The 16″/50 caliber Mark 7 was the main battery gun of the four Iowa-class battleships — USS Iowa (BB-61), USS New Jersey (BB-62), USS Missouri (BB-63), and USS Wisconsin (BB-64). Each ship carried nine of these guns in three three-gun turrets, two forward and one aft. They are the most powerful guns ever mounted on an American warship, and they served from World War II through Korea, Vietnam, and the 1991 Gulf War.
How far could a 16-inch gun shoot? Firing the 2,700-pound Mark 8 armor-piercing projectile with a full 660-pound powder charge, the 16″/50 Mark 7 had a maximum range of 42,345 yards — just over 24 statute miles — at 45 degrees elevation, with a new-gun muzzle velocity of 2,500 feet per second. The lighter 1,900-pound high-capacity projectile reached nearly the same distance.
- Gun
- 16″/50 caliber Mark 7 — bore 16 inches, barrel length 50 calibers (800 inches)
- Projectiles
- AP Mark 8: 2,700 lb · HC Mark 13: 1,900 lb
- Propellant
- Six silk bags, 110 lb each — 660 lb full charge
- Maximum range
- 42,345 yards (AP, 45° elevation)
- Rate of fire
- Two rounds per gun per minute
- Ships
- Iowa BB-61 · New Jersey BB-62 · Missouri BB-63 · Wisconsin BB-64 — nine guns each
Everything on this page is from original Bureau of Ordnance publications and period Navy film in this archive — the same documents the turret crews and fire controlmen used.
- NAVORD OP 769 — 16″/50 Three-Gun Turrets — the complete Bureau of Ordnance manual for the Iowa-class turrets
- 16″/50 Gun Book — USS New Jersey Turret Data
- Iowa-Class Battleship Picture Collection
- Iowa-Class Turret Projectile Stowage
- OP 755 — 16″/45 Three-Gun Turrets (BB 55–60) — the preceding North Carolina and South Dakota classes
- OP 1112 — Gun Mount & Turret Catalog (20-mm to 16-inch)
- OP 770 — Range Tables for the 16″/50 Caliber Gun (1941)
- OP 1091 — A.A. Range Table for the 16″/50 Caliber Gun
- 16″/50 Gun Initial Velocity Data
- 16″/50 Gun Jump
- 16″/50 Range Patterns
- 16″/50 A.A. Range Table Trajectories
- USN Exterior Ballistics, 1935 — the mathematics behind the range tables
USS Iowa fires a full nine-gun broadside, 1984.
- ▶ USS Iowa Broadside Firing
- ▶ Iowa-Class Battleship Fires Its 16-Inch Guns
- ▶ Loading the 16-Inch Guns
- ▶ USS Wisconsin 16-Inch Gunfire
- ▶ USS Wisconsin Main Battery Tour
- ▶ USS Missouri — Gulf War Guns, 1991
- ▶ USS New Jersey — Floating Fortress
- ▶ USS New Jersey — Guns of Freedom
- ▶ Main Battery Fire Control
- ▶ Major Caliber Guns
- ▶ Iowa Class — Top Fighting Ship
- USS Wisconsin BB-64
- USS New Jersey Reactivation, 1968
- USS New Jersey in Transit
- ▶ USS Missouri Launch, 1944
- ▶ USS Missouri Comes Home
- Naval Armor — the plate these guns were built to defeat
- Armor-Piercing Projectiles & Armor History
- Battleships Index