They Almost Fired This Engineer — Then His Gun Destroyed Japan's Mightiest Battleships!

Описание: In the spring of 1942, a junior Navy engineer told a room full of admirals that their battleships were already obsolete. He nearly lost his career over it. What he was fighting to build was the 16-inch 50-caliber Mark 7 naval gun, the most powerful naval rifle ever mounted on an American warship, and the only weapon in the U.S. arsenal capable of threatening Japan's Yamato-class battleships.

This is the full story of how one engineer's refusal to accept an inadequate solution led to the development of a weapon that served through four wars across five decades. From the drawing boards of the Bureau of Ordnance to the gun turrets of the Iowa-class battleships, we trace every step of the Mark 7's development, including its extraordinary mechanical engineering, its fire control systems, and the bitter irony that the battle it was designed to fight never came.

The Yamato was unlike anything the world had seen. At over 72,000 tons fully loaded and armed with 18-inch guns capable of outranging every American battleship in service, she was deliberately built to be unstoppable. American naval planners knew their existing 16-inch 45-caliber guns could not match her at battle range. The solution required starting from scratch with a weapon system whose barrel, propellant, armor-piercing shells, and fire control demands pushed American shipbuilding to its absolute limits.

We cover the full development of the Mark 7, the engineering of the Iowa-class hulls required to carry it, the mechanical fire control computers that directed it across 20 miles of open water, and its combat record in World War Two, Korea, Vietnam, and Operation Desert Storm. This is a story about engineering under pressure, institutional resistance, and a weapon that outlasted every enemy it was built to face.

Topics covered in this video include the development of the 16-inch 50-caliber Mark 7 naval gun, the threat posed by the Yamato-class battleships, the Iowa-class battleship program, World War Two naval engineering, U.S. Navy Bureau of Ordnance history, battleship shore bombardment operations, the Korean War naval campaign, the USS New Jersey in Vietnam, Operation Desert Storm battleship deployment, mechanical fire control systems, armor-piercing shell design, and the legacy of American battleship firepower.

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