values:

1. bore size = 9mm
2. barrel length = 5"
3. 5" = 127mm
4. 127mm ÷ 9mm = 14.111

Thus, in naval gun terms, the 9mm pistol firing that cartridge has a 9mm/14.11 caliber barrel.

If we are going to show F-16s, they should at least be Texas F-16s:

Beiruty wrote:Those projectiles are extremely huge and heavy. 2,700 lbs and for those who reload propelled by 660lbs of smokeless gunpowder.

What's really impressive about the 16"/50 caliber gun is that even though the 2,700 lb projectile is the heavy one, the light projectile was still 1,900 lbs, and muzzle velocity was still 2,690 fps........or about the same as a .308 Winchester 168 grain Matchking. That is some high velocity for such a heavy projectile. Maximum range was 24 miles, over the horizon, and the shell had a 1-1/2 minute flight time to target at that range.

Necessarily, that made for some complex range-finding. If your enemy's battleship is steaming forward full speed ahead at say 25 knots, it can cover a lot of water in a minute and a half (about .72 miles)......and that implies a straight line movement. If the ship is swerving along its path, it gets even more complicated, since the range to target varies up and down according to the tacking course changes and the enemy's angle of movement relative to your own ship. So the fire-control center had to make sure that the changing target picture was accounted for before giving the command to fire. In fact, naval gunnery contributed significantly to the development of both radar and analog computing during WW2. Even so, naval gunnery was necessarily limited to what a battleship could do within a distance of 24 miles, and those limitations were the death knell of battleships when it became evident that aircraft carriers could both project more power AND destroy battleships at safe standoff distances.

Oh..... and: