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Complementing the 16-in/50 caliber Mark 7 gun was a fire control computer, the Ford Instrument Company Mark 8 Range Keeper. This analog computer was used to direct the fire from the battleship's big guns, taking into account factors including the speed of the targeted ship, the projectile's travel time, and air resistance.
The U.S. Navy had the 16"/50-caliber Mark 2 guns left over from the canceled Lexington-class battlecruisers and South Dakota-class battleships of the early 1920s. However it was already apparent that the Mark 2 was too heavy to arm the North Carolina and new South Dakota (1939) battleship classes which had to adhere to the 35,000 ton standard displacement set by the Second London Naval Treaty.
The 16-inch gun was a built-up gun constructed in a length of 45 calibers. The Mark 1 had an A tube, jacket, liner, and seven hoops , four locking rings and a screw-box liner. When the gun was designed in August 1913 it was referred to as the "Type Gun (45 Cal.)" as an effort to conceal the gun's true size of 16 inches.
An improved weapon, the BL 16-inch Mark II was designed for the Lion-class battleship which was a successor to the King George V class taking advantage of the larger weapon allowed under the London Naval Treaty from March 1938. This "new design" of 16-inch gun fired a shell that weighed 2,375 pounds (1,077 kg).
The early main battery fire control consisted of the Fire Control Tower, [7] two Mark 38 Gun Fire Control Systems (GFCS), [8] and fire control equipment located in two of the three turrets. [9] As modernized in the 1980s, each turret carried a DR-810 radar that measured the muzzle velocity of each gun, which made it easier to predict the ...
The first US Navy 16-inch gun was the 16-inch/45 caliber Mark 1 gun, which armed the Colorado-class battleships launched 1920–21. [ 5 ] [ 6 ] The second Navy design, the Mark 2, was intended as armament for the planned South Dakota -class battleships , and also selected for the modified design of the Lexington -class battlecruisers ...
These guns fire high explosive- and armor-piercing shells and can fire a 16-inch shell approximately 23.4 nautical miles (43.3 km; 26.9 mi). [ 35 ] [ 36 ] The guns are housed in three 3-gun turrets: two forward of the battleship's superstructure and one aft, in a configuration known as "2-A-1".
HMS Centurion, old battleship sunk as a blockship to form part of "Gooseberry" breakwater of the Mulberry harbour on Sword beach; Courbet, Free Naval French Forces, former battleship, sunk as a blockship in "Gooseberry" breakwater on Sword beach; Forbin, Free Naval French Forces, patrol boat, sunk as a artificial dike in "Arromanches"on Gold Beach