The old battleships made in the late thirties and into WW-2 had 16 inch diameter gun barrels on them. It took six bundles of gun powder, each about as large as a pony keg, to fire a 16 inch shell (2700 pounds in weight) up to 20 miles. An Iowa class battleship had 9 of the 16 inch guns mounted on a ship that displaced about 45,000 tons. If the ship fired all 9 guns at the same time in a broadside, the ship would be pushed sideways more than 9 feet in the water. Those gun barrels were 60 feet long and they could be fired independently or all together. It took 85 men or more to run each of the three gun turrets. The turrets went from the main deck down another four decks and weighed 400 tons each. The Iowa class battleships were 860 feet long and 108 feet wide at the widest point of the beam.
Did you ever wonder why the ocean is salty? It turns out that rain that falls on rocks brings dissolved carbon dioxide from the air. That causes rain to be slightly acidic. As rain falls it percolates through rocks and dissolves minerals including salts. the rain eventually forms rivers that flow into the oceans. The oceans have no outlets so the salt builds up over millions of years. The oceans have evaporation that becomes rain over the land, but the salt stays in the ocean. That is why rivers are not salty, but the oceans after millions, even billions of years became salty.
Did you ever wonder why the ocean is salty? It turns out that rain that falls on rocks brings dissolved carbon dioxide from the air. That causes rain to be slightly acidic. As rain falls it percolates through rocks and dissolves minerals including salts. the rain eventually forms rivers that flow into the oceans. The oceans have no outlets so the salt builds up over millions of years. The oceans have evaporation that becomes rain over the land, but the salt stays in the ocean. That is why rivers are not salty, but the oceans after millions, even billions of years became salty.
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