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A little teaser.

By The Armorer on October 20, 2004 | | Comments (16)

This is the subject of an upcoming post.


Have fun.

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16 Comments

By SangerM on October 20, 2004 10:18 PM
A piece of a main rotor of an old Kiowa or maybe a cobra? How about a scale? :-)
 
By SangerM on October 20, 2004 11:07 PM
Actually, being black and straight, it looks like it could be part of the main rotor from an MH/AH-6, Little Bird. Other than that, I haven't a clue... SangerM
 
By Justthisguy on October 21, 2004 4:11 AM
Hmm... not flat, I see the highlights. Slight (very) enlargement at the left-hand end. Scraped-out dent in one place. Looks like it's made of metal, but some bad person has deliberately cropped all background and maybe even some details of the image of the thing itself. My conclusion: A picture of an old object made of some kind of metal, which could be _anything_. P.S. Glad yer gettin back to Gun Pr0n, the politics are making me crazy! (more than usually)
 
By John of Argghhh! on October 21, 2004 6:35 AM
No details were harmed in the making of this picture... I just put the thing on a white background. While the Arsenal at Castle Argghhh! does have some esoteric stuff - it does not yet contain helo rotors. It *does* have a helo cockpit seat from the old Choctaw, which the Armoress pretty much forced the Armorer to buy back in the early days of the Courtship. Which is pretty cool if you think about it.
 
By cw4billt on October 21, 2004 7:42 AM
It's a packet of MRE cheese spread that's been heated up on the engine of an OH-6, probably the combustor section. The indentation (center) made by the ignition wiring harness is a dead giveaway... =P
 
By Mythilt on October 21, 2004 9:33 AM
The highlights and damage to it make me think wood, but the color is wrong. Looking closely at it, the left end looks slightly crimped, not round but slightly squashed ovaloid. The right end looks like it has been cut straight into to make a tenon joint, making the right end either D or rectangular. I think the right end is meant to fit into a socket. I think it is perhaps a brace used to hold something in place. Considering the Armorers background, maybe its an old bracestock they used to hold a fieldpiece in a certain position while they worked on it, kind of like you might have an old piece of wood you wedge in between two parts while you work on the guts of the hardware.
 
By John of Argghhh! on October 21, 2004 10:19 AM
Boy are you guys gonna be surprised!
 
By Beth Donovan on October 21, 2004 10:51 AM
The helicoptor pilot's seat was too good to pass up. I'd really like to get to that Dallas gun show again someday!
 
By Peter on October 21, 2004 12:38 PM
A single granule of smokeless powder. Without scale I can't tell if it's the great big granule of cannon powder or the little one of small arms powder. It looks very much like a highly magnified granule of IMR 4350 or 4831.
 
By ACE on October 21, 2004 1:42 PM
I have no idea what that is, but perhaps you or your readers know what THIS is. If your comments don't accept html, here's the link: http://airbornecombatengineer.typepad.com/airborne_combat_engineer/2004/10/name_that_weapo.html I realize you're not a navy person, but cannons and naval guns having something in common, don't they? Sorry if it looks like I'm horning in on a thread. I just need to confirm what I think it is. (I'm waiting on a confirmation call.) Thanks for the recent link, Sir, and keep up the good work.
 
By cw4billt on October 21, 2004 4:32 PM
Ace With all those traverse wheels sticking out of the mount, it looks a lot like one of the secondaries (i.e., a "sponson gun") from one of the old Olympia-class battleships. Best guess on the caliber is six-inch. No, I never manned one at Manila Bay, John, but I know that's what you're thinking...
 
By John of Argghhh! on October 21, 2004 4:52 PM
Actually Bill, I was thinking more along the lines of convoy duty in WWI on the Virginia-class BBs, or mebbe a cruiser. But I think your instincts are pretty good - my guess is that it's a 6inch/50 caliber gun, which, after they left naval service, soldiered on as Coast Defense guns in the Endicott forts until 1943 when we shut down the Coast Artillery.
 
By ACE on October 21, 2004 11:10 PM
Sounds like you nailed it, John. I'm still waiting on a confirming call from GT Navy ROTC, but I'm pretty sure it's one of the 12 broadside guns on the USS Georgia, which was a Virginia Class, commissioned in 1906. If you do a google search, you can see pictures of the ship and the 6 6in. guns on each side. Thanks for your help.
 
By cw4billt on October 22, 2004 9:07 AM
Oh, very nice. "Do a Google search." Kinda takes all the fun out of guessing, but that's what I just did, and, by Neddy Jingoes, you guys have got it! Ace, call the squids and tell them, "Never mind"--unless, of course, they can tell you exactly which gun (i.e., "Port side, number three."). Now that would be a trivia question worthy of the Armorer!
 
By ACE on October 23, 2004 6:22 AM
My question, for my edification, would be: When were broadside guns (are they called sponson guns when they are actually inside the ship, not on platforms?) last used in the US Navy, and why were they eliminated. I know the wood ships used in the Civil War had them, and the Virginia Class in the early 1900s seemed to carry the same into into steel. What replaced them? Deck guns? Hey, my Dad was Army and I was Army, so my knowledge of the Navy is very limited. Maybe I'll "do a google search" and find the answer. Thanks again for your confirmation, guys. I'll be doing a post on the first USS Georgia within days.
 
By John of Argghhh! on October 23, 2004 9:12 AM
I think by the era we're at in naval construction with the New York and Pennsylvania-class battleships (New York & Texas, Pennsylvania and Arizona) we're calling them secondary batterys. All four ships of those classes carried sponson guns (the aforementioned 6 inchers) and you can visit the Texas in Houston. So there were sponson-mounted guns serving through WWII. The Colorado-class, which I *think* is the next class of BB after the Pennsylvanias and the last class built before the Washington Naval Treaty restrictions were the last BBs with sponson-mounts. Here's a picture of the USS West Virginia entering San Francisco Harbor in the 30's - you can see the guns below the superstructure. With the new designs mandated by the limitations imposed by the WNT, and general advances in naval technology, marks the period when we went to turret or deck-mounted 5in/50/51/54s. Any sailors or naval-history geeks got better data?