Turrets
Posted: Sat Jul 06, 2019 9:30 am
Gentlemen,
While not wanting to reopen the debate about the foibles of the 14” guns on the KGV’s I wonder why that compared with the tried and trusted twin 15” the triple and quad turrets gave so much trouble?
It has been reported else ware that the ‘Nelsons’ initially had problems with their triple turrets but were apparently sorted out and the French also had problems with their quad’s, so did all the other countries like Germany, Italy, Japan and the USA who all went for triple turrets experience the same problems with their guns and turrets?
As I am in no way technically minded I find it difficult to understand why increasing the size of the turret to accommodate an extra one or two guns should cause any trouble because presumably the basic structure of the gun whether it is 14 or 15 or 16” is the same as (again presumably) would be the breaches and loading mechanisms?
I do understand that no gun is perfect all the time and that even the twin 15” experienced problems occasionally, possibly due to the crew trying to load too quickly in the heat of a battle and having watched the loading sequence (taken on Vanguard I believe) for the film ‘Sink the Bismarck’ it must have been very tiring for the crew, particularly the man operating the ram so I suppose that would also eventually have an effect on their performance as well.
While not wanting to reopen the debate about the foibles of the 14” guns on the KGV’s I wonder why that compared with the tried and trusted twin 15” the triple and quad turrets gave so much trouble?
It has been reported else ware that the ‘Nelsons’ initially had problems with their triple turrets but were apparently sorted out and the French also had problems with their quad’s, so did all the other countries like Germany, Italy, Japan and the USA who all went for triple turrets experience the same problems with their guns and turrets?
As I am in no way technically minded I find it difficult to understand why increasing the size of the turret to accommodate an extra one or two guns should cause any trouble because presumably the basic structure of the gun whether it is 14 or 15 or 16” is the same as (again presumably) would be the breaches and loading mechanisms?
I do understand that no gun is perfect all the time and that even the twin 15” experienced problems occasionally, possibly due to the crew trying to load too quickly in the heat of a battle and having watched the loading sequence (taken on Vanguard I believe) for the film ‘Sink the Bismarck’ it must have been very tiring for the crew, particularly the man operating the ram so I suppose that would also eventually have an effect on their performance as well.