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A moment of Gunner Zen

By The Armorer on May 15, 2011 | | Comments (11)
It may be dark and dreary, but no day is really sad if there's some powder to be burned...



[Click the picture to activate the enlargicator]

ATLANTIC OCEAN (May 11, 2011) The Oliver Hazard Perry-class guided-missile frigate USS Thach (FFG 43) fires its MK-75 76mm mounted gun while underway off the coast of Brazil. Thach is deployed supporting Southern Seas 2011. (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 3rd Class Stuart Phillips)

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11 Comments

By 11B40 on May 15, 2011 11:08 AM
 Greetings:

Keeping a weather eye out on Messers Obama and Soros' investment  in Brazil's oil drilling  venture, no doubt.
 
By emdfl on May 15, 2011 5:30 PM
Helped build/test the FCS on every one of the ships in that class.  Most fun I ever had was going out on a shoot and standing on the weather deck while the Oto-Malara was popping 60 rounds of 76mm goodness a minute at the floating target.
 
By jim b on May 15, 2011 10:18 PM
Gunfire is the only thing that does not care about weather.

Artie rules.
 
By AW1 Tim on May 15, 2011 11:51 PM

 Watched a whole lot of 'em being built here in Bath, Maine.  In fact, the owner of the local Irish Pub is a retired Master Chief & plank owner on USS Perry, FFG-7. 
 
By BillT on May 16, 2011 5:56 AM
76mm? Piffle -- that's less than twice the diameter if a 40mm grenade launcher.

Oh, wait -- that's a 3-inch gun! Wheeeee!
 
By Quartermaster on May 16, 2011 5:33 PM
 It appears Bill doesn't have the proper reverence for Artillery.
 
By Rivrdog on May 16, 2011 10:29 PM
Bill, you DO realize that that's a rapid-firing naval arty piece, right? And it can fire a "salvo" of four rounds at varying elevations, with all rounds to arrive on a single target at once, right? And that 60 rounds per minute is NORMAL fire rate and can be increased some, right? And that's a multi-purpose gun with anti-air capability, with a micro-wave radar that tracks the shells and corrects firing into the target, right? And if they built a warship with TWO of those, it would have more firepower in a sea battle than any WW2 warship, right?

Oh, you already knew. Good. I'll stand down about modern naval fire support then.
 
By Justthisguy on May 17, 2011 9:52 AM
Nah, guys, Bill just didn't like having French measurements used to describe the size of the piece. He's old-fashioned that way. So am I.  The so-called "metric" system is for people who aren't good at mental arithmetic.

Now, speaking as a critic of that image,  I would like to see some flame to go along with that smoke.
 
By John of Argghhh! on May 17, 2011 1:09 PM
JTG - see the center of the smoke cloud - a ball of fire is working on blossoming into fiery glory.

Rivrdog - Paladin can do the mutl-shot TOT as well.  In fact, well trained gun crews can do many fun things with their cannon.
 
By JimB on May 18, 2011 11:08 AM
If you look closely you'll see the projectile leaving the gun followed bay a ball of flame in that big ball of smoke.  Looks like a damed fine photo to me...
 
By Mark Matis on May 18, 2011 11:23 AM
For Justthisguy:
You mean there isn't already enough flaming on Castle d'Argghhh!!!! for your taste?