Search results
Results From The WOW.Com Content Network
The large-caliber guns were designed to fire either an armor-piercing round for anti-ship and anti-structure work, and a high-explosive round for use against unarmored targets and shore bombardment. The North Carolina and South Dakota classes could also fire the 2,700-pound Mark 8 shell with the 16"/45 caliber Mark 6 gun , although with a ...
The United States Navy commissioned 175 Fletcher-class destroyers between 1942 and 1944, more than any other destroyer class, and the design was generally regarded as highly successful. The Fletcher s had a design speed of 38 knots (70 km/h; 44 mph) and a principal armament of five 5-inch (127 mm) guns in single mounts with ten 21-inch (530 mm ...
Between December 1941 and September 1944, 32% of all Japanese aircraft downed were credited to this weapon, with the high point being 48.3% for the second half of 1942; however, the 20 mm guns were found to be ineffective against the Japanese Kamikaze attacks used during the latter half of World War II and were subsequently phased out in favor ...
The first Iowa-class ship was laid down in June 1940; in their World War II configuration, each of the Iowa-class battleships had a main battery of 16-inch (406 mm) guns that could hit targets nearly 20 statute miles (32 km) away with a variety of artillery shells designed for anti-ship or bombardment work. The secondary battery of 5-inch (127 ...
The List of ship classes of World War II is an alphabetical list of all ship classes that served in World War II.Only actual classes are included as opposed to unique ships (which are still included if they were the only one of a class to be built, for example, HMS Hood was the first of the four planned Admiral-class battlecruisers, but the other three were cancelled).
Destroyers, cruisers, battleships, carriers, and many auxiliaries used the directors, with individual installations varying from one aboard destroyers to four on each battleship. The development of the Gun Directors Mark 33 and 37 provided the United States Fleet with good long range fire control against attacking planes.
German battleship Schleswig-Holstein, shelling Westerplatte in Poland on 1 September 1939. World War II saw the end of the battleship as the dominant force in the world's navies. At the outbreak of the war, large fleets of battleships—many inherited from the dreadnought era decades before—were one of the decisive forces in naval thinking ...
USS O'Bannon (DD/DDE-450), a Fletcher-class destroyer, was the second ship of the United States Navy to be named after Lieutenant Presley O'Bannon (1784–1850), the Marine Corps's "hero of Derna". O'Bannon was the US Navy's most decorated destroyer during World War II, earning 17 battle stars and a Presidential Unit Citation.