Comment by BobG

October 9, 2007 @ 7:50 am

I imagine that ship moved a few feet in the water when they fired the guns.

Comment by Captain Wheelgun

October 9, 2007 @ 3:22 pm

Did anybody check out the fall-of-shot graph at David’s link? Those are 1 MOA groups, folks. The world’s biggest varmint rifles. Wish they were still in commision, there’s still a lot of big varmints for them to work on.

Comment by David

October 9, 2007 @ 3:42 pm

I thought it was cute that they used the Pentagon to give some scale to the group size.

Comment by Mark

October 16, 2007 @ 6:12 am

No, battleships do not move sideways when they fire. The gun tubes recoil to the rear against the pressure of a counterweight… I dunno how far, or how heavy a counterweight in the Iowa class ships, but I know that the gunners have to get in safe positions when the guns fire, or they may be crushed by the moving breech or the counterweight. Remember, that ship weights over 120 MILLION pounds. When this question has been put forth elsewhere, extensive studies of ariel photos like the one above have been made, as well as interviews with battleship veterans, and the conclusive answer is NO, there is no sideways movememt due to recoil. They may roll a bit though, I am not sure about that.

- A Battleship Texas restoration crew volunteer

Comment by David

October 16, 2007 @ 9:14 am

Cool, thanks for the info!