Back in the 50s or 60s I’ve heard they used a bunch of these and other old large caliber barrels to dispose of high level radioactive waste.
Back in the 50s or 60s I’ve heard they used a bunch of these and other old large caliber barrels to dispose of high level radioactive waste.
During the 1950s, the Navy wanted to give these guns even bigger, scarier teeth and designed the W23 nuclear artillery shell for them. Only fifty of these 20-kiloton atomic bullets were made for the Iowa’s 16-inchers and they were in service until 1962, when they were quietly placed in storage and thought to have been destroyed by 2004.
I also thought that we packed the worn out barrels with explosives and dropped them out of cargo aircraft as a brutal penetrating MOABs.