| Notes:
1) As per the usual practice, listings
are per ship class. Where an individual member of a class differed,
her name is further indented under her class name.
2) The "P" series were pedestal mounts
while the "CP" series were central pivot mountings. The latter were
easier to operate manually. As the central pivot mountings supported
the gun on side-brackets rather than on a central pedestal, it was also
a simpler matter to design them for higher elevations. PVII* modification
was a thinner shield while the PXIII had a heavier shield. CPXVI
had a "weatherproof" shield.
3) Guns in casemates were generally limited
to +14 degrees elevation.
4) Queen Elizabeth originally commissioned
with sixteen casemate guns, with twelve guns located forward on the upper
deck and four guns located aft on the main deck near "Y" turret.
The four guns alongside "Y" turret were removed almost immediately and
their casemates plated over as they were washed out in any kind of seaway.
Two of the removed guns were resited on the forecastle deck and the remainder
of the class were completed to this arrangement. Even though the
other twelve guns were located a deck higher, their casemates were still
found to be "wet" when the ship was at speed in rough water. In 1916
the two guns on the forecastle deck were removed despite the fact that
they were said to be worth as much as all of the remaining guns combined
as they had excellent firing arcs. The Royal Sovereign class as completed
had twelve casemate guns located amidships on the upper deck and two guns
amidships on the forecastle deck in open-back shielded mounts.
5) On the Queen Elizabeth class, the three
foremost guns on each beam could fire from 1 degree across the bow to 29
degrees abaft the beam. The remainder could fire from 13 degrees
off the bow to 45 degrees abaft the beam. This meant that no guns
could bear across an arc of 45 degrees on either side of the stern.
For the Royal Sovereign class, only P1 and S1 mountings could fire directly
ahead, but the two aftermost mountings on each side could fire directly
aft, giving these ships a better all-around arc of fire.
6) The following is adapted from "British
Battleships" by Raven and Roberts:
The ammunition supply system for
the Queen Elizabeth and Royal Sovereign classes was similar. Dwarf
walls about 3 feet (1 m) high were installed behind the casemate guns to
restrict the movement of any water that entered through casemate shield
fittings. The gun bays were separated by 1.5 inch (3.81 cm) screens
but were open on the inboard side to a passage extending the full length
of the battery. The port and starboard batteries were separated by
a 2 inch (5.1 cm) center line bulkhead. There were thirty ready-use
rounds per gun. Shells from the magazines were delivered to the forward
end of each battery by a single dredger hoist. Cordite bags were
delivered by Miller's hatches from the main deck by means of whips worked
by single overhead drums. This arrangement was criticized by the
Captain of HMS Excellent (gunnery training establishment). He pointed
out that pre-dreadnought experience of supplying 6 inch (15.2 cm) ammunition
via whips through Miller's Hatches had proved demonstrably unsatisfactory.
This, he said, was why the King Edward VII class had been fitted with dredger
hoists for all 6 inch (15.2 cm) ammunition, which greatly improved the
supply to the guns. His criticism was rejected, but at the Jutland
(Skagerrak) battle, Malaya was hit by a 30.5
cm (12") projectile on S3 gun which destroyed the gun and started a
cordite fire that almost resulted in the loss of the ship. As a result,
the whips and Miller's hatches were replaced by dredger hoists which reduced
the chain of cordite between the guns and the magazines. The tops
of the cordite hoists were enclosed by flashtight handling rooms with 1
inch (2.54 cm) walls to prevent a cordite fire from spreading. It
was suggested to enclose the rear of each gun bay with a screen, but this
was rejected as it was felt that this would interfere with the command
of the batteries.
7) Those Queen Elizabeth class ships modernized
during the 1930s had some or all of these guns removed. Queen Elizabeth
and Valiant had all of these guns replaced with 4.5"
(11.4 cm) guns while Warspite was reduced to eight guns. The
unmodernized Barham and Malaya retained their twelve guns. The Royal
Sovereign class had two guns removed during refits in the 1930s.
8) The Mark XVI on Diomede was a weatherproof
mounting in Number 1 position. This mounting provided a motor-driven
shell hoist in place of the hoists and whips used on other cruisers.
The mounting was considered a success and was generally recommended for
future construction but no more were built.
9) The Mark XVII twin mounting was used
only on Enterprise and proved very successful. This mounting was
powered by a 40 HP pump motor and used shell and charge hoists with no
breaks between the magazines and gunhouse. This mounting design was
further developed into the twin 6"/50 (15.2
cm) mountings used on the Leander and Arethusa class cruisers.
This design was also used as a prototype for the twin 6"/50
(15.2 cm) mountings used on the Nelson class battleships, with the
major difference being that the battleship mountings used a shorter trunk
than did the cruiser mountings.
10) The monitor Terror mounted one of these
guns for a brief time in 1919 during experimental gunnery trials.
Three guns in PIX mountings were sent with the Caspian Force expedition
during the Russian Civil War. Coastal defense batteries used PVII,
PVII* and PIX mountings. The Mobile Naval Base Defence Organization
(MNBDO) batteries used PXIII* and PXIII** mountings. |
