BRITISH GUNNERY

Evening Post, Volume CXX, Issue 116, 12 November 1935, Page 4

BRITISH GUNNERY

IX THE WORLD WAR

A CRITIC'S DEFENCE

blame. Long before the war British ordnance manufacturers built experimental all-steel guns which in accuracy and longevity were equal to the finest Krupp specimens. Similarly, certain British firms developed armour-piercing shell up to 15in calibre, which in competitive tests held abroad— e.g., in the United States and Austria-r-proved their { marked superiority over the A.P. shell submitted by German firms. After ' one such test the United States Gov- • ernment placed a big order for 14in [ shell in England. ■-'' . The Admiralty, however, continued to insist on all guns and projectiles for 1 the Navy being made to its own speci- ; fications. In that simple fact lies the > clue to many, if not most, of the , Navy's technical shortcomings revealed by the war. The German Admiralty 1 on the other hand, worked in the closest harmony with Krupp and Ehrhardt j the two great ordnance flrmo.' . Yet, despite certain handicaps, our , naval guns and gunners were not be- ; neath contempt. Here are a few ex- , amples. At the Dogger Bank a 13.5 m ■ shell from the Lion disabled the , Blucher at 19,000 yards. Another shell ; fired at 18,000 yards penetrated the ; thick barbette armour of the Seydlitz ■ and started a fire' that wrecked both after-turrets and killed their crews. 1 HIT AT JUTLAND. ; At Jutland the German battle- : cruisers had seven turrets pierced and [ wrecked by our shell, which passed ; intact through armour 9in to lOin thick and detonated inside. < At. least four i German capital ships were saved from ; blpwing up only by the special anti- ; flash devices installed after the Seyulitz's experience at the Dogger Bank. In other words, the Germans were fore- ; warned, while we "vere not. ' As for. the "marvellous" German range-finders, they do not appear to : have shone in that crucial phase at Jul- [ land, when the opposing battle fleets [ were engaged. During about ■ fifty l minutes of intermittent firing, to which seventeen German Dreadnoughts were engaged, they scored only two hits both on H.M.S. Colossus. : In the same period they themselves s were hit from seventy to eighty times by our much-disparaged guns. .Be the ■ reason what it may the German gunnery ■ at this decisive stage of the action! i was execrable.

As one who had to keep closely in touch with the development of German naval ordnance before and during the war, I was surprised to read a recent panegyric on German guns and rather disparaging references to our own, writes Hector Bywater, the naval critic, in the "Daily Telegraph" when replying to a letter by Major Waddington which was reprinted in these columns recently. He is misinformed as to the defences of Heligoland. No. 14in or 15in guns were ever mounted there. From the outbreak of war to the end the armament consisted of eight 12in 50-calibrs guns, twin-mounted in armoured turrets, and seven llin howitzers. The 12in guns were on special high-angle mountings, and their extreme range was about 38,000 yards. Major Waddington considers it "significant" that we never bombarded Heligoland. He does not explain what purpose this > operation would have served. So cleverly hidden and well protected were the batteries that it would have been physically impossible to silence them. Only the finest battleships of the Grand Fleet, with their long-range guns, would have been of any use for this work, and it would have been madness to have exposed them as targets for fortress artillery. Napoleon's dictum, "Un canon a terre vaut un bateau a la mer," still holds good. Moreover, from the strategical point of view, Heligoland was not • worth powder and shot. Its value, small enough to Germany, would have been less to us. ADMIRALTY CONSERVATISM. It is true that our wire-wound guns were in some respects inferior to the German all-steel built-up guns, but for this, as well as for the occasional failure of our armour-piercing shell, AdI miralty conservatism was solely to