Machining Naval ship gun barrels and gun mounts

[Ryanjax]

I am in Louisville for a Navy school and got a tour of the manufacturing line for the big guns! Anywhere from 57mm to the New 6". Some of those lathes and huge gantry mills are so cool. I can't talk about all the processes but it sure was neat!

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[extropic]

Imagine what was required for the 16" ers on the Iowa-class ships.

My bad, 18" was in error.

 

[Ryanjax]

They had that lathe in there but said they split it in two... Had to be 75' long. Now one half is used for rifling.

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[ndnchf]

The Iowa class battleships used 16" guns, specifically 16"/50 caliber. A couple 18" guns were made experimentally but were not used. One of these 18" barrels is on display next to a 16" barrel at the Dahlgren Va naval base. I've seen it, very impressive!

 

[4GSR]

Way back in my earlier years of learning and before working at a real job, my dad worked for a shop in Houston back in the 1960's-1970's. They used to buy up the old gun barrel drilling, skiving, rifling lathes that came out of the arsenals, and the caves up in Kansas. Of course, when they got them, all of the good stuff was already removed and destroyed. These old lathes had several bed sections bolted together to make one single length machine. The shortest was around 20 foot long. Most were in the 40 to 60 foot long with an occasional one of close to 100 foot long. The gun boring lathes were converted into modern trepanning machines running BTA style tooling instead of the old style spade drilling as most of these machines were set up using. Anybody familiar with oilfield drilling, know all about drill collars and other bottom hole assemblies (BHA) making up the tools that make hole in the earth. Mostly, these trepanner's were used to drill holes down thru the 30 foot long solid steel bars as the first operation in making a drill collar. At my first job while in college, I worked at a shop in Houston where we retrofitted and put together many of these machines. If I can find the picture and post, the one machine was a little over 120 foot long. It would drill hole from both ends at the same time in a 30 foot long bar, or mid length of a 54 foot long bar on the same machine. (Will find a picture and post later)
Here's a LeBlond 7GSR from government storage. The thru hole on the spindle is large enough to craw thru.


Just guessing, these were used for gun barrels up to about a 12" maybe a 14" I'm no expert on the gun sizes found on the ships or mobile equipment out there.

 

[Desolus]

An interesting factoid, legally, a 40 inch train gun (or any projectile weapon) that fires non-fixed ammunition (ammo that is not fixed is a projectile, primer and charge separate from each-other. fixed ammo is the primer, powder charge, and projectile all in a nice little brass casing) is not a firearm... And if one was so inclined to make them could sell them with no paperwork. Because not a firearm, is not a firearm.

 

[Ulma Doctor]

Hi Ryanjax,
i bet the process of making the big bore guns is very interesting indeed.

i had the good fortune to walk on a tour of the USS Missouri.
the ship and its armament is truly awe inspiring.

thanks for your service!

 

[Silverbullet]

My father was on the Wisconsin on its maiden voyage. And it's first combat , he said the whole ship would move sideways with the firing of the big guns. My last shop had a sixty foot bed lathe with 54" Chuck from the navy yard in Philadelphia. I got to run that lathe many times , it would peel off chips 1/8" x 1" and never grunt. YUPP miss those days and my pop.