Incredibly rare footage of USS New Jersey and USS Missouri firing their main AND secondary gun batteries after their modernization/reactivation in the 1980’s.

There’s lots of video of the Iowa-class battleships firing their 16-inch guns in the 80’s and 90’s, but I’ve never seen them fire their secondary 5-inch guns full on. The muzzle flashes only seem “little” because the massive main batteries are also firing, but each of these two-gun dual mounts equaled the some firepower (two 5-inch guns) modern cruisers carry today. Each Iowa-class battleship had 6 of them, with 4 having been removed to make room for Tomahawk and Harpoon missiles during their 1980’s reactivation.

This must have been a site to see. Two dreadnoughts, cloaked in smoke, pounding away with their guns. But for the rotating radar dishes and modern missile launchers, this could have been footage from the Battle of Jutland.

(Despite what the narrator says, these are not automatic guns. The 5-inchers were obviously much faster than the main battery, but were still manned by dozens of sailors (or in the case of one turret on each ship, a detachment of marines). Also, the ships don’t move backwards in the water more than a millimeter.)