USN MK25 8 Inch

[orcutteod]

Picked up this USN 8 inch the other day, also enclosed is a side by side comparison with a USN 5 inch. I'm in need of a fuze and am having trouble finding one. Interesting to my surprise the 5 inch fuze fits on the 8 inch. Anyhow anymore info on the shell is appreciated.

 

[pzgr40]

Well, you seem to have a good taste for beer, Grolsch is one of the better Dutch brands.

 

[HAZORD]

You have a variety of options for something to fill the top of your 8 inch. All of the WWII era design Navy projectiles from 5 inch to 16 inch have the same fuzewell diameter and thread. The fuze you show with your 5 inch 38 projo is the first generation Proximity fuze. They show up quite often. For armor and concrete piercing, the 8 inch could use a solid steel nose plug with an auxiliary detonating fuze attached to its base and a base fuze in the projectile. Sometimes a steel reducing adaptor was installed in the fuzewell combined with a nose fuze that had a smaller thread diameter. Check the various surplus stores and millitaria sites on the web.

 

[orcutteod]

The 5 inch even came with a fuze cover but that won't fit on the 8 inch. I'm in the process of getting another Navy fuse from the person I got the 5 inch from. I plan on restoring the 8 inch and am hoping I will find a maker mark on the shell. If so I will let you know so we can determine exactly what year it was made and where it was made.

 

[HAZORD]

The ID should be stamped on the rotating band. You need to take a file or dremmel tool and clean up the external threads on the projo before the fuze cover will fit.

 

[orcutteod]

The person I got the 5 inch from has 2 available 5 inch fuzes so that is good news. Anyhow when I'm done with the rehab job I will post more pics.

 

[orcutteod]

As suspected I did find some more markings while removing the rust. I'm not sure what they mean probably inspection stamps. I decided to go with (battleship) gray but still have the stencil markings and diameter stripe to do. I chased the threads with a dremil tool and had no problems installing the fuze.

 

[HAZORD]

Correct colors here:

http://www.bocn.co.uk/vbforum/threa...-Navy-from-the-O-Brien-room?highlight=O'brien

Photos 2, 3, and 5 show HE projectiles with WWII color code. HE shell gets 1 caliber (in your case 8 inches) of yellow from the top of the body down. Then 1 inch of white to signify tracer, and then the rest green. Photo 4, AP-HE could be gray and photo 5, a cargo projo could be gray for a leaflet/propaganda cargo. The Silver projo is radar jamming Chaff.