Inside a ww2 battleship

Instead of the Oerlikon, the US almost had the Colt-Browning .90 Cal (23mm) machine gun. That would have been awesome.

 

Never heard of an American 23 mm (.90 cal) machine gun (cannon).

Is it on the internet ?
Not every thing is on the internet. Did you read about this 23 mm machine gun in a book ?

Technically any gun chambered for a cartridge larger than 1/2" (.50 cal) becomes a cannon.

Old schooled navy salts would refer to large navy guns (6", 8" 16") as rifles.

The Soviets developed a 23 mm anti aircraft gun during the 1950's.

John Browning was always designing new weapons and new cartridges that were never adopted or even manufactured.


John Browning's patents he applied for.

• U.S. Patent 220,271 Winchester 1885 single-shot rifle, Browning's first patent
• U.S. Patent 306,577 Winchester 1886 and Model 71 lever-action rifles
• U.S. Patent 336,287 Winchester Model 1887/1901 lever-action shotgun
• U.S. Patent 385,238 Winchester 1890 pump-action rifle
• U.S. Patent 441,390 Winchester 1893 and 1897 pump-action shotguns
• U.S. Patent 465,339 Winchester 1892 lever-action rifle
• U.S. Patent 524,702 Winchester 1894 lever-action rifle
• U.S. Patent 544,657 Colt–Browning Model 1895 machine gun
• U.S. Patent 549,345 Winchester 1895 lever-action rifle
• U.S. Patent 580,924 Colt 1900 automatic pistol
• U.S. Patent 632,094 Winchester 1900 bolt-action single-shot .22 rifle
• U.S. Patent 689,283 Browning Auto-5 shotgun, also Remington Model 11 and Savage 720
• U.S. Patent 659,786 Remington Model 8 semi-automatic rifle
• U.S. Patent 678,937 M1917 Browning machine gun
• U.S. Patent 747,585 Colt Model 1903 Pocket Hammerless automatic pistol
• U.S. Patent 781,765U.S. Patent 864,609 Stevens 520 pump-action shotgun
• U.S. Patent 808,003 Colt Model 1905 in .45 ACP (predecessor to the M1911)
• U.S. Patent 947,478 FN Model 1906 and Colt Model 1908 Vest Pocket in .25 ACP
• U.S. Patent 984,519 Colt 1911
• U.S. Patent 1,065,341 Browning 22 Semi-Auto rifle and Remington model 24
• U.S. Patent 1,143,170 Remington Model 17 and Ithaca 37 pump-action shotguns
• U.S. Patent 1,276,716 Colt Woodsman
• U.S. Patent 1,293,022 Browning Automatic Rifle Model of 1918
• U.S. Patent 1,424,553 FN "Trombone" pump action .22 caliber repeater (Rare in USA)
• U.S. Patent 1,525,065 37 mm automatic cannons, M1 and M4
• U.S. Patent 1,578,638 Browning Superposed over/under shotgun
• U.S. Patent 1,618,510 FN and Browning Hi-Power pistol
• U.S. Patent 1,628,226 M2 Browning machine gun in .50 BMG

23 mm caliber
23 mm caliber is a specific size of cannon or autocannon ammunition.

This ammunition size has not been widely used. Examples of armaments using it are:

• 23×115mm caliber, used on many Soviet and Russian airplanes
• 23×122mm[1]
• 23×139mmSR
• 23×152mm caliber, used on Ilyushin Il-2 attack plane as well as on later Soviet anti-aircraft guns
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/23_mm_caliber#cite_note-1

https://web.archive.org/web/20160310103254/http://milpas.cc/rifles/ZFiles/Misc/Cartridge%20Collection/23-28.jpg

 

If you do a search for “Colt Browning T4 .90 cal”, you’ get results for it. It was a scaled up Browning M2 to 23mm and was going to be a domestically designed and produced autocannon, but they basically stopped all work because we started to get a ton of Oerlikons from Britain and the Ordinace Baord basically went “Why spend the time and money working out the kinks on this design when we have a perfectly functional autocannon we know works?”

 

While on the topic of USA WW2 “Could have been” weapons, the T10/T23E1 Machine Gun:

Designed by Bill Ruger when he worked for Springfield Armory during WW2 and intended to replace the M1919 medium machinegun with something closer to the MG-34/42 in operation. The Army ended up dumping the design during prototype testing with the logic of “We already have the much heavier and clunky M-1919A6 and they are ‘good enough’ so we don’t need this new gun.”

The design would later be completed by the Belgian company Fabrique National and become known to the world as the FN MAG.

 

It seems it was suppose to have been an anti-tank gun.


the T4 gun, while using basically the same ammunition as the T3 was, according to Chinn and Cabeen, developed by Colt and based on the design of the Browning 37mm M1A1 long-recoil cannon (thereby reverting to the T1 operating principle). It was designed to use either flat ammunition clips or a flexible belt in a drum (presumably like the 37mm M4 aircraft gun). However, by the time it was tested in March 1941 it was being proposed for use as an anti-tank gun (as shown below).


No further work on T4 seems to have been done after this date. Neither source gives any performance or weight information concerning T4 or T3.

All of the .90 series guns were designed by the Ordnance Department and it appears from official Ordnance Comittee minutes that work on them proceeded in parallel rather than sequentially: design and manufacture of a prototype T1 was approved in April 1937; similar work on both the T2 and the T3 was approved in February 1938; and Colt was discussing with the Ordnance Department work on the T4 in October 1938 (with manufacture of a prototype approved in 1939).

The entire .90 series seem to have been poor performers compared with European contemporaries, being overweight and slow-firing. They showed the inexperience of the US Ordnance Department in designing automatic weapons at that time...

full article -> http://www.quarryhs.co.uk/CAL90.html

 

Heavy compared to anti-tank rifles, sure, not to autocannons. And rate of fire is one of easiest problems to solve for automatic weapons.

 

Yeah...make them water cooled.

Most naval automatic guns are water cooled. All .50 cal Browning M-2 MG on ships during the early years of WW ll were water cooled until replaced by the 20mm Oerlikon gun. All 40 mm Bofor naval guns were water cooled. Even today's 5"/54 gun is water cooled.

The 20mm Oerlikon gun was air cooled.


Water-cooled 0.50" (12.7 mm) BMG about 1940.

0.50" (12.7 mm) Water-cooled BMG on unidentified submarine. Library of Congress photograph ID LC-USW33-030554-C.


Unlike air cooled .50 cal BMG where you are limited to 10 round burst, with the water cooled M-2 you held down the trigger and fired continuously able to fire the "whole nine yards" which was how long a .50 cal ammunition belt was.

 

Which means you have to produce two very mechanically different designs for ships and aircraft. Aircraft can’t carry the extra weight of water cooled guns. Your factory logistics become that much more difficult.

 

Aircraft don't need water to cool down it's machine guns or cannons. They are flying fast enough that the air will cool down the weapon.

 

You don’t need water to cool down your machine guns on land or on a ship either. Just don’t constantly hold down the trigger and make use of quick change barrels.

 

You may remember a year or more ago on this military PF forum we have already debated water cooled machine guns.

As a static weapon water cooled machine guns rule. But the job of the grunt is to close in and engage the enemy and kill him before he kills you. Water cooled machine guns are just to freaking heavy because you need water, a water tank for the water and a hose to get the water to the machine gun barrel water jacket. Water weighs 8.3 lbs per gallon !!!

34th Infantry, Ansong River, July 1950

M1917A1 Caliber .30 Heavy Machine Gun and TM9-1205 Manual
Fully automatic, recoil operated, water-cooled, Caliber .30 (7.62mm), 174 gr bullet, 50 gr charge, 2800 fps muzzle velocity, 400-600 rounds per minute rate of fire and a 1000 meter effective range, the M1917A1 was a deadly defensive weapon. Too heavy for continuous action in fluid combat situations, the Weapons Platoon would typically move at least one HMG to each forward platoon at night for defensive actions, and for use in support action for the next morning's maneuver action.

The M1917A1 was designated as a Heavy Machine Gun for a very good reason: it was heavy! It was not a weapon easily used in fluid combat or assault. However, the weight of this water-cooled weapon also gave it great stability which, with its capability of sustained volume of fire, made it an excellent defensive weapon.

The heavy was also very reliable. The anti-freeze in its coolant made it dependable even in the intense cold, as in the Chosin Reservoir battles. For stopping massed, or wide-spread infantry assault, the .30 heavy was one of the most effective weapons the infantry had during the Korean war...
continue -> http://www.koreanwaronline.com/arms/30calhv.htm

 

I would have volunteered to fire 20,000 rounds through that 1919.

It also had some interesting configurations for the LMG role.


IIRC they later went to a 150 gr load.

The 174 grain load was superior, being based off the excellent Swiss GP-11 round. It retained velocity better and
therefore shot flatter, further, and harder.

The only problem was the military was finding training was becoming more difficult, because of the greatly increased range, so they cut back to a 150 grain round.

If I was to pick a load for machine guns on naval vessels, it would seem the one that shot further would be best.

Perhaps that and penetration.



"
The M1906 maximum range was originally overstated. When the M1906 cartridge was developed, the range tests had been done to only 1,800 yards (1,650 m); distances beyond that were estimated, but the estimate for extreme range was wrong by almost 40 percent.[8]The range discrepancy became evident during World War I. Before the widespread employment of light mortars and artillery, long-range machine gun "barrage" or indirect fires were considered important in U.S. infantry tactics.[9] When the U.S. entered World War I, it did not have many machine guns, so it acquired British and French machine guns. When those weapons were later replaced with U.S. machine guns firing the M1906 round, the effective range of the barrage was 50 percent less.[10] Firing tests performed around 1918 at Borden Brook Reservoir (Massachusetts), Miami, and Daytona Beach showed the actual maximum range of the M1906 cartridge to be 3,300 to 3,400 yards (3,020 to 3,110 m).[11] Germany, which was using the S Patrone (S ball cartridge) loaded with a similar 153-grain (9.9 g) flat-based bullet in its rifles, had apparently confronted and solved the same problem by developing an aerodynamically more refined bullet for long range machine gun use. The s.S. Patrone was introduced in 1914 and used a 197.5-grain (12.80 g) s.S. - schweres Spitzgeschoß (heavy spitzer) boat-tail bullet which had a maximum range of approximately 5,140 yd (4,700 m).[12]

For these reasons, in 1926, the ordnance corps, after extensive testing of 7.5×55mm Swiss GP11 projectiles provided by the Swiss developed the .30 M1 Ball cartridge loaded with a new improved military rifle (IMR) 1185 propellant and 174-grain (11.3 g) bullet with a 9° boat-tail and an ogive of 7 calibers nose cone that had a higher ballistic coefficient of roughly 0.494 (G1 BC),[13][14] that achieved a muzzle velocity of 2,647 ft/s (807 m/s) and muzzle energy of 2,675 ft⋅lbf (3,627 J).[15] This bullet further reduced air resistance in flight, resulting in less rapid downrange deceleration, less lateral drift caused by crosswinds, and significantly greater supersonic and maximum effective range from machine guns and rifles alike. Its maximum range was approximately 5,500 yd (5,030 m).[16]Additionally, a gilding metal jacket was developed that all but eliminated the metal fouling that plagued the earlier M1906 cartridge.

Wartime surplus totaled over 2 billion rounds of ammunition. Army regulations called for training use of the oldest ammunition first. As a result, the older .30-06 ammunition was expended for training; stocks of .30 M1 ball ammunition were allowed to slowly grow until all of the older M1906 ammunition had been fired. By 1936, it was discovered that the maximum range of the .30 M1 ball ammunition with its boat-tailed spitzer bullets was beyond the safety limitations of many military firing ranges. An emergency order was made to manufacture quantities of ammunition that matched the external ballistics of the earlier M1906 cartridge as soon as possible. A new cartridge was developed in 1938 that was essentially a duplicate of the old M1906 round, but loaded with IMR 4895 propellant and a new flat-based bullet that had a gilding metal jacket and a different lead alloy, and weighed 152 grains (9.8 g) instead of 150 grains (9.7 g). This 1938 pattern cartridge, the cartridge, caliber .30, ball, M2, achieved a muzzle velocity of 2,805 ft/s (855 m/s) and muzzle energy of 2,656 ft⋅lbf (3,601 J).[15] The round weighed 416 grains (27.0 g) and its maximum range was approximately 3,450 yd (3,150 m).[16][17]"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/.30-06_Springfield#History

 

Interesting, I didn't know that.

The 7.5 Swiss is an excellent combat cartridge and an excellent big game hunting cartridge.

According to Shooters Bible "Guide to Cartridges" the 7.5X55 Swiss duplicates the performance of the Winchester .308 (7.62X51 mm NATO) and the Norma factory loads 7.5 Swiss 180 gr bullet cartridge ballistics comparable to the British 303.

Those Schmidt and Rubin's might make excellent sniper rifles.

 

Those loads are quite conservative. GP11 is loaded to a relatively low pressure, but has a case volume identical to 30-06. Loaded to similar pressures (very safe in a K31 action) it will match most heavy loads in a 30-06. And it does that with a nice slender bullet as seen below. The US military sniping community uses similar loads out of a .308.


I can personally confirm the K31 shoots superbly at long range.

 

That's right, you own a 7.5 Schmidt-Rubin.

I also won a schmdit-Rubi but my nephew has it, it's his deer rifle of choice.

My father acquired the Schmdt-Rubin around in 1965, a friend paying off a $15 debt owed to my father.
It was already sporterized by cutting off 4" of the barrel, removing the rear military sights replacing the sights with a Layman peep sight with a large rear sight aperture and a fitting it to a hunting stock with a recoil pad.

Basically an excellent brush hunting deer rifle.

What 7.5 Schmidt-Rubins that are out there is what's out there. There is no warehouse in Switzerland with thousands of Schmidt-Rubins to export.

Hard rifle to find today.

Now I found a few Schmidt-Rubins for sale by that infamous company that imports Chi-Com rifles, Century Arms.

I'm thinking about it as a collectors item. -> K31 Rifle is perhaps the most sought after Schmidt Rubin of them all. -> https://www.centuryarms.com/schmidt-rubin-k31-p-series-all-matching.html

https://www.centuryarms.com/surplus-corner/firearms/curio-relic

https://www.centuryarms.com/surplus-corner/firearms

 

I can see that making an excellent brush gun. Speed of follow up shots is probably similar to a lever gun.

Was it difficult to find ammo back in the 60's?

Im thinking about the P series also, I still need one with a walnut stock.

There was an importer that made these short barrel "tanker" k31's. (note the reciever mouted peep sight)

 

Back in 65 only surplus military 7.5 ammo was out there.
Reloading dies for the 7.5 Swiss was readly available at the time but no commercial 7.5 Swiss were on the shelf.

If I remember correctly someone during the early 70's started producing Swiss 7.5 hunting ammunition, forget who it was.

During the 1950's and 60's there were still real army/navy surplus stores across America and all carried American, British, German, Jap, Swiss, Italian, etc. military WW ll surplus ammunition at a few pennies per round.

No Russian surplus ammo was available until the end of the Cold War.


The Rise and Fall of the Army Surplus Store
https://www.artofmanliness.com/articles/rise-fall-army-surplus-store/

 

Oak is not a good weapon stock. It is to hard, to brittle, and the grain is to widely spaced.

Birch or walnut are preferred, as is ash.

 

In 1939 the Germans went from walnut hard wood stocks on their Kar-98 Mausers to laminated plywood stocks.

Have heard some old sea stories of American soldiers who served in the European theater during WW ll who came across Kar-98 Mausers with oak stocks.

One day while at Martin B. Redding in Culver City probably the best experts on collectible guns in SoCal I was told any European military rifle with a oak stock is a collectible.

A quick research...

 

My K31s look like beech but according to the years they were made, they should be Walnut.

They don't look like refurbs and they don't have the figure of walnut.

These aren't mine, but you can see the differences figuring fairly clearly.

Mine look very similar to the second one from the bottom in this pic.