Naval artillery question...

Historically, the USN developed rapid-fire 6" and 8" guns late in World War 2, and introduced them in service in the latter part of the 1940s.

The RN introduced a rapid-fire 6" somewhat later, with limited service on cruisers.

My knowledge of the design of naval artillery is rather limited, so I'm going to ask y'all here: Is there a practical size limit for automation of naval artillery? Could the RN have developed a 9.2" automatic, or Bofors an automatic 10"?

I acknowledge the market might not be there for such weapons by the time they're possible; it's the technical feasibility I'm interested in.
 
Historically, the USN developed rapid-fire 6" and 8" guns late in World War 2, and introduced them in service in the latter part of the 1940s.

The RN introduced a rapid-fire 6" somewhat later, with limited service on cruisers.

My knowledge of the design of naval artillery is rather limited, so I'm going to ask y'all here: Is there a practical size limit for automation of naval artillery? Could the RN have developed a 9.2" automatic, or Bofors an automatic 10"?

I acknowledge the market might not be there for such weapons by the time they're possible; it's the technical feasibility I'm interested in.


Technology is not the main issue here, as any calliber of riffled artillery can be automated into something like that. It is the question or you are willing to develop extremely expensive already obsolete type of weapons, as more potent ones already existed by the late 40's, and even more powerful ones were under research. Gunnery had had its days in the past. In the post WW2 period the aircraft and submarine took over the offensive roles in all navies, leaving surface warships to lesser roles, often specialized in one task mainly.
 
Marking this one for later reference.

If nothing turns up quickly, you might look for material on the current naval ballistic weapons and work backwards from their references.
 
Historically, the USN developed rapid-fire 6" and 8" guns late in World War 2, and introduced them in service in the latter part of the 1940s.

The RN introduced a rapid-fire 6" somewhat later, with limited service on cruisers.

My knowledge of the design of naval artillery is rather limited, so I'm going to ask y'all here: Is there a practical size limit for automation of naval artillery? Could the RN have developed a 9.2" automatic, or Bofors an automatic 10"?

I acknowledge the market might not be there for such weapons by the time they're possible; it's the technical feasibility I'm interested in.

Talwar,
I know another forum where I should be able to get some good answers and guesses.

One guess of mine is that there is a practical size limit. As the gun caliber gets bigger and bigger, the stresses being produced by a rapid fire gun get bigger and bigger; there may be a point where the gun's mechanisms, the turret, and the ship's hull suffer damage.

I don't know if there would be a need for a rapid fire gun larger than 8 inches (203mm). The rapid fire 6" guns were developed mainly for anti-aircraft service; the US 8" gun may have been developed in response to the Solomons fighting. I can check that in a book tonight.

The US did develop and test a new rapid fire 8" gun in the 1980s. Check navalweapons.com (or some version of that address) for details on that gun and others. I've read that the RN is moving towards a rapid fire 155mm gun for new ships, and the USN has looked at rapid fire 155mm (and/or 6"?) guns.
 

CalBear

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As has been said there is a practical limit on size. The handling equipment that was needed to give the Des Moines and her sisters full auto added about 4,000 tons to the displacement of the ships and cranked the ship up with the size of a WW I Battleship (actually the cruisers were 150 feet longer, but they were about 800 tons lighter than the Florida class BB). To get auto fire you need fixed or semi-fixed ammunition (the Des Moines cases looks like the biggest 30-30 round ever made :D).

The mind boggles at what a 16" semi-cased round would look like. It would be bigger than a full sized SUV (at least in length and weight).
 
As has been said there is a practical limit on size. The handling equipment that was needed to give the Des Moines and her sisters full auto added about 4,000 tons to the displacement of the ships and cranked the ship up with the size of a WW I Battleship (actually the cruisers were 150 feet longer, but they were about 800 tons lighter than the Florida class BB). To get auto fire you need fixed or semi-fixed ammunition (the Des Moines cases looks like the biggest 30-30 round ever made :D).

The mind boggles at what a 16" semi-cased round would look like. It would be bigger than a full sized SUV (at least in length and weight).
Yeah and the Auto-Loader mechanisms would probably be big enough to require a small drydock. :eek:

BTW here's a useful website on Naval weaponry: http://www.navweaps.com/
 
(snip) I don't know if there would be a need for a rapid fire gun larger than 8 inches (203mm). The rapid fire 6" guns were developed mainly for anti-aircraft service; the US 8" gun may have been developed in response to the Solomons fighting. I can check that in a book tonight.

Friedman's volume on cruisers suggests that Des Moines & the 8" RF were designed in reaction to what happened in the Solomons, as the Long Lance actually out-ranged the 6"/47, but the traditional 8" bag guns often fired & tracked too slowly to really be able to engage a rapidly maneuvering destroyer, so the USN came up with the idea of combining the range & hitting power of the 8" with the volume of fire of the 6", and it worked quite well, but the volume demands of the system were enormous.

A Baltimore armed with them would have been limited to 6 guns, and to get the typical 9 guns, led to the biggest gun cruiser actually built, & it would have been even bigger had Adm. King not intervened to reduce the size by cutting some of the armor protection & limiting the main battery ammo supply to the 150 rpg of earlier classes (the designers wanted to go to at least 175-200 to be better able to take advantage of the rapid fire capabilities without prematurely running out of ammo- Des Moines could deliver the same volume of fire as 3 earlier CAs but in doing so, would have run dry much more quickly, limiting their usefulness for sustained engagements.)
 
Technology is not the main issue here, as any calliber of riffled artillery can be automated into something like that. It is the question or you are willing to develop extremely expensive already obsolete type of weapons, as more potent ones already existed by the late 40's, and even more powerful ones were under research. Gunnery had had its days in the past. In the post WW2 period the aircraft and submarine took over the offensive roles in all navies, leaving surface warships to lesser roles, often specialized in one task mainly.
In that range though such equipment would also be of interest to the army, since it's about the right size for mobile battery work, so it's not a complete waste.
 
In that range though such equipment would also be of interest to the army, since it's about the right size for mobile battery work, so it's not a complete waste.

The caliber of the weapon might be about the right size, but if it needs a huge amount of machinery to make it actually function - more than, say, a truck or so's worth - I can't see the army being terribly keen. When I was in the artillery tactics emphasised mobility, since any gun that stayed in place for more than a few rounds was just asking to be whacked with counterbattery fire. Being able to displace and set up in a hurry is not a luxury for us gunners.
 
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And yet these days they're small enough and light enough to fit into tanks. And I did say 'be of interest', rather than 'be pressed into immediate service'.
 
And yet these days they're small enough and light enough to fit into tanks. And I did say 'be of interest', rather than 'be pressed into immediate service'.

Yes, making an autoloader for rounds that have a fixed propellant charge is probably significantly easier. And I seem to recall that the newer SPHs (like the Crusader, before it was cancelled) had some form of automated loading to let them get the first few rounds out faster. That would need someone to set the propellant charges and load the rounds in the right order beforehand, though, so it's only really useful when you know ahead of time what you're going to be shooting at.
Just thinking about it, though, I'm not sure how much use an autoloading artillery piece would really be at present. Most casualties of a fire mission are caused by the first few rounds that impact, before those in the target area take cover. After the first, say, 3-5 rounds per gun have impacted the ratio of casualties to shells expended drops dramatically - you've already hit all the easy targets. So it's really the ability to get those first shells off quickly that will make the most difference, and I'm not sure an autoloader will be quicker than a healthy 19-year old.
That may change when we get EM coilguns or railguns as artillery pieces, of course, but for the moment the speed of the initial burst is more important than a sustained high rate of fire.
 
Just thinking about it, though, I'm not sure how much use an autoloading artillery piece would really be at present. Most casualties of a fire mission are caused by the first few rounds that impact, before those in the target area take cover. After the first, say, 3-5 rounds per gun have impacted the ratio of casualties to shells expended drops dramatically - you've already hit all the easy targets. So it's really the ability to get those first shells off quickly that will make the most difference, and I'm not sure an autoloader will be quicker than a healthy 19-year old.
Wikipedia gives figures of 8-12 rpm for autoloaders and 4 rpm for manual loading for 155mm artillery pieces. Interesting to notice too how many nations are producing or planning to produce auto-loading tanks these days, Russia, China, France, Poland, Ukraine, Serbia, Croatia, South Korea, Japan, Pakistan and Iran.
 
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Yes, making an autoloader for rounds that have a fixed propellant charge is probably significantly easier. And I seem to recall that the newer SPHs (like the Crusader, before it was cancelled) had some form of automated loading to let them get the first few rounds out faster. That would need someone to set the propellant charges and load the rounds in the right order beforehand, though, so it's only really useful when you know ahead of time what you're going to be shooting at.
Just thinking about it, though, I'm not sure how much use an autoloading artillery piece would really be at present. Most casualties of a fire mission are caused by the first few rounds that impact, before those in the target area take cover. After the first, say, 3-5 rounds per gun have impacted the ratio of casualties to shells expended drops dramatically - you've already hit all the easy targets. So it's really the ability to get those first shells off quickly that will make the most difference, and I'm not sure an autoloader will be quicker than a healthy 19-year old.
That may change when we get EM coilguns or railguns as artillery pieces, of course, but for the moment the speed of the initial burst is more important than a sustained high rate of fire.

You have to pay that 19 year old a monthly salary, feed him and clothe him, and train a replacement when he decides he wants a civilian job when he/she marries. An auto loader you just buy. That the real rational behind autoloaders. People are getting too expensive in the west...
 
TALOS

The TALOS SAM was a pretty big missile and IIRC it was launched from a single round launcher fed from an autoloader. Might just be the biggest autoloader in the Western navies.
 
You have to pay that 19 year old a monthly salary, feed him and clothe him, and train a replacement when he decides he wants a civilian job when he/she marries. An auto loader you just buy. That the real rational behind autoloaders. People are getting too expensive in the west...

They are expensive, yes. On the other hand they can also do more than just load the gun.
That same 19 year old can help with maintenance on the weapon and the vehicle that transports it, be crosstrained as a gunner or driver, help with close-in defence or sentry duty, stand a radio watch, run over to another vehicle that's resupplying and sling ammo crates around, and serve as an infantryman if things get really desperate. If the same autoloader had to do all those things, I'm not sure they'd be that much cheaper.
 

NothingNow

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They are expensive, yes. On the other hand they can also do more than just load the gun.
That same 19 year old can help with maintenance on the weapon and the vehicle that transports it, be crosstrained as a gunner or driver, help with close-in defence or sentry duty, stand a radio watch, run over to another vehicle that's resupplying and sling ammo crates around, and serve as an infantryman if things get really desperate. If the same autoloader had to do all those things, I'm not sure they'd be that much cheaper.

So most of the time, nations moving over to autoloaded guns are doing it because the rounds are too heavy for their loaders to handle, as otherwise loaders are just damned convenient. Also, no-one in government pays attention to personell costs when purchasing equipment usually, so manual loading looks cheaper.
 
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So most of the time, nations moving over to autoloaded guns are doing it because the rounds are too heavy for their loaders to handle, as otherwise loaders are just damned convenient. Also, no-one in government pays attention to personell costs usually, so manual loading looks cheaper.

Please tell how to get to that wonderful world were government does not keep a close watch on manpower costs, cause were I live we are firing people who actually do good work just to save on salaries...
 
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