The 4.5 inch Mark 8 is a British

naval gun Naval artillery is artillery mounted on a warship, originally used only for naval warfare and then subsequently used for naval gunfire support, shore bombardment and anti-aircraft roles. The term generally refers to tube-launched projectile-firi ...

system which currently equips the Royal Navy's destroyers and frigates, and some British destroyers and frigates sold to other countries.

Background

Guns with a 4.5 inch

calibre In guns, particularly firearms, caliber (or calibre; sometimes abbreviated as "cal") is the specified nominal internal diameter of the gun barrel bore – regardless of how or where the bore is measured and whether the finished bore match ...

have been the standard medium-calibre gun of the

Royal Navy The Royal Navy (RN) is the United Kingdom's naval warfare force. Although warships were used by English and Scottish kings from the early medieval period, the first major maritime engagements were fought in the Hundred Years' War against F ...

for use against surface,

aircraft An aircraft is a vehicle that is able to fly by gaining support from the air. It counters the force of gravity by using either static lift or by using the dynamic lift of an airfoil, or in a few cases the downward thrust from jet engines ...

and

shore A shore or a shoreline is the fringe of land at the edge of a large body of water, such as an ocean, sea, or lake. In physical oceanography, a shore is the wider fringe that is geologically modified by the action of the body of water past a ...

targets since 1938. The current 55-calibre Mark 8 gun replaced the World War II era 45-calibre

QF 4.5-inch Mk I – V naval gun The QF 4.5 inch gun has been the standard medium-calibre naval gun used by the Royal Navy as a medium-range weapon capable of use against surface, aircraft and shore bombardment targets since 1938. This article covers the early 45-calibre fam ...

s. Like all British 4.5 inch naval guns, it has a calibre of 4.45 inches (113 mm).Jane's Ammunition Handbook, 1999–2000 Edition. http://www.janes.com/

Design

A completely new type of 4.5 inch gun with a longer 55-

barrel, it was designed in the 1960s for the Royal Navy's new classes of frigates and destroyers. The new weapon, built by

Vickers Ltd Vickers Limited was a British engineering conglomerate. The business began in Sheffield in 1828 as a steel foundry and became known for its church bells, going on to make shafts and propellers for ships, armour plate and then artillery. Entir ...

Armament Division, was developed by the

Royal Armament Research and Development Establishment Royal may refer to: People * Royal (name), a list of people with either the surname or given name * A member of a royal family Places United States * Royal, Arkansas, an unincorporated community * Royal, Illinois, a village * Royal, Iowa, a c ...

using the Ordnance, QF 105 mm L13 of the Abbot self-propelled gun as a starting point (it used electrical primers). The outer shell of the gunhouse is built from

glass-reinforced plastic Fiberglass (American English) or fibreglass (Commonwealth English) is a common type of fiber-reinforced plastic using glass fiber. The fibers may be randomly arranged, flattened into a sheet called a chopped strand mat, or woven into glass cloth ...

(GRP). The new weapon emphasised reliability and rapid response to fire first round from shutdown state (particularly for defence against missiles) over a high rate of fire, allowing a switch to a lighter, single barrel mounting and ammunition of a one-piece design. The gun system has a combination of electrical and hydraulic components and the full system penetrates up to three deck levels below the weather deck; deep magazine, gun control room and power room, gunbay and the gunhouse. The weapon is semi-automatic and can be operated by a smaller crew than its predecessors. With no personnel in the gunhouse, loading is supported by personnel in the gunbay to load the feed ring and in the deep magazine to pass ammunition to the gunbay. The captain of the gun in the control room ensures continued weapon readiness and the gun controller in the operations room aims and fires the weapon. The gun has a rate of fire of about 25 rounds per minute and a range of 12 nm (22 km; 27.5 km with the newer High Explosive Extended Range round). The first recipient of the new gun and mount, the Mark 8, was the Iranian frigate '' Zaal'' in 1971. The gun entered Royal Navy service in 1973 on the new destroyer ''Bristol''. These guns proved to be less reliable than the older 4.5 inch Mark V gun (redesignated Mark 6 gun mounting) during the

Falklands War The Falklands War ( es, link=no, Guerra de las Malvinas) was a ten-week undeclared war between Argentina and the United Kingdom in 1982 over two British dependent territories in the South Atlantic: the Falkland Islands and its territorial de ...

, being forced to cease fire on several occasions due to faults. The first major modification to the mounting, the Mod 1, was developed in 1998 in two tranches; replacing the gunhouse with a reduced radar cross section assembly and replacing the hydraulic loading mechanism with an all-electric system. This particular gun has been nicknamed the "

Kryten Kryten is a fictional character in the British science fiction situation comedy ''Red Dwarf''. The name ''Kryten'' is a reference to the head butler in the J.M. Barrie play ''The Admirable Crichton''. Originally referred to as a Series III mecha ...

gun" by members of Royal Navy, after the odd shaped head of a robot from the British Sci-fi comedy series ''

Red Dwarf ''Red Dwarf'' is a British science fiction comedy franchise created by Rob Grant and Doug Naylor, which primarily consists of a television sitcom that aired on BBC Two between 1988 and 1999, and on Dave since 2009, gaining a cult following. T ...

''. Babcock upgraded 13 guns to Mod 1 standard between 2005 and 2012.

Ammunition

HE ER : *Weight of complete round - 80.5 lbs. (36.5 kg) *Length of complete round - 48.7 in (123.8 cm) *Projectile weight - 45.4 lbs. (20.6 kg) *Bursting charge - 6.6 lbs. (3 kg) RDX/TNT (60/40) *Propellant charge - 15.8 lbs. (7.15 kg) *Muzzle velocity - 2,850 fps (869 m/s) *Cartridge case - Brass, 114 x 700 mm R HE N4A1 : *Weight of complete round - 80.5 lbs. (36.5 kg) *Length of complete round - 48.7 in (123.8 cm) *Projectile weight - 46 lbs. (20.9 kg) *Bursting charge - N/A *Propellant charge - 15.8 lbs. (7.15 kg) *Muzzle velocity - 2,850 fps (869 m/s) *Cartridge case - Brass, 114 x 700 mm R

155 mm variant

The

Ministry of Defence {{unsourced, date=February 2021 A ministry of defence or defense (see spelling differences), also known as a department of defence or defense, is an often-used name for the part of a government responsible for matters of defence, found in states ...

investigated a proposal from

BAE Systems BAE Systems plc (BAE) is a British multinational arms, security, and aerospace company based in London, England. It is the largest defence contractor in Europe, and ranked the seventh-largest in the world based on applicable 2021 revenues. ...

to adapt the 4.5 inch system to accept the heavier calibre

155 mm 155 mm (6.1 in) is a common, NATO-standard, artillery caliber. It is defined in AOP-29 part 1 with reference to STANAG 4425. It is commonly used in field guns, howitzers, and gun-howitzers. Land warfare The caliber originated in France after ...

(6.1 inch) gun barrel and breech from the

AS-90 The AS-90 ("Artillery System for the 1990s"), known officially as Gun Equipment 155 mm L131, is an armoured self-propelled artillery weapon used by the British Army. It can fire standard charges up to using 39 calibre long barrel (com ...

self-propelled gun. This "155mm Third Generation Maritime Fire Support" (155 TMF) would introduce a common gun calibre for the

British Army The British Army is the principal land warfare force of the United Kingdom, a part of the British Armed Forces along with the Royal Navy and the Royal Air Force. , the British Army comprises 79,380 regular full-time personnel, 4,090 Gurk ...

and Royal Navy, helping with ammunition logistics, and encouraging joint Army-Navy development of extended range and precision guided shells. A £4m contract was awarded to develop a prototype, and firing trials were scheduled for 2009 with delivery in 2014, but the project was cancelled in the cuts implemented following the 2010 Strategic Defence and Security Review.

Operational history

In 2011, the Royal Navy's HMS ''Iron Duke'' used its Mk 8 gun to destroy a gun battery outside of the besieged town of

Misrata Misrata ( ; also spelled Misurata or Misratah; ar, مصراتة, Miṣrāta ) is a city in the Misrata District in northwestern Libya, situated to the east of Tripoli and west of Benghazi on the Mediterranean coast near Cape Misrata. With ...

Libya Libya (; ar, ليبيا, Lībiyā), officially the State of Libya ( ar, دولة ليبيا, Dawlat Lībiyā), is a country in the Maghreb region in North Africa. It is bordered by the Mediterranean Sea to the north, Egypt to Egypt–Libya bo ...

, while HMS ''Liverpool'' used its Mk 8 gun to destroy a shore battery that had fired missiles at her.

Replacement

Although the Mk 8 was fitted to the

Type 45 destroyer The Type 45 destroyer, also known as the D or ''Daring'' class, is a Ship class, class of six guided-missile destroyers built for the United Kingdom's Royal Navy in the early 21st century. The class is primarily designed for Anti-aircraft warfa ...

, on the

Type 26 frigate The Type 26 frigate or City-class frigate is a class of frigate being built for the United Kingdom's Royal Navy, with variants also being built for the Australian and Canadian navies. The programme, known as the Global Combat Ship, was launched ...

it will be supplanted by the BAE 5-inch Mk 45 naval gun."£183 million deal signed for Type 26 Frigate gun"
UK Defence Journal, 28 July 2016

Deployment

* ** Type 45 guided missile destroyer ** Type 23 frigate ** Type 22 (Batch 3) frigate ** Type 21 frigate ** Type 42 guided missile destroyer ** Type 82 guided missile destroyer * ** Type 23 frigate * ** former Type 42, converted into a multi-purpose transport ship ** Type 42 guided missile destroyer * ** ** * ** * ** * ** destroyer * ** * **

Gallery

Aftermath Cardiff NGS.JPG, Spent shells from 's Mod 0 gun during the

. The top of her worn

Sea Dart Sea Dart, or GWS.30 was a Royal Navy surface-to-air missile system designed in the 1960s and entering service in 1973. It was fitted to the Type 42 destroyers (United Kingdom and Argentina), Type 82 destroyer and s of the Royal Navy. Originally ...

launcher can also be seen in the bottom right corner. HMS Cardiff alongside tanker Ascension Islands 1982.JPG, The ladder to ''Cardiff's'' Mod 0 gun can be seen here, damaged by a freak wave. HMS Sutherland (F81) deck gun.JPG, HMS ''Sutherland'''s Mod 0 gun HMS Argyll MOD 45151415.jpg, HMS ''Argyll'' firing during an exercise in the Middle East HMS Grafton F-80.jpg, HMS ''Grafton'''s Mod 0 gun Northumberland Naval Gun.jpg, 4.5-inch Mk 8 Mod 1 naval gun on HMS ''Northumberland''. HMS Argyll firing 4.5 gun.jpg, HMS ''Argyll'' firing her 4.5-inch Mark 8 naval gun during Exercise Bersama Lima.

Notes

References

* Tony DiGiulian
British 4.5"/55 (11.4 cm) Mark 8 Mod 0 114 mm/55 (4.5") Mark 8 Mod 1

External links

{{Commons category 113 mm artillery Cold War artillery of the United Kingdom Naval guns of the United Kingdom Military equipment introduced in the 1970s