Do Battleships move sideways when they fire?

[NEON DEON]

Originally Posted by joea

How the heck could the ship move so violently and such a distance as implied by your photo? (You read the other explanation did you not about the other side being obscured?) Did you see the video clips? How much movement are we talking here according to you? One inch? 10 yards? 100 yards?

Besides looking at your pic again those are shock wave patterns from the guns firing...

Again from the blasted article http://www.navweaps.com/index_tech/tech-022.htm

You think BB designers would be so incompentent as to not put good recoil mechanisms in? How coul you fight in ship that moves as much as you seem to think?

Joea,

The recoil does not negate the effects of momentum and inertia but only prolongs it long enough for the shell to depart the gun before the end of the 4 foot recoil thus maintaining an accurate shot.

As for the blast and pressure, The Conn of the battleship North Carolina is armored.

I am sorry if you were mislead by the blast ripples in regards to the picture I posted. However, if you go back you will find an earlier post of mine right after the post of the picture where you will see my comment of the blast ripples and much smaller bow wake.

Now, as for the fraction of a milimeter, no where in the original article does it post the formula to arrive at that conclusion. It leaves you with only the Conservation of momentum formula that ends in 6 inches PER SECOND. So in essence the formula they posted proved that after the the broadside the ship traveled 1,800 feet in an hour.

Why on earth would you pick the largest BB at maximum weight (58,000 tons) if you wanted to be conclusive on the point that a battleship does not move when you fire a broadside is a mystery to me.

If you use the standard displacement of an Iowa class BB 45,000 tons(not 58K) and use the actual mass of the entire load in the gun that is 3,405 lbs (not just the 2700 lbs projectile, unless of course you think the mass of the charge is not in the gun.) Using the formula they provided gives 9 inches PER SECOND.

And if you use the North Carolina as your model at a standard displacement of 35,000 tons the figure expands to about one foot or 12 inches PER SECOND.

And that brings me back to the USN officer I quoted earlier.

The quoted words were: "literally move the ship through the water."

Websters definition of literal not mine:

"1: according with the letter of the scriptures 2 : adhering to fact or to the ordinary construction or primary meaning of a term or expression. 3 : free from exaggeration or embellishment - literally <the literal truth> 4 : characterized by a concern mainly with facts."

So. No way is that line from Lt. Ben Blee USN ambiguous.

As for the total movement of the ship after a broadside, Its way more than a fraction of a milimeter and much less than 1,800 feet.