Quote:
Originally Posted by aspqrz
They can take the weight, sure, but can they take the stress of the weapons actually being fired ... now, this is from something in Alistair Maclean's 'The Golden Rendevous' so it may not be entirely correct, but I would expect it's not complete BS ... in that there are comments to the effect that the pirates are mounting something almost equivalent to a 3.7" gun in the Merchie ... and the First Officer thinks/comments that they would be lucky to get off more than a couple of shots before the deck plates buckled, rendering the mount (and the weapon) useless.
Now, this is from memory, and its more than 25 years since I read it last, and don't have a copy at hand any more, but I also STR that there was a comment to the effect that some Merchant Shipping Companies were paid (or subsidised) by HMG to put in reinforced hull sections on their ships so they could take heavier guns in an emergency ... I suspect that's no longer the case, and probably wouldn't have been by TW2K.
However, I would strongly suspect the bit about ruining the deck plating would still be true ... and how many people would know that in advance?
Any Navy/Merchant Navy/Coast Guard types have any inputs here?
Phil
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No idea about ships/boats, but in 03 we welded mounts for our heavy weapons onto our dump trucks, also had home made steel boxes that we put in the back of the HUMMVE's with posts to mount the heavy weapons. On the dump trucks it worked fine for any of the heavy weapons we had (M2HB, Mk. 19, and/or M240B) on the HUMMVE's the .50 was a bit scary they never broke or even bent but the did shake all over the place. I have no idea what the hardness of the steel was, but I am guessing it was mild. It was just stuff we found around and used.