From: Jeremy Peter Howells, [EMAIL PROTECTED]
>They didn't all elevate up to 45 degrees, thus denying
>them maximum range.
Very dependent on when they were built. Early battleships
had very limited elevation, but then the guns were aimed
from within the turret so effective range was very limited
(this was before WW1), sometimes as little as a couple of
miles. A Tushima the battleship lines were as close as a
few hundred yards apart at some stages of the battle.
>They weren't all capable of firing flat, thus denying
>them the ability to sink ships at point-blank range.
Certainly not true of many designs, at the Battle of Cape
Matapan the British battleships engaged the Italian ships
at about 5,000 yards - point blank with a 15-inch naval
gun. However many warhip designs have problems engaging
targets at close range over the bows, the rise and flair
of the bows interfering with line of fire.
>When mounted in pairs they sometimes bracketed targets
>but didn't hit them (stern chases) because they
>couldn't be made to fire on a single spot, the
>projectile paths were parallel, not convergent.
All the elevating mechanisms were usually independent
(even in a triple or quadruple turret) so that all guns
were independent of each other in case of damage. Also
the elevation would be varied for each gun so as to drop
a line of shells, or when registering on target they would
be adjusted to as to drop in a cluster.
>The bores were so big you had to specify the internal
>and external radii of the corners of the rifling and
>the degree of surface finish.
Most big naval guns were built rather than having the
rifling cut into them as we think of with smallarms.
Certainly many British battleships used gun barrels where
the inner layers were actually wound copper wire, only the
outer sleeve being steel. Such barrels took a terrific
amount of skill and time to build. The last British
battleship (Vanguard) was actually equipped with 15-inch
guns originally built as spares for the WW1 vintage Queen
Elizabeth Class ships, it being too expensive to tool up
to produce new barrels from scratch.
>The big problem with naval guns was they could fire
>further than they could spot the fall of the shot.
Not quite true as the 'height of eye' from the director
tower of a battleship when ranging on a ship with a similar
height of superstructure is well within the range of the
guns, even at 40 miles. However, achieving such good
conditions would be unusual, thats why most carried spotter
planes to plot the fall of shot and relay it back to the
ship. Radar made life a lot easier and its reported at the
Battle of North Cape Scharnhorst barely saw the Duke of York
before she was sunk.
>Naval gun sights - which compensated for pitch and
>roll - were state-of-the-art and top secret technology
>when battleships were the nation's largest and most
>expensive weapons.
The gun sights did not compensate for pitch and roll but the
fire prediction computers did. These were huge
electro-mechanical or pneumatic-mechanical computing systems
that could compensate for the movement of ship and target,
flight time, etc. They were so large that they had to be
installed when the ship was built, being installed well
below the waterline partly because of their great weight
and partly to provide them with the best protection.
The director tower on a large warship from where the guns
were actually 'aimed' needed several highly skilled men to
operate it and the a mass of optical equipment. They
collected the data that formed the basis for the calculations
by the predictors.
The battleship ruled the seas during its era and a modern
battleship was a massive investment in time, trained manpower
and money for any nation.
>From my uncle - one third of the cost of each of
>Britain's battleships - a 50% markup - was paid by
>shipbuilders in bribes to specifiers.
There were certainly reports of bribes but I doubt they came
to that sort of percentage as even a small proportion of that
would have been a kings ransom.
>And a "maybe-apocryphal" (you don't often hear me say
>that!) - Dover was not equipped with coastal guns
>capable of interdicting the Channel during WW2 because
>the Admiral in charge had an aunt living in the town
>and didn't want it bombarded flat!
Well if you look at Dover town its not well sited to cover
the Channel over a wide arc. The coastal guns were mounted
above and to either side of Dover on the high ground. If
you go up to Langdon Battery above Dover, which is now the
monitoring station for the Channel Traffic Management Scheme,
you can see pictures of the WW2 structures on which the
current building stands. These include some very impressive
naval guns with a fine arc of fire over the Channel.
Incidentally if said Admiral didn't want Dover bombarded flat
why are there so many protective bays/hangars in the Harbour
for the MTB's and MGB's that operated from there (they were
still there as recently as 20 years ago). A very tempting
target for the Luftwaffe.
Also Dover was periodically shelled by the Fehrer Battery at
Cap Gris Nes later in the war and occasionally by railway
guns. Not very successfully though.
Regards
Jerry
Cybershooters website: http://www.cybershooters.org
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