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The Bruce Lee Library Research Project

Naval Ordnance and Gunnery NAVPERS 16116

Title

Naval Ordnance and Gunnery NAVPERS 16116

Subject

Weaponry

Author

Bureau of Naval Personnel

Description

Naval Ordnance and Gunnery is the most definitive book to emerge from WWII on the subject of naval ordnance and fire control. Encyclopedic in content, the text runs nearly 600 pages and is richly illustrated with photos and diagrams of systems used on destroyers, cruisers, battleships and other warships. Within its pages you'll find detailed descriptions of weapons and ammunition, and discussions on subjects from gun design and construction, to fire control and trajectory analysis. Individual chapters discuss explosives, ammunition, gun assemblies (including barrels, breech assemblies and mounts), turret installations, semi-automatic guns, machine guns, small arms, torpedoes, depth charges and mines, and a history of fire control. Chapters about the fire control problem include studies of gun sight principles, range measurement, the surface problem, the AA problem, fundamentals of director control, dual-purpose battery fire-control system, main battery fire-control system, machine-gun control, torpedo control, spotting, and organization and communications systems and procedures. The book's easy-to-understand text explains the myriad complex problems affiliated with gunnery, and is an indispensable reference for the historian, docent or modeler intent on understanding how WWII gun crews and systems operated. Work on Naval Ordnance and Gunnery began in 1943 at the request of the U.S. Navy's Bureau of Personnel. A capable team of five officers, working as writers and editors, compiled the book from a wide variety of sources including curriculum documents from the U.S. Naval Academy and Midshipmen's Schools, material from the Bureau of Ordnance, and various publications from the General Motors Corporation (which designed and built many of the 20mm and .50 caliber guns described in the book).

Subject Matter

Weaponry

Publication Year

1946

Publisher

United States Government

Page Count

586

Language

English

Files

31470078507.jpg

Collection

Citation

“Naval Ordnance and Gunnery NAVPERS 16116,” The Bruce Lee Library Research Project, accessed April 19, 2025, https://www.bruceleelibrary.jamescbishop.com/lib/items/show/2343.