5" Deck gun

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My guess would be that that is a 5" 54 MK42 on a US Destroyer.

You might find a casing or two for sale somewhere but they are usually tossed over the side after the fire mission.
 
USS Cod Deck Gun

Took this picture on the USS Cod sub when I was visiting Cleveland.
 

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nice pic kulak.
Google is not my friend today. any leads on where I can get ANY large artillery casings?
I'm thinking unique Christmas presents.
 
I've found 105mm blank casings at garage sales, but you don't find them often. They make great ashtrays. I also have a 3"-50 cal case around here somewhere, obtained the same way.
 
Pilgrims right. 5"/54 The case is a powder case and is is made of aluminium.
Back in the day I used to load the Magazine. But then we had two gunners mates in side the turret.
 
Defenetly a 5"/54...Similar to a 5"/38 the numbers are the turns/twists in the bore . and the 5"/54 barrel lenth is longer ..A former hot caseman ...it was my general quarters station .
 
houdini ...the powder case is made of brass ,only the magazine case in the powder handling room is aluminum,and it never leaves the magazine . These projectiles are two parts /semi fixed ammunition .first the powder case is laid in the tray and then the projectile overit and then rammed into the breech .
 
I have a friend who has one sitting in his front yard in front of his shop. Definitely an attention getter.
 
I'll go back and read the other responses.

It's a 5"/54 MK 45 mount. It can deliver 75 lbs
of HE at 12+ miles. It's rate of fire is about 25
rds per minute. The 54 refers to how long the
case is in inches. It succeeded the 5"/38 that
you see mostly as a twin mount in WWII era
film. I think technically it is a Naval Rifle.
On the destroyer I served on in the 70s we had
a 5"/54" Mk 42 that fired at 42 rounds/minute.
Last time on the gun line in Viet Nam in 6 months
it fired 9600+ rounds out of it. An unofficial record.

More on the Mk 45 from the video.

It has a 25 round circular ready to fire
magzine - it can be fired from the oprator's
station in CICS without anybody having to be
ibelow decks of the Mount. The 25 rounds
are selectable as in HE or other types Willie Pet,
starburst whatever yah got. So if they call
General quarters the gunners mates need to get
there to hump projectiles and powder cases
before it runs out of the 25 that are staged
 
Further THe Mk 45 is an unmanned mount The projectile and case are moved from below decks to the mount in the vertical
when it is loaded the 10 foot arm swings up and is
parrallel to the tray then transferred to tray rammed into
the chamber add a primer and BOOM... The operator firing it
in CICS has a) radar as well as the radar having a 20X-60X
scope aligned with the radar to feed a video image
back to the operator. It's an unmanned mount because
in the Mk 42 with twin loading arms thus the higher rate of
fire - when the 2000 psi hydraulics break and burst the
mount is filled with unbreathable atmosphere - they were
man killers for any body in the mount.

The 20X-60X scope is nice in that you can
have the radar off, and look around at the operator's
console. Ah, the port call in Acapulco guys stuck
on the ship on duty could still check out the action
on the beach if yah know what I mean.

Back in the day after that WESPAC and almost 10,000
rounds on the gun line, we came back to Pearl and would
go out on exercises. We only set condition X-Ray from the
spaces of the Mount and forward. I recall it
wasn't the BOOM and shaking of the ship as they
fired that would be bothersome enough to get out of my rack
which was the next compartment aft of the mount.
It was those dang blasted casing rolling across the deck
and then hitting the bit that would piss yah off.

The next version of the 5 inch will be a 62 caliber
with extended range with smart projectiles via GPS.

Ex-crew DE 1057 USS Rathburne aka RatJersey
and part time member of the Tonkin Gulf Yacht CLub.
Also Plankowner DD-971 USS David R Ray with two
5"/54? mounts.

Oddball brass.... I have a full length brass 12 ga.
case used in the riot guns we had in the small arms locker.
 
a 5"/38 the numbers are the turns/twists in the bore

The 38 is not related to the rifling

The barrel of a 5"/38 caliber gun has a five inch (127 mm) bore and a length 38 times the bore diameter, or 190 inches (15.83 ft. or 4.826 m) long. It has chrome plated rifling with 45 grooves that have a uniform right hand twist. There is one full revolution of the twist in 150 inches. The initial velocity of a new gun is 2600 ft/s. It is connected to the housing with a bayonet joint that allowed for replacement by destroyer tenders in the theater of operation.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/5%22/38_caliber_gun

Edit- The "38" is the caliber btw, not 5"
 
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Gotta love the Navy...

I like how they call it the "five inch lightweight gun."

Same thing in any other armed force would be considered a pretty serious piece of hardware. In the Navy, it's "lightweight."
 
I'm not a swabbie, squid, snipe, cannon cocker or whatever but I was a range safety officer on an artillery range in a prior life. I was taught that caliber was the ratio of bore to barrel length, e.g.: in 5 inch ordnance, a 62 caliber is longer than /54, which is longer than the /42, the /38 and, finally the /25.

Yes, I'm old enough to know that the 5-inch/25 was the primary, pre-War 2 anti-aircraft weapon in the fleet.

So, isn't caliber the bore/barrel length ratio?:banghead:
 
--and another thing!

In times past, whenever extended caliber ordnance was introduced, bore erosion demons surfaced. Of course, those were days that three rounds per minute per tube was a good performance. I've read that this was a major reason for final retirement of the Iowa class ships -- nobody left with the ability to re-line the bores.:(

What magic permits a 5-inch/62 a decent service life, especially at ten rounds per minute??!!!??!!!!
 
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