Selma cannon parts

[Steve Phillips]

I made a video of cannon parts that I have found at Selma over the last 45 years.
https://youtu.be/Mi_tTGN-JE0

[redbob]

Interesting and informative as is all of your videos.

[callicles]

I very much enjoyed that!! Thanks for posting such an informative video!

[Dr. Beach]

Indeed informative, and downright interesting.  Thanks!

Horace

[Dave the plumber]

 Steve, thanks for another informative video.    The only thing I can add to your request for information, is on the sight base.  Ken K. was correct that it is a stadia sight base for the large caliber guns. A brass stadia sight slipped into the socket in the ball piece. What is missing on yours is that the ball piece had male threads on it, and the barrel had corresponding female threads that it screwed into.   Obviously, the sight base was added after the tube was finished, hence it was a  threaded add on piece.   Yours is missing the male threaded section,  I wonder if yours was broken off a tube, or a bad casting job and rejected and thrown into the river ??

[speedenforcer]

I would think that instead of throwing a bad part out they would recycle the iron.

[Steve Phillips]

Hard to recycle when the Yankees are blowing the place up.

[speedenforcer]

Ok. Why take the time to throw the items in the river. The North had enough raw materials, no need to take the time to deprive the enemy of materials.

[CarlS]

Steve: Wonderful video.  Very interesting and some neat items to see.  Thanks for sharing your collection with everyone.

SpeedEnforcer: Could be the Yanks threw them into the river to keep the Rebs from coming back and getting them.  (Note: I say this not knowing if the records show that the South disposed of the material in the river in which case this is not a valid observation.)  Most of it would be no use for the Yanks and there was no need for the US army to funnel materials to the factories.

[speedenforcer]

Carl, That does make sense. I didn't even think of that. I knew the "invaders" would have no need of it as It as I stated in my most. But getting rid of it incase they were not able to keep the area out of Confederate hands is completely logical.

[redbob]

The military often has interesting ways of disposing of surplus/captured /discarded equipment, at the end of WWII in the Pacific; instead of leaving vehicles for the locals or shipping them back to the US, they drained the oil from them,  started them and left them to seize up. Either that or they were taken out to sea and dumped overboard. PT boats were beached and burned along with mountains of surplus materials. Problem solved, at least during the Civil War items were dumped in fresh, relatively shallow water where they could be recovered and enjoyed by later generations.

[divedigger]

thankfully

[Dave the plumber]

there is an area of ocean, off the coast of Australia, where the U.S. navy would load carriers full of WW2 ' worn out' aircraft after the war ended , and push them overboard !  Better than trying to ferry them back to the U.S. to be smelted into aluminum ingots here. I guess they held no value barely then, and like the Civil War, people wanted to forget the last 5 years and get on with their lives. I saw photo's and it looks like an airport underwater; Corsairs, Mustangs, Lightnings, Wahawks - you name it. they are down there. And it is deep water, so they are preserved pretty well. Any magnesium is gone, but what I saw was planes in amazing shape. Not the coral encrusted photo's you see of planes found around the Pacific Islands. Australian government is claiming ownership, groups are trying to work with them to bring some up. This was all about 15 plus years ago when I was heavily involved in WW2 airplanes, I don't know what has happened since.  Plus, they said the area was heavily populated by sharks, big sharks !!

[CarlS]

Dave:  Neat stuff.  Here are some images of it from a couple years ago:
   http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3807666/The-relics-war-Haunting-underwater-images-aircraft-dumped-Pacific-70-years-ago-surrender-Japan.html

[Dave the plumber]

actually Carl, I was speaking about another group of hundreds of airplanes off Australia. These are basically in fine shape, ready for restoration....    you ever see the WW2 planes they used for carrier training that come out of the great lakes fresh water ??  They are beautiful, well preserved in the cold deep fresh water. The batteries still take a charge, and the tires still typically have air in them !  I remember one they raised actually had a thermos the pilot had, that still had coffee in it.     The US Navy owns all those aircraft, as they keep ownership on all Navy items forever, plane or ship.  The US Army relinquishes ownership after a few years, I forget how many.
    I remember about 15 years ago, a P-47 Thunderbolt was uncovered on a beach south of Wilmington. I went down to look at it, and the whole structure was gone above the wings, rotted off or worn away. Yet the wings still had very readable stenciling on it "jack point here" and squadron numbers and such. And a 50 cal. Browning in the wing in mint baby smooth condition !!