Ships shooting themselves

[Gary]

Hi all

When Hipper faced Glowworm, the gunnery officer eventually ceased firing with A turret when the range became to close because it wouldnt depress far enough and he was worried that he may blow off the Hippers own bow cap.

Are there any known cases of ships blowing off their own bow caps or shooting themselves?

I know HMS Renown once accidentally fired a 4.5 inch shell into the back of another DP secondary 4.5" turret.

Anymore?

[Tiornu]

USS Alabama had a similar incident with one 5in mount firing into another.

[tommy303]

If I recall the gunner on the US ship over rode the safety cut off.

[marcelo_malara]

A Brazilian warship was practising with her Oerlikons and when the target got low the gunner shot the depht charges on deck, blowing the ship. Don´t rmember now the name, it happened around 1944-45.

[Tiornu]

Bahia. Too bad, a nice old ship. She went down so fast that more than half her crew was lost.
Quite a few submarines torpedoed themselves, and the British lost a cruiser that way in WWII.

[Tiornu]

Ooh--what about Maille Breze and Khartoum?

[Gary]

Hi Tiornu

and the British lost a cruiser that way in WWII.

Would that be HMS Trinidad?

[Tiornu]

Could be. She made temporary repairs, then suffered an air attack which undid those repairs.
So here's the big question--sunk or scuttled? Was she sunk by the British or scuttled by the British? Discuss.

[Gary]

If you ask the Royal navy, no doubt their answer would be "scuttled".
But I think Trinidad was already "on her way" and that HMS Matchless's torpedo's simply accelrated the inevitable.


For anyone who doesnt know, if you go to the WW2 cruisers site

http://www.world-war.co.uk/

Hold your mouse over "RN SHIPS"

Select "Leander-Swiftsure" (2nd option down)

Then select "Fiji"

Finally select "Trinidad".

That page has a sub section where you can read about Trinidads end.

(Sorry but that site wont let me link directly to the page in question)

[tone]

Generally, any main or secondary battery weapon would have a fairly complete interlock system to prevent it firing into any fixed portion of its own ship, and often against firing into any nearby articulating guns. Even in a WW1 RN dreadnought, these systems were fairly sophisticated, based on miniature analogs of the guns with wire "plumes" and wire trajectory stems fitted to suggest danger areas to blast and shell, respectively. Any contact made as these toy guns moved in mimicry of the real weapons would sound a continuous horn in the endangering turret and (IIRC) interrupt its firing circuit. These were called Kilroy's Danger Signals.

Small guns (e.g.: 4-inch DD guns) usually received basic treatment, such as cams on their training ring which would force the muzzle upward if you tried to lower it too low for its current bearing, or trained it past a bearing where its present elevation was too low (usually, ahead).

tone

[RF]

As a tangential aside the Heer did in WW2 develop a gun that could shoot round corners, with the obvious drawback that if the bullet or shell missed its target and there was nothing else to intercept it....

As far as I am aware there was no naval application for this weapon. Otherwise.....

[Tiornu]

with the obvious drawback that if the bullet or shell missed its target and there was nothing else to intercept it....

This is the same drawback that applies to every bullet. Nothing special in this case.

[Gary]

Small calibre naval guns were always low on saftey protocols.

From the Uboat net

U-156 began to shell the oil refinery at Aruba in the Caribbean, but the gun crew forgot to remove the water plug from the barrel, causing an explosion that killed one man [Matrosengefreiter Heinrich Büssinger]. The gunnery officer II WO Leutnant zur See Dietrich von dem Borne lost his right leg in this incident, and so had to be put ashore into captivity at Martinique on 21 February. The commander decided to saw off the ruined portion of the gun barrel, and using this shorter barrel, on 27 February U-156 sank a 2,498-ton British steamer.

[RF]

with the obvious drawback that if the bullet or shell missed its target and there was nothing else to intercept it....

This is the same drawback that applies to every bullet. Nothing special in this case.

Normally bullets or shells are fired on a linear trajectory, they won't do a complete circle so you get shot by your own bullet in the back of your head....

[RF]

Small calibre naval guns were always low on saftey protocols.

From the Uboat net

U-156 began to shell the oil refinery at Aruba in the Caribbean, but the gun crew forgot to remove the water plug from the barrel, causing an explosion that killed one man [Matrosengefreiter Heinrich Büssinger]. The gunnery officer II WO Leutnant zur See Dietrich von dem Borne lost his right leg in this incident, and so had to be put ashore into captivity at Martinique on 21 February.

This is not so much as safety protocol as sheer negligence punishable by courts martial.

I suppose it demonstrates the very few opportunities that U-boats had to use their deck guns, so the crew had very little experience. But the error was still so basic as to be inexcusable, it is almost a Monty Python or Keystone Cops type farce. It is almost like an infantryman having his rifle blow up in his face when he squeezed the trigger because the rifle barrel was never cleaned and was obstructed by congealed dirt.