The BL 15 "/ 42 Mark I was the first 15- inch (381 mm) English naval cannon . It was developed in 1912. The cannon was widely used both in the British Navy and in coastal artillery , and remained in service with a record-breaking long life.
| 381 mm naval gun Mk I | |
|---|---|
| BL 15 "/ 42 Mark I | |
 animation of the shot cycle from the turret with the Mark I gun | |
| Production history | |
| Designed by | 1912 year |
| Country of Origin |  Great Britain |
| Made, units | 184 |
| Service History | |
| Years of operation | 1913 - 1959 |
| It was in service | Navy of Great Britain |
| Gun characteristics | |
| Gun brand | Mark i |
| Caliber mm | 381 |
| Barrel length, mm / calibres | 16 520 / 43.36 |
| Barrel length, mm | 15 715 |
| Shutter type | piston |
| Barrel weight with a bolt, kg | 101 600 |
| Projectile weight, kg | 871 |
| The initial velocity of the projectile, m / s | 732-785 |
| Loading principle | separated |
| Rate of fire rounds per minute | 2 |
| Gun mount specifications | |
| Trunk angle, ° | thirty |
| Maximum firing range, m | 22,400 meters (at an elevation angle of 20 °) 29 720 meters (at an elevation angle of 30 °), 40 370 (at an elevation angle of 45 °) |
Application
The guns were installed on battleships of various types from 1915 to 1944 . HMS Vanguard was the last battleship built for the Royal Navy of England in 1944, armed with this type of gun.
Ships armed with 15 inch Mark I guns:
- Line ships of the Queen Elizabeth type (5 ships with eight guns each)
- Rivenge-type battleships (5 ships with eight guns each)
- Line cruisers of the Rinaun type (2 ships with six guns each)
- HMS Hood - Battle Cruiser (8 guns)
- Glories-class battle cruisers (2 ships with four guns each)
- Erebus type monitors (2 ships with two guns each)
- Marshal Ney type monitors (2 ships with two guns each)
- Roberts type monitors (2 ships with two guns each)
- HMS Vanguard - Battleship (8 guns taken from the Koreyges and Glories battlecruisers)
The gun was also used in coastal defense. Five guns were installed in Singapore in the 1930s . Two coastal guns (Clam and Jane) were installed near Wenstone Farm in Kent in 1940 .
Production
A total of 184 guns were produced. Subsequently, they were removed from the ships, repaired and returned to other ships, thus extending their service life. By plants, the output was divided as follows:
- Armstrong Whitworth , Elswick , Newcastle : 34
- Armstrong Whitworth , Openshaw , Manchester : 12.
- William Beardmore & Company , Parkhead , Glasgow : 37
- Coventry Ordnance Works , Coventry : 19
- Royal Arsenal , Woolwich : 33
- Vickers Limited , Sheffield : 49
Two guns, one from the battleship HMS Ramillies (left) and one from the battleship HMS Resolution (right), are installed in front of the Imperial War Museum in London .
Description and performance characteristics
This tool was a traditional, for the British at that time, wire structure (several layers of steel wire of rectangular cross-section, which were closed on top by an outer tube-casing) were wound onto a barrel’s inner tube, with a piston-type shutter. The weight of the gun, including the weight of the shutter, was 101.6 tons (98.7 tons without shutter).
The barrel length of the gun was 15 715 mm (42 calibers), the total barrel length was 16 520 mm (43.36 calibers). The gun fired with shells weighing 871 kg with a muzzle velocity of 732-785 m / s. The gun had a shallow cut of constant steepness with a stroke of 30 calibres and a depth of less than 1% of the caliber - 3.16 mm with a groove width of 11.3 mm (the number of grooves is 76). The width of the field is 4.44 mm.
Initially, three types of shells were used: armor-piercing, half-armor-piercing and high-explosive - all of the same mass - 871 kg, equipped with liddite (52.3 kg in half-armor-piercing). The first two types of shells with a soft armor-piercing cap. In 1918-1919 an armor-piercing projectile of the same mass was adopted with a rigid armor-piercing cap containing 20 kg of shellite (a mixture of 2/3 of trinitrophenol and 1/3 of less capable of detonation of dinitrophenol). Then, shellit was replaced by liddit in shells of other types. According to some reports, amatol and trinitrotoluene were used in parallel with shellite . The charge consisted of MD45 cordite . A full charge weighed 194 kg, a reduced one - 146 kg.
The maximum firing range of the Mark I gun was 22,400 meters (with an elevation angle of 20 °) and 29,720 meters (with an elevation angle of 30 °), however, for coastal artillery guns adapted to large elevation angles, the maximum firing range reached 40,370 m The barrel survivability was 350 rounds full charge.
World War II shells
See also
- Langer Max - German equivalent
Notes
Literature
- Burt, RA British Battleships, 1919-1939. - 2nd. - Annapolis, Maryland: Naval Institute Press, 2012 .-- ISBN 978-1-59114-052-8 .
- Buxton, Ian Lyon. Big Gun Monitors. - Tynemouth: World Ship Society, 1978. - ISBN 0-905617-06-1 .
- Campbell, John. Naval Weapons of World War II. - Annapolis, Maryland: Naval Institute Press, 1985 .-- ISBN 0-87021-459-4 .
- Raven, Alan. British Battleships of World War Two: The Development and Technical History of the Royal Navy's Battleship and Battlecruisers from 1911 to 1946 .-- Annapolis, Maryland: Naval Institute Press, 1976. - ISBN 0-87021-817-4 .
- Roskill, Captain Stephen Wentworth. HMS Warspite: The Story of a Famous Battleship. - London: Futura Publications, 1974. - ISBN 0-86007-172-3 .