Talk:Naval guns and gunnery

Another great ref

Another great reference on this subject is:

Peter Hodges, "The Big Gun: Battleship Main Armament 1860-1945", Naval Institute, Annapolis, 1981

which goes into a great deal of technical detail. It doesn't cover the entire period covered by this article, but for the period it does, it has to rate as close to a definitive reference work. J. Noel Chiappa 12:58, 26 February 2008 (CST)

Comments on content so far

Overall, it seems pretty good. One main large-scale comment is that in a few places it seems like there's more maritime military history detail than is really needed to provide context for the content of this particular article. Places I especially noticed this:

• British fleet decline, and growth of opposing fleets, after the 7 Years' War
• Frigates (the whole section would make a nice stand-alone article, but that is more naval history than weapons history)
• Fire/powder ships (again, interesting, and worthy of an article, but they aren't guns)
• Battle cruisers at Jutland, and the Washington Treaty comments (again, more naval architecture than guns specifically)
• Most of the Jutland section, except for the comments about the cause of the loss of the British ships, and the material about the tactical plans and the consequent lack of training in long-range gunnery. Again, good material, useful in an article on the battle itself, but out of place here, I think.
• Missiles; again, good material, but for an article on naval missiles
• The AEGIS system; AFAIK, this only controls missiles, not guns (although perhaps it sets loose anti-missile point-defense systems like Phalanx CIWS, although I thought that was basically a self-contained system).

Other comments:

• The article could use more content on the switch from round cast shot to conical shells, and the development of explosive shells (and in particular the development of contact fuses, which depended on spin-stabilized shot - i.e. rifling - to ensure that the shell is properly oriented on arrival, to activate the fuse). Conical shells also had better penetration properties against armor.
• More about rifling, because conical shells and rifling are synergistic - were they actually developed together, or was one first? (I don't know off-hand.)
• More about breech loading - another synergistic technology to the above, because rifling, especially large caliber guns, is really infeasible without breech loading. Breech loading probably also increases the rate of fire, and simplifies loading arrangements - particularly with very large caliber, i.e. longer, guns (which also use heavier shells, which need mechanical handling), since access to the muzzle is no longer required. Oh, I see, you mention that later in the article.
• Again, the timing relationship, and synergism, between all three; I suspect it's no accident that they (to a large degree) came into use at the same time. Maybe a section which is just about these three, and exploring their (probably interlocking) development?
• Could use more on the development of a suite of projectiles, designed for use against different classes of targets (analagous to the earlier round/bar/etc shot). A lot of work went into these in the period 18xx-1940, e.g. with the development of "windshields" (long thin-walled caps that made the shells more aerodynamic, increasing range and speed - i.e. penetrative power - at impact, and covered a nose designed to pierce armour). Specialised shells were also developed; full armour-piercing for use against other capital ships (with fuses in the base, designed to explode a fraction of a second after contact, when the shell would have penetrated inside the armour), high-explosive (designed for use against merchant ships, etc - a full AP round would go straight through one without exploding), etc.

Specific comments:

• "They would have been both awkward to handle and dangerous until the high wheels were replaced by low ones" - maybe explain why the large wheels were dangerous?
• "the 'Makalos', which burned in 1564" - was that a long time after it was built, or when it was new?
• "The effective ranges of these guns were only a small fraction of the extreme ranges. " - I assume that's an accuracy issue?
• "tearing, raking, and bilging the ships" - might want to explain that (I assume "bilging" is making a hole below the waterline (i.e. in the bilges) when the ship rolls (in the ocean swell).
• "'ships of the line' had to grow bigger" - I seem to recall reading that SotL in this era used very large-section timbers not just for strength, but also as a primitive form of armour (but my memory might be playing tricks on me here).
• "The carronade's short range eventually led to loss of interest in it as a naval weapon." - You might want to explain why, in tactical terms; I assume it's the same situation then as later, in that the vessel with the longer range - especially if it's faster - can 'stand off' and destroy her opponent while remaining untouched herself (even with the inaccurate shooting of the day). Although now that I keep reading, I do see this is alluded to in the description of the Battle of Lake Erie.
• "The greater range, velocity, and accuracy which were the advantages of rifled guns" - I don't think rifling increases velocity directly - although it may do so indirectly, because by allowing spun conical shot to remain aligned with the direction of flight, as opposed to tumbling, they are slowed down less by air resistance. (This will of course also increase range.)
• "slow rate of fire until elongated bullets permitting rapid loading" - Do conical muzzle-loaded bullets really load easier? Or was it actually the development of catridges (which included the powder and bullet in one unit), loaded from the breech, which really sped up the rate of fire?
• "The elevation that could be given to guns on British ships was increased from 13 in 1909 to 40 in 1917." - I think it depended on the specific turret and gun design. I don't have the reference books right at hand (and I'm too lazy to get up and go get it :-), but I seem to recall that the British standard 15" twin turrets, installed in the 'Renown' and 'Repulse' (built during WWI, along with the Warspite and 'R' class battleships) could originally only reach 20 or so, and when these two (along with the Warspites) were massively refitted in the 30s, the turrets in all of them were rebuilt and greatly increased the allowed elevation (to the 30 range, IIRC).

Hope this is all a) useful, and b) not too much! J. Noel Chiappa 21:23, 12 March 2008 (CDT)

Noel--that is terrific material and since you clearly know more than I do (my reading is mostly 1900-1945) I hope you will incorporate it! As for too much naval history--true, but at this stage CZ is very short on naval history and so I'm trying to cover bits of topics that deserve their own articles.

1. high wheels. I got that from Guilmartin (2007), but I can't tell you why they used small wheels!
2. Makalos was a new Swedish battleship, largest in the world, sunk by Danes, built a year or so before
3. effective range = shells wobbled and were inaccurate
4. bilging = shoot a hole in bottom
5. I'm not sure about timbers, but I think you're right
6. cannonade -- you're right
7. rifling = something I do know about. It's like a spiral football pass versus tumbling ball. so the ball does not slow down so quicky (so after 100 yards it has higher velocity)
8. slow rate --reference is to small-arm-rifles. To grip the rifling the old round bullet had to be rammed down hard. The elongated bullet was smaller & dropped down the barrell easily; but its flange in back expanded on firing & gripped the rifling.
9. "The elevation..." I'm not sure where I got that factoid (probably from Sumida) Richard Jensen 23:04, 12 March 2008 (CDT)

Some research notes

Alas, I don't have time to incorporate all this into the article, and in any case it's not completely researched yet, but I did want to write it all down before I forgot it!

• First, and most importantly, it turns out that my supposition about the interlocked development of rifling, breech loading and conical shells (based on looking at the situation as an engineer :-) was incorrect! Although rifling, breech loading and conical shells (well, 'bullet-shaped' - I don't know the proper term to describe that shape) are all synergistic, at least two of them were not introduced simultaneously!

I'm not sure about the shells, because I have not (as yet) turned up much on their development - Hodges has a teeny bit on that, pp. 31-32. (And I'd also like to know how that relates, timeline-wise, to the development of armour.) However, it appears that rifled muzzle loaders came well before breech loading, and were adopted on grounds of accuracy.

Breech loading had been experimented with since Tudor times, but nobody had ever been able to develop an effective seal. The eventually-universal 'interrupted-screw thread' mechanism was invented by the French (Hodges, pp. 14 - no date or name, alas), apparently ca. 1880; the first British ship to be armed with such guns was HMS Colossus, 1887. The original French design, with threads on only 50% of the circumference (Hodges pp. 14) was later improved by the use of multi-level threading, which allowed 75% or so of the circumference to be sealed.

Rifling in large naval guns had been introduced in the 1860s, after experiments showed it to be much more accuate.

• I dipped my nose into a rather recondite work (the Bull/Murphy work) I have on the Paris Gun, as that was based on naval guns, hoping to find something, and I came away with a few interesting factoids - and more importantly, a most important reference (more below).

German naval mounts at the outbreak of WWI were limited to a maximum firing elevation of 30 degrees (B/M, pp. 21, but reprinting an original memo by Rausenberger of Krupp, who developed the German large-bore naval weapons).

It contains a reference to a most valuable source:

Andrew Noble, "Artillery and Explosives: Essays and Lectures Written and Delivered at Various Times", John Murray, United Kingdom, 1906

Google books has this (although something has gone wrong with their watermarking, and every other page has a block at the bottom obscured), and it's a wonderful primary source (Noble was a key naval engineer involved in development in the latter 1800's). I have not yet fully mined this for information, but I will point out what I found to be two particularly valuable papers in the collection:

'Mechanical Science in Relation to the Naval and Military Services' pp 355 (pp 416 of the PDF)

'The Rise and Progress of Rifled Naval Artillery' pp 499 (pp 584 of the PDF)

These have a lot of contemporary technical detail of little utility to us, but the introductory sections of both contain historical overviews which will be very useful.

Finally, in reading that, I came across references to most interesting-sounding papers by Noble and a gentlemen named Vavasseur. Searching for those brought me to this:

Marshall J. Bastable, "Arms and the State: Sir William Armstrong and the Remaking of British Naval Power, 1854-1914", Ashgate, London, 2004

which although it's a secondary source, undoubtly contains much useful information. Alas, I have yet to lay my hands on a copy (although I will definitely acquire one in the not-too-distant future) - at more than $100, it's a non-trivial purchase!

• Hodges (which is not quite a secondary source - the author was a marine weapons engineer, and actually personally trained on the very 15" gun now displayed outside the Imperial War Museum) spends a lot of time on mountings (which is separate from the barbette/turret issue) and also ammunition supply (which is obviously a big issue with shells weighing up to a ton). We won't want to include too much detail here, but we should mention it, as Noble also discusses it a lot, so clearly they were both major issues to the designers.

• I dipped my nose into a number of reference works, and I can confirm that the British 15" twin-gun turret, as fitted to the 'Queen Elizabeth' class, R-class, and Renown/Repulse had a 20 degree elevation limit at that time. (One ref, Campbell pp. 8 says they didn't even have range data about 15 degrees until 1916!) A number of these ships were refitted in the 30's, and the turrets were reworked to provide 30 elevation at that point.

Interestingly, the Renown's original 4" secondary battery did have a 30 degree elevation capability.

• One of those refs (Campbell, pp. 7) refers to a "Welin stepped-screw breech", so that may be the name of the person who invented that improvement (above).

Anyway, that's all I have time for now. Gotta go help with yard stuff for a while. J. Noel Chiappa 10:24, 15 March 2008 (CDT)