CA 3 USS Brooklyn:
yes it’s a neat ship, but still like the looks of the Olympia better
gary
I like the Brooklyn because it is better armed (6 x 8" guns per broadside), has better armor, is more maneuverable, is better able to use its guns in a seaway, and is faster than Olympia, even though it dates from the same era (Olympia is a ‘protected’ cruiser, while Brooklyn is an armored cruiser). What do you think of USS New York?
My absolute favorite heavy cruiser is CA-148 The USS Newport News. Her call sign was
“Thunder” and with good reason. On August 27, 1972 Thunder pulled off a good old fashioned
cruiser raid on Haiphong Harbor in North Viet Nam. The raid lasted 33 minutes and the ship
expended 433 rounds of 8 inch, 532 rounds of 5 inch, and, 33 rounds of 3 inch.
She was also the last of the big gun cruisers to be taken out of service.
Ray
The Newport News’ ship’s wheel is mounted on the bulkhead on the current Newport News SSN-750 and is polished everyday. I would say that none of the crew realizes where that wheel steered her namesake. Thanks for reminding me about that raid, one of the guys in my old navigation division was on the bridge of the older Newport News during that action. The next time SSN-750 pulls into port I’m going to mention it to the CO.
It was either the Boston or the Newport News that used to run a route from way up towards the Chinese border south to maybe the Nha Trang area. Shot for us several times, but for the life of me I can’t remember their call signs. New Jersey was “Big Boy.” They used to virtually park and setup shop right off the coast line of North Vietnam and just hammer them all night long. Rumor had it that there were S.F. inserted to do the down range fire direction
gary
Look here!
http://www.navsource.org/archives/04/acr3/acr3.htm
Plenty of pictures of the Brooklyn armored cruiser
I kinda wanted to add this to the heavy cruiser thread even though it is almost off topic.
On October second the Submarine USS Ohio surfaced in about the same place the Indianapolis was sank. Then Machinest mate 1st Class Jason Witty emerged with a silver pitcher containing the ashes of Boatswain Mate 2nd Class Eugene Morgan. Mr. Morgan was a crew member onboard the Indianapolis when it was torpedoed on that fatefull day. The ashes were cast into a calm sea. Mr Morgan passed away last june at the age of 87 years.
gary
Thanks for letting us know about this, I haven’t heard of a sub performing this ceremony before.
There was a picture of the ceremony in the Indianapolis Star with a nice write up. Might just toss in here that if your every in Indy; a trip to the U.S.S. Indianapolis Memorial is a must see. I’ll try to get a link to the story.
gary
USS Baltimore CA-68, Second ship kit I ever bought(Trumpeter 1/700),and both my dad’s parents grew up outside Baltimore right next to the Martin plant.
Yup, the Baltimore class was the ultimate US heavy cruiser design as far as efficiency goes… I still like the style of the Northamptons though!
How were the Baltimores more efficient than the Des Moines class? I thought the Des Moines’ were derived from the Baltimore class.
Well, that’s an interesting question, and subject to a fair bit of interpretation too! The ‘Des Moines’ were not ready for WW2 (none being launched before 1946), and while they were considerably larger and more heavily armored, they were not as fast as the ‘Baltimores.’ The ‘Des Moines’ were SO large (at over 700’ long, displacing 21,268 tons at full war load), that they were actually larger than the old British battlecruisers of the ‘Invincible’ and ‘Indefatigable’ classes! Certainly there is a good argument in favor of the ‘Des Moines,’ if for no other reason than they had a new type of 8" gun designed for rapid fire, but it seems to me (and i admit, this is a personal bias!), in terms of ‘bang for buck’ the ‘Baltimore’ class was a better use of materiel…
I would suppose that "bang for the buck"might depend on rate of fire and accuracy. Any info on their relative rates of fire?
baltimore & earlier heavy cruiser 8" gun link.
http://www.navweaps.com/Weapons/WNUS_8-55_mk12-15.htm
des moines 8" gun link
Thanks for the link ddp, the Northamptons seem to have had a rate of fire that was three times greater than the Baltimores but the Baltimores were equipped with Long Range Bombardment Ammunition that gave them a potential range of 35 miles or over 70,000 yards. Granted, the explosive power was about a third (shell weight of a little over 100 pounds) of the superheavy ammunition (a little over 300 pounds) that the 8" guns of both classes normally fired at a range of 15 miles or 30,500 yards.
went to the link provided, and I really gotta question the 35 mile hits. To be exact I think who ever figured it flunked Algebra II. Even if using the 260lb. round you ain’t get there, and ballistics say it would have to be the 335lb. round to retain the maximum amount of energy at extreme ranges. A 175 gun setting at 1500 ft above the target shooting a zone three charge and a 147lb. round will do about 25 miles (some say 27 miles). An eight inch howitzer from that period was good for about 9 to 9 1/2 miles using a charge similar in size to what is shown (so maybe the Navy was using two of them?). Taking into fact that barrel they were using was about 2 1/2 times longer, and the howitzer was using the standard 204 lb. projo it just don’t add up at 2600 fps. The 175 gun round has far a better ballistic coefficent, and is a very similar design to what the 1000 yard target shooters use in rifles, but of corse bigger (they figure their spec of a 2668 fps velocity), and left at 3300+ fps. Maybe 25 miles max. When the Battleship New Jersey shot for us they were doing about 23 miles, and that was close to all they had.
gary
This was special ammo, this is from the link:
- In the late 1960s the “Gunfighter” program at Indian Head Naval Ordnance Station developed Long Range Bombardment Ammunition (LRBA) projectiles. These were Arrow Shells with a body diameter of 4.125" (10.4 cm) and a fin diameter of 5.0" (12.7 cm) which were sized to be fired from 8" (20.3 cm) guns by using a sabot and obturator system. Tests with these in 1968 showed maximum ranges of 72,000 yards (66,000 m). The burster in these shells was PBX-w-106, a castable explosive. Sabot weighed 17.6 lbs. (8.0 kg) and was discarded as the projectile left the muzzle. After a test firing off Okinawa of three inert-loaded shells, USS St. Paul (CA-73) in 1970 conducted a two day bombardment mission against Viet Cong positions at ranges up to 70,000 yards (64,000 m). At the time, St. Paul was the only 8" gunned cruiser still in active service.
I seem to recall reading somewhere that the Northamptons and Pensacolas had a problem with their triple turrets, in that the guns were so close together that if the guns were fired simultaneously, the shells would actually interfere with each other in flight (wide dispersion of shot), and the ‘solution’ was a firing delay between the outer two guns and the middle gun. Can anyone confirm this?