06-11-06, 05:15 PM
|
#1
|
Seasoned Skipper 
Join Date: Mar 2005
Location: Music City
Posts: 683
Downloads: 5
Uploads: 0
|
Quote:
|
Originally Posted by Subnuts
Quote:
|
...a shell bursting inside the upper turret had ignited powder waiting to be loaded into the guns, sending a bolt of flame flashing unimpeded down the sixty-foot hoist into the powder magazines. Assuming this to be true, blame lay not with the design of the British ships but with the deliberate decision by captains and gunnery officers to discard the flashproof scuttles originally built into the British dreadnoughts. The Royal Navy made a cult of gunnery. To win peacetime gunnery competitions, gun crews were encouraged to fire as rapidly as possible. ....
|
|
Thank you very much; so it does indeed seem to be "flash fire" is loosely like "flash flood" - also interesting about the emphasis on gunnery competition; something the U.S. Navy overemphasized also.
__________________
Jack's happy days will soon be gone,
To return again, oh never!
For they've raised his pay five cents a day,
But they've stopped his grog forever.
For tonight we'll merry, merry be,
For tonight we'll merry, merry be,
For tonight we'll merry, merry be,
But tomorrow we'll be sober.
- "Farewell to Grog"
|
|
|