The QF 12-pounder 12-cwt gun (abbreviated as Q.F. 12-pdr. (12-cwt.)Gun drill for Q.F. 12-pdr. (12-cwt.) gun (Land service) 1925
the War Office, 1925) was a common, versatile calibre naval gun introduced in 1894 and used until the middle of the 20th century. It was produced by

Armstrong Whitworth Sir W G Armstrong Whitworth & Co Ltd was a major British manufacturing company of the early years of the 20th century. With headquarters in Elswick, Newcastle upon Tyne, Armstrong Whitworth built armaments, ships, locomotives, automobiles and ...

, Elswick and used on

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 Fr ...

warships, exported to allied countries, and used for land service. In British service "12-pounder" was the rounded value of the projectile weight, and "12 cwt (

hundredweight The hundredweight (abbreviation: cwt), formerly also known as the centum weight or quintal, is a British imperial and US customary unit of weight or mass. Its value differs between the US and British imperial systems. The two values are disti ...

)" was the weight of the barrel and breech, to differentiate it from other "12-pounder" guns. As the Type 41 3-inch (7.62 cm)/40 it was used on most early

battleships A battleship is a large armored warship with a main battery consisting of large caliber guns. It dominated naval warfare in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The term ''battleship'' came into use in the late 1880s to describe a type o ...

and cruisers 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 ...

, though it was commonly referred to by its UK designation as a "12-pounder" gun. Italy built guns under licence as the 76.2 mm/40 (3") by Ansaldo.

United Kingdom service

United Kingdom naval service

Mk I and II guns, of "built up" construction of multiple steel layers, served on many Royal Navy

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 up to and after World War I originally as primary and later as secondary armament against

submarines A submarine (or sub) is a watercraft capable of independent operation underwater. It differs from a submersible, which has more limited underwater capability. The term is also sometimes used historically or colloquially to refer to remotely op ...

and

torpedo boat A torpedo boat is a relatively small and fast naval ship designed to carry torpedoes into battle. The first designs were steam-powered craft dedicated to ramming enemy ships with explosive spar torpedoes. Later evolutions launched variants of ...

s. They were also fitted as

deck gun A deck gun is a type of naval artillery mounted on the deck of a submarine. Most submarine deck guns were open, with or without a shield; however, a few larger submarines placed these guns in a turret. The main deck gun was a dual-purpose ...

s on D and E-class submarines. It was estimated that out of the 4,737 Mk I and Mk II guns produced there were still 3,494 on hand for the RN in 1939.Campbell, ''Naval Weapons of WWII'', p.64. Many Mk V guns, which had a "monobloc" barrel made of a single casting, served on smaller escort ships such as destroyers and on

armed merchant ship The term armed merchant ship may describe a number of similar ship modifications intended for significantly different missions. The term armed merchantman is generally used. * East Indiaman describes late 18th and early 19th-century sailing ships e ...

s, on dual-purpose high-low angle mountings which also allowed it to be used as an

anti-aircraft gun Anti-aircraft warfare, counter-air or air defence forces is the battlespace response to aerial warfare, defined by NATO as "all measures designed to nullify or reduce the effectiveness of hostile air action".AAP-6 It includes surface based ...

Gun mounting data

Second Boer War (1899–1902) land service

The gun was primarily a high-velocity naval gun, with its heavy recoil suiting it to static mountings, hence it was generally considered unsuitable for use as a mobile field gun.Hogg and Thurston 1972, p. 54 An exception was made when the British army were outgunned by the Boer artillery in South Africa and the Royal Navy was called on for help. Among other guns, 16 QF 12-pounder 12 cwt were landed from warships and were mounted on improvised field carriages designed by Captain

Percy Scott Admiral Sir Percy Moreton Scott, 1st Baronet, (10 July 1853 – 18 October 1924) was a British Royal Navy officer and a pioneer in modern naval gunnery. During his career he proved to be an engineer and problem solver of some considerable f ...

RN, with solid wooden trails and utilizing small-diameter Cape wagon wheels. Their range provided valuable long-range fire support for the army throughout the war. They were known as "long twelves" to distinguish them from the BL 12-pounder 6 cwt and QF 12-pounder 8 cwt which had much shorter barrels and ranges. Lieutenant Burne reported that the original electric firing system, while working well under ideal conditions, required support of an armourer and the maintenance and transport of charged batteries in the field, which was generally not possible. He reported switching to percussion tubes for firing and recommended percussion for future field operations. Another six guns were diverted from a Japanese battleship being built at Newcastle in January 1900, bought by Lady Meux, and were equipped with proper field carriages by the Elswick Ordnance Company in Newcastle and sent to South Africa. Perhaps uniquely, the guns were refused by the War Office and donated directly to Lord Roberts, the British commander in South Africa and became his personal property. They were known as the "Elswick Battery" and were manned by men from Elswick, recruited by 1st Northumberland Royal Garrison Artillery (Volunteers). The Elswick guns served throughout the war.

Coast defence gun

Many guns were mounted on "pedestals" secured to the ground to defend harbours around the UK, and at many ports around the Empire, against possible attack by small fast vessels such as torpedo boats, until the 1950s. There were 103 of these guns (of a total 383 of all types) employed in coast defence around the UK as at April 1918. Many of these were still in service in World War II although they had by then been superseded by more modern types such as twin QF 6 pounder 10 cwt mounts. Guns were traversed (moved from side to side) manually by the gunlayer as he stood on the left side with his arm hooked over a shoulder piece as he aimed, while he operated the elevating handwheel with his left hand and grasped the pistol grip with trigger in his right hand.

Army anti-aircraft gun

World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was List of wars and anthropogenic disasters by death toll, one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, ...

a number of coast defence guns were modified and mounted on special wheeled traveling carriages to create a marginally effective mobile anti-aircraft gun.

United Kingdom ammunition

UK shells weighed 12.5 lb (5.67 kg) filled and fuzed.
The cordite propellant charge was normally ignited by an electrically activated primer (in the base of the cartridge case), with power provided by a battery. The electric primer in the cartridge could be replaced by an adaptor which allowed the use of electric or percussion tube to be inserted to provide ignition.

Italian service

The Italian

Cannon 76/40 Model 1916 The Cannon 76/40 Model 1916 was a widely used naval gun on ships of the Royal Italian Navy during World War I and World War II. A very versatile weapon it was used as primary, secondary and tertiary armament on a number of ship classes. After be ...

was a licensed derivative of the QF 12-pounder used in a number of roles during World War I and World War II.

Japanese service

The Japanese Type 41 naval gun was a direct copy of the QF 12-pounder. The first guns were bought from the English firms as " Elswick Pattern N" and "

Vickers Vickers was a British engineering company that existed from 1828 until 1999. It was formed in Sheffield as a steel foundry by Edward Vickers and his father-in-law, and soon became famous for casting church bells. The company went public i ...

Mark Z" guns. The gun was officially designated as the Type 41 naval gun from the 41st year of the reign of

Emperor Meiji , also called or , was the 122nd emperor of Japan according to the traditional order of succession. Reigning from 13 February 1867 to his death, he was the first monarch of the Empire of Japan and presided over the Meiji era. He was the figur ...

on 25 December 1908. Thereafter production was in Japan under license. On 5 October 1917 during the third year of the '' Taishō'' period, the gun was redesignated as the 8 cm/40 3rd Year Type naval gun as part of the Imperial Japanese Navy's conversion to the

metric system The metric system is a system of measurement that succeeded the decimalised system based on the metre that had been introduced in France in the 1790s. The historical development of these systems culminated in the definition of the Intern ...

. Although classified as an 8 cm gun the bore was unchanged. The gun fired a

high-explosive shell A shell, in a military context, is a projectile whose payload contains an explosive, incendiary, or other chemical filling. Originally it was called a bombshell, but "shell" has come to be unambiguous in a military context. Modern usage ...

. It was the standard

secondary Secondary may refer to: Science and nature * Secondary emission, of particles ** Secondary electrons, electrons generated as ionization products * The secondary winding, or the electrical or electronic circuit connected to the secondary winding i ...

or tertiary armament on most Japanese warships built between 1890 and 1920, and was still in service as late as the

Pacific War The Pacific War, sometimes called the Asia–Pacific War, was the theater of World War II that was fought in Asia, the Pacific Ocean, the Indian Ocean, and Oceania. It was geographically the largest theater of the war, including the vas ...

. The 8 cm/40 3rd Year Type was also widely used as a coastal defense gun and anti-aircraft gun to defend Japanese island bases during World War II. Guns with both English and Japanese markings were found on

Kiska Kiska ( ale, Qisxa, russian: Кыска) is one of the Rat Islands, a group of the Aleutian Islands of Alaska. It is about long and varies in width from . It is part of Aleutian Islands Wilderness and as such, special permission is requir ...

Kolombangara Kolombangara (sometimes spelled ''Kulambangara'') is an island in the New Georgia Islands group of the nation state of Solomon Islands in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. The name is from a local language, a rough translation of its meaning is ...

Saipan Saipan ( ch, Sa’ipan, cal, Seipél, formerly in es, Saipán, and in ja, 彩帆島, Saipan-tō) is the largest island of the Northern Mariana Islands, a Commonwealth (U.S. insular area), commonwealth of the United States in the western Pa ...

Tarawa Tarawa is an atoll and the capital of the Republic of Kiribati,Kiribati
''

Tinian Tinian ( or ; old Japanese name: 天仁安島, ''Tenian-shima'') is one of the three principal islands of the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands. Together with uninhabited neighboring Aguiguan, it forms Tinian Municipality, one of the ...

. ''Japanese Artillery Weapons CINPAC-CINPOA Bulletin 152-45'' calls the guns "8 cm Coast Defense Gun 13th Year Type (1924)" but it isn't clear how they came up with that designation?

Surviving guns

* A gun of the Elswick Battery that served in the Second Boer War is displayed in the Royal Artillery Museum, London but the museum has closed and re-located to Larkhill, Wiltshire. * Another Elswick gun is with 203 (Elswick) Battery RA (V) * Mk V naval gun was at Royal Artillery Museum, London but the museum has closed and re-located to Larkhill, Wiltshire. * Early coast defence gun at

Newhaven Fort Newhaven Fort is a Palmerston fort built in the 19th century to defend the harbour at Newhaven, on the south coast of England. It was the largest defence work ever built in Sussex and is now open as a museum. History Design and construction ...

, UK * Coast defence gun at Army Memorial Museum, Waiouru, New Zealand] * On the Japanese battleship Mikasa, battleship ''Mikasa'', Yokosuka, Japan * The gun of ''HMS Campbeltown'', recovered around 1972, on display in

Saint-Nazaire Saint-Nazaire (; ; Gallo: ''Saint-Nazère/Saint-Nazaer'') is a commune in the Loire-Atlantique department in western France, in traditional Brittany. The town has a major harbour on the right bank of the Loire estuary, near the Atlantic Ocea ...

, France * 12pdr on coastal Defence pedestal at Pendennis Castle, Falmouth, Cornwall * The gun of HMS Overdale Wyke of the Ceylon Naval Volunteer Force, now kept in SLNS Ranagalle * A good example can be seen mounted at Tilbury Fort in Essex. This is an ex-naval type of WW2 vintage. * A 12pdr of first world war vintage is mounted on a skeletal high angle mount at Predannack Anti-Aircraft battery and museum in Cornwall

Notes

References

Books

* * * * Lieutenant C. R. N. Burne R.N.
With the Naval Brigade in Natal (1899–1900)
London: Edward Arnold, 1902 * * * * * * Admiral Percy Scott
"Fifty Years in the Royal Navy"
published 1919 *

External links

* * Major D Hall

* Major L.A. Crook, ttp://samilitaryhistory.org/vol014lc.html The South African Military History Society. Military History Journal – Vol 1 No 4 June 1969. "The Elswick Guns"
203 (Elswick) Battery History
{{DEFAULTSORT:QF 12-pounder 12 cwt naval gun Naval guns of the United Kingdom Naval anti-aircraft guns Coastal artillery 76 mm artillery Elswick Ordnance Company Victorian-era weapons of the United Kingdom World War I naval weapons of the United Kingdom World War II naval weapons of the United Kingdom Naval guns of Japan Russo-Japanese war weapons of Japan