Middle artillery
Under means artillery means the guns medium caliber that from 1880 to warships were installed to ward off small sea targets and in support of the main weapons. The term is not narrowly defined, but it is mostly used to describe guns with a caliber of 15 cm that are installed on battleships and larger cruisers . With the end of the era of large gun-armored warships after the Second World War , this categorization has become obsolete today.
Origin and development
The increase in gun calibers on ironclad ships in the late 19th century led to increasing pauses in loading the heavy guns. Around 1875, for example, the heavy ship guns could only fire a shot every two to five minutes. Since the armor was concentrated on vital parts at the same time, it was hoped that the faster-firing medium artillery guns would be able to bridge the loading pauses and cause severe damage to the unarmored parts of the enemy ship.
This development was favored by the introduction of rapid-loading cannons (also known as rapid-fire guns ) of medium caliber. Also based on the experience of the sea battle on the Yalu in 1894, the middle artillery gained in importance. For a time the middle artillery was even regarded as the main weapon of the ships of the line.
At around the same time, from the 1870s onwards, small-caliber guns (initially 3.7 cm in caliber, later increased to 8.8 cm) were installed to defend against torpedo boats. Around 1900 a typical standard ship of the line had a dozen 15 cm guns as middle artillery (three-way division of the ship artillery) in addition to the main armament of four 30.5 cm guns and 10 to 20 anti-torpedo guns.
From the beginning of the 20th century, improved fire control procedures enabled greater combat distances. It was necessary to correct the alignment of the guns based on the bullet impacts observed. As a result, the rate of fire was limited by the flight time of the projectiles. The more the expected combat distances increased, the more the medium artillery lost its advantage of the high rate of fire over the guns of the heavy artillery.
With the transition to the large-line ship ("All big gun ship", " Dreadnought Revolution"), the British Navy dispensed with medium artillery. The German Navy, on the other hand, continued to equip its capital ships with 15 cm guns, since it was assumed that combat distances in the North Sea would allow the medium artillery to be used effectively against the enemy battle fleet.
By the First World War , the size and stability of the torpedo boats and torpedo boat destroyers increased so much that the previous caliber of the anti-torpedo boat guns (7.6 cm, later 10.2 cm in the Royal Navy; 8.8 cm in the Imperial Navy) no longer considered sufficient. The medium artillery therefore increasingly took on the role of torpedo boat defense. From the Delaware class of 1908 onwards, the US Navy used 12.7 cm guns as medium artillery throughout.
The British Nelson- class of 1925 was the first class of capital ships to have their middle artillery carried entirely in turrets instead of casemates .
In the 1930s, the need for a powerful anti-aircraft system was recognized, and multi-purpose artillery began to be installed that could be used against both air and sea targets. This first happened with the French battleships of the Dunkerque class of 1935, which carried 16 13 cm air / sea target guns. The British battleships of the King George V class of 1939 also carried multipurpose guns of 13.3 cm caliber. The US multi-purpose artillery was particularly successful; the new American battleships from the USS North Carolina in 1940 carried ten 12.7 cm twin towers. The guns proved themselves in connection with the Mk. 37 fire control system, which was very advanced at the time, especially in air defense, but also against sea targets such as in the second naval battle of Guadalcanal and when firing on land targets to support landing operations.
Interestingly, none of the Axis powers introduced multi-purpose guns as medium artillery to their ships. In the case of the German Navy, this could have been due to the fact that the ships were designed for trade warfare. The 15-cm guns were intended to be able to sink enemy merchant ships quickly and without the expensive use of heavy artillery. Both German and Italian battleships used their medium artillery to defend against air attacks in addition to heavy flak for shooting barrages (zone shooting ).
The intermediate calibers from 20.3 cm to 25.4 cm, which were occasionally used in the USA and introduced in many navies shortly before the "Dreadnought Revolution", are normally not referred to as middle artillery. Their name stems from the fact that their caliber was somewhere between main armament and middle artillery.
Performance parameters of a medium artillery gun
(using the example of the 15 cm guns that were used by the German Navy in World War II)
15 cm SK C 34 (rapid fire cannon; year of construction 1934):
- Pipe weight: 9.1 ts
- Pipe length: 8.2 m
- Bullet weight: 45.3 kg
- Muzzle velocity: 875 m / s
- Max. Range: 23 km
- Rate of fire: 6 rounds / min
Individual evidence
- ↑ Ulrich Israel, Jürgen Gebauer: Panzerschiffe around 1900. 2nd revised edition. Brandenburgisches Verlagshaus 1998, ISBN 3-89488-027-9 , p. 24.
- ^ Siegfried Breyer: Battleships and battle cruisers 1905-1970. Licensed edition by Lehmanns Verlag. Pawlak, Herrsching 1970, ISBN 3-88199-474-2 , p. 50.
- ^ Siegfried Breyer: Battleships and battle cruisers 1905-1970. Licensed edition by Lehmanns Verlag. Pawlak, Herrsching 1970, ISBN 3-88199-474-2 , pp. 47 and 50.
- ^ John Jordan: The 'Semi-Dreadnoughts' of the Danton Class. In: John Jordan, Stephan Dent (eds.): Warship 2013. Conway, London 2013, ISBN 978-1-84486-205-4 , p. 48 relating to the French Navy; David K. Brown: Warrior to Dreadnought. Seaforth Publishing, Barnsley 2010 (Reprint 2014), ISBN 978-1-84832-086-4 , p 154 relating to the British Navy.
- ^ Siegfried Breyer: Battleships and battle cruisers 1905-1970. Licensed edition by Lehmanns Verlag. Pawlak, Herrsching 1970, ISBN 3-88199-474-2 , p. 45.
- ↑ David K. Brown: Warrior to Dreadnought. Seaforth Publishing, Barnsley 2010 (Reprint 2014), ISBN 978-1-84832-086-4 , p. 156.