Do Battleships move sideways when they fire?

[NEON DEON]

Originally Posted by joea

Very precise, too bad you and the other fellow are the only ones in the world who think that.

Come on people this is not a fuzzy question, there has to be a precise answer to it!!

Yes I know its incredible to think a USN senior watch officer who also was an intel officer would have been good at observation!:p :p

After reviewing such things as kinetic hydrodynamic drag, static hydrodynamic drag, and it's effects on inertia I have decided to E mail myth busters and let them figure it out. Who knows maybe they will turn it into a show!

[jumpy]

Wow, Looks like you bunnies are getting all excited

I think it's fair to say, that firing the main batteries wouldn't have the effect of some new and totally impractical drive system... as for making the ship lurch or shudder or vibrate, then yes, absolutely and without question. Any such 'real' motion of the entire vessel in the opposite direction to that in which the main guns were facing upon firing is silly or so small as to be virtually un-noticeable in any practical sense.
After all, if you fire a shotgun, you don't suddenly get propelled backwards, you absorb the recoil... so does the ship and to an infinitesimal degree, so does the water surrounding the ship. Surely if the main guns were so powerful at to alter the course of the ship, then the designers would have had to think twice before continuing?

Seems like common sense to me?

But hey, I'm just speculating here...:rotfl:

But if I was to say for sure what the movement of the ship was under main battery firing conditions, then it's definitely 10... er, 10.5368442179 blerns. :hmm: yup, for sure.