Big Gun

[kiwithrottlejockey]

Check out this photograph feature on the Los Angeles Times website....

• 14-inch guns fired near Oceanside

[komata]

Very interesting, thanks for finding and sharing it with us. In respect of the 'firing' photo's, That is probably what the naval guns at Singapore would have looked like in action, had the Japanese 'played fair' and invaded the island by sea. As we know, they didn't, and because the guns couldn't be rotated to fire 'in country'...

Thanks again.

[baz62]

You can tell it's history, no fluro vest or ear defenders...not even fingers in ears! Bet you could feel the gun blast!

[davidd]

Apparently the big guns at Singapore, contrary to the popular story, WERE capable of being rotated through 360 degrees, but because they were such powerful artillery pieces, it was known that it would be next to impossible to hit targets at closer ranges they had such a flat trajectory they could not hit anything below a certain level, such as the advancing Japanese Army! That is, apart from the noise of a large calibre shell thundering just overhead at supersonic speed. My source for this information was a large and impressive history of the loss of Singapore published about 15 or more years ago, a wonderful piece of work too (unfotunately cannot recall author's nmae, but highly recommended). Also contained the general gist of the final (and long-lost) discussion between Admiral Phillips and the senior military figures prior to the departure of Force Z for its destiny with history off the eastern coast of Malaya - quite remarkable, and it all makes sense too! As usual, the general strategy they decided on was based on faulty intelligence, as nobody had any idea that both the Type 96 (Nell) and Type 1 (Betty) twin-engined land-based bombers had secondary roles as torpedo bombers, and the British consequently did not consider these aircraft a threat to modern and fast warships manoeouvring freely at sea.
David D

[Andy Wright]

For some reason I'm thinking they were used but the armour-piercing rounds just 'disappeared' into the ground? I have no idea where I've got that from but it popped into my head when reading David's post above.

As an aside, I do recall from Denys-Peek's superb One Fourteenth Of An Elephant that during the building of the railway, by the POWs, a very large boulder was encountered. It was decided to blast it out into the river below. The chaps given the job of digging under the boulder to place the explosives were ex-Singapore coastal gun types. By coincidence the hole dug was in line with a hut used by the Japanese guards on the other side of the river. The explosives were packed with small stones etc which, when the blast was let off sailed across the river and clobbered the hut. You can take an artillery man away from his guns...

Told much more eloquently in the book!

[kiwithrottlejockey]

Regarding that big railway gun featured in the Los Angeles Times.

I presume it (and others) was there as a defence against battleships sitting off the coast and shelling coastal southern California. The Santa Fe had a railway line mostly along the coast between Los Angeles and San Diego, plus the Southern Pacific likewise had a railway line for a considerable distance up the coast north of Los Angeles. So I guess the US Army would have made use of those two railroad companies' lines north and south of Los Angeles in the event that they had ever come under attack from an off-shore battleship.

[Peter Lewis]

Mar 26, 2014 9:43:53 GMT 12 Andy Wright said:

For some reason I'm thinking they were used but the armour-piercing rounds just 'disappeared' into the ground?

That was part of the story I was told when I did the Singapore War tour.

The shells were designed to penetrate through armour plate deep into a warship before exploding.
Used against land forces, they would explode quite a long way underground.
Hazardous to the health of anyone actually standing on the ground where they hit, but would cause minimal damage to nearby land forces.

The whole of the Singapore defence strategy was based on the assumption that any attack would come from the sea.