Talk:BL 14-inch Mk VII naval gun

Infobox?

This article could use {{Infobox Weapon}} as shown by another naval rifle: BL 13.5 inch Mk V naval gun -MBK₀₀₄ 05:56, 11 January 2009 (UTC)

I agree, I've tagged so others may notice as well. GraemeLeggett (talk) 17:00, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

Calibre

14 inches is 355,6 mm. Picard345 (talk) 18:20, 24 March 2012 (UTC)

Barrel Length

The body of the article indicates a bore length of 630 inches (52ft. 6in.) while the Infobox indicates a barrel length of 53ft. 6in. I thought perhaps the breech might be the source of the extra barrel length, but that isn't indicated in either place and should be specifically mentioned if added to the barrel length measurement. Does anyone know why there is a discrepancy here that isn't accounted for in the article's body or Infobox? Ajm1205 (talk) 18:18, 9 November 2020 (UTC)

As I understand it, the bore is the internal length of the gun - the part that is rifled and which the shell traverses, whereas the barrel length is the overall external length of the gun, excluding the breech. The two dimensions may be the same or may differ, depending on the construction details of the gun. Urselius (talk) 17:56, 10 November 2020 (UTC)

Sunk battleships and gun efficiency

Note 17 states "the German 38 cm SK C/34 naval gun (15-inch) sank 1 battleship, HMS Hood". The be precise, "Hood" was not a battleship but a battlecruiser, the only unit of the "Admirals" class. Whether "Scharnhorst" was a battleship or a battlecruiser is also disputable; its 11" guns were smaller than the 12" guns of the Alaska class heavy cruisers and similar (though longer) to those on the Deutschland class heavy cruisers or "pocket battleships". The fact that so few battleships were sunk by other battleships in WW2 was largely due to the fact that there were few chances on offer: in the Atlantic the Kriegsmarine heavy units sought to avoid battle with Allied heavy units since their primary targets were convoys, nor were the Italians very keen on actual naval battles if they couldn't be sure of overwhelming odds. The French battleships at Mers el Kébir were sitting ducks and offered no resistence. The Japanese were the only Axis navy that actually sought confrontation with enemy capital ships, but even there the only actual battle between battleships was at Surigao Strait. Thus, which guns actually got to fire on an enemy battleship was very much a question of chance; with such a small sample, any statistician would consider the evidence that this or that gun was better than the others very meager indeed. Or are we supposed to think that the old American 14"/45 guns of 1910 vintage on "Pennsylvania" were better than the 16"/50 guns of the Iowas just because the Iowas never got the chance to fire on an enemy battleship? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Death Bredon (talk • contribs) 18:30, 11 December 2020 (UTC)

The word used was 'successful', not 'efficient'. The British 14" gun was the only weapon in the whole war that was partly responsible for the destruction of TWO modern enemy battleships, no other naval gun had that much effect on other modern battleships. This is just a fact, it makes no claim about theoretical effectiveness whatsoever. During construction, Hood received a big increase in armour protection, that made her more of a 'fast battleship' than battle-cruiser, though the British admiralty always classed her as a battlecruiser. She had far thicker armour than Renown or Repulse, the other 15" battlecruisers. Hood was far more of a fast battleship than the Japanese Kongo class, which were officially classed as 'fast battleships' after their 1930s rebuilds. The Scharnhorst class had thicker main belt armour than the Bismarck class battleships. Horses for courses, really. I would take issue with your assertion about the Japanese battleship force, it achieved almost nothing in the course of WWII, due to it being conserved until its deployment was too late for it to have any effect. Where Japanese battleships were deployed they acted as aircraft carrier escorts, were intended for shore bombardment missions, and very late in the war on suicide missions to support land forces. They were not deployed against enemy battle fleets in the hope of battleship versus battleship actions, except at Midway, where they made no contact with US battleships at all. You cannot argue with facts. The facts are that the 16" guns of the Iowa class had no effect on any enemy battleship, whereas the British 14" guns were partly responsible for the destruction of two modern enemy battleships. The assertions are not about theoretical performance but about actual performance against actual enemy ships. The only modern battleships destroyed by surface action during WWII were Bismarck and Scharnhorst, both were destroyed by RN guns. Therefore, the only testing ground for the effect of modern battleship gunfire on other modern battleships were the effect of RN guns on the Bismarck and Scharnhorst, sorry that this seems to offend you. Urselius (talk) 18:59, 11 December 2020 (UTC)

The shell also carried a proportionally large bursting charge of 39.8 lb

My understanding is the all British APC shells carried a burster of 2.5% of weight of shell. with 1938lb 15" shell carrying 48.5lb and the 2048lb 16", 51.2lb with the projected 2375lb shell carrying 59.5lb. 78.150.86.84 (talk) 14:50, 7 November 2022 (UTC)

If you could back this up with a relevant citation, that would be very useful. Rounding up, of course happened for armour thickness as well. The comment about proportionately large was meant to relate more to the shells of other countries, not to other British shells. Urselius (talk) 12:11, 8 November 2022 (UTC)

Naval Weapons of World War two - John Campbell page 6. "The usual burster was Shellite (trinitrophenol, 'Lyddite'; 30 dinitrophenol), the amount being 2.5% of the total weight, but shells for the 16in (406mm) Mk I had block TNT and, as the density of the filling was lower, the amount did not exceed c2.3%", Given weights are from the relevant gun page on Navweaps 78.150.86.84 (talk) 18:42, 8 November 2022 (UTC)