Surplus ‘splodies
David sends us a link to Popular Mechanics which reports that the Army is trying to decide what to do with a number of old 16″ Navy artillery shells that they have laying around for the Iowa-class destroyers which were retired after the Cold War;
According to Federal Business Opportunities, the Army has 15,595 16-inch artillery shells sitting at Crane Army Ammunition Activity in Crane, Indiana. These shells were intended for the 16″/50 caliber main guns of the Iowa-class battleships—like the U.S.S. New Jersey in the video below—which were the biggest guns ever mounted on a U.S. Navy ship. However, these ships, first commissioned for World War II, are now enjoying a much-deserved retirement, having exited service at the end of the Cold War.
But these ships’ rounds are still hanging around and they’re the real deal, built to smash other battleships—and hardened beach fortifications—to bits. The stockpile includes high capacity high explosive rounds, armor piercing shells, and practice rounds. Each high capacity round weighs 2,054 pounds, with 154 pounds of high explosive and a 1,900-pound steel body. Each armor piercing shell weighs 2,700 pounds and is filled with either 41 pounds of explosives or up to 666 grenades.
David is wondering if any of you have suggestions on how to help the Army with this dilemma.
Category: Army News
Target practice on Mohammed’s goat heads?
How about we sell them on the black market (charge for delivery) and then drop them (from the back of a C-130) at the delivery location with a few hundred pounds of other ordnance to thank the buyer for their support?
Probably wouldn’t be practical to put them in the bomb bay of a B-52 and drop them on ISIS targets in Iraq and Syria but it might be fun to watch.
In all seriousness, I guess I don’t understand the dilemma. Assuming the fuse is a separate part of the shell (isn’t it?) then can’t they just remove the high explosives and recycle the metal?
I mean, these shells were designed to be held in a very dynamic environment of a ship, exposed to the motion of slamming waves, the rocking of the ship, vibration and shock that might occur during battle, etc. – they CAN’T be very fragile, can they?
2054 lbs of shell minus 154 pounds of powder = 1900lbs of steel. You could make at least one decent sized car out of that (shrugs.)
Re-fuze for air drop and slap stabilization fins on the end like conventional iron bombs?
I don’t know ordinance very well…is that even possible?
Very possible. We did it with some of the 76.2mm HE projos that we made for the white Russians and didn’t want to give to the Bolsheviks.
The Japanese did that with some shells for the attack on the battleships at Pearl Harbor… would make for some nice bunker busting bombs.
Exactly so.
One such repurposed shell killed the Arizona.
Dropped high enough, they go supersonic, with plenty of “punch” on impact.
Fins, GPS or laser seeker, delay impact fuse = bunker buster. Cheap.
Dumb bomb rig = cheaper.
B-52 load of these on a concentration of annoyances? = priceless.
Eh, no. The modified shell did hit the USS Arizona, but that shell exploding wasn’t what killed the ship.
What took her down was the fact that the modified Japanese naval shell hit the Arizona in a critical spot and touched off a secondary explosion in her forward magazine – estimated at approx 100+ tons of explosive yield. That secondary explosion is what sunk the USS Arizona.
The HMS Hood was sunk by the Bismark the same way – a single shell from the Bismark caused a secondary explosion in her rear magazine, which broke the ship in two. However, the HMS Prince of Wales survived numerous hits from Bismark’s main guns during the same battle, though with major damage. Ditto the Bismark herself when she was later sunk – torpedoes or scuttling charges (or a combination of both) were what finally sank her.
Estimates are that Bismark was hit approximately 400 times by British naval gunfire, many of which were from battleship main guns. She didn’t sink until she received the coup de grace torpedo salvoes from the HMS Dorsetshire – after her scuttling charges had already gone off.
We did this with 8 inch howitzer barrels from de-militarized M110’s during Desert Storm. Filled them full of boom-boom powder, stuck fins on them and shoved them out the back of C130. Made big, pretty holes in things…
Here’s what I’d do with ’em (if the engineers could make it work, which they should be able to):
Weld on some suspension lugs, come up with a guidance kit, tail kit, and appropriate aerial fusing, and then start dropping them as aviation ordnance against ISIS. Use the high capacity rounds against ‘soft’ targets, and the AP rounds as penetrators against ‘hard’ targets.
I’ve seen 16″ high capacity rounds detonate. It’s a sight to behold.
Use them as intended.
Use them as intended.
^^^^Yes^^^^
It would be great if we could do so, but unfortunately there aren’t any more Navy 16″/50 Caliber Mark 7 guns mounted on any of the currently active U.S. Navy ships, so there simply aren’t any guns available at the present time to fire these 16″ rounds.
Which is unfortunate, because as Marines we REALLY liked having 16″ Naval Gunfire available as a fire support option.
I got my first qualification as a Naval Gunfire Spotter while controlling 16″ fires delivered by the USS IOWA (BB-61).
I think the only ones left even floating are on the Missouri, no?
Don’t think so. Wikipedia says that all four Iowa-class battleships still exist and are now museum ships. The USS Iowa is in LA; the USS New Jersey, in Camden; the USS Missouri, at Pearl; and the USS Wisconsin, at Norfolk.
Iowa Class Battleships, not Destroyers. That being said; whenever we would conduct Gunnery Drills at sea once the target was destroyed we would always request to “download” through the muzzle vice placing rounds back in the magazine. I think they need to download these rounds through the muzzle say somewhere in the vicinity of…..Iran?
Sell them off to landscapers as Koi pond makers.
No backhoe required.
Couple wraps of det cord and KABOOM!! Instant carp swimming hole.
As others have said, refuze and retrofit them.
Then drop them on Dabiq.
Oh, yes – do the math. 15,595 explosive heavyweights weighing slightly more than a ton each. Well, that equals a +/- 15 kiloton bomb, doesn’t it?
There’s a target available with a minefield surrounding it, adding more explosives to the mix.
What’s the problem?
Eh, not really. Each shell has at most 70kg (154lb) of explosive. 15,600 x 70kg = 1,092,000kg – or just over 1kT.
That’s indeed a big bang, but it’s nowhere close to a Hiroshima-sized bang (18kT). And delivering it would require delivering literally 15,600 metric tons of payload.
A B-52 can only deliver a bit over 14 metric tons in a single lift. Delivering all of it would take a while. Delivering it all nearly simultaneously ain’t gonna happen.
I was thinking of the shrapnel value in the metal casing, Hondo.
That would certainly have an effect. Wouldn’t want to be near that. And why not deliver them as three loads dropped on the same target, on behind the other?
BOOM!
Doing the math, it would take over 1070 B-52 sorties to deliver all of that ordnance. We had less than 100 still in service in April 2015.
Realistically, assuming 75% average availability, we could probably muster a max of 70 at any one time. Assuming one mission of 70 aircraft daily, that means we’d need at least 16 days to deliver all of it.
Each of those aircraft would deliver 14 of those shells (remember, they’re 1 metric ton each). Those shells would contain 980kg of high explosive.
A single Mark 84 gravity bomb contains nearly half that much HE. And since they’re about 1 metric ton each also, based on payload capacity a single B52 can also carry that many Mark 84s – which would have nearly 7 times as much “bang-stuff”.
Add in the cost to modify the naval shells and test them (in order to characterize their drop characteristics and aerodynamics while falling with the added fins, mounting rings, etc . . . ), and my guess is it would simply be cheaper to buy additional Mark 84s and use those. Plus, we’d get nearly 7x the bang for the same bucks.
Or we could just say “the hell with that” and send a flight of 4 B-52s with a single B-83 each and be done with it. (smile)
Well, perhaps I was to obtuse about the goal. Tar el Dabiq is a village that is central to ISIS’s Doomsday scenario. The area around it is heavily mined.
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-mideast-crisis-syria-dabiq-idUSKCN1230RI
Drop enough heavy ordinance on the mined area around Dabiq to detonate the mines and repeat the process until the heavy shells are used up and the area is a sand pit. At the same time, hit Dabiq itself with more ordinance, repeat until it’s all used up, then add more conventional ordinance to it until the place is leveled.
If the damned fools want Armageddon, them give them what they want and salt the earth afterwards. And that ‘show a little mercy’ thingy? When have any of them ever shown anyone any mercy – EVER?
Studying for next Sunday’s Sunday School lesson, reading about the Assyrians (HQ: Baghdad) Hezikiah and Isaiah: the answer to “when have any of them ever shown anyone any mercy” is “not in the last 3,000 – 4,000 years.”
One does not reason with a rabid dog. Shoot, shovel, shutup.
Inquiry: wasn’t Ninevah the capital of Assyria and Baghdad was Babylon?
(And didn’t ISIS destroy “Jonah’s whale tooth”?)
Build a new, modernized 16″ gun, and reinvigorate Naval fire support.
Shack!
I used the same word below (re-invigorate) … clearly you and I were thinking the same notion! Funny!
BLUF:
1. Re-move all BB’s from custody of non-profit museums (in contract).
2. Re-oufit and re-commission all BB’s.
3. Re-institute all US Navy (and other sea service) norms, values and traditions.
4. Re-invigorate U. S. Navy and military in general by re-mobilizing BB’s for service in the GWOT.
4. Re-connoiter and re-duce our enemies to ash by re-introducing the 16 inch shells into their respective AOR.
That is all!
Yes!!!!
Problems in using these today are twofold.
1. For their size/weight, they don’t really make that big of a bang. These rounds don’t really have all that much explosive for their weight. That’s by design; they’re designed primarily for ship armor penetration, not large explosive effect (though they do make a fair-sized bang). However, they’re not really big enough for use against hardened/deeply buried targets. They require fairly precise placement – and for that, they’d have to be refitted with a precision guidance kit. And they still wouldn’t penetrate anywhere as well as one of the “bunker buster” bomb designs – which has more explosive, is designed for the role, and is lighter than either.
By comparison, the USAF Mk 83 1000-lb bomb contains 445lbs (200+kg) as much explosive. You want bang, that’s a much better choice. And it’s between 1/2 and 1/3 the weight of either of the surplus 16″ shells.
2. They’re quite old. Wikipedia says the newest were built in 1969 – or approaching 50 years ago. Even with good storage, explosives degrade over time; my understanding is that they generally become more volatile (and hence unsafe) as they age. That was one of the issues contributing to the USS Forrestal fire – the munitions on the aircraft that day were largely World War II or Korean War era bombs, and had degraded badly in storage. They thus cooked off quickly when exposed to heat.
Realistically, if it was at all possible the shells should have been either disassembled or otherwise had the explosive removed when they were placed in long-term storage, and refilled if/when needed in the future. That way, we wouldn’t be dealing with trying to dispose of several thousand nearly 50-year-old projectile filled with very old and possibly unstable explosives. We’d simply be seeking to dispose of several thousand tons of scrap steel.
Think that depends on the specific compound. I have little knowledge of actual explosives but I know most reloading powders get weaker, not stronger, with age. Given that they contain many of the same compounds as the better ‘splody stuff, it would seem to at least offer the possibility that instead if being touchy, these could be headed to be duds. Old dynamite was touchy because it held nitroglycerine which, when it came out, IS touchy. Used to know a guy who occasionally claimed to heat the nitro out of old Dupont nitro dynamite. I admired his courage… from several miles away.
Could be. The bombs that cooked off early in the Forrestal disaster certainly weren’t filled with any of the newer compounds.
Reloading power may not be a good comparison, though. Pretty sure modern mil warheads are filled with an updated, less sensitive derivative of C4, RDX, or other mil-grade plastic explosive vice any kind of gunpowder. (The propellant bags used with artillery and naval guns are a different story.) My guess is that those types of explosives probably don’t degrade the same way as gunpowder.
I’m no chemistry buff, but I have a brother who is reloading using his late father-in-laws powders which have been around several decades, with no reported degradation in performance.
I still have some stuff from 35 years ago that seems stable as well. But- I am no chemistry buff.
Does anyone (Squids or EOD?) know what form the explosive is? IOW is it a powder, or is it some kind of plastic? Can it be removed from the inside of the shell?
If it can’t be safely removed then the only thing I can think is, take them out to the desert and either use them for some kind of target or let EOD types get their training by “disposing” of them with det cord.
We exploded over 500 nukes in the Nevada desert, a few HE rounds is nothing.
This source says ammonium picrate, or Dunnite. Not sure if the later production (1969) used that or another explosive.
http://www.navweaps.com/Weapons/WNUS_16-50_mk7.php
It’s rated as being less stable than TNT. Not sure if it becomes more or less stable as it degrades in storage.
We do, seriously, need a heavy gun ship for the USN. A gunship that can fight, if necessary, with every electronic fuse blown and slagged.
A big-gun ship that’s capable of old school mechanical aim and shoot.
If we get into a serious war with a competent foe, our current navy is just wrecks in waiting due to complete electronic dependency.
How about a Monitor – here are some of the ones that the Royal Navy used during WWII:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:World_War_II_monitors_of_the_United_Kingdom
Design on a modern hull, put a couple of big guns on the with some modern tech for propulsion and fire control – modern Naval Gunfire support!
Along the same lines, many of us squids argued for a new build hull designed for fire support of ashore forces.
The idea was to put a pair of M109 (or something similar) turrets 1 fore and the other aft, and amidships add a pair of MLRS box launchers.
Build it with a couple gas turbine engines driving water jets and an armored bridge and fire control director. Considered adding a whizzer amidships on a raised pedestal in case someone ashore or a skimmer tried to get a hit with an ASCM.
A couple dozen of these could be right handy for supporting amphibious operations, especially if they were shallow enough draft for some riverine ops too.
Unless any of our potential foes (China? Russia?) have old-school battleships (and they don’t) then we really don’t need them.
Since our “enemies” are just as dependent on electronics as we are, the issue of electronic “fragility” is not really a problem (if anything, our ability to ‘harden’ electronics is probably better than our enemy’s.)
I know battleships look awesome but their time has passed. A missile can go farther and hit harder, and unlike a gun, a missile doesn’t have to be overbuilt to take the enormous explosive stress of firing a gigantic projectile.
That may very well be true for a modern ship vs. ship surface engagement, at least while there are still missiles remaining in the ships’ magazines during the engagement.
However, no missile can provide the same amount of highly responsive, effective firepower as the 16″ high capacity round does when it is employed as Naval Gunfire in close support of troops ashore.
And I’ll pre-empt the Tomahawk missile argument before that gets started here. Yes, Tomahawk is used to strike point targets ashore, but it is employed as a strike asset, it is not a quick-response asset, and it would not be used in close support of ground maneuver elements ashore that are operating in a fluid, dynamic environment.
For the sake of argument: why wouldn’t a half-dozen M270 MLRS (or if permanently mounted, the missile launcher/fire control/guidance components) on a smaller ship perform the same role re: NGS support? I’ve heard those colloquially referred to as “grid square removal systems”.
Range is 32 to 45+ km, which I believe matches that of the 16″ naval gun. Quick research indicates available warheads are cluster, unitary, mine, and PGM.
Hondo,
Like this perhaps?
http://www.thinkdefence.co.uk/2014/02/gmlrs-sea/
There is more discussion on a Naval version of MLRS here:
http://www.defencetalk.com/forums/missiles-wmds/naval-version-mlrs-10871/
I suppose that it could work for strike or interdiction missions, but the old USMC-trained Forward Air Controller/Naval Gunfire Spotter in me is still very hesitant about considering Naval MLRS systems like this for use in providing close support for ground maneuver elements ashore. One of the reasons for this is that I still believe in the utility of training to conduct man-in-the-loop observed/adjusted fires, because one day all of the computers and GPS gadgets may very well stop working, and we’ll be back to you and I talking on an HF radio and using a 1:50,000 map and a compass in order to get fire support on time and on target. All of the high-speed, low-drag precision weapons technology that we have today is great, but we’d better not ever forget the old basic ‘blocking and tackling’ of how to get things done when the technology stops functioning.
As I said above, I would envision a Naval MLRS-type system being used more for strike/interdiction type missions deeper in enemy territory. But I believe that we’d need to figure out something else for close support for troops operating ashore.
Besides, as you can probably tell, I’m biased towards those somewhat antiquated 16″ Naval guns; they are what I cut my teeth on as a brand-new Naval Gunfire Spotter, and you were really wielding some awesome firepower when you were adjusting those big guns around the target area. Good training; good times.
Put them all together on a ship destined for Davy Jones’ locker, and make big BOOM to send it to it’s watery grave.
Give a few to Lars “Zika-Commie” Taylor so he can eradicate the Zika carrying mosquitoes from his backyard.
give ’em to the Ukrainians with one of those IED guys from Iraq to target the Russians. Everybody wins!
Naval Surface Warfare Center in Dahlgren VA has some interesting toys. A rail gun that magnetically fires hyper-sonic rounds, for one. And a 16 inch Naval gun that they play with on occasion. When the weather’s right, I can hear when the thing it’s fired, nearly 50 miles away. So there are still some big guns out there.
Found a fired one at Fort Drum on a range sweep a long time ago. EOD was perplexed and said it hade never been fired on our at the base. But their it was.
https://www.bing.com/images/search?q=16+inch+naval+shells&qpvt=16+inch+naval+shells&qpvt=16+inch+naval+shells&qpvt=16+inch+naval+shells&FORM=IGRE
For a bit of scale. Go big or go home!
As a weapon these shells are obsolete.
So remove the explosive and remove the fuze (if attached).
Then either sell them as scrap steel or make a artificial reef.
I was thinking of one target. Just one. And it would take only one or two rounds. Even if they don’t go BOOM as big as the newer munitions, the kinetic energy from both weight and falling from height will do the job.
The target? That black rock in the middle of Mecca. Think that would suffice?
Okay, well, your idea works for me, too, so let’s split them into two groups and flatten both areas.
Cluster bombing? Fine by me, just be precise.
Put them out in the middle of nowhere with sledgehammers by them and get word out that there is free shit, like I-phones, Air Jordans and college scholarships inside,,,,
Discarding trolley, launched out the tail of a C-5. 100 at a shot would take the starch out of any shorts that I can think of.
We could give Monkress and All Points Logistics a contract to disarm and remove them…… would probably be a better use of resources than some of the half assed schemes that get executed these days.
In the 1970s, The naval base that is currently known as Subase Bangor had a program run by the Weapons Department, that managed to demil and scrap many 16-inch projectiles. There were a small number of rounds that had to be detonated on a remote range, because the base fuses were too corroded to safely remove. But most of the projectiles were sold for scrap, and the explosives were stored elsewhere. A very successful project, that could provide some jobs, as well as dealing with the matter of keeping nearly 16,000 rounds of corroding,potentially unstable heavy weapons stored for a rainy day.