The Canon de 138 mm Modèle 1927 was a medium-calibre

gun A gun is a ranged weapon designed to use a shooting tube (gun barrel) to launch projectiles. The projectiles are typically solid, but can also be pressurized liquid (e.g. in water guns/cannons, spray guns for painting or pressure washing, pr ...

of the

French Navy The French Navy (french: Marine nationale, lit=National Navy), informally , is the maritime arm of the French Armed Forces and one of the five military service branches of France. It is among the largest and most powerful naval forces in t ...

used during

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

. It was derived from a German

World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

design. It was used on the destroyers of the ''Aigle'' and ''Vauquelin'' classes and the ''Bougainville''-class sloops.

Description

The 40-

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 ...

''Mle 1927'' was derived from the German

''15 cm L/45 UToF'' gun as mounted on the large torpedo boat SMS S113 received by France as war reparations. It copied the German gun's semi-automatic action and its horizontal sliding-block breech. It had an autofretted, monobloc barrel. It used of powder to push a shell to a muzzle velocity of .Campbell, p. 298

Mounting

The ''Mle 1927'' was used in single centre-pivot mountings that weighed approximately that were fitted with a thick

gun shield A U.S. Marine manning an M240 machine gun equipped with a gun shield A gun shield is a flat (or sometimes curved) piece of armor designed to be mounted on a crew-served weapon such as a machine gun, automatic grenade launcher, or artillery piece ...

. The mount could depress -10° and elevate to +28° which gave it a maximum range of . The gun had a firing cycle of 4 or 5 seconds with its automatic spring rammer, but the dredger hoists transporting the shells and cartridge cases slowed the rate of fire down to 8-10 rounds per minute.

Notes

References

* Campbell, John. ''Naval Weapons of World War Two''. London: Conway Maritime Press, 2002

External links

PIECES MOYENNES : 120 à 239

{{DEFAULTSORT:Canon de 138 mm Modele 1927 World War II naval weapons Naval guns of France 138 mm artillery Military equipment introduced in the 1920s