Harry:
"This is the reason why depleted uranium is used in projectiles."

I wondered about that, too, and now it makes sense from an air resistance point of view. Instead of making the projectile bigger to have more mass, just make the projectile out of a denser material.


Oren:
Thanks for sharing that link to those pictures with us.

What surprises me is that no one working behind that gun is wearing any hearing protection! I would have expected that anyone not wearing hearing protection in the turret when a gun like that fires would blow out their ear drums and lose 100% of their hearing instantaneously and permanently. I kinda doubt they took off their hearing protection just to take those pictures. Or, maybe it's not actually all that loud in there?

Those two big cylinders on the top of the breach... Are they like giant shock absorbers? When I've seen movies and TV shows showing modern cannons behing fired, something jerks back and then more slowly slides forward again (if I recall correctly) after each firing. I always presumed the whole idea behind that is to use a shock absorber to reduce the peak stress the steel holding that cannon together and in place has to bear. Kinda like the rubber shoulder pad at the butt end of a rifle; allowing the barrel to move backward as the bullet shoots forward might sacrifice a bit of muzzle velocity, but it makes holding the butt end of the rifle against your shoulder "bearable" when you pull the trigger.