After a lengthy residence with the Mothball Fleet, the big ship is heading for a museum berth in Southern California. Volunteers in the Richmond dockyards are prepping BB-61 a for a trip down to Los Angeles, and we took advantage of the brief opportunity to check out the grand old juggernaut.
Bay Area military geeks were really hoping that those 15.97" guns would grace a pier in San Francisco. But...the powers that be of The City By The Bay decided they were way too PC for that. That put the kibosh on the veterans' dreams, so the Big Stick is headed for LaLa Land. We got a chance to stride the deck and take in some of the iconic battleship before her voyage south.
Due to safety reasons, visitors were not allowed inside the ship. But we've seen her sister ships The Wisconsin and The Mighty Mo, so we're fairly familiar with the guts of the beasts. And they are damn impressive, let us tell you.
2 comments:
"Big stick" indeed.
And, sigh, yet one more instance of our government lying to us. I always thought those were SIXTEEN inch guns!!!!!! I mean, what would have happened had the ship invited me to an artillary party and I had brought my 16" shells with me???? Huh??? THEY WOULDN'T HAVE FIT!!!!!!
Well, technically speaking, the shells had a bourrelet diameter of 15.97"/40.058 cm. Since that is the part of the shell that actually makes contact with the lands of the bore, TSG considers that the true diameter of the barrel. The 16-inch value would probably be accurate if one was to use the depths of the grooves as the defining measurement instead.
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