The , also known as the , was a light caliber

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

of the

Imperial Japanese Navy The Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN; Kyūjitai: Shinjitai: ' 'Navy of the Greater Japanese Empire', or ''Nippon Kaigun'', 'Japanese Navy') was the navy of the Empire of Japan from 1868 to 1945, when it was dissolved following Japan's surrender ...

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 World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...

, employed on the

aircraft carrier An aircraft carrier is a warship that serves as a seagoing airbase, equipped with a full-length flight deck and facilities for carrying, arming, deploying, and recovering aircraft. Typically, it is the capital ship of a fleet, as it allows a ...

, the

light cruiser A light cruiser is a type of small or medium-sized warship. The term is a shortening of the phrase "light armored cruiser", describing a small ship that carried armor in the same way as an armored cruiser: a protective belt and deck. Prior to th ...

, and

destroyer In naval terminology, a destroyer is a fast, manoeuvrable, long-endurance warship intended to escort larger vessels in a fleet, convoy or battle group and defend them against powerful short range attackers. They were originally developed ...

s.Campbell, p. 196Osborne, p. 110-111 The gun was considered by the Japanese to be their finest anti-aircraft artillery weapon. After the end of World War II, the gun remained in service on the two Japanese destroyers ceded to the

Soviet Union The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen nationa ...

and the

Republic of China Taiwan, officially the Republic of China (ROC), is a country in East Asia, at the junction of the East and South China Seas in the northwestern Pacific Ocean, with the People's Republic of China (PRC) to the northwest, Japan to the northeas ...

war reparations War reparations are compensation payments made after a war by one side to the other. They are intended to cover damage or injury inflicted during a war. History Making one party pay a war indemnity is a common practice with a long history. ...

. The Allied forces first captured a shore-based twin-mounting of this weapon at

Iwo Jima Iwo Jima (, also ), known in Japan as , is one of the Japanese Volcano Islands and lies south of the Bonin Islands. Together with other islands, they form the Ogasawara Archipelago. The highest point of Iwo Jima is Mount Suribachi at high. ...

.CINCPAC, p. 38

Description

The 100 mm (3.9 in) L/65 caliber Type 98 gun utilized a horizontal sliding breech, in addition to either monobloc (made from a single forging) or replaceable liner construction of the

barrel A barrel or cask is a hollow cylindrical container with a bulging center, longer than it is wide. They are traditionally made of wooden staves and bound by wooden or metal hoops. The word vat is often used for large containers for liquids, ...

. The gun featured a spring-powered rammer that was cocked by means of the recoil of the gun being fired; this allowed the rammer to load the gun at any elevation. 116 guns went to ship based mounts: 12 for Taiho and 8 each on Oyodo and the 12 Akizuki-class destroyers. A shortcoming of the gun was that it had a service life of only 350-400 full charges, due to its high muzzle velocity.Campbell, p. 196

Mountings

These guns were used in twin gun

turrets Turret may refer to: * Turret (architecture), a small tower that projects above the wall of a building * Gun turret, a mechanism of a projectile-firing weapon * Objective turret, an indexable holder of multiple lenses in an optical microscope * M ...

. The total weight of the mount and guns on ''Akizuki'' was . The mount installed on ''Akizuki'' could traverse at 12° to 16° per second and could elevate at a rate of 16° per second. It was electro-hydraulically powered and could be moved by hand in the event of an emergency.

Ammunition

The gun fired a , , fixed,

high-explosive An explosive (or explosive material) is a reactive substance that contains a great amount of potential energy that can produce an explosion if released suddenly, usually accompanied by the production of light, heat, sound, and pressure. An expl ...

round with a brass casing. Only nose-fused high-explosive ammunition was developed for the gun.

Notes

References

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External links

10 cm/65 (3.9") Type 98
{{DEFAULTSORT:10 cm 65 Type 98 naval gun World War II naval weapons Naval anti-aircraft guns Naval guns of Japan 100 mm artillery Military equipment introduced in the 1930s