wrote in message
...
On Aug 29, 7:39 pm, "Ed Huntress" wrote:
"Robert Swinney" wrote in message

...

My favorite was several years back when the battleship magazine
exploded
with black powder.

That's the kind of powder you'll find in battleship magazines, Bob. Those
16-inch guns are charged with sacks of black powder. They couldn't take
the
pressure of anything else. That's why old photos of the New Jersey, the
Ohio, and so on show those huge blasts of smoke.

--
Ed Huntress

You need to check your facts a bit closer on this. Battleships did
carry black powder, but the 16 inch guns use mostly smokeless powder.

Dan

I'm glad you pointed that out, Dan, because, before the Internet, I sat
through a long argument about it from two guys who had served on
battleships, and I apparently got some bad information from them. And even
now, I see that one military website says it was black powder. I also may
have confused something with information I got from a National Park ranger
who gave tours of an old defense emplacement near New York harbor. I had
asked him specifically about the powder on the battleships, but he may have
been telling me about the defense batteries.

Most sources I find now say it was SPD, a smokeless powder. I'll assume
that's correct, without having first-hand knowledge of it.

--
Ed Huntress