1978 HMS Bristol on sea trials, the great white elephant was conducting a gun function on the 4.5 Mk still a rather new bit of kit and unknown to us we had topped up with a dodgy batch of ammunition thats the first thing that went wrong and it went severely downhill from there.
Closed up I was on the GDP and it was decided that we were going to use the EFCB (Emergency Fire Control Box) instead of the ADAWS computer, which is a basic anologue computer which simpy means you put Target range, speed, bearing, and iclination and a series of clockwork dials gives you a firing solution.
The Gunnery Officer, a slovenly but well spoken gentleman with a face like a well hooked cod decided he would take charge.
Safety checks went well and command approval was given and we engaged with the first round, attempted a second and fcuk me we had a missfire and fcuk mewhat happened next still makes me laugh today.
The Gun was put on a safe bearing and the Captain of the Gunbay who's job it was to remove the missfired round was ordered onto the upper deck to enter the Gunhouse and remove the missfired round from the breech.
Nobby, the LWEM pops up the hatch nervously enters the rear of the gun, the barrel was at 30 degrees elevation instead of the 12 degrees it should have been.There was a slight swell at the time and no-one had thought anything about it (I was an AB and knew fcuk all).
Nobby opens the breech and the 50kg round comes flying out of the breech the base of it hitting Nobby full in the face taking most of his teeth and top lip wth it, not only that Nobby falls out the back of the gun and the HE shell falls onto him cracking three of his ribs and then proceeds to roll all over the Focsle, colliding into the bollards several times. When I stop laughing I look around the GDP only to see the Gunnery Officer continuously pressing the firing button on the EFCB completely unaware of the events on the gundeck, what a cnut!!
The ship was a disaster, we almost shot down a Seaking in the dip instead of the submarine with an Ikara missile, the killick of the AS Mortars thought he would load them quicker when we re ammo'd alongside at Portland by removing some of the pawls in the loading well, it was Friday afternoon he'd had 6 tinnies down the mess and wanted to get back to Pompey for the weekend, the WEO heard the almighty crash and rushed to the magazine, the killick was sat on top of ten rounds of HE bombs smoking a fag, he got out of DQs 60 days later minus 3 badges and a hook.
Fcuk me I could write a book about Gunnery fcuk ups.
The Charybdis a gun Leander was my first ship as JS Gunner we were given an old tug to sink with the 4.5 off Gibraltar, the gunners were so shite they couldn't hit a cows arse with a cricket bat. We had to close to 1000yds to hit the fcuking thing it would have been easier dropping the fcuking shell onto it.
We fired a rogue Seacat missile that nearly hit a tanker in the channel when it flew off in the opposite direction it should have.
We did SOCs at sea on York, loaded the Seadart test misile onto the launcher and the fcuker fell off!!
Maybe old Stan is just a jinx???
Closed up I was on the GDP and it was decided that we were going to use the EFCB (Emergency Fire Control Box) instead of the ADAWS computer, which is a basic anologue computer which simpy means you put Target range, speed, bearing, and iclination and a series of clockwork dials gives you a firing solution.
The Gunnery Officer, a slovenly but well spoken gentleman with a face like a well hooked cod decided he would take charge.
Safety checks went well and command approval was given and we engaged with the first round, attempted a second and fcuk me we had a missfire and fcuk mewhat happened next still makes me laugh today.
The Gun was put on a safe bearing and the Captain of the Gunbay who's job it was to remove the missfired round was ordered onto the upper deck to enter the Gunhouse and remove the missfired round from the breech.
Nobby, the LWEM pops up the hatch nervously enters the rear of the gun, the barrel was at 30 degrees elevation instead of the 12 degrees it should have been.There was a slight swell at the time and no-one had thought anything about it (I was an AB and knew fcuk all).
Nobby opens the breech and the 50kg round comes flying out of the breech the base of it hitting Nobby full in the face taking most of his teeth and top lip wth it, not only that Nobby falls out the back of the gun and the HE shell falls onto him cracking three of his ribs and then proceeds to roll all over the Focsle, colliding into the bollards several times. When I stop laughing I look around the GDP only to see the Gunnery Officer continuously pressing the firing button on the EFCB completely unaware of the events on the gundeck, what a cnut!!
The ship was a disaster, we almost shot down a Seaking in the dip instead of the submarine with an Ikara missile, the killick of the AS Mortars thought he would load them quicker when we re ammo'd alongside at Portland by removing some of the pawls in the loading well, it was Friday afternoon he'd had 6 tinnies down the mess and wanted to get back to Pompey for the weekend, the WEO heard the almighty crash and rushed to the magazine, the killick was sat on top of ten rounds of HE bombs smoking a fag, he got out of DQs 60 days later minus 3 badges and a hook.
Fcuk me I could write a book about Gunnery fcuk ups.
The Charybdis a gun Leander was my first ship as JS Gunner we were given an old tug to sink with the 4.5 off Gibraltar, the gunners were so shite they couldn't hit a cows arse with a cricket bat. We had to close to 1000yds to hit the fcuking thing it would have been easier dropping the fcuking shell onto it.
We fired a rogue Seacat missile that nearly hit a tanker in the channel when it flew off in the opposite direction it should have.
We did SOCs at sea on York, loaded the Seadart test misile onto the launcher and the fcuker fell off!!
Maybe old Stan is just a jinx???
