Naval gun rifling cutter photo's

[55fairlane]

My 97 year old father in law was the fire control officer ( he sat in front of the range finder with his foot on the "trigger" ) on a few different smaller battleships.
He made mention that my 800 yard long distance was nothing, he hit a small Japanese cruiser in heavy seas at 10 (?) Miles. I believe that was the USS Pennsylvania (BB-38)

 

[YEW PLUCKER]

When I was in Vieques Island, we called in A-6's and A-7's and indirect fire from a destroyer. We also had 105's that were brought down by the 82nd. Never the Iowa, or New Jersey though.

A 'full load' from an A-6 that just took off from Rosey Roads was AMAZING to say the least. The A-7's were no slouches either. They would either do a gun run or drop a bomb. We had a whole lot of live ordnance dropped on that island.

Yep we did some of that too. Good training!

 

[sandwarrior]

Yep we did some of that too. Good training!

I understand they shuttered the base in 2000? It doesn't seem like much of anything has been done with it since we left. Vieques Island on the other hand seems to have seen a bunch of development.

Ft. Buchanon, where we also called in live fire, appears to be way more built up than when I was there.

What time frame were you there? And, with who if I may ask. I was in B Co. 1st RGR BN

 

[Brians356]

Some Japanese air craft were called "Burning Betties" they were made of wood to be light and caught fire when shot full of holes. Not a very good trade off for a war machine.

They weren't made even mostly of wood, but none, including the Zero, had self-sealing gas tanks, so they were very easy to ignite compared to US planes.
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[Brians356]

Amazing how much stuff from WWII is still around in many places. It was at least 50 years after WWII that the Navy went and cleaned up their practice torpedoes in Pyramid lake in NV. NAS Fallon, Van Voorhis Field, is a remnant of WWII, with some of the original hangars still in use today. Lewistown, MT has a hangar that was WWII. A bunch of fields in MT were Training/Testing fields. WY, ID, WA, NM, NV have a bunch too.

Did you know an A-3 Skywarrior on a low-level training mission out of NAS Alameda crashed into Pyramid Lake on Jan. 13, 1988? Sank and all 3 crew lost.
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[sandwarrior]

Did you know an A-3 Skywarrior on a low-level training mission out of NAS Alameda crashed into Pyramid Lake on Jan. 13, 1988? Sank and all 3 crew lost.
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Yes I DID! Of all things I went to the Hornet in San Francisco bay (Oakland side) and the Senior Naval Officer on that floating museum was in that unit. I asked him about that A-3 crash and he said those two pilots never should have been paired together. they flew great with most everyone else, but together, bad things just seemed to happen. Amazing when you run into someone who knew of that crash.

Local word was the crash was never recovered. That guy on the Hornet said it was. Which, I can't believe the Navy would just go, "Oh well, lost a secret plane with all kinds of electronic gear." And, not try to recover it.

Added: Pyramid is a pretty deep lake though

 

[Brians356]

@sandwarrior,

I don't believe it was recovered. That lake is "only" 350 ft deep, but the alkaline water is not very clear. Its relatively remote location, limited access, and Indian tribal administration probably factored into the decision as well.

What's odd is I've spent a lot of time in the large area around that lake since 1973, and I'd never seen nor heard of any A-3 activity. Lots of FA-18 buzzes out of Fallon of course, and ANG RF-4s out of Reno.
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[sandwarrior]

@sandwarrior,

I don't believe it was recovered. That lake is "only" 350 ft deep, but the alkaline water is not very clear. It's relatively remote location, limited access, and Indian tribal administration probably factored into the decision as well.

What's odd is I've spent a lot of time in the large area around that lake since 1973, and I'd never seen nor heard of any A-3 activity. Lots of FA-18 buzzes out of Fallon of course, and ANG RF-4s out of Reno.
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Ha! There is a youtube video of RF-4's going supersonic over that lake multiple times. Over the years I've seen a lot of aircraft in the Navy inventory out there. I saw a lot of A-3's in the early '70's. It surprised me to hear of an A-3 crash as late as1988.

As to clarity, it's clearer than some think. The depth in that lake varies a lot. Just look at what's around that lake. The topography above isn't all that different than the topography under the surface. The only time I've ever seen that lake where you can't see much at all is when the winds whip up in the spring and the melt is moving a lot of silt down the Truckee and then it's cloudy. And you want to be getting OFF that lake when the winds come up.

It's worth chasing the vaunted Lahontan Cutthroat.

Some of the ridiculous legends of the depth of Pyramid are cars disappearing there and being found on the coast of California. As though there were underground caverns to the sea. As kids we believed that, but then we thought wait, "Wouldn't the water drain out like a bathtub?"

 

[Brians356]

As to clarity, it's clearer than some think.

I suppose I have Tahoe in mind as a standard. As many times as I've fished Pyramid and not gotten so much as a bump, I swore the water must be opaque.
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[sandwarrior]

I suppose I have Tahoe in mind as a standard. As many times as I've fished Pyramid and not gotten so much as a bump, I swore the water must be opaque.
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Tahoe is so clear you can see 100 ft. down very easily. That was on the Tahoe Queen on our engagement announcement night out. Kind of the gold standard of clarity for big deep lakes. Much clearer than Superior, where I'm at now. Pend Oreille and Coeur D'Alene are both pretty clear, but not as clear as Tahoe. That's how I remember it anyways. The last time I was there was 2011.

 

[Brians356]

Tahoe is so clear you can see 100 ft. down very easily. That was on the Tahoe Queen on our engagement announcement night out. Kind of the gold standard of clarity for big deep lakes. Much clearer than Superior, where I'm at now. Pend Oreille and Coeur D'Alene are both pretty clear, but not as clear as Tahoe. That's how I remember it anyways. The last time I was there was 2011.

There's the Naval Surface Warfare Acoustic Research Detachment on Lake Pend Oreille. The lake is over 1000 ft deep and very quiet. "Large Scale Submarine Models, Test Ranges, and acoustic test facilities utilized in conducting Research, Development, Test & Evaluation (RDT&E) of submarine acoustic stealth technology." I grew up in N. Idaho. My dad did his boot camp and radio school there when it was Camp Farragut, then taught Morse code for a year there before going into action in the Pacific Theater.

I lived at Tahoe for a while a long time ago. Spent a lot of time sailing on it. One night, anchored, I got up to take a leak, ran into a stay and knocked my eyeglasses in the drink. The next morning the guy who owned the boat figured out where we had been riding at anchor, and in the bright morning sunlight we spotted those metal eyeglasses glittering on the sand between granite boulders. I'm not much of a swimmer but he dove down to fetch them. They looked about 15 feet deep, but in reality they were 40 feet down. He tried carrying ballast but never could get down to them, so we left them there.
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[sandwarrior]

I've been there. When we lived just north of Sandpoint. Of course, you couldn't go in. My uncle who was in counter-submarine warfare made several trips out there. He was a Physical Chemist PhD. I want to say? Anyhow he taught Physics Grad students at University of Miami, FL. So, the Acoustic Research Detachment was right up his alley. He retired as a Full-bird/Captain. In the Reserves. It's not only the depth at that station, it's the isolation. It's a pretty easy spot to close down access to.

Farragut was a really cool thing too. Now that, we got to go and see. It was kind of funny that one of the reception women there kept telling me my uncle went to Farragut when he came out there. I'm trying to tell her he was in counter-submarine warfare and she kept insisting he probably just went to basic at Farragut. "No" I tell her, "He went the Officers Candidate course in RI." She's like, "No, you don't understand..."

I spent a lot of time as a kid at Lake Tahoe. At the 4-H camp just north of Harvey's Casino. Going for a week was cool, but then I got to be a junior counselor and go for two weeks. WooHoo! Two weeks of no milking or feeding cows and chopping hay (nasty, dusty stuff). As a little kid, we used to camp at Fallen Leaf. I love that area. My wife is from just over the border south of Gardnerville/Minden, Markleeville. So, I went all over that area.

So, where did you grow up in N. Idaho?

 

[Brians356]

So, where did you grow up in N. Idaho?

Lewiston. Was in high school and played in a rock band with Vernon Speer's grandsons.

My first summer in Reno, 1974, two of us college students parked at a trailhead near Fallen Leaf Lake and backpacked up into Desolation Wilderness for several days. Came close to dying crossing a frozen lake. Also flirted with snow blindness. Ah, youth!
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[sandwarrior]

When we left Sandpoint, sadly, Farragut was still trying to open the 1000 yd. range. Too many anti's in the Couer D'Alene area were blocking it.

Tree hugger types that thought their oxygen was going to run out because a tree trimming/logging company took more trees in a small clearing cut due to mistletoe infestation. Want to save trees? Don't let mistletoe go unabated. Those trees would be standing skeletons in a few years. It's why they did the cut in the first place. That might have been at Hayden Lake though.

I used to go through Lewiston on my way to a contract job in Boise. First time in a long time down the Lewiston grade at night, scared me pretty good. The Whitebird grade was next. Aaaannnd to top the night off when you're already tired and edgy, 45 miles of the Payette stretch. One mistake and you end up in the water.

 

[YEW PLUCKER]

I understand they shuttered the base in 2000? It doesn't seem like much of anything has been done with it since we left. Vieques Island on the other hand seems to have seen a bunch of development.

Ft. Buchanon, where we also called in live fire, appears to be way more built up than when I was there.

What time frame were you there? And, with who if I may ask. I was in B Co. 1st RGR BN

Late 86 and early 87, B Co. 1st RGR BN, We must know each other. I think we went down there three times all together, in that time frame.

 

[rwj]

Though a video focused on the turret explosion, it includes a lot of information on the powder used in the guns...

 

[Nature Boy]

Is that 16 incher not a thing of beauty or what.

It's OK I guess, but still not as powerful as a CREED!

 

[CT10ring]

Though a video focused on the turret explosion, it includes a lot of information on the powder used in the guns...

awesome info, thanks!

 

[HPC]

Something big emerged from long ago:

This Family Dug Up a 1-Ton Shell From the Battleship USS New Jersey in 2015

Fortunately, it was a dud, but it still packed 150 pounds of high explosive.

www.popularmechanics.com

 

[DickE]