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Post by Deleted on Aug 10, 2015 21:32:45 GMT 8
Thanks - didn't know about the blasting on the other 2 barrels at Wheeler.
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Post by batteryboy on Aug 12, 2015 6:53:52 GMT 8
The problem with using shape charge against the gun tubes at Wheeler (or for any other heavy guns) was that they were built (or turned) with several jackets of steel. The objectives of the scrappers were to break the barrels into "chunks" for easier handling. The steel jackets prevented a clean "break".
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Post by The Phantom on Aug 12, 2015 10:05:32 GMT 8
During the Normandy Invasion weren't several large German guns destroyed with shape charges also? or was that something else? Thur-mite charges?
After the war, where would a scrapper get a shape charge to try and blow up the Wheeler artillery pieces?
Interesting thread, love the photos fots, tell a great story.
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Post by batteryboy on Aug 13, 2015 16:37:03 GMT 8
They threw thermite grenades or shrapnel explosives inside the barrel in order to destroy the rifling or even dent or crack the barrel.
Shape charges as also used by industrial scrappers like blowing up heavy steel structures.
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Post by The Phantom on Aug 14, 2015 5:39:53 GMT 8
Thanks for the clarification Batteryboy. You'd have to wonder how many scrappers blew themselves up trying to take a barrel apart not knowing the proper method to set the charge.
I know that artillery shells and bombs still surface on Corregidor from time to time.(Another phosphorous shell on the Enlisted Man's beach this past January) I had recently learned that the shells value in not just in the possible brass casing but the powder inside which is used to make dynamite for fishing, sometimes off Corregidor.
I tell those at CFI when I find live shells etc. on the island. Sometimes when I return to that location the next year and it's just gone, sometimes when I return the next year there is a large hole where the shell was. I'm hoping that they decided to just shot the shell from afar, or did they try to dig it out whole and got blown to smithereens?
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Post by rickthelibrarian on Aug 16, 2015 21:59:19 GMT 8
Sorry, you are undoubtedly correct about the banca, rather than a patrol boat - my source may have not been correct, or my memory faulty. As some of you may know the other 3" gun at Fort Casey has about a foot of the muzzle blown off.
I had noticed some of the holes in the guns on Corregidor during my 2014 trip, but they looked quite a bit different than the one on Fort Casey's 3" gun - whether this was due to the small size of the 3" gun or some other factor, I don't know.
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Post by Deleted on Aug 18, 2015 11:39:33 GMT 8
They do the same thing on Peleliu. I asked our guide about a shell in the jungle that had been taken apart - the answer was "fishermen".
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Post by Karl Welteke on Feb 20, 2016 10:47:49 GMT 8
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Post by rickthelibrarian on Nov 21, 2016 20:45:14 GMT 8
There has been quite a bit of material added to this thread since I last checks. Thanks for all your input!
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