Tubular Trivia

[Hairball]

The Hairball asks:  What did the Torpedo Tubes and the Zalinski Main Armament on the USS Maine (Spanish American War) have in common?  What are the tube bores made of and why?  You get 3 Krispy Kremes if you get this one right.

Hairy the Horrible.

[Hairball]

It wasn't the USS Maine, she was blown up somehow and started the Franco American war.  The ship with the Zalinski guns of that era was the USS. Vesuvius.  The Spanish were accused of blowing up the Maine but subsequnt investigations suggest it may have been coal-dust in her bunkers.

There's a connection between these guns and the torpedo tubes and, as I asked, what were the tube (bore) made of and here's an extra, what connection did this material have to the first cannons ever made?

Cheers,  The Hairiness.

[Lance Dean]

Awesome!  A dynamite gun and compressed air!  I'll let others chime in before saying anything else...  Nice question.

[JTheotonio]

Both torpedo tubes and the Zalinski Main Armament on the USS Maine are made of brass.  At first Zalinski's "torpedo guns" were iron piping lined with brass.  Both the submarine torpedo tube and Zalinski's are fired with air - pneumatic operated.  Lance can have the donuts - bad for my sugar

[Lance Dean]

Yeah, I like donuts and it shows!   

It's amazing that the technology to fire dynamite pneumatically that far existed back then.

[Darrin]

Now for you folks that have yet to go through a shipyard period, what is a sea gull cannon and how do you make one?
Once you get that one figured out where do you get the air pressure for the potato cannon??

[Hairball]

 
  Whilst thou sufferest deck-watch at dark-oh-thirty - Take a CO2 extinguisher and insert a welding rod unto the squirty end  Then flingest thou some dead-bread unto the water... yeah... Then thou mayest, with guile and perfect aim, fire at the scavenging bastards!  Air pistols do not earn thee points and yeah, some son of un-married parents from Mother Onion (or some other Boat-feeding scow) will rat unto thy COB who will smite thee verily s- etting thy ass-wards pockets on fire!

Yeah verily, do not mess with the COB lest he smite thee and cast thee down unto the darkest bilges where you will suffer the company of the Master of Slimy Limeys, the dreaded Hairball, the eternal Bilge Demon!

Hairy the Rotten.

[Darrin]

Very good Hairy one, ya got one and I am wondering which DBF'r you quoted on that one but you nailed it right on the head.. Damned I forgot I was teaching the Balao Class on this and not the Los Angles Class so it is different because we used to pull the air off of the Steinke hood connection in the Fwd Escape trunk and while that will work for a Tench and Balao I don't know of many other places on a diesel that you could pull the air from topside without making too much noise

[Rick]

When I was a kid we used an igniter from an old propaine stove or grill.  We then used some type of arosol accelerant to generate the air pressure we needed to launch said potato's.   

A neet trick I learned from my Army Brother.  Take a chem light and pour the contents into a hollowed out potato. 

You now have a good tracer for night firing......