Pitiful Pop Gun!
Looks like the days of 8-inch and bigger Naval guns are gone forever. Too bad, in a way - that was the CHEAPEST way to deliver high explosives to coastal targets, and might still be very useful, against 3rd world countries.
A shame. Rail guns are way cool.
I wonder how many people think that the Naval version ship mounted Railgun used in the latest version of Transformers was fiction. Its not fiction, we really do have it. 5640 mph projectile.50 caliber is 1/2 inch or .5 inch. Why would a 127 is not 54 caliber. Does the nave use different usage of caliber? 114 MM equals 4.5 inch which would be 450 caliber.??????
Ah yes. The old MacNamarian goal of commonality.
The main similarity between a naval rifle and a field artillery piece is the fact that they are both rifled tubes. Naval guns will likely always be more accurate and have more range because you don’t have to worry about the length and weight as much as you do with field artillery. You also don’t have to worry about the weight of the ammo as much. The two are quite different.
For perspective, a 1966 Chevy Nova 4-door wagon had a curb weight of 3,155 pounds.
My favorite for this was the 20mm Vulcan. Electrically fired with the rounds in a vast track like magazine, it could fire (IIRC) 3000 rounds a minute. Sounded like a double A fueler at full throttle. Each HE round had a killing radius of 3 meters. I watched one vaporize a truck and a few cars in about 20 seconds.
We fired many a 5””/38 shell off the coast of South and North Vietman from an old WWII DD.
/mark