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   "WARSHIPS - are  STRONGER  than  A-EXPLOSION!"
22.01.2000                            HELP  ME!
     I have'nt money. My pay day - is 1$.  Dear  readers!  Pleas,
     send me few dollars. My name is Oleg  Teslenko.  My  adress:
     Russia, 603063, Nizhni Novgorod, N-Doskino 16-29.
                   The MAD   SHELL
    During the second air raid  of  Japanese  aircraft  at  Pearl
Harbor some bombs hit the  destroyer  "Shaw",  which  stood  in  a
floating dock. It was  described  by  Walter  Lord  in  his  book
"Incredible Victory. The Day of Shame". The destroyer "Shaw" had
a hard time. At 9.12 a bomb hit its forecastle and  blew  up  the
forward gun magazines. An  incredible  fantastic  explosion  rose
above whole base. To a certain extend it resembled  fireworks  on
the Independence Day of the 4th July, but it was much more of the
large scale. A huge ball of fire rose into the sky.  Burning  and
exploding pieces drew gigantic trajectories in the  sky,  leaving
traces of white smoke behind. Seaman Ed Vashkevitch  watched  the
explosion from the seaplane berth on the island Ford  in  half  a
mile from the dock. Looking at the fire shafts, flying up to  the
felt pleased that he was far from this horrible  place.  Then  he
looked up into the sky and noticed a  five-inch  shell  from  the
"Shaw" rushing at high speed, heading right for him. He hardly ma
when the shell hit the berth concrete in  two  meters  from  him.
Fortunately the shell did not explode, ran about  hundred  meters
bobbing on the concrete and then, clanking hit the  hangar  wall.
battleship magazines the narrator came to a conviction  that  all
previous investigators were mistaken and the real things happened
were much more difficult than an  ordinary  explosion.
  First, explosives  which  form  part  of  ship  ammunition  are
subdivided into three groups:  propellant,  initiating  and  high
explosives. To the  propellant  explosives  belongs  powder.  Its
burning rate is hund the high explosives - i.e. what shell  cases
are stuffed with. Powder is used for propelling - it  throws  the
shell out of the gun barrel. One of its merits is its low burning
rate.
   For a non-p like an explosion. But as a  matter  of  fact  the
speed of  this  process  is  hundreds  of  times  lower  than  at
detonation of explosives in a shell case. And  what`s  more,  the
burning rate of powder may become very low - it burns in an  open
air almost just like paper. Only in a  bore  of  a  gun  barrrel,
being stoppered under high  pressure,  it  is  able  to  explode.
That`s why there could not be any powder explosion  in  the  ship
magazines - only more less quick burning.
   Quite  in  another  way  high  explosives  work.  They  really
explode. But the accepted idea of them is not always true. Unlike
the building explosives, they are  insensitive.  High  explosives
can stand the hits and do not detonate. While shooting the  shell
gains a great acceleration being under influence of powder  which
works like a mighty blow, speeding up the shell. If the explosive
would detonate from this blow, would explode right in a bore of a
gun. That`s why explosive used in  ammunition  is  hit-resistant.
You can easily chop it with an axe, or strike with a  hammer,  or
shoot at it with a pistol - IT WILL NOT EXPLODE!
   Shells detonate from a special cap, which produces a fire ray.
But there is one more thing to mention. Contrary to the notion of
people who see mostly fixed small-bore  shells  (impressed  in  a
metal shell case), the warship s of separate loading  ammunition.
The shell and the case are not only separated  from  each  other,
but they are separately stored. And what is  more,  the  fuze  of
such a shell is stored separate with high explosive and the  fuze
is replaced while storing by a metal plug. The fuze is screwed in
right before shooting. That means that the shell being stored  is
unable to explode and it woul
   After the war events American war scientists proved during  the
large number of experiments that shells being without  fuzes  and
lying close by on the conveyor or in a magazine  cannot  detonate
from each other. That proves that an explosion of ammunition in a
magazine is practically impossible to be  aroused,  even  by  the
direct hit of a shell or a bomb.
   But now the reader may wonder why in this case the  hit  of  a
bomb blew up the magazines of the destroyer  "Shaw",  as  it  was
told in the beginning of the article. Now we are going to make it
clear. It is true that neither direct  hit  of  a  bomb,  nor  an
explosion in a magazine, can make the The  only  way  to  make  a
shell without fuze explode is to heat it in a big  flame  to  the
temperature of spontaneous initiation. But looking  back  at  the
real events, we may say that there was no prel in the  case  with
"Shaw". It is not true. Here is the description of these  events,
taken from the book of I.Korotkin "The War Damages Of The Surface
Ships"(1960, p. 213):
    "The destroyer "Shaw" dock at Pearl Harbor  was  attacked  by
Japanese aircraft and hit with three bombs. All bombs hit the bow
of the ship. One of them, having hit the bow superstructure,  ran
through the hull and exploded in water near  the  fuel  tanks  of
starboard ; the other bombs exploded inside the ship at the level
of upper deck near the wardroom. A big fire sprang up and  spread
over the bow to the boiler-room. . . , there was an explosion  of
ammun gun magazines... õ. Do please note how exactly  the  points
are marked where the bombs hit and exploded. The first one had to
be an armour-piercing bomb with a delayed action fuze, because it
ran and exploded only from a hit against  the  dock  bottom.  The
others, being HE bombs could hardly pierce  the  thin  forecastle
deck. That means that no bomb exploded on the level of ammunition
room out the places of explosions means  that  there  had  to  be
enough time between the bomb hits and the magazine explosion,  so
that the  stuff  could  record  it.
   In the reality everything happened  looked  the  ship  with  a
little gap in time. It could not do much harm to the ship, if the
captain would have followed all the rules  of  placing  the  ship
into a dry dock. Every  liquid  fuel  and  every  the  ship.  The
magazines need steady cooling,  while  the  ship  power  stations
during the repair works are usually switched off. So,  the  first
bomb pierced the magazine, but it WAS NOT the reason o out from a
pierced fuel tank and was set on fire by the other explosions.  A
big fire spreading over the ship began to heat shells and  powder
cartridges. And then they exploded. But there is of  a  five-inch
shell box is much more then one of the metal cartridge cases with
powder (30 mm and 1  mm  accordingly).  Overheated  by  the  fire
cartridges exploded  first.  Formally  speaking,  produces  while
burning a large volume of gas, much more than high  explosive  of
the same weight. The powder gas looking for escape broke the hull
of destroyer, having thrown away some shells from  the  magazine.
But no shell exploded even falling down on the  concrete  from  a
high altitude, which proved the story  of  Ed  Vashkevitch.  That
means that if there had not been a big fire near  the  magazines,
no bomb would be able to blow them up. readers may  consider  the
story  of  a  little  destroyer  to  be  uninteresting,  but  its
circumstances, being thoroughsly investigated remind of those  of
the well-known explosion of the battleship "Arizona" bombs  could
not pierce the deck armour, but they caused fire which became the
reason of the explosion.