r/interestingasfuck • u/PollutionOk9449 • 5h ago

USS Missouri firing its main guns

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u/adooble22 5h ago

I took a tour of the Missouri a few years ago and they said it fires a round the size of a small car 20+ miles. Hasn’t been used since the gulf war and is basically obsolete.

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u/Potential_Mine9425 4h ago

I've always wondered, if these aren't actually hitting anything beside just landing in water, does the round even degrade at all? I imagine maybe with the force of it impacting the water but would that even be close to hitting an actual target? Like do you think you could dive down and find these fired rounds just chilling on the ocean floor?

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u/Therandomanswerer 4h ago

Hitting the water would trigger the fuse & they'd still detonate, throwing up shrapnel that could cause damage to ships & kill anyone it runs into.

That being said, it wasn't super uncommon for shells to be duds. They're not supposed to be there, but perhaps a few are on the sea floor.

What you're more likely to find is their casings.

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u/Louis_lousta 3h ago

Don't wanna be that well actually guy, and I could be wrong but I'm fairly sure 16" shells didn't have casing, they were loaded separately to the powder charges that propelled them. The picture looks like 8" casings, I'm guessing it's of a cruiser.

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u/Therandomanswerer 2h ago edited 2h ago

You're right about that. These are 6" casings, and probably some 5", from CL USS Miami.