The Ordnance BL 5-inch howitzer was initially introduced to provide the
Royal Field Artillery
The Royal Field Artillery (RFA) of the British Army provided close artillery support for the infantry. It came into being when created as a distinct arm of the Royal Regiment of Artillery on 1 July 1899, serving alongside the other two arms of t ...
with continuing explosive shell capability following the decision to concentrate on
shrapnel
Shrapnel may refer to:
Military
* Shrapnel shell, explosive artillery munitions, generally for anti-personnel use
* Shrapnel (fragment), a hard loose material
Popular culture
* ''Shrapnel'' (Radical Comics)
* ''Shrapnel'', a game by Adam ...
for field guns in the 1890s.
Combat service
Sudan Campaign
The weapon was used by the
Royal Field Artillery
The Royal Field Artillery (RFA) of the British Army provided close artillery support for the infantry. It came into being when created as a distinct arm of the Royal Regiment of Artillery on 1 July 1899, serving alongside the other two arms of t ...
and served successfully at the
Battle of Omdurman in 1898. During that campaign they gained the distinction of being the first British guns to fire the new
Lyddite shells in action.
Second Boer War
Major D Hall states that in the
Second Boer War the Lyddite shells often failed to detonate; the gun was too heavy to be used as a field howitzer, and for siege use its range was too short and shell too light. However, it achieved some success in
Natal when able to get close enough to bombard
Boers in
trenches.
World War I
By 1908 it was obsolete and replaced in British Regular Army brigades by the modern
QF 4.5-inch howitzer.
Territorial Force brigades, however, continued to use the howitzer in
World War I into 1916, including notably at the ANZAC and Suvla beachheads, Gallipoli, and in the
East African campaign.
A lighter 40-pound (18.14 kg) shell with
Amatol
Amatol is a highly explosive material made from a mixture of TNT and ammonium nitrate. The British name originates from the words ammonium and toluene (the precursor of TNT). Similar mixtures (one part dinitronaphthalene and seven parts ammoniu ...
filling replaced the original 50-pound (22.68 kg) Lyddite shell early in
World War I Together with an increase in cordite propellant from 11 oz 7 drams to 14 oz 5 drams, this increased the maximum range from 4,800 to . Administrative error led to the new 40-pound shells being sent to
Gallipoli
The Gallipoli peninsula (; tr, Gelibolu Yarımadası; grc, Χερσόνησος της Καλλίπολης, ) is located in the southern part of East Thrace, the European part of Turkey, with the Aegean Sea to the west and the Dardanelles ...
without
range table A range table was a list of angles of elevation a particular artillery gun barrel needed to be set to, to strike a target at a particular distance with a projectile of a particular weight using a propellant cartridge of a particular weight. They wer ...
s or fuze keys for the new pattern fuzes, rendering them useless.
[Simpson-Baikie 1920]
Gallery
File:BL 5 inch Howitzer US Field Artillery Journal 1915.jpeg, A rear view of the BL 5-inch Howitzer.
File:BL 5 inch Howitzer Second Boer War LOC LC-USZ62-48652.jpg, Approaching Maddox Hill, Northern Cape, January 1900.
File:5inchHowitzerFiringGallipoli1915.jpeg, In action on Gallipoli
The Gallipoli peninsula (; tr, Gelibolu Yarımadası; grc, Χερσόνησος της Καλλίπολης, ) is located in the southern part of East Thrace, the European part of Turkey, with the Aegean Sea to the west and the Dardanelles ...
, 1915.
File:Chargement d'un obusier et groupe d'artilleurs - Médiathèque de l'architecture et du patrimoine - AP62T122974.jpg, A BL 5-inch Howitzer in Romanian service during World War I. Romania received 28 howitzers in 1917.
Ammunition
See also
*
Howitzer
A howitzer () is a long- ranged weapon, falling between a cannon (also known as an artillery gun in the United States), which fires shells at flat trajectories, and a mortar, which fires at high angles of ascent and descent. Howitzers, like ot ...
*
List of howitzers
Notes and references
Bibliography
Text Book of Gunnery, 1902. LONDON : PRINTED FOR HIS MAJESTY'S STATIONERY OFFICE, BY HARRISON AND SONS, ST. MARTIN'S LANE
*Dale Clarke
British Artillery 1914-1919. Field Army Artillery. Osprey Publishing, Oxford UK, 2004
* Major Darrell D. Hall
* I.V. Hogg & L.F. Thurston, British Artillery Weapons & Ammunition 1914-1918. London: Ian Allan, 1972
* Brigadier-General Sir Hugh Simpson-Baikie, Ex-Commander of the British artillery at Cape Helles. Appendix I STATEMENT ON ARTILLERY in
* Hogg, Ian. ''Twentieth-Century Artillery.'' New York: Barnes & Noble Books, 2000. Pg.46
* ''România în războiul mondial 1916-1919, Documente, Anexe'', Volumul 1, Monitorul Oficial și Imprimeriile Statului, București. Pg. 42
Surviving examples
*
At Karak Castle, Jordan
*National Military Museum,
Bucharest, Romania
External links
Handbook for the 5-inch B.L. howitzer 1905Hosted online by State Library of Victoria, Australia
Field service manual Field artillery howitzer brigade 5-inch B.L. 1908Hosted online by State Library of Victoria, Australia
Handbook for the 5-inch B.L. howitzer, 1909Hosted online by State Library of Victoria, Australia
Handbook and equipment details for the 5-inch B.L. howitzer Mark I field batteries 1896,1901Hosted online by State Library of Victoria, Australia
5 inch B.L. howitzer gun drill 1915Hosted online by State Library of Victoria, Australia
*
Bennet Burleigh
Bennet Graham Burley (1840 – June 17, 1914) was a Scottish-born pirate, Confederate spy and journalist. Later in life, he changed his surname to Burleigh and became a celebrated war correspondent for London's ''The Daily Telegraph''.
Bo ...
,
ttp://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/25504 Khartoum Campaign, 1898Describes 5-inch howitzer use in the campaign
{{DEFAULTSORT:BL 05 inch howitzer
Field artillery
Victorian-era weapons of the United Kingdom
World War I howitzers
World War I artillery of the United Kingdom
127 mm artillery
