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8-INCH 3-GUN TURRETS MAIN ARMAMENT FOR USS SALEM CLASS 31 JULY 1947 This publication is RESTRICTED and shall be safeguarded in accordance with the security provisions of U. S. Navy Regulations, 1920, Article 76. This Page Blank NAVY DEPARTMENT BUREAU OF ORDNANCE WASHINGTON 25. D. C. 31 July 1947 ORDNANCE PAMPHLET 1180 (VOLUME 1) TURRET DESCRIPTION AND OPERATION, 8-INCH THREE-GUN TURRETS, USS SALEM CLASS 1. Ordnance Pamphlet 1180 (Volume 1) describes and provides operating and maintenance instructions for the turret of the rapid-fire automatic 8-inch guns of heavy cruisers of the USS SALEM class. It includes appended general engineering data and Safety Precautions applying to the guns and to all other turret installations. 2. This publication, together with the references of paragraph three, provides complete information for all installations of the turrets. It is to be used by operating personnel, maintenance personnel ashore and afloat, personnel of installing activities, inspectors, and the Advanced Technical Service Schools, and all other training activities providing instruction concerning the gun and its mount services. 3. Ordnance Pamphlet 1180 (Volume 1) is one of a series of six volumes describing the turret, turret operation, and all of the turret installations. The other volumes are designated: OP 1180 (Volume 2)-Guns and Slides OP 1180 (Volume 3)-Elevating and Training Gear Drives and Controls OP 1180 (Volume 4)-Ammunition Stowage and Hoist Equipment http://www.hnsa.org/doc/cagun/index.htm (3 of 10)5/2/2006 16:17:36 8-INCH 3-GUN TURRETS MAIN ARMAMENT FOR USS SALEM CLASS Auxiliary Installations 49 Power supply 49 Ventilating system 52 Sprinkling system 55 Communications 61 Illumination 65 Air supply services 67 Gas ejector 67 Counterrecoil 68 Hydraulic equipment filter system 69 Chapter 2-Turret Operation Introduction 71 Station activities and turret control methods 71 Firing cycle 73 Personnel organization 73 Crew stations 74 Personnel Duties 77 Turret officer 77 Turret captain 78 Talkers 79 Computer operator 79 Radar operators 80 Electrician (turret officer's booth) 81 Gun captains 81 Gun captain's assistants 81 iv http://www.hnsa.org/doc/cagun/index.htm (5 of 10)5/2/2006 16:17:36 8-INCH 3-GUN TURRETS MAIN ARMAMENT FOR USS SALEM CLASS Page Trainer 82 Sight setter 85 Pointer 87 Checker 87 Projectile ring operators 89 Projectile men 91 Parbucklers 91 Electrician (lower projectile flat) 91 Petty officer in charge (powder handling room) 91 Powdermen 93 Preparing for Operation 93 Manning stations 93 Starting operations 94 Casting loose 95 Establishing communications 98 Ordnance Equipment Preparations and Starting Operations 98 Safety checks, operating precautions, and tests 99 Energizing main power circuit 99 Starting drives 99 Setting controls; energizing control circuits 102 Firing Operations 104 First round 104 Normal automatic fire 108 Gun laying, firing 109 Turret operation, local control 113 Turret operation, hand (emergency) control 115 Sighting 115 Range estimating 116 Gun Casualty Operations 117 Misfire operations 117 Manual case extraction 120 Manual case ejection 120 http://www.hnsa.org/doc/cagun/index.htm (6 of 10)5/2/2006 16:17:36 8-INCH 3-GUN TURRETS MAIN ARMAMENT FOR USS SALEM CLASS Manual projectile extraction 120 Manual hoist operation 120 Securing Operations 121 Stopping equipment 121 Conditioning for stowing 123 Securing 123 Stowing Ammunition 126 Stowage handling via the hoist route 128 Appendix 1. General Turret Data 131 2. Ordnance Data 133 3. Index of Assemblies 135 4. Safety Precautions 145 v USS Salem-Armament Arrangement http://www.hnsa.org/doc/cagun/index.htm (7 of 10)5/2/2006 16:17:36 8-INCH 3-GUN TURRETS MAIN ARMAMENT FOR USS SALEM CLASS vi 8-INCH 3-GUN TURRETS USS SALEM CLASS INTRODUCTION The ship Main battery. The main battery consists of three 8- inch 3-gun turrets, described in this ordnance USS SALEM is the first of a new class of heavy pamphlet. They are rapid-fire, automatic turrets of cruisers. The hull is larger; the belt and deck an entirely new design. armor are more extensive; and the fire power is greater than in ships of the BALTIMORE and All three turrets are located on centerline, the gun earlier classes. The displacement is 17,000 tons. houses of turrets I and III being immediately above Over-all length is 716.5 feet; the beam 76.5 feet. the weather deck while that of turret II is at the level of the first superstructure deck. Turret centers are The armament 157.5, 205.5, and 538.5 feet (for turrets I, II, and III respectively) from the bow. Gun trunnion axes, in the same order, are 27 feet 9 inches, 36 feet 2 Antiaircraft, secondary, and main batteries and inches, and 28 feet 9 inches above the 24-foot fire control installations include new ordnance waterline. These positions and the large arcs of train types and new arrangements. provide fire concentration of nine guns on either beam, six forward and three astern. Antiaircraft batteries. Forty-eight minor-caliber guns comprise the defensive antiaircraft All turrets are virtually identical. Their gun house armament. These guns are arranged in two and below-deck structures, emplacements, batteries; twelve twin mounts of 20-millimeter magazines, and Ordnance installations only differ in machine guns are symmetrically located on the minor details, adapting each to its ship location and weather deck and in the superstructure; twelve the fire control plan. twin mounts of 3-inch/50 caliber guns are em- placed on the weather deck and on pedestals above it. Turret structural and space arrangement plans however differ substantially from the conventional turret designs of all previous battleships and The 3-inch mount is a new automatic, rapid-fire cruisers. This difference is due, in part, to the use of type, tactically replacing the 40-millimeter semifixed ammunition, for the first time in antiaircraft installations of earlier ships. The Ordnance of this size, and, in part, to the design mounts are located and arranged for independent types and details of the guns and the ammunition or divided fire control. Four mounts are on the handling equipment. These ammunition and weather deck-two forward on centerline, and two Ordnance equipment designs have permitted and aft at the transom. Eight are amidship-four port required omission of flameproof bulkheads and four starboard-in positions that permit low- separating the guns, the control stations, and the angle fire over adjacent mounts of the secondary http://www.hnsa.org/doc/cagun/index.htm (8 of 10)5/2/2006 16:17:36 8-INCH 3-GUN TURRETS MAIN ARMAMENT FOR USS SALEM CLASS battery. powder service. Secondary battery. Six twin 5-inch, enclosed, The emplacements are conventional foundation dual-purpose mounts, of the same type and structure, barbette, and magazine designs. Their arrangement of earlier cruisers, comprise the arrangements are quite similar to those of earlier secondary battery. They are located as follows: heavy cruisers, differing principally in the magazine two port, two starboard on the weather deck stowage provisions and powder-passing scuttles for amidship, and one before and one abaft the powder cases instead of powder bags. superstructure, on centerline at the second superstructure deck. vii In their Ordnance installations, the turrets are the 3-inch mounts; and four plotting rooms, two entirely new. The guns operate automatically, and each for main and secondary batteries. Plot require no attendants in the gun compartment; switching arrangements permit many variations of they fire at three times the rate of the 3-gun turrets control. of the BALTIMORES. Other features are: comparatively fast gun laying and turret train Main directors are combination radar and optical drives; loading at all angles, while gun laying; rangefinder types, adapted, with their plotting room substitution of radar range taking equipment for equipments, for divided turret control or single optical rangefinder; local radar train control; control of all turrets, using remote automatic or automatic fuze setting; and other original fire remote indicating control. control arrangements for local and remote control. Secondary directors are of two types. The ones Fire control installations. The ship's fire control above the superstructure, on centerline, are installations comprise extensive arrangement of combination radar and optical rangefinder types of optical and radar director equipment, together modified Mk 37 design. The other two are an all- with related computing and stabilizing devices. radar type of new variation of a similar design. The system is more complex than that of any prior These directors and their switching circuits are cruiser. It includes forward and after main battery arranged to function as auxiliary directors for the directors; four secondary battery directors, one main battery. each located forward, port, starboard and aft; multiple directors for The directors for the 3-inch battery are fast-tracking, lead computing, gun sight combinations of radar- ranging and open sight arrangement. viii Next Part http://www.hnsa.org/doc/cagun/index.htm (9 of 10)5/2/2006 16:17:36 8-INCH 3-GUN TURRETS MAIN ARMAMENT FOR USS SALEM CLASS Copyright (C) 2006 Historic Naval Ships Association All Rights Reserved Legal Notices and Privacy Policy Version 1.00, 1 Apr 06 http://www.hnsa.org/doc/cagun/index.htm (10 of 10)5/2/2006 16:17:36 Search Cruiser 8-Inch Gun Turret Manual Search Cruiser 8-Inch Gun Turret Manual Match: Format: Sort by: Search: Return to the Historic Naval Ships Association home page. All Rights Reserved. Legal Notices and Privacy Policy Version 1.00, 2 Apr 06 http://www.hnsa.org/doc/cagun/search.htm5/2/2006 16:17:37 CRUISER 8-INCH TURRET - PART 1 Chapter I GENERAL DESCRIPTION OF THE TURRET Each turret consists of the following Rotating structure structural units and equipment installations: The rotating structure is a steel weldment nearly 45 feet high, weighing 270 tons, consisting principally of the Structural assembly Rotating structure structural plates identified in figure 2. It is a five-story Turret roller bearing Turret circular structure erected in the form of a rectangular gun house foundation Ordnance installations Guns above a cylindrical assembly of four flats. Gun laying equipment Ammunition hoists Ammunition stowing equipment The plates identifying the five levels are: the shelf plate at Ammunition handling equipment Fire the bottom of the gun house, the pan plate at the bottom of control equipment Auxiliary installations the gun pits, two levels called the upper and lower projectile Power supply Heating system flats, and, at the lowest level, the powder handling platform. Ventilating system Fire protection These plates are joined together by a cylindrical bulkhead sprinkling system Turret illumination and gun girders between the shelf and pan plates, a id Communications Compressed air another cylindrical supply systems STRUCTURAL ASSEMBLY The three large units comprising the structural assembly are the fixed and movable parts designated in the profile diagram of figure 1. They are a circular foundation, a rotating structure, and a roller bearing between the two. The circular foundation consists of parts built into the ship to support and protect the rotating structure. These parts are the foundation bulkhead, barbette, and other fixed elements described on pages 10-13. The roller bearing is the turret roller bearing assembly described on pages 8- 10. Figure 1. Turret Structure Fixed and Rotating Elements The rotating structure is the part that is seated on the bearing and that mounts and encloses all the ordnance mechanisms and http://www.hnsa.org/doc/cagun/part1.htm (1 of 82)5/2/2006 16:18:05