JFK's greatest achievements/Apollo (Was: Deep Apologies to everyone....)

"Jeffrey Hamilton" wrote:

One more question if you have a bit of time, what does the 45 or 50 figure
mean in these instances 16"/50 or 16"/45. I do see that it refers to a
50-caliber barrel, but a 45 or 50 caliber is usually refering to a small
arms or a machine gun etc. I've never understood what that signifies.

For big guns (and originally for firearms), caliber is the length of
the barrel expressed as multiples of the width of the bore.

For firearms, caliber is the diameter of the bore expressed in inches.
I.E. the measurement is properly written .50 caliber even though it is
almost always pronounced 50 caliber.

D.
--
Touch-twice life. Eat. Drink. Laugh.

http://derekl1963.livejournal.com/

-Resolved: To be more temperate in my postings.
Oct 5th, 2004 JDL

Jeffrey Hamilton wrote:
Yes, I recently read an article on that battle [it was probably a site
someone posted here] and I did notice those huge searchlights and wondered
if they wouldn't give away the Japanese position.


They worked pretty well at fairly close range in a night battle, if for
no other reason than that they could dazzle the crew on the opposing
fleet's rangefinders by basicly blinding them from staring into the
glare of the super-searchlights.
Even gun-aiming crew crew who weren't counting on input from the
rangefinders, but were actually trying to sight in the opponent via
optical sights on their own individual guns, faced a problem at shorter
ranges at night... due to being blinded by the glare of the huge
Japanese searchlights.
But when you got them out there at the range where you could engage them
at with radar; when you could have a second salvo in the air before the
first one even hit...then radar sung the death knell of the classical
battleship-on-battleship naval combat, like topped out at Jutland.
The aircraft carrier doomed the battleship, and the nuclear attack sub
and cruise missile have probably doomed the aircraft carrier...but just
once...I'd have _loved_ to have seen a Iowa class battleship let fly
with those nuclear shells we deployed for the 16" coast defense
guns...off of Bikini Atoll.
A nine-gun nuclear broadside blowing the entire horizon apart from
around twenty miles away would have been _really_ something to see. :-)

Pat

Derek Lyons wrote:
"Jeffrey Hamilton" wrote:

One more question if you have a bit of time, what does the 45 or 50 figure
mean in these instances 16"/50 or 16"/45. I do see that it refers to a
50-caliber barrel, but a 45 or 50 caliber is usually refering to a small
arms or a machine gun etc. I've never understood what that signifies.

For big guns (and originally for firearms), caliber is the length of
the barrel expressed as multiples of the width of the bore.

For firearms, caliber is the diameter of the bore expressed in inches.
I.E. the measurement is properly written .50 caliber even though it is
almost always pronounced 50 caliber.

D.

Isn't it "length in calibers" where caliber is the diameter rather than
the length being "caliber"?



so when you say '16"/50 caliber' you are saying 16" diameter (caliber)
and 50 calibers long

so a 16"/50 is 50 x 16" = 800" (66.67') long

In message , Jeffrey Hamilton
writes
One more question if you have a bit of time, what does the 45 or 50 figure
mean in these instances 16"/50 or 16"/45. I do see that it refers to a
50-caliber barrel, but a 45 or 50 caliber is usually refering to a small
arms or a machine gun etc. I've never understood what that signifies.

It's the barrel length, measured in calibres. So a 16"/45 is 45 x 16 or
720", for a 60-foot barrel. It's a handy shorthand for why a 5"/25 and a
5"/54 are not interchangeable despite being the same calibre

--
The nation that makes a great distinction between its scholars and its
warriors, will have its thinking done by cowards and its fighting done
by fools.
-Thucydides


pauldotjdotadam[at]googlemail{dot}.com

Derek Lyons wrote:

For big guns (and originally for firearms), caliber is the length of
the barrel expressed as multiples of the width of the bore.

For firearms, caliber is the diameter of the bore expressed in inches.
I.E. the measurement is properly written .50 caliber even though it is
almost always pronounced 50 caliber.


It's supposed to be like this although the British screwed it up with
dropping things like "Nine-Pounder Cannon" into it
In US terminology as ".50 caliber machine gun" means that the width of
the projectile is 1/2 inch (around 13 mm, as converted to the inch scale
26 mm equals one inch). In the same way a ".303 caliber machine gun"
fires bullets of .303 of an inch in diameter... 7.62 mm in diameter,
the standard NATO round.
That's definition #1 of caliber... the other variation of it is is
measuring the diameter of the round fired against the barrel its being
fired from.
In the case of the German Panzer IV late model vs. the Panther Mk. V
tank, both were equipped with a 75 mm gun.
In the case of the Panzer IV this was a 48 caliber gun...the gun's
barrel was 48 times as long as the diameter of the 75 mm projectile it
fired. The Panther's gun also fired a 75mm projectile, but did it up a
barrel that was 70 times as long as the projectile's diameter.
(The Germans referred to these two guns as the 75mm L48 and 75 mm L70.)
In regards to US and Japanese battleships, the Yamato fired its 18"
shells out barrels that were 45 times as long as the shell was wide; our
Iowas fired their 16" shells out of a barrel that was 50 times as long
as the shell was wide.
....and the British "pounder" series?
I'm going to have to check up on this, but IIRC, that's the weight of a
spherical cast-iron ball fired from a barrel of that diameter.

Pat

On Mon, 09 Feb 2009 22:01:12 -0600, Pat Flannery
wrote:

Our radar was so good that incoming and outgoing shells were visible on
it while in flight

During the fifties the guys at Cape Canaveral would track a .22 bullet
in order to check the radars.

Casady

On Tue, 10 Feb 2009 00:54:37 -0600, Pat Flannery
wrote:

.I'd have _loved_ to have seen a Iowa class battleship let fly
with those nuclear shells we deployed for the 16" coast defense
guns...off of Bikini Atoll.
A nine-gun nuclear broadside blowing the entire horizon apart from
around twenty miles away would have been _really_ something to see. :-)

The nuke rounds were carried in only one of the magazines It was
however, possible to move rounds from one magazine to another.
The yield was some 15kt. A lot compared to the 70 ton yield of the
Army's 155mm shells. As for a broadside, all three guns in a turret
were always aimed the same in azimuth. I don't know about the
elevation. I would think with an actual broadside there would be, you
might say, duplication of effort. When I was a kid I saw film of the
first fusion device[not bomb, it weighed more than a hundred tons.]
One of the damnest things I ever saw. I think Ivy Mike was the name.

Casady

On Tue, 10 Feb 2009 02:53:44 -0600, Pat Flannery
wrote:

..and the British "pounder" series?
I'm going to have to check up on this, but IIRC, that's the weight of a
spherical cast-iron ball fired from a barrel of that diameter.

This system is used for fireworks rockets. Biggest common size is 6
pound.

Casady

On Feb 10, 8:26*am, (Richard Casady)
wrote:
On Tue, 10 Feb 2009 00:54:37 -0600, Pat Flannery
wrote:

.I'd have _loved_ to have seen a Iowa class battleship let fly
with those nuclear shells we deployed for the 16" coast defense
guns...off of Bikini Atoll.
A nine-gun nuclear broadside blowing the entire horizon apart from
around twenty miles away would have been _really_ something to see. :-)

The nuke rounds were carried in only one of the magazines It was
however, possible to move rounds from one magazine to another.
The yield was some 15kt. A lot compared to the 70 ton yield of the
Army's 155mm shells. As for a broadside, all three guns in a turret
were always aimed the same in azimuth. I don't know about the
elevation. I would think with an actual broadside there would be, you
might say, duplication of effort. When I was a kid I saw film of the
first fusion device[not bomb, it weighed more than a hundred tons.]
One of the damnest things I ever saw. I think Ivy Mike was the name.

Casady

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xEFXfMQ-vzQ

"Jeffrey Hamilton" wrote:
:
:One more question if you have a bit of time, what does the 45 or 50 figure
:mean in these instances 16"/50 or 16"/45. I do see that it refers to a
:50-caliber barrel, but a 45 or 50 caliber is usually refering to a small
:arms or a machine gun etc. I've never understood what that signifies.
:

'Caliber' as used for artillery specifies how many barrel diameters
LONG the barrel is. Thus a 16"/50 would have barrels that were 16x50
inches long.

Caliber for small arms is a measure of bore diameter.


--
"Ignorance is preferable to error, and he is less remote from the
truth who believes nothing than he who believes what is wrong."
-- Thomas Jefferson