Table Of Content8-INCH 3-GUN TURRETS MAIN ARMAMENT FOR USS SALEM CLASS
31 JULY 1947
This publication is RESTRICTED and shall be safeguarded in accordance with the security provisions of
U. S. Navy Regulations, 1920, Article 76.
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NAVY DEPARTMENT
BUREAU OF ORDNANCE
WASHINGTON 25. D. C.
31 July 1947
ORDNANCE PAMPHLET 1180 (VOLUME 1)
TURRET DESCRIPTION AND OPERATION,
8-INCH THREE-GUN TURRETS, USS SALEM CLASS
1. Ordnance Pamphlet 1180 (Volume 1) describes and provides operating and maintenance instructions
for the turret of the rapid-fire automatic 8-inch guns of heavy cruisers of the USS SALEM class. It
includes appended general engineering data and Safety Precautions applying to the guns and to all other
turret installations.
2. This publication, together with the references of paragraph three, provides complete information for all
installations of the turrets. It is to be used by operating personnel, maintenance personnel ashore and
afloat, personnel of installing activities, inspectors, and the Advanced Technical Service Schools, and all
other training activities providing instruction concerning the gun and its mount services.
3. Ordnance Pamphlet 1180 (Volume 1) is one of a series of six volumes describing the turret, turret
operation, and all of the turret installations. The other volumes are designated:
OP 1180 (Volume 2)-Guns and Slides
OP 1180 (Volume 3)-Elevating and Training Gear Drives and Controls
OP 1180 (Volume 4)-Ammunition Stowage and Hoist Equipment
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8-INCH 3-GUN TURRETS MAIN ARMAMENT FOR USS SALEM CLASS
Auxiliary Installations 49
Power supply 49
Ventilating system 52
Sprinkling system 55
Communications 61
Illumination 65
Air supply services 67
Gas ejector 67
Counterrecoil 68
Hydraulic equipment filter system 69
Chapter 2-Turret Operation
Introduction 71
Station activities and turret control methods 71
Firing cycle 73
Personnel organization 73
Crew stations 74
Personnel Duties 77
Turret officer 77
Turret captain 78
Talkers 79
Computer operator 79
Radar operators 80
Electrician (turret officer's booth) 81
Gun captains 81
Gun captain's assistants 81
iv
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Page
Trainer 82
Sight setter 85
Pointer 87
Checker 87
Projectile ring operators 89
Projectile men 91
Parbucklers 91
Electrician (lower projectile flat) 91
Petty officer in charge (powder handling room) 91
Powdermen 93
Preparing for Operation 93
Manning stations 93
Starting operations 94
Casting loose 95
Establishing communications 98
Ordnance Equipment Preparations and Starting Operations 98
Safety checks, operating precautions, and tests 99
Energizing main power circuit 99
Starting drives 99
Setting controls; energizing control circuits 102
Firing Operations 104
First round 104
Normal automatic fire 108
Gun laying, firing 109
Turret operation, local control 113
Turret operation, hand (emergency) control 115
Sighting 115
Range estimating 116
Gun Casualty Operations 117
Misfire operations 117
Manual case extraction 120
Manual case ejection 120
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Manual projectile extraction 120
Manual hoist operation 120
Securing Operations 121
Stopping equipment 121
Conditioning for stowing 123
Securing 123
Stowing Ammunition 126
Stowage handling via the hoist route 128
Appendix
1. General Turret Data 131
2. Ordnance Data 133
3. Index of Assemblies 135
4. Safety Precautions 145
v
USS Salem-Armament Arrangement
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8-INCH 3-GUN TURRETS
USS SALEM CLASS
INTRODUCTION
The ship Main battery. The main battery consists of three 8-
inch 3-gun turrets, described in this ordnance
USS SALEM is the first of a new class of heavy pamphlet. They are rapid-fire, automatic turrets of
cruisers. The hull is larger; the belt and deck an entirely new design.
armor are more extensive; and the fire power is
greater than in ships of the BALTIMORE and All three turrets are located on centerline, the gun
earlier classes. The displacement is 17,000 tons. houses of turrets I and III being immediately above
Over-all length is 716.5 feet; the beam 76.5 feet. the weather deck while that of turret II is at the level
of the first superstructure deck. Turret centers are
The armament 157.5, 205.5, and 538.5 feet (for turrets I, II, and III
respectively) from the bow. Gun trunnion axes, in
the same order, are 27 feet 9 inches, 36 feet 2
Antiaircraft, secondary, and main batteries and
inches, and 28 feet 9 inches above the 24-foot
fire control installations include new ordnance
waterline. These positions and the large arcs of train
types and new arrangements.
provide fire concentration of nine guns on either
beam, six forward and three astern.
Antiaircraft batteries. Forty-eight minor-caliber
guns comprise the defensive antiaircraft
All turrets are virtually identical. Their gun house
armament. These guns are arranged in two
and below-deck structures, emplacements,
batteries; twelve twin mounts of 20-millimeter
magazines, and Ordnance installations only differ in
machine guns are symmetrically located on the
minor details, adapting each to its ship location and
weather deck and in the superstructure; twelve
the fire control plan.
twin mounts of 3-inch/50 caliber guns are em-
placed on the weather deck and on pedestals
above it. Turret structural and space arrangement plans
however differ substantially from the conventional
turret designs of all previous battleships and
The 3-inch mount is a new automatic, rapid-fire
cruisers. This difference is due, in part, to the use of
type, tactically replacing the 40-millimeter
semifixed ammunition, for the first time in
antiaircraft installations of earlier ships. The
Ordnance of this size, and, in part, to the design
mounts are located and arranged for independent
types and details of the guns and the ammunition
or divided fire control. Four mounts are on the
handling equipment. These ammunition and
weather deck-two forward on centerline, and two
Ordnance equipment designs have permitted and
aft at the transom. Eight are amidship-four port
required omission of flameproof bulkheads
and four starboard-in positions that permit low-
separating the guns, the control stations, and the
angle fire over adjacent mounts of the secondary
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battery. powder service.
Secondary battery. Six twin 5-inch, enclosed, The emplacements are conventional foundation
dual-purpose mounts, of the same type and structure, barbette, and magazine designs. Their
arrangement of earlier cruisers, comprise the arrangements are quite similar to those of earlier
secondary battery. They are located as follows: heavy cruisers, differing principally in the magazine
two port, two starboard on the weather deck stowage provisions and powder-passing scuttles for
amidship, and one before and one abaft the powder cases instead of powder bags.
superstructure, on centerline at the second
superstructure deck.
vii
In their Ordnance installations, the turrets are the 3-inch mounts; and four plotting rooms, two
entirely new. The guns operate automatically, and each for main and secondary batteries. Plot
require no attendants in the gun compartment; switching arrangements permit many variations of
they fire at three times the rate of the 3-gun turrets control.
of the BALTIMORES. Other features are:
comparatively fast gun laying and turret train Main directors are combination radar and optical
drives; loading at all angles, while gun laying; rangefinder types, adapted, with their plotting room
substitution of radar range taking equipment for equipments, for divided turret control or single
optical rangefinder; local radar train control; control of all turrets, using remote automatic or
automatic fuze setting; and other original fire remote indicating control.
control arrangements for local and remote control.
Secondary directors are of two types. The ones
Fire control installations. The ship's fire control above the superstructure, on centerline, are
installations comprise extensive arrangement of combination radar and optical rangefinder types of
optical and radar director equipment, together modified Mk 37 design. The other two are an all-
with related computing and stabilizing devices. radar type of new variation of a similar design.
The system is more complex than that of any prior These directors and their switching circuits are
cruiser. It includes forward and after main battery arranged to function as auxiliary directors for the
directors; four secondary battery directors, one main battery.
each located forward, port, starboard and aft;
multiple directors for
The directors for the 3-inch battery are fast-tracking,
lead computing, gun sight combinations of radar-
ranging and open sight arrangement.
viii
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CRUISER 8-INCH TURRET - PART 1
Chapter I
GENERAL DESCRIPTION OF THE TURRET
Each turret consists of the following Rotating structure
structural units and equipment
installations: The rotating structure is a steel weldment nearly 45 feet
high, weighing 270 tons, consisting principally of the
Structural assembly Rotating structure structural plates identified in figure 2. It is a five-story
Turret roller bearing Turret circular structure erected in the form of a rectangular gun house
foundation Ordnance installations Guns above a cylindrical assembly of four flats.
Gun laying equipment Ammunition
hoists Ammunition stowing equipment The plates identifying the five levels are: the shelf plate at
Ammunition handling equipment Fire the bottom of the gun house, the pan plate at the bottom of
control equipment Auxiliary installations the gun pits, two levels called the upper and lower projectile
Power supply Heating system flats, and, at the lowest level, the powder handling platform.
Ventilating system Fire protection These plates are joined together by a cylindrical bulkhead
sprinkling system Turret illumination and gun girders between the shelf and pan plates, a id
Communications Compressed air another cylindrical
supply systems
STRUCTURAL ASSEMBLY
The three large units comprising the
structural assembly are the fixed and
movable parts designated in the profile
diagram of figure 1. They are a circular
foundation, a rotating structure, and a
roller bearing between the two.
The circular foundation consists of parts
built into the ship to support and protect
the rotating structure. These parts are the
foundation bulkhead, barbette, and other
fixed elements described on pages 10-13.
The roller bearing is the turret roller
bearing assembly described on pages 8-
10. Figure 1. Turret Structure Fixed and Rotating Elements
The rotating structure is the part that is
seated on the bearing and that mounts and
encloses all the ordnance mechanisms and
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