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.

high wheels. I got that from Guilmartin (2007), but I can't tell you why they used small wheels!
Makalos was a new Swedish battleship, largest in the world, sunk by Danes, built a year or so before
effective range = shells wobbled and were inaccurate
bilging = shoot a hole in bottom
I'm not sure about timbers, but I think you're right
cannonade -- you're right
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)
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.
"The elevation..." I'm not sure where I got that factoid (probably from Sumida) Richard Jensen 23:04, 12 March 2008 (CDT)

I wonder if the 40 degree elevation was on a mounting for smaller guns, ones that were used for anti-aircraft and anti-zepplin fire? Not that those were considered a direct threat (and wouldn't be until Billy Mitchell's bombing demo about a decade after WWI), but they were use for scouting (I'm pretty sure I recall the Germans using Zeppelins for this purpose at Jutland), and as such it would have been desirable to knock them out before they could report. I'll have to check and see if any guns (and, more important, mountings) were adapted for this purpose.

Also, I'm pretty sure the fire-control systems weren't up to accurately controlling fire at long ranges, especially the kind of ranges the large guns could reach at high elevations. I'll have to research this. (I was just reading about the 'Hood', and when she was lost she still had her original ca. 1920 fire-control systems, which were much inferior to those on the 'Bismarck'. J. Noel Chiappa 23:45, 17 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!

Tranche 1

First, and most importantly, it turns out that my supposition (based on looking at the situation as an engineer :-) about the interlocked development of rifling, breech loading and 'conical' shells (well, 'bullet-shaped' - I don't know the proper term to describe that shape) was incorrect! Although rifling, breech loading and conical shells 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. Also, it has lots of good diagrams, and since the copyright it out if we can lay out hands on an original, we can scan in images from that.

Finally, in reading that, I came across references to most interesting-sounding papers by Armstrong 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 above 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)

Tranche 2

Another tranche of research notes. First, I have discovered a number of other useful sources of information:

Oscar Parkes, "British Battleships: 'Warrior' 1860 to 'Vanguard' 1950 - A History of Design, Construction and Armament", Naval Institute, Annapolis, 1990
Percy Scott, "Fifty Years in the Royal Navy", John Murray, London, 1919

The former is a secondary source, but it does contains some material that's directly on point, e.g. a history of the vacillation between rifled and smooth-bore guns. I will go through it carefully and extract research notes. The second is useful in general, although not so much on the rifling/breech-loading issues; Percy Scott was one of the major drivers of increased gunnery accuracy in the Royal Navy. (It also contains some other interesting material, e.g. mention of the Ashanti War, and punitive expeditions up the Congo River before the advent of colonial control.) As an autobiography (from the days before ghost-writers), I suppose it counts as a primary source?

Also, I have gone through the two Noble articles I called out (above). Specific notes are below, but a few overall impressions: Absorbing extremely high recoil forces/energies was a large technical challenge; production of propellants with high energy and low erosion properties was also a major technical challenge. Also, in general, these papers are poor at providing dates - not too surprising, because as contemporary working papers, it's the technology itself that's the focus, not the history.

Noble 1

From: 'Mechanical Science in Relation to the Naval and Military Services', 1890
pp 355 (pp 416 of the PDF)

pp. 360 - Morsoom's concussion fuses appeared shortly before 1853
pp. 361 - large wave of technological change starting in 1854, with the revolutions in Europe
pp. 367 - unsuitability of cast iron as a material for guns; wide use of rifled guns in the US Civil Wara
pp. 368 - "eccentric shot" as a term for non-spherical solid projectiles; smooth-bores accurate at 300-500 yards, but accuracy went down dramatically long before they reached their maximum range of ca. 3000 yards
pp. 369 - at a test shortly after 1858 (blast those buggy watermarks! it obscured the exact date) for an increase in range of 35%, the area within which shot landed increased by a factor of three, to 4161 square yards; powder variations were a big part of the cause, causing observed energy output variations of up to 25%; contemporary guns were designed to pierce the heavy armour which was by then common
pp. 370 - use of ductile steel for barrels
pp. 371 - recoil energy of contemporary guns is so large that lighter barrels are not desirable anyway
pp. 372 - high firing pressures are bad as they cause rapid erosion in the barrel
pp. 373 - range of 13 miles reached with a 9" gun; at 3000 yards a 4.7" gun could put half its rounds in a vertical target of only 4' wide by 5' high; cordite as a very effective propellant

Then there's a lot of stuff about mountings, ammunition handling systems, recoil systems

pp. 381 - a 5" quick-firing gun fired 5 rounds in 31 second at a 6'x6' target at 300 yards, and all hit

Noble 2

From: 'The Rise and Progress of Rifled Naval Artillery', 1899
pp 499 (pp 584 of the PDF):

pp. 500 - "In [1858] the Committee on Rifled Cannon recommnended the introduction of rifled Armstrong guns into the service ... With regard to range, accuracy and penetrative power, the superiority of rifled guns was so conspicuous"
- This is a most interesting comment. Looking at this as an engineer (although admittedly not an aerodynamicist), I cannot conceive how spinning a spherical projectile produces these effects (range, accuracy, etc) - and a non-spun 'eccentric' (i.e. bullet-shaped) shot wouldn't produce these effects either. (It would tumble, increasing drag, and decreasing range and accuracy.) So I am led to conclude that what's being spoken of here is a combination of eccentric shot and rifling. That would definitely produce these effects. Alas, I have yet to find anything which says so directly!
pp. 501 - at 1000 yards, 1/2 the round smoooth-bore shot landed in 435'x30' rectangle, while for rifled it was 69'x3'; when first introduced, rifled guns produced lower projectile speeds so as to reduce the stress on the barrel; as armour improved, it was necessary to increase the speed of projectives; this need for more speed, combined with slower-burbing powders (to reduce stress on the barrels), required longer barrels, which in turn made muzzle loading less feasible
pp. 502 - introduction of the bursting shell
pp. 504 - a 5" gun weighing over 4 tons could be trained by manual force
pp. 507 - a mounting designed in 1889 that could fire up to 35-40 degrees

The paper then goes on at length about the technical details of a number of current mounting systems, and systems for carrying shells.

pp. 517 - development of exploding shells, covering fuses, explosives, and effects

That's all for now. J. Noel Chiappa 23:22, 17 March 2008 (CDT)

Naval gun?

The article looks great! More about naval guns than I ever knew!

But why not naval gun, per Naming Conventions? --Larry Sanger 13:17, 20 March 2008 (CDT)

good point. maybe even better would be Naval Gunnery since it covers how the guns were used. Richard Jensen 15:20, 20 March 2008 (CDT)

Hmmm. I must admit, 'guns' sounded more natural to me (probably because no warship ever had just one :-). The 'gunnery' thing I'm not so sure about, because to me that means just the usage (perhaps because this is the usual meaning in the literature, where it's most usually about practise in firing, and how accurate the results are), and not the underlying technology (which is really the focus of this article). Let me let this marinate for a while... J. Noel Chiappa 16:24, 20 March 2008 (CDT)

maybe "Naval guns and gunnery" ??? Richard Jensen 18:44, 20 March 2008 (CDT)

western centric view

I highly doubt that the use of naval guns were introduced by the European countries - China & Korea for long had been using cannons & rockets to fight off Japanese pirates on sea since the 14th centuries as well. See here and here - cannons on ships in 1300s.

I've read several western authors (including Samuel Hawley in his book The Imjin War a co-publication between UC Berkeley and the Royal Asiatic Society & Kenneth M. Swope in his article "Crouching Tigers, Secret Weapons: Military Technology Employed During the Sino-Japanese-korean War, 1592-1598" published by the Journal of Military History in 2005) talk about how it's a flawed western conception that the military revolution was solely a western phenomenon. (Chunbum Park 21:07, 22 March 2008 (CDT))

Quote Swope on the Korean War of 1592-1598 -

"In terms of sheer numbers, the conflict involved armies that easily dwarfed those of their European contemporaries... Expanding upon and challenging Michael Roberts’s and Geoffrey Parker’s thesis of a European military revolution, Sun Laichen has persuasively argued that Ming China was in fact the world’s first gunpowder empire and that the Ming were the primary exporters of military technology throughout Asia until at least the late sixteenth century...Before the coming of the Europeans in larger numbers in the sixteenth century, the Chinese were the major disseminators of military technology in Asia. The Ming Chinese had actually been using weapons similar to the Portuguese arquebus for some two hundred years.21 As indicated above, one scholar has even called early Ming China the first “gunpowder empire” in the early modern world and asserts that it was the Ming, not the Europeans, who started the military revolution, not only in Asian history, but also in world history.22 Therefore, when Europeans brought their arms to Asia, they did not introduce the technology, but rather they supplemented and expanded the options already available to war-makers"

I think that it's a good point to make for all in Citizendium who are interested in military history that Europe's military ascendancy did not materialize until the late 16th century. ~~All~~ A considerable amount of these "Europe...first in 14th century" stuffs are untrue or biased. I've seen many West is Best claims that are simply not true b/c the western scholars are not careful enough to study all other histories before publishing them.

Another example would the printing press - while the Chinese first invented the wooden printing, it was in Korea (not Gutenberg) that the first movable type metal printing was introduced. (see here) (Chunbum Park 21:18, 22 March 2008 (CDT))

we'd be very happy to add information regarding naval guns in China/Korea/Japan. we need some sources however regarding guns actually used on ships. Richard Jensen 22:10, 22 March 2008 (CDT)

Thank you very much. The second link that I've posted says somewhere "In 1377, Koryo established an office for the manufacture of gunpowder and cannons, which were first used to fight Japanese pirates." While it may not be enough to write this article the quote just indicates that we should go in this direction. (Chunbum Park 09:32, 23 March 2008 (CDT))

Here is another link - see pg. 6. I've tried to find more but there's none left on Google Books. I'll add more occasionally. (Chunbum Park 09:51, 23 March 2008 (CDT))

Let me basically echo Richard, and say that I want the article to cover developments around the world in this field. As you surmise, I (along with many other Westerners) aren't as familiar with early naval developments elsewhere as we could (and perhaps should) be. I would therefore appreciate bringing to our attention any sources in this area. I am somewhat familiar with Japanese history, and know a little of Chinese (and I think I have that "When China Ruled the Seas" somewhere, which covers a part of the Ming period, and will look into it to see if it covers Chinese naval guns), but Korean history is something of a blank page to me (other than Korean ceramics :-). J. Noel Chiappa 14:01, 23 March 2008 (CDT)

Thank you for being so open. I've almost written a thesis while beginning this section because I expected some strong-willed editors who would disagree with me on this issue. Then Dr. Jensen's reply reminded me that there were people like him all over the place in Citizendium & made me feel a bit awkward. It may be that there's simply not enough literature on this topic - all we need are who, how, when, why, where they used them, isn't that so? Thanks. (Chunbum Park 22:19, 23 March 2008 (CDT))

Another link here - shows that Koreans used cannons "in Chinese style" - in bombardment (this is what we mean by naval guns, isn't that so?) (Chunbum Park 22:20, 23 March 2008 (CDT))

made me feel a bit awkward - Please don't worry about it. As they say, "life is too short"! :-)

What I understand by "naval guns" are "guns placed aboard ships", because the technical issues involved in having large guns on board ships mean that these weapons are generally somewhat different and specialized. Also, the naval weapons sometimes had requirements (range, etc) which the land weapons didn't. However, I had to say "generally" (above) because from the earliest days until recently, there are examples of naval weapons being used in land settings (e.g. during World War I) and vice versa.

Also, there are cases of specialized weapons placed on land for use against ships (e.g. the heated shot weapons of ca. 1800, intended for use against wooden ships). Whether we would want to cover such weapons in this article is something that I don't think we have discussed, and I'm fairly sure we have not made any definite decision on it.

Anyway, hopefully we'll be able to dig up some things which give a usful level of detail about the employment of larger guns in naval settings in Asia, so we can cover that properly here. I will be looking at the links you provided as soon as I can find time. J. Noel Chiappa 22:45, 23 March 2008 (CDT)

Another link here - shows that Koreans used cannons "in Chinese style" - in bombardment (this is what we mean by naval guns, isn't that so?) (Chunbum Park 22:20, 23 March 2008 (CDT))

I'm not good in reading Korean, but this local city gov site says in this article named "세계 해전사 바꾼 최무선의 화포" (Choe {or Chwae} Mu-saun's cannon that changed the world's naval history) has a section called "최무선 화포 사용한 해전, 유럽보다 200 년 앞서" (That naval battle featuring Choe Mu-saun's cannon, 200 years ahead of Europe). In the section, the words go something like "1380, 20,000 Japanese in 500 ships invade & pillage a coastal village... Koreans counterattack with 80 ships equipped with rockets & cannons... all Japanese ships were sunk... 1383 the Japanese pirates came again with 120 ships but the Koreans annihilated them all with 47 ships... 1389, the Goryo forces sink 300 ships... The battles of Jin-po & Gwan-eum-po were the world's first naval battle to use cannons and to have ships sunk by them..." Then it follows with "유럽에서 화포를 사용하여 해전을 벌인 것은 고려보다 무려 2 백 년이나 늦은 1571 년 10월 7일 아침, 베네치아, 제노바, 에스파냐의 연합 함대가 투르크 함대를 격파한 레판토 해전이다" (I don't get it b/c this article says that the Europeans first introduced naval guns in the 14th century (or 1300s) but here it says that Europe's first naval battle to see the usage of naval guns was 200 years late and occurred on 1571-10-07 when a combined fleet of the Bae-nau-chi-a (transliteration), Genova, and Spanish forces defeated the Too-roo-keu (transliteration) flotilla - the Battle of Le-pan-to (transliteration)." Thanks. (Chunbum Park 22:51, 23 March 2008 (CDT))

One article in English that seems relevant is Seiho Arima, " The Western Influence on Japanese Military Science, Shipbuilding, and Navigation,"

Monumenta Nipponica, Vol. 19, No. 3/4 (1964), pp. 352-379 in jstor email me for a copy at rjensen@uic.edu Richard Jensen 00:26, 24 March 2008 (CDT)

I have access to JSTOR from my school so I'll send you the PDF. It seems that the site I translated above may be correct that the 1st naval battle to see cannons sinking ships was that battle of Jinpo - it may be that the Europeans also had naval cannons before then but they never engaged in a naval battle until 1571. Could that be right? (Chunbum Park 07:44, 24 March 2008 (CDT))

Here's a more reliable site from the Korea Institute of Science & Technology - 세계 최초의 함포탑재 전함을 개발한 최무선 (Choe Mu-seon Who Developed The World's 1st Naval Gun-Equipped Battleship) - Notice "함포": 함 "ham" means naval/ship and 포 "po" means gun/cannon.

Quiz - what consists of urine, dirt, etc.? It's black powder... Then it talks about the chemical composition of the black powder. During the Goryo Dynasty of the 14th century, (roughly goes like) the Japanese invaded the Korean shores and made ruckus.

(I'll translate more later)(Chunbum Park 17:09, 24 March 2008 (CDT))