Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!ames!pasteur!ucbvax!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!rutgers!bellcore!faline!thumper!ulysses!att!cbnews!ljw@cbnewsl.ATT.COM
From: ljw@cbnewsl.ATT.COM (les.j.wu)
Newsgroups: sci.military
Subject: Re: USS Iowa (propellant charge)
Summary: old ships and older guns
Message-ID: <6192@cbnews.ATT.COM>
Date: 3 May 89 03:12:40 GMT
References: <5833@cbnews.ATT.COM>
Sender: military@cbnews.ATT.COM
Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories
Lines: 36
Approved: military@att.att.com



From: ljw@cbnewsl.ATT.COM (les.j.wu)



>From postnews Tue May  2 16:03:28 1989
In article <5833@cbnews.ATT.COM>, military@cbnews.ATT.COM (William B. Thacker) writes:
> 

> A friend of mine said the gun barrels on most warships are much older than
> the ship itself, some dating back to WW1.  Could that be true?

As a interesting bit of trivia, the April 1989 National Geographic
contains an article on the Sweedish ship "Kronan" which sunk during the
battle of Oland on 1 June 1676.

>From p 459 (w/o permission):

	A trophy from Europe's Thirty Year's War, a bronze 30-pounder
	was cast in Austria in 1627.  Records show that the Swedes
	captured it from the Germans in 1631 and deployed it against
	its former owners in the 1660s.

I guess this is another case of guns with a long service life.
I imagine that there are many more examples.

	Les Wu

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