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Post by roland1369 on Jun 11, 2020 10:20:09 GMT 8
One correction. My aging mind was in error. The original muzzle velocity of the 12 inch M 1900 gun was 2500 fps. This was reduced to 2250 fps by the expedient of reducing the powder charge and enlarging the chamber. Th increased the tube life from 75 to 200 full charge rounds.
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Post by roland1369 on Jun 8, 2020 10:48:10 GMT 8
There is a potential alternate reason for the selection of the 12 inch vice 14 inch for Corregidor. At the time when the 12 inch M1901 DC carriages(which were those emplaced on Corregidor) were originally designed for the M1900 gun, This gun was boosted to a 3200 FPS muzzle velocity. This was supposed to boost the penetration of the 12 inch gun to equal the armor penetration of the 14 inch gun. This ws true, but as with many things produced by the ordnance department, and not the operator there was a major problem. The 1900 gun was so high powered it was worn out in 75 rounds or less. Additionally the M1900 gun was designed with such a small chamber it proved extremely difficult to ram the powderThus it was possible to wear out the gun before half of the shells in the magazine were fired. This is the reason the later M1901 dc cariages and those with worn out M1900 guns were equipped with M1895 guns. Thus there is a good possibility that when the fortifications were first designed the coast artillery did not feel the need to plan for 14 inch guns as the 12 would be the equivalent.
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Post by roland1369 on Jan 1, 2020 22:11:42 GMT 8
Re picture 793. I do not believe that this is a radio but a field telephone set. it is entirely too compact for the technology of the time. This size and portability was not achieved until WW II.
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Post by roland1369 on Dec 30, 2019 0:43:04 GMT 8
Correction, the complete nomenclature of the artillery piece was "3 Inch Gun RF Mark 1 on Field Carriage Mark 1 " This was the first modern Landing for the US Navy. Interestingly the barrel itself had a regularly assigned ships pedestal mounting on the ship and was dismounted and placed on the field carriage only when needed for duty ashore.
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Post by roland1369 on Dec 29, 2019 22:09:13 GMT 8
Obviously I was referring to the field artillery. It is interesting to note that they are firing at the 4.7 inch shields and carriage. They had been declared as obsolete and discarded by this time. Probably the barrels were transferred or saved for the Army, the coast artillery did not declare their 4.7 inch permanent batteries obsolete until 1920. It is interesting to note how little effect the shell hits on the shield had. It doesn't say much for the gun or projectiles power. I would bet that after pulling 4.7s up the hills, guarding and maintaining them that there were quite a few volunteers to destroy them by shellfire. When I heard that the Army was putting an armored vehicle called the M 114 on the firing range I almost transferred back into Tanks for the pleasure of destroying them with 105 mm tank guns.
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Post by roland1369 on Dec 29, 2019 21:47:08 GMT 8
The guns in the photo are listed in The 1903 Gunnery manual as "Field Carriage for 3 Inch Gun RF Mark 1".
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Post by roland1369 on Dec 26, 2019 1:51:56 GMT 8
The guns were temporary base defense weapons as would be mounted on newly captured islands. Their intended use in Subic Bay was to prevent the raiding of the base by single long range small raiding cruisers popular at the time. As to protection, the school of thought at the time was that minimal physical resistance to incoming fire behindshould be offered to incoming shelfire behond that offered by the low front parapet. The logic behind this was that the Naval shells of the time were primarily Armor Piercing equipped with base detonating fuzes. Such fuzes functioned when the shell velocity was retarded as it was forced to penetrate armor. Normally hitting less resistance such as the shallow fow front parapet or front slope would result in a ricocet not initiating the fuze. If the lower slope of the ground in front were hit lower down were struck at a more shallow angle and detonated it would tend to detonate after burying in the earth. Obviously if a shell missed the shield of the gun it would detonate far behind the gun position. Thus the peculiar positioning on the highest point of the ridge lines. Thus the position is based on the effect of direct observation sighting of guns as well as minimizing shells function, rather than massive concrete or earth emplacements. The US coast artillery was operating on the same theory of Minimal target exposure and minimum resistance to incoming shells. This to the extreme of constructing exposed Fire control station not of concrete but of plaster on a thin mesh screen. Any that were constructed of concrete during This early period were built with an open top to avoid any projection which would initiate a shell fuze.
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Post by roland1369 on Dec 22, 2019 9:57:19 GMT 8
Great find. Very interesting on the construction of the temporary batteries. Some minor correction on the historical text. The Cruiser Albany was an Armstrong, British constructed for the Brazilian navy, and purchased by the US navy for the Spanish American War. Post war the British guns and ammunition were non standard with the US Navy supply system and in 1903 both the Albany and her sister ship the New Orleans were rearmed with US 6 and 5 inch making the Armstrong 6 and 4.7 inch available for land use. The Albany was not scrapped prior to their emplacement in the Philippines but survived until sold for scrapping in Feb 1930.
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Post by roland1369 on Oct 10, 2019 9:54:25 GMT 8
Karl The room that they entered through the ventilation shaft is the Power toom for the Battery. The three pads originally contained 3-100 KVA generators powered by Winton Diesel engines. There was in addition a 25 KW gasoline engine which powered an air compressor. The compressor was used to fill the three large air tanks shown in the pictures, these were used to start the diesel generators. I visited the site twice during the late 1990s but my camera malfunctioned in the power room so I got no pictures. The building with the rails on the concrete shelve40s is one of the eight magazines dispersed within the reservation and connected by a rail system to each other and the gun casemate. The 2340 pound AP projectiles were stored horizontaly on the rails and rolled on the rails onto small railcars which ran on the tracks between the shelves. Powder, 660 pounds per shot, was stored vertically in airtight metal cans, 2-110 pound charges per can, and moved to the guns by the same railway cars. Incidentally these 16 inch mounts were of the second series which utilized surplus Navy Mark II guns as opposed to the original series of m 1919 army 16 inch guns. Read more: corregidor.proboards.com/conversation/2968#ixzz61uSAydMWNote from Karl: Thank you Roland.
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Post by roland1369 on Mar 16, 2019 6:12:44 GMT 8
Excellent movie, I especially liked the qualification of the "tailgunners" with the 1897 shotguns. It had to be readying them to guard those unfortunate soldiers with the big "P' on their uniforms. It broiught back a lot of memories. Good shots of them towing the water barge to Fort Drum.
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