Hull (DD 945) - Naval Cruise Book

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Naval Gunfire Support ALL-GUN DESTROYER HOLDS OLD-FASHIONED GUN SHOOT F fStory by JO2 Glenn Jochumj With the green, misty hills outside of Subic City, R.P. fading in the distance, USS Hull noses her way past the channel markers on a course for the South China Sea. Her three 5 .54-caliber guns, now ominously silent. will soon be belching thunder and smoke as Hull qualifies in Naval Gunfire Support Exercises. Against a backdrop of high gray clouds and rippled sea, Hull, one of four remaining all-gun destroyers in the United States Navy, begins preparations for target practice with a balloon shoot. Fire control technicians and gunner's mates gather on the ship's fantail as an enormous red balloon is inflated and released. Remaining almost on the water's surface, it floats off the port side to a distance of 18,000 yards Qnine nautical milesj. Gunner's mates manning the gun mounts load 14 rounds in seven minutes to be fired at the practice target. As a warning bell sounds, the huge gun mount swivels to the port side. Below deck, Fire Control Technician 3rd Class Mat DeBuhr sights the balloon on the radar console as Fire Control Technicians 2nd Class Rick Junkins and Chris Bierman make final adjustments on the Mark 47 computers in the ship's main battery. l've got the target, go to remote, Bierman tells Gunner's Mate 2nd Class Richard Houk over a ship's sound-powered phone. Go to bearing one, zero, niner, elevation zero degrees. O.K., l see it. O.K., locked on and tracking. Mount 52, go to remote. Gun in synch. Meanwhile, from his station in the Combat Information Center, Gun- nery Liaison Officer QGLOQ Lt. Russ Milheim communicates with the gun director, Chief Mike Malady, in main battery. At Milheim's side, operations specialists are busy plotting navigational changes for the ship. Above deck, a gunner's mate signals the directing officer in the 'director'. a hydraulically-activated device from which the officer can 'spot' fvisually locatej a target with binoculars. A blast from Hull's gun is followed by a burst in the water, short of the target. A second round detonates just beyond the target. The -ship moves to within 6,000 yards with similar results. The near misses are intentional, designed to give the ship's spotters practice in determining correct target bearings and ranges. The long and short rounds provide practice in zeroing in on target. But blowing balloons out of the water is. just plain old gunnery practice, according to Senior Chief Fire Control Technician George Boutwell, Wait 'til tomorrow. The next afternoon, the Hull steams back towards Subic Bay to share the Tabones Target Range with the frigate USS Bradley and a group of Ll.S. Marine spotters. Marine Capt. Richard Campbell commands the range where 3rd Division Marines learn Naval gunfire spotting techniques. When Sev- enth Fleet ships visit the target range. the Marines provide target bearings and call for fire from an observation post 1500 to 2000 yards

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X I Gunner's Mate 2nd Class James Clark positions a 70-pound round in a gun loader drum located within the magazine of USS Hull. USN PHOTO by JO2 Glenn Jochum away. Although the range has been in operation since the l950's, the 15- day spotting school is only 12 years old. As one of three ranges where Seventh Fleet ships may qualify, Tabones provided spotting services for 40 ships during the last 12 months. We shoot Saturday, Sunday, Christmas, anytime, says Campbell. On the afternoon of August 26, 1981, Hull gets off to a promising start, notching a perfect score in her initial exercise. ln the past, we spent in excess of three days attempting that exercise without scoring. l'll bet there aren't more than five ships that have made perfect scores on it, Boutwell says. The third exercise involves firing 11 rounds into a 400 by 400-yard quadrant from a distance of five.