Thanks for that Steve,Steve Crandell wrote:It was difficult to unload a gun because the ramming process seated the shell pretty solidly. They were usually unloaded "through the muzzle" by firing the guns.paul.mercer wrote:Gentlemen,
A couple of questions, on any warship, particulary large one like Battleships, when were the fuzes actually put in to the shell - was it only just before action was expected? Also what was the situation after action had finished were any shells that had been loaded into the breeches simply fired off or were they unloaded and the fuzes removed before returning to the shell room ?
Fuses were usually installed in the shell when manufactured. They weren't activated until the shell was fired. The explosion of shells on board was due to heat build up from fires causing spontaneous detonation of the shell's explosive filler. That was not normally the cause of a magazine explosion, though. That was usually due to the explosion of propellant, not shells. Propellant was a lot more unstable than shells; especially Cordite, which I believe was only used on British ships.
Arizona was destroyed when the black powder charges for her catapults exploded and blew up the ship's forward magazine. It's use was soon discontinued for that reason.
I read somewhere that Tirpitz was using her 15" fuzed to explode in the air, does that mean she would have had a mixture of AP, SAP and airburst shells
on board?