West coast was on my wish list but I never saw it. LOL
I wish I had appreciated being on that ship when I was, instead of years later. During sea trials, I was the only person, other than the ships photographer, who was allowed on deck when the guns were fired. Technically I probably wasn’t allowed on deck, but I asked my Chief if I could go on deck and take some pics, and he said yes, although he looked confused when he said it. That was a very sweet 45 minutes. I think I was about 75 feet away from the turret when it was fired. Good times.... :)
My closest experience was a morning, nice and calm, seas were glass smooth, nice, bright morning...
We were just off the range at San Clemente island, ready to get on there and do some work on that beach, when we had the ships deck speakers tuned into the range net, and heard the first ship that morning report in and get ready for their fire missions...
We were on deck at morning quarters, and sonce we were in operations, some of us knew by callsigns who was getting ready to do thei thing...
We all stopped the reading of the plan of the day, and saw the ship was about 2000 yards away from us, we thought this would be very interesting as ttheir first mission was usually a “beach prep” fire mission...
All nine guns swung to their portside, and a few seconds later there was a big flash, big smoke, and then as we watched, the big concussive wave of vapor rapidly closed the distance between our ships as we had not quite reported onto the range just yet...
Then the blast (concussion) hit us...A few of us had the reaction of “Holy Mother of Pearl” (G-rated version), and we could barely see the horizon of where San Clemente Island was...Probably about 11-12 miles, best of my recollection...
Those 9 shells came from the New Jersey, and after one salvo, there particular beach prep mission was complete...”No Sh!t!!!” hehehe
We kinda chuckled at the thought, and some were wondering if the New Jersey had sunk San Clemente Island...Then we could just pack it up and go back to San Diego for the weekend...Darn the luck...Nope, it was still there...
It was still one of the more exciting things, I and many others, had ever witnessed in our careers...
I guess we were inspired, because in about 45 minutes of the time we had entered the range, did our required NGFS missions, we scored so high, in such an abbreviated time, that later that afternoon and in the evening during the night missions, we had exited and expected to have one night out there and then get back to the barn the next morning...
Well, fate has us by the cajones, ahem...The top dog in charge of the SOCAL op area, had heard how well we had done, and asked our CO, if he would stay out for a few more days, to give the Marine Spotters, those students learning the ropes and communicating with us, if we would help train these new guys, since we had our act together, and could provide real world training as a known factor (meaning, no mistakes)...
I guess after seeing the big BB out there give us a show like that, we certainly couldn’t let those guys show us up...hehehe
Needless to say there were a few Navy wives and girlfriends who were a little peeved that we extended that supposedly quick out and back in cruise that weekend...A few of those spouses got to see a redacted (blacked out) non-classified version of the Admiral’s request made to our Captain that evening...
Things quieted down after that...hehehe
The record and score we made, stood for many years after that, and I have not heard of anyone on the West Coast beating it to this day...
And all we had were a pair of 5” guns...HA!!! (USS Callaghan DDG-994)
I’ve been on both coasts, and the range I know that your east guys had was Viques (sp?) Island down near Rosey Roads (PR) back in the day...I guess they shut that one down???
The ship I served on, at that time, was the USS McCandless, an old Knox Class frigate...
Just some old memories I tucked away for safe keeping...hehehe