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Navy 16" sabot round 280 mm
- Thread starter ali059
- Start date
http://www.bocn.co.uk/vbforum/threads/74328-280mm-ATOMIC-Gun-(year-1953)?highlight=gunfighter
Hazord's is partway down the page
Hazord's is partway down the page
ali059,
I have two of the projectiles of the design that you have shown in your photo, although they are slightly different from each other. I originally had 3 but sold one about 25 years ago. There are some other posts here on BOCN about the Gunfighter program in the 60's, and it also included a 5-1/5 inch projectile that was saboted and fired in the 8 inch Navy guns. The 280mm Atomic Gun was a huge device carried by a tractor on each end. It was designed in part to be transported all over Europe to provide a nuclear capability to fight Warsaw Pact attacks. Word around the water cooler, was that the gun was too big for the German streets and cobblestones, and couldn't be easily carried around Germany as was first thought. That combined with better technology for nuclear weapons design which allowed for 8 inch and 155mm nuclear projectiles made the 280mm gun obsolete.
The ammunition for the 280mm consisted of the nuclear projectiles and High Explosive projectiles that were used for training and for spotters for the atomic projectiles. The U.S. then had a large inventory of the HE projectiles when the guns were obsoleted. Around this time, the U.S. was ramping up in Vietnam. R&D on weapons systems went wild during Vietnam, and one of the ideas was to use up all the 280mm projectiles by firing them in the 16 inch Battleship rifles being used in Vietnam.
The projectiles I have were sent to the Yuma Proving Ground in Arizona for testing in their 16 inch gun. They actually have a 280mm atomic gun outside their main gate. The ones I have were left over from testing and were wax filled. They had left out in the weather in a scrap area. When the decision was made to do some house cleaning, they placed small shaped charges on them to detonate them (if they had been explosive loaded). When they didn't detonate, they were sold for scrap.
In the photo you have posted, the components of the assembly are shown. The projectile would be press fit into the large aluminum sabot, with the aluminum base plate press fit into the base of the sabot. The large piece on the left in the photo is a hollow tube shape of plastic that sat on top of the sabot to extend the sabot further up the body of the projectile to keep it centered in the gun barrel. As I understand, when fired, the plastic pieces and sabot would be ejected/fall off the projectile once it had left the bore.
I believe the projectiles that U.S. Subs has posted were from a different program. They are labeled 13.65 inch. The 280mm projectiles are 11 inch diameter. I believe those projectiles were designed to extend the range of the 16 inch gun, but the 13.65 inch projectiles are definitely longer than the 280mm projectiles from the gunfighter program.
When my projectiles were demilled with the shaped charges, the charges blew all the plastic pieces off, leaving the aluminum pusher/base. In the photo I have shown, I have stacked up some of the plastic pieces on top of the sabot to show how they were arranged.
I have heard rumors that these projectiles had a range up to 58 miles. It kind of makes sense when you fire an 800 Lb. projectile in a gun designed to fire 3,000 Lb. projectiles.
I have two of the projectiles of the design that you have shown in your photo, although they are slightly different from each other. I originally had 3 but sold one about 25 years ago. There are some other posts here on BOCN about the Gunfighter program in the 60's, and it also included a 5-1/5 inch projectile that was saboted and fired in the 8 inch Navy guns. The 280mm Atomic Gun was a huge device carried by a tractor on each end. It was designed in part to be transported all over Europe to provide a nuclear capability to fight Warsaw Pact attacks. Word around the water cooler, was that the gun was too big for the German streets and cobblestones, and couldn't be easily carried around Germany as was first thought. That combined with better technology for nuclear weapons design which allowed for 8 inch and 155mm nuclear projectiles made the 280mm gun obsolete.
The ammunition for the 280mm consisted of the nuclear projectiles and High Explosive projectiles that were used for training and for spotters for the atomic projectiles. The U.S. then had a large inventory of the HE projectiles when the guns were obsoleted. Around this time, the U.S. was ramping up in Vietnam. R&D on weapons systems went wild during Vietnam, and one of the ideas was to use up all the 280mm projectiles by firing them in the 16 inch Battleship rifles being used in Vietnam.
The projectiles I have were sent to the Yuma Proving Ground in Arizona for testing in their 16 inch gun. They actually have a 280mm atomic gun outside their main gate. The ones I have were left over from testing and were wax filled. They had left out in the weather in a scrap area. When the decision was made to do some house cleaning, they placed small shaped charges on them to detonate them (if they had been explosive loaded). When they didn't detonate, they were sold for scrap.
In the photo you have posted, the components of the assembly are shown. The projectile would be press fit into the large aluminum sabot, with the aluminum base plate press fit into the base of the sabot. The large piece on the left in the photo is a hollow tube shape of plastic that sat on top of the sabot to extend the sabot further up the body of the projectile to keep it centered in the gun barrel. As I understand, when fired, the plastic pieces and sabot would be ejected/fall off the projectile once it had left the bore.
I believe the projectiles that U.S. Subs has posted were from a different program. They are labeled 13.65 inch. The 280mm projectiles are 11 inch diameter. I believe those projectiles were designed to extend the range of the 16 inch gun, but the 13.65 inch projectiles are definitely longer than the 280mm projectiles from the gunfighter program.
When my projectiles were demilled with the shaped charges, the charges blew all the plastic pieces off, leaving the aluminum pusher/base. In the photo I have shown, I have stacked up some of the plastic pieces on top of the sabot to show how they were arranged.
I have heard rumors that these projectiles had a range up to 58 miles. It kind of makes sense when you fire an 800 Lb. projectile in a gun designed to fire 3,000 Lb. projectiles.
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Wow that's great info! Cool find on those! I actually got to stand in the very spot where they fired the cannon on the test site. They did not know where it was shot from exactly and the historians had to use photographs to try to determine the actual spot. They actually found it by finding the anchors and chains they used during this shot to hold down that massive cannon!
Let me tell you its a strange feeling knowing your stand ground zero of a actual detonation of a Atomic weapon. Down in frenchmans flat you can tell because the tower they used to simulate a airburst legs are partially sticking out of the ground .
Extremely fun to be able to see the test site in its entirety!
Let me tell you its a strange feeling knowing your stand ground zero of a actual detonation of a Atomic weapon. Down in frenchmans flat you can tell because the tower they used to simulate a airburst legs are partially sticking out of the ground .
Extremely fun to be able to see the test site in its entirety!
Seems like a good use of the tax payers money to me.
Vinny
Atomic Cannon: The 280mm Gun at the Nevada Proving Ground, Dept. of Defense film, 1953; on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7lXllpsFX-4. 10:35 minutes.
Very interesting pics of the 13.65-inch subcaliber projectile. Thanks a lot for these !!!:tinysmile_classes_t
Could you please tell us about this 13.65-inch projectile, i.e. :
a) length overall (unfuzed preferably)
b) length of the ogive (unfuzed preferably, excluding the bourrelet)
c) weight overall (I suppose that the cavity is empty ?)
Thanks in advance.
Kind regards.
Matt.
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The 13.65-inch subcaliber projectiles are indeed from a different program (and era) than the 11-inch subcaliber projectiles.
1) As stated by HAZORD, the 11/16-inch subcaliber projectiles were developed in the late 1960s. Several variants of this projectile (with 4 different types of sabots) were test-fired at Yuma (August 1968) and Barbados (December 1968). In both cases, the projectiles were inert-loaded and it's not entirely clear what kind of payload they were supposed to have (presumably the same unitary warhead as the 280mm M124 shell). The project was terminated in 1969 (though termination was initiated in 1967). In the early 1980s (1983-84), it was briefly envisioned to revive this program, but the Navy went for the 13.65/16-inch subcaliber projectile instead.
2) Development of the 13.65/16-inch subcaliber projectile program was started in the second half of the 1980s (1986) as part of the 16-inch Naval Gunfire Improvement Program to provide the reactivated battleships with improved range & lethality. The projectile was intended as a cargo round that would contain 555 M46 bomblets (i.e. about twice as much as a 11/16-inch could have accomodated). The design of the projectile was driven by the desire to maximize commonality with the Mark-146 ICM projectile (a full-bore cargo round containing 666 M46 bomblets). Various sources state that the 13.65/16-inch subcaliber projectile was meant for a maximum range of about 70,000 yards. The 13.65/16-inch was apparently test-fired in 1989-90, but the program was terminated in 1991.
Hope this helps.
Kind regards.
Matt.