Friday, September 02, 2011

I saw this and forgot about it

Someone asked if -when a battleship lets off a broadside, does it move sideways.

The answer given was that, no- the ship is too heavy to move sideways.

I think this picture gives the lie to at least part of that idea. (the "part" being that the bow has much less mass than mid-ships)

8 comments:

  1. That came up in the comments of the post US Iowa firing its main battery (I'll link back to here with a post).

    I think you might be seeing the shock wave of the firing in the water. In the picture taken from above in that post you can see the same sort of wave pattern forming from the firing of the forward guns.

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  2. Maybe... and maybe those were sideways currents, but those look like what I've seen with tugs pushing ships sideways.

    Maybe a quartering sea?

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  3. It says a firing exercise. I had assumed it was a photo from off the Vietnam coast.

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  4. KurtP,

    I was looking further back, now I've noticed the pronounced wake at the very bow -- and it is coming off only one side which is odd.

    Maybe the bow does get bumped.

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  5. One more thing, I was under the impression they generally staggered the firing of the main guns to keep the force from being exerted all at once.

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  6. Even if the ship moved the Mark 37 Fire Control Computer would have adjusted for the change in Ship position. The computer pretty much obsoleted the Kingfisher Aircraft on the Battleships that were there for fire observation.

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  7. Ambi- I'm sure in normal ops they do stagger the firing, but hey a photo-op is a photo-op, why not go all guns :-D

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  8. Hey Kurt, I found this site that says they don't move. IT all has some neat pics :)

    http://www.angelfire.com/cantina/que_pasa/Broadside.html

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