1.
John Melvin (naval officer)
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Lieutenant John T. Melvin was an officer in the United States Navy. Born at Selma, Alabama, Melvin was appointed midshipman 6 July 1907, resigning his commission 20 August 1915, he was appointed lieutenant,9 February 1917, upon his joining the Naval Reserve. Attached to the patrol boat Alcedo, Lieutenant Melvin lost his life 5 November 1917 when that vessel was sunk by a German submarine in the war zone. Alcedo was the first American war vessel to go down in World War I, two destroyers have been named USS Melvin for him. This article incorporates text from the public domain Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships
2.
Federal Shipbuilding & Dry Dock Company
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The Federal Shipbuilding and Drydock Company was a United States shipyard, active from 1917 to 1948. It was founded during World War I to build ships for the United States Shipping Board, during World War II, it built ships as part of the U. S. The shipyard site is now part of River Terminal, a distribution facility that is partially a foreign trade zone. Federal built numerous destroyers, destroyer escorts and a handful of light cruisers as well as merchant ships during, around 570 vessels were contracted for construction by Federal SB&DD Company with about 100 not delivered fully completed due to the end of the World War II. Federal also had a yard at Port Newark during World War II that built destroyers, Federal Shipbuilding and Dry Dock Company was founded July 24,1917 as a subsidiary of United States Steel Corporation to supply ships for the United States Shipping Board during World War I. The site on Kearny Point was first surveyed during the summer of 1917, the shipyard was to consist of everything needed to fully complete a ship from a facility power plant to a wood joining shop. A steel plate mill and boiler shop were to be built as well, $10 million was allocated for construction. The American Bridge Company was contracted to provide 10,000 tons of steel for the structures, gary was president of Federal in August 1917. The ship-ways were completed by the fall of 1917 with keels being laid by November 1917, Federal completed a 9,600 ton ship around six weeks before World War I ended as well as two other ships before the close of 1918. 27 ships were delivered to the Emergency Fleet Corporation in 1919, Federal accounted for 5% of the steel merchant tonnage built in 1919. By June 1921, the Federal yard at Kearny had a 535 by 161.5 feet boiler construction shop to build Scotch marine boilers, exhaust stacks, tanks, uptakes,235 boilers had been constructed from September 1919 to June 1921. Boilers constructed there were mostly 15 feet diameter or larger, at that time,250 men were able to construct three boilers a week with a single 8 hour shift each day. By November 1921, Federal had shipbuilding ways for twelve 15,000 ton vessels and had constructed a 9,000 ton floating dry dock, the dry dock was first used June 23,1921 when Transmarine corps SS Suhulco docked. The Kearny yard was 17 acres with 2,400 feet of frontage on the Hackensack River, a wet basin was located at the southern end with a 100-ton 3-legged jib crane for fitting out new ships. On Sunday night, May 18,1924, a fire destroyed the largest building at the Kearny yard causing an initially estimated $500,000 in damage, other estimates were $1.6 million or as high as several million dollars in damage. Firemen used four mobile cranes to try to extinguish fires in the pattern building, over a thousand workers were idled by the fire. The shipyard had around 5,000 workers at the time and was said to be one of the largest steel plants in the world. Fireboats and numerous firemen from around the area were called in to fight the fire spread rapidly through the wooden structures at the Kearny yard
3.
Kearny, New Jersey
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Kearny is a town in Hudson County, New Jersey, United States and a suburb of Newark. Kearny is named after Civil War general Philip Kearny and it began as a township formed by an act of the New Jersey Legislature on April 8,1867, from portions of Harrison Township. Portions of the township were taken on July 3,1895, Kearny was incorporated as a town on January 19,1899, based on the results of a referendum held two days earlier. The Arlington section of town was named for Arlington Station on the Erie Railroad at the Arlington Mill plant, owned by Arlington Mills of Lawrence, Massachusetts. The area of Kearny Township, created in 1867, had part of the original Crown Grant of 30,000 acres obtained by Major William Sandford of Barbados on July 4,1668. Major Sandford named it New Barbadoes Neck after his old home, as was the custom of the time, the Major paid 20 pounds sterling to Chief Tantaqua of the Hackensack tribe for all their reserve rights and titles. Sanfords friend Major Nathaniel Kingsland acquired the property in 1708 and sold the western tract of the Grant for 300 pounds sterling to Captain Arent Schuyler two years later. The new purchase included present-day Kearny, North Arlington, Lyndhurst, shortly after Schuylers purchase of his new homestead, a peculiar green stone was uncovered. It was sent to England for analysis and he learned that it contained 80% copper and his opening of a copper mine brought the first steam engine to America from England, it was used to pump out the deep mine shaft. The engine was delivered by its engineer, Josiah Hornblower. The engine and mines were destroyed by fire in 1772 and remained idle for some years, Schuyler Mansion played a role during the American Revolutionary War Era. When Lord Howe of England took possession of New York Harbor and they generally traveled over a road that today is referred to as the Belleville Turnpike, which was originally constructed in 1759 using cedar logs from the nearby swamps. In the middle 19th century, Kearny was the upper, or northern, a prominent citizen and resident of the upper section, General N. M. Halsted, felt it was impossible under these political conditions for his section to obtain proper recognition. He engaged an energetic campaign for an independent township and he succeeded when the NJ Legislature of 1867 on March 14, adopted an act creating the Township of Kearny. The town was named to honor Major General Phil Kearny, Commander of the New Jersey Forces in the Civil War, on April 8,1867, the first election of town officers was held. General N. M. Halsted was elected Chairman, the first official seat of Government was three rooms in the old Lodi Hotel, on the northeast corner of Schuyler and Harrison Avenues. In the early 1870s, Kearny erected its first Town Hall, on the corner of Kearny and Woodland Avenues and this served as a Town Hall, Court House, and Schoolhouse. The Minute Book of the Township states on August 16,1870, the first schoolhouse was housed in the Town Hall built at Kearny and Woodland Avenues in 1873
4.
Fletcher-class destroyer
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The Fletcher class was a class of destroyers built by the United States during World War II. The class was designed in 1939, as a result of dissatisfaction with the destroyer leader types of the Porter. Some went on to serve during the Korean War and into the Vietnam War, the United States Navy commissioned 175 Fletcher-class destroyers between 1942 and 1944, more than any other destroyer class, and the design was generally regarded as highly successful. Fletchers had a speed of 38 knots, and an armament of five 5 guns in single mounts with 1021 torpedoes in two quintuple centerline mounts. The Allen M. Sumner and Gearing classes were Fletcher derivatives, the long-range Fletcher-class ships performed every task asked of a destroyer, from anti-submarine warfare and anti-aircraft warfare to surface action. They could cover the vast distances required by fleet actions in the Pacific, in fact, they served almost exclusively in the Pacific Theater of Operations during World War II, during which they accounted for 29 Imperial Japanese Navy submarines sunk. Three have been preserved as museum ships in the U. S. the Fletcher class was the largest class of destroyer ordered, and was also one of the most successful and popular with the destroyer men themselves. Compared to earlier classes built for the Navy, they carried a significant increase in weapons and other weaponry. Their flush deck construction added structural strength, although it did make them rather cramped, the Fletcher-class was the first generation of destroyers designed after the series of Naval Treaties that had limited ship designs heretofore. The growth in the design was in part to answer a question that always dogged U. S. Navy designs, that being the long range required by operations in the Pacific Ocean. They were also to no less than five 5 in guns and ten deck-mounted torpedo tubes on the centerline. Compared to earlier designs, the Fletchers were large, allowing them to absorb the addition of two 40 mm Bofors quadruple mount AA guns as well as six 20 mm Oerlikon dual AA gun positions. This addition to the AA suite required the deletion of the forward quintuple torpedo mount, Fletchers were also much less top-heavy than previous classes, allowing them to take on additional equipment and weapons without major redesign. They were fortunate in catching American production at the moment, becoming the destroyer design, and only Fletcher-class derivatives. The first design inputs were in the fall of 1939 from questionnaires distributed around design bureaus, the design parameters were the armaments desired of the next destroyer. As such, the questions were of how many guns, torpedoes, also asked was at what point would the design grow large enough to become a torpedo target instead of a torpedo delivery system. As with other previous U. S. flush deck destroyer designs and this was mitigated by deployment to the Pacific Ocean, which is relatively calm. To achieve 38 kn with a 500-ton increase in displacement, shaft horsepower was increased from 50,000 to 60,000 compared to the previous Benson and Gleaves classes
5.
Knot (unit)
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The knot is a unit of speed equal to one nautical mile per hour, approximately 1.151 mph. The ISO Standard symbol for the knot is kn, the same symbol is preferred by the IEEE, kt is also common. The knot is a unit that is accepted for use with the SI. Etymologically, the term derives from counting the number of knots in the line that unspooled from the reel of a log in a specific time. 1 international knot =1 nautical mile per hour,1.852 kilometres per hour,0.514 metres per second,1.151 miles per hour,20.254 inches per second,1852 m is the length of the internationally agreed nautical mile. The US adopted the definition in 1954, having previously used the US nautical mile. The UK adopted the international nautical mile definition in 1970, having used the UK Admiralty nautical mile. The speeds of vessels relative to the fluids in which they travel are measured in knots, for consistency, the speeds of navigational fluids are also measured in knots. Thus, speed over the ground and rate of progress towards a distant point are given in knots. Until the mid-19th century, vessel speed at sea was measured using a chip log, the chip log was cast over the stern of the moving vessel and the line allowed to pay out. Knots placed at a distance of 8 fathoms -47 feet 3 inches from each other, passed through a sailors fingers, the knot count would be reported and used in the sailing masters dead reckoning and navigation. This method gives a value for the knot of 20.25 in/s, the difference from the modern definition is less than 0. 02%. On a chart of the North Atlantic, the scale varies by a factor of two from Florida to Greenland, a single graphic scale, of the sort on many maps, would therefore be useless on such a chart. Recent British Admiralty charts have a latitude scale down the middle to make this even easier, speed is sometimes incorrectly expressed as knots per hour, which is in fact a measure of acceleration. Prior to 1969, airworthiness standards for aircraft in the United States Federal Aviation Regulations specified that distances were to be in statute miles. In 1969, these standards were amended to specify that distances were to be in nautical miles. At 11000 m, an airspeed of 300 kn may correspond to a true airspeed of 500 kn in standard conditions. Beaufort scale Hull speed, which deals with theoretical estimates of maximum speed of displacement hulls Knot count Knotted cord Metre per second Orders of magnitude Rope Kemp
6.
Nautical mile
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A nautical mile is a unit of measurement defined as exactly 1852 meters. Historically, it was defined as one minute of latitude, which is equivalent to one sixtieth of a degree of latitude. Today it is an SI derived unit, being rounded to a number of meters. The derived unit of speed is the knot, defined as one mile per hour. The geographical mile is the length of one minute of longitude along the Equator, there is no internationally agreed symbol. M is used as the abbreviation for the mile by the International Hydrographic Organization and by the International Bureau of Weights. NM is used by the International Civil Aviation Organization, nm is used by the U. S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Nmi is used by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, the word mile is from the Latin word for a thousand paces, mīlia. In 1617 the Dutch scientist Snell assessed the circumference of the Earth at 24,630 Roman miles, around that time British mathematician Edmund Gunter improved navigational tools including a new quadrant to determine latitude at sea. He reasoned that the lines of latitude could be used as the basis for a unit of measurement for distance, as one degree is 1/360 of a circle, one minute of arc is 1/21600 of a circle. These sexagesimal units originated in Babylonian astronomy, Gunter used Snells circumference to define a nautical mile as 6,080 feet, the length of one minute of arc at 48 degrees latitude.3 metres. Other countries measure the minute of arc at 45 degrees latitude, in 1929, the international nautical mile was defined by the First International Extraordinary Hydrographic Conference in Monaco as 1,852 meters. Imperial units and United States customary units used a definition of the nautical mile based on the Clarke Spheroid, the United States nautical mile was defined as 6,080.20 feet based in the Mendenhall Order foot of 1893. It was abandoned in favour of the nautical mile in 1954.181 meters. It was abandoned in 1970 and, legally, references to the unit are now converted to 1,853 meters. Conversion of units Orders of magnitude
7.
5"/38 caliber gun
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The Mark 12 5/38 caliber gun was a US naval gun. The gun was installed into Single Purpose and Dual Purpose mounts used primarily by the US Navy, the 38 caliber barrel was a mid-length compromise between the previous United States standard 5/51 low-angle gun and 5/25 anti-aircraft gun. The increased barrel length provided greatly improved performance in both anti-aircraft and anti-surface roles compared to the 5/25 gun, however, except for the barrel length and the use of semi-fixed ammunition, the 5/38 gun was derived from the 5/25 gun. Both weapons had power ramming, which enabled rapid fire at high angles against aircraft, the 5/38 entered service on USS Farragut, commissioned in 1934. The base ring mount, which improved the rate of fire, entered service on USS Gridley. Even this advanced system required nearly 100 rounds of ammunition expenditure per aircraft kill, however, the planes were normally killed by shell fragments and not direct hits, barrage fire was used, with many guns firing in the air at the same time. Base ring mounts with integral hoists had a rate of fire of 15 rounds per minute per barrel, however. On pedestal and other mounts lacking integral hoists,12 to 15 rounds per minute was the rate of fire, useful life expectancy was 4600 effective full charges per barrel. The 5/38 cal gun was mounted on a large number of US Navy ships in the World War II era. It was backfitted to many of the World War I-era battleships during their wartime refits and it has left active US Navy service, but it is still on mothballed ships of the United States Navy reserve fleets. It is also used by a number of nations who bought or were given US Navy surplus ships, each mount carries one or two Mk 12 5/38cal Gun Assemblies. The gun assembly shown is used in single mounts, and it is the gun in twin mounts. It is loaded from the left side, the left gun in twin mounts is the mirror image of the right gun, and it is loaded from the right side. The Mk12 gun assembly weighs 3,990 lb, the major Mk12 Gun Assembly characteristics are,158 Semi-automatic During recoil, some of the recoil energy is stored in the counter-recoil system. That stored energy is used during counter-recoil to prepare the gun for the next round, the firing pin is cocked, the breech is opened, the spent powder case is ejected, and the bore is air cleaned. Hand loaded A Projectile-Man and a Powder-Man are stationed at each gun assembly and their job is to move the round, consisting of a projectile and a powder case, from the hoists to the rammer tray, and then start the ram cycle. The hydraulically driven Rammer Spade, called the Power Spade in that picture, is at the back of the Rammer Tray, if the multiple names of the Spade is confusing, look at this footnote. Vertical sliding-wedge breech block The breech block closes the chamber behind the powder case and it also holds the firing pin assembly
8.
Bofors 40 mm gun
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The Bofors 40 mm gun, often referred to simply as the Bofors gun, is an anti-aircraft/multi-purpose autocannon designed in the 1930s by the Swedish arms manufacturer AB Bofors. It was one of the most popular medium-weight anti-aircraft systems during World War II, a small number of these weapons remain in service to this day, and saw action as late as the Gulf War. In the post-war era the original design was not suitable for action against jet powered aircraft, so Bofors introduced a new model of more power. In spite of sharing almost nothing with the design other than the calibre and the distinctive conical flash hider. Although not as popular as the original L/60 model, the L/70 remains in service to this day, especially as a weapon for light armored vehicles. Bofors itself has been part of BAE Systems AB since March 2005, the Swedish Navy purchased a number of 2 pounder Pom-Poms from Vickers as anti-aircraft guns in 1922. The Navy approached Bofors about the development of a capable replacement. Bofors signed a contract in late 1928, Bofors produced a gun that was a smaller version of a 57 mm semi-automatic gun developed as an anti-torpedo boat weapon in the late 19th century by Finspong. Their first test gun was a re-barreled Nordenfelt version of the Finspong gun, testing of this gun in 1929 demonstrated that a problem existed feeding the weapon in order to maintain a reasonable rate of fire. A mechanism that was enough to handle the stresses of moving the large round was too heavy to move quickly enough to fire rapidly. One attempt to solve this problem used zinc shell cases that burned up when fired and this proved to leave heavy zinc deposits in the barrel, and had to be abandoned. This seemed to be the solution they needed, improving firing rates to a level. During this period Krupp purchased a share of Bofors. Krupp engineers started the process of updating the Bofors factories to use equipment and metallurgy. The prototype was completed and fired in November 1931, and by the middle of the month it was firing strings of two and three rounds. Changes to the mechanism were all that remained, and by the end of the year it was operating at 130 rounds per minute. Continued development was needed to turn it into a suitable for production. Since acceptance trials had been passed the year before, this known as the 40 mm akan M/32
9.
Oerlikon 20 mm cannon
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The Oerlikon 20 mm cannon is a series of autocannons, based on an original German 20 mm Becker design that appeared very early in World War I. It was widely produced by Oerlikon Contraves and others, with various models employed by both Allied and Axis forces during World War II, and many still in use today. During World War I, the German Reinhold Becker developed a 20 mm caliber cannon and this used a 20x70 RB cartridge and had a cyclic rate of fire of 300 rpm. It was used on a scale as an aircraft gun on Luftstreitkräfte warplanes. Because the Treaty of Versailles banned further production of weapons in Germany. SEMAG continued development of the weapon, and in 1924 had produced the SEMAG L, the Oerlikon firm, named after the Zürich suburb where it was based, then acquired all rights to the weapon, plus the manufacturing equipment and the employees of SEMAG. In 1927 the Oerlikon S was added to the product line. This fired a larger cartridge to achieve a muzzle velocity of 830 m/s, at the cost of increased weight. The purpose of development was to improve the performance of the gun as an anti-tank and anti-aircraft weapon. An improved version known as the 1S followed in 1930, three sizes of gun with their different ammunition and barrel length, but very similar mechanisms, continued to be developed in parallel. In 1930 Oerlikon reconsidered the application of its gun in aircraft and introduced the AF and AL, designed to be used in flexible mounts, the 15-round box magazine used by earlier versions of the gun was replaced by drum magazine holding 15 or 30 rounds. In 1935 it made an important step by introducing a series of guns designed to be mounted in or on the wings of fighter aircraft, designated with FF for Flügelfest meaning wing-mounted, these weapons were again available in the three sizes, with designations FF, FFL and FFS. The FF fired a larger cartridge than the AF, 20x72RB. The FF weighed 24 kg and achieved a velocity of 550 to 600 m/s with a rate of fire of 520 rpm. The FFL of 30 kg fired a projectile at a velocity of 675 m/s with a rate of fire of 500 rpm. And the FFS, which weighed 39 kg, delivered a high velocity of 830 m/s at a rate of fire of 470 rpm. Apart from changes to the design of the guns for wing-mounting and remote control, for the FF series drum sizes of 45,60,75 and 100 rounds were available, but most users chose the 60-round drum. The 1930s were a period of global re-armament, and a number of foreign firms took licenses for the Oerlikon family of aircraft cannon
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United States
