Quite sure It remains and much more than some think.
056 class FFL/corvette
- Thread starter dingyibvs
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How many do you think are still active ?
If one believed wikipedia, ~50 of the newer versions (build after 1982) and >60 of the original version (build from 1964 to 1982) are still active.
I would imagine that only very few of the old version are still active and that the older builds of the newer version are slowly retiring.
Hendrik_2000
Lieutenant General
type 56 of the north sea fleet in exercise
Why don't they save the autocannon's ammo casings as they do the main gun's?
I'm not sure if it's so much that the main gun's casings are "saved" so much as that the main gun is positioned in such a place where the casings are not ejected far enough to cause it to go overboard.
I'm not sure if the casings of guns are reused or recycled or anything as standard procedure for most navies.
szbd
Junior Member
actually there's a box below，quite far though
You mean hanging off the side of the ship?
plawolf
Lieutenant General
I don't think they have a policy of saving and recycling even the main gun's casing.
The nets and mats they sometimes set up for firing of the main gun are probably more geared towards protection of the ship, as the casing from the main gun can weight a fair bit, so will likely leave scratches and gorges on the protective paint on deck if allowed to just ping about freely after being ejected.
For lighter guns, the casings won't have the mass to do any damage to the protective paint, so they are less likely to be bothered.
As for why they don't try to save the casings, well I think that is a matter of pure physics.
For ejected casing, they are just going to pile up randomly, which will be a very inefficient arrangement space wise. That means you need a far bigger container to catch all the spent casing then the size of the ammo hopper that held ammo. That's just a lot of valuable space that could be far better used for other things.
Generally, I believe guns are placed and designed to just either eject spend casing directly overboard, and/or the deck housing the guns are built to naturally roll any spent shell casing overboard for a CIWS placement like on the 052C/D, where direct overboard ejection is not realistic.
Think about it, during the heat of battle, the last thing you want is for crew to be tripping over spent shell casing all over the place. Although I guess it's less of an issue on modern warships since you would not normally expect crew to be on deck during an active engagement.
joshuatree
Captain
If that is the case, I think it's a bad practice. During an actual engagement, there will not be any time to set up nets and mats. It is during these practice runs that any issues with shells leaving scratches or gorges on the deck should be discovered and learned. This type of feedback can help improve operational process as well as lessons learned for future designs.
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