Eli5 how the guns on large navy ships actually work? They are just shooting really large bullets at other ships in the sea? Like, does it use combustion to accelerate the projectile?
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There is not actually that much difference between a large 16 inch navy gun and the significantly smaller 0.22 inch rifle issued to every soldier. Everything is bigger of course and that does mean there is some differences in the equipment used and such. You will not be able to fit almost a hundred men working with hydraulic pistons, hoists and winches into a tiny rifle but they are quite efficient in a big navy gun.
There are two major differences though. Smaller guns usually have the ammunition packed in brass cartridges. So you load the gun by inserting a cartridge containing everything needed. In a big naval gun though this would be too big and cumbersome. The projectiles alone might weight more then a small car so it is much easier to move everything around separately. So you would first load the projectile, then several bags of explosives, and lastly the primer. This also means that there is no spent cartridge to deal with, when the gun have fired it is empty and ready to load the next round.
The other difference is that the shells themselves tends to be packed with explosives. So that when it hits it is going to explode. This helps cause more damage. Instead of just punching a hole through a ship it will blow a much larger hole in the ship. Of course explosive ammunition is available in smaller calibers as well.
But essentially a naval gun works the same way as any other gun. You pack a big pile of explosives behind a projectile and then detonate it. The projectile then gets a lot of speed out the barrel which allow it to fly through the air to hit the target.
Yes, naval guns on large ships use combustion to accelerate the projectiles, just like smaller guns but on a much larger scale.
Yes, naval guns on large ships use combustion to propel high-velocity projectiles towards other ships at sea.
Naval guns, especially the big ones, aren’t just used to shoot at other ships. In fact, most of the time the big guns are used as a sea-based artillery. The ships can fire the rounds pretty far inland and with great accuracy. WWII (both Europe and the Pacific), Korea, and Vietnam all relied on Naval artillery especially in places where the military couldn’t get large artillery guns on the ground, or where it was very difficult to move artillery around on land.
Some do. So like a regular gun just more of everything. Some can fire missiles that propel themselves. Either in air or in water.
The issue is not the firing, it’s the aiming. Very large guns have to take into account air temperature, barrel wear, wind and earth’s rotation – among other things – to hit accurately. Naval guns have also to take into account own ship’s course and speed and also target course and speed. Over 5% hits was reckoned good shooting before radar.
Just a large cannon with an explosive projectile. Same exact principal that’s been used on ships for 100s of years. The trend since the end of WWII has been to move away from giant guns and use missiles instead.
The exception to this is a [rail gun](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Railgun) which uses electo magnetic force to accelerate the projectile instead of combustion.
If you want to learn something really fascinating, check out how the [giant mechanical computers](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s1i-dnAH9Y4) worked on those WWII battle ships to figure out exactly where to point those guns.
It really is the same basic principle. The biggest difference is that the bullets fired by a ship are designed to explode with some kind of charge when they hit their target.
At a basic level, big naval guns are just big guns. They use the same basic principle of a projectile pushed down a rifled barrel by an explosive propellant.
There are some differences, though. Obviously with such a big projectile and propellant, the method of loading the gun is quite different. In the biggest guns, the propellant and the shell are loaded separately, though guns of that type went out of front line use after the second world war, with ammunition with a brass cartridge containing the propellant like for a rifle or hand gun being normal for modern warships.
Generally the projectile is a shell rather than a solid bullet. Basically the “bullet” is hollow and filled with explosives, with a fuse on the nose that causes it to explode when (or very shortly after, so that it explodes inside rather than on the surface) it hits its target. This is mainly because a ship is a different kind of target than a human body, so it will be damaged somewhat differently.
Other differences are relevant depending on the time frame. In particular the technology available to accurately aim the guns. From about 1900 onwards, the guns on big warships were capable of firing a shell significantly beyond the range that a person aiming the gun through a gunsight could reliably hit anything. Various advances in technology were applied as they were invented, to allow guns to be fired accurately, up to and including drone aircraft.
Yes but two main differences:
* due to the larger size you can fit explosives into naval shells, the larger the shell, the more of it is explosives
* past a certain small size (ie, 5 inch guns), naval guns use bagged powder and a projectile with no casing to eject
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