Thank you to all our Veteran members

[gmwillys]

Thank you to all of our members who are and have served us all. Have a well deserved rest on the day set aside for you.

THANK YOU ALL!

[bmorgil]

Thank God for all of you! The past, the present and the future. Freedom has a cost that is carried by a proud few.

[LarrBeard]

You are all welcome.

This was home for a while when I was babysitting 7,000 tons (yep- tons) of miscellaneous missiles, torpedoes, bombs, projectiles, cased and bag propellant as well as some "Special Weapons".

The picture was really made one day in the spring of 1968 when we were running around in circles off Norfolk to make antenna patterns.

GMWillys - just for you. 2 - 9 cylinder Nordberg diesel engines each with 3155 brake horsepower at 225 rpm geared to 1 shaft.

[gmwillys]

With pistons the size of garbage cans, turning at 225 RPM. You are correct, I like it!
I was finishing up my paperwork for today, listening to the hum of two Continental 1790 V12 Air cooled diesels running on the dyno. These are vintage '60s engines that are still putting out 1,200 horse at the crank. These are to go in the M88 tank retriever, the M60 bridge layer.

[LarrBeard]

With pistons the size of garbage cans, turning at 225 RPM. You are correct,

You're just about right on that.

When we were in an overhaul the heads were off several cylinders and I had the opportunity to stand on top of a piston down in the bore. My elbows almost touched the cylinder walls - probably a liner. At 48 RPM idle, you could stand on the upper gallery and see every head jerk as the cylinder fired.

[bmorgil]

Over 50 times the Horse Power of a Go-Devil!

Circling in that big boy had to give you some serious "Sea Legs"!

[LarrBeard]

Over 50 times the Horse Power of a Go-Devil!

Circling in that big boy had to give you some serious "Sea Legs"!

In civilian life, Shasta was what is called a Motor Vessel (MV) not a Steamship (SS). Had she gone to her intended civilian owners, The United Fruit Company (yes actually a banana boat), she would have been the MV Comet.

Since she was a motor vessel, we did not have a backing turbine like steamships. To from "ahead" to "back", we had to bring the main engines to a stop, flop some sort of big lever to shift a camshaft somewhere, then hit the High Pressure start manifold with air to restart the engine to run it in reverse.

This gave harbor pilots fits to try to maneuver in close quarters, we usually called tugs to assist in mooring us to a pier. Most times, since we had 5000 to 7000 tons of ammunition on board, they has us anchor waaayyyyy out somewhere. We used to say that the destroyers didn't set Sea and Anchor Detail until they passed the anchored ammunition ship.