The US 14inch/45calibre Naval Gun
The 14"/45 used by the US Navy from 1910 until 1945 in WWI & WWII
The US 14inch/45calibre Naval gun was designed in 1910 and variants of it was used on the six battleships of the USS New York (BB-34), USS Nevada (BB-36) and USS Pennsylvania (BB-38) classes. These ships fought in both world wars and delivered thousands of rounds on target as late as 1945. Five of these weapons were used on land as railway artillery in France during World War One. In the early 1920s, the US Army used the naval 14inch/45calibre gun tube to arm the Model 1920 Railroad gun. Two of these guns were used in the Panama Canal defenses and scraped in the 1960's. Several 14 inch guns were also used in coastal artillery from fixed positions along the west coast and Hawaii in the 1940’s. Eight guns were also produced for the German built Greek battleship Salamis. The ill-fated Greek ship never took to the waves and the american made guns eventually found their way to British buyers and they served aboard the four Abercrombie class monitors in the Royal Navy during World War One. In British service these guns fired rounds in the invasion of Gallipoli and exchanged blows with the Turkish battlecruiser Yavuz Sultan Selim (formerly the German navy's SMS Goeben and still retaining a largely German crew) In all it is thought that more than a hundred 14inch/45calibre guns were produced by Bethlehem Steel in Pennsylvania and at the U.S. Naval Gun Factory in Washington, D.C. The gun was the basis of the slightly larger 14inch/50calibre gun that went onto arm another five American battleships
Specifications:
- Weight: 142,492 lbs. (64,633 kg) per gun
- Bore – 14 inches (356mm)
- Rate of Fire about 1 ½ rounds per minute with a skilled crew
- Breech diameter: 46"
- Maximum Elevation: Thirty degrees
- Maximum Range: 34,000 yards
- Explosive Charge: 31.5 lb (2.25% of projectile weight).
- Muzzle Velocity: 2,700 feet per second
The weapon fired a four foot long, 1400 pound projectile with 365 pounds of NCT (an early Picrite based, hydroscopic propellant) bagged powder through a barrel that was 52 feet from breech to muzzle. Even though the 16 inch guns of the USS Iowa (BB-61) class battleships are the most well known, it was the 14 inch gun that fired more rounds in anger in United States service. The old battlewagons that carried these weapons softened up the beaches at Casablanca, Kwajalein , Attu, Iwo Jima, Normandy, Okinawa and many other places during World War Two. They often fired for as many as 76 days consecutively, striking targets deep behind the enemy front line.
Besides the single remaining railway gun that served in France held at the Naval Yard Museum, a few 14 inch guns still exist in their original purposes-attached to battleships. The USS Texas (BB-35) which served in the US Navy from 1911-1948 still maintains its battery of ten 14 inch guns. The Texas is preserved at the San Jacinto battlegrounds, Houston, TX. Three of these naval guns also remain submerged aboard the USS Arizona over which the flag still flies at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii.
Sources – Naval Weapons of the World
Battleships: United States Battleships, 1935-1992 WH Garzke, Jr. & RO Dulin, Jr.
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