QF 4.7-inch Gun Mk I–IV

QF 4.7 inch Gun Mk I - IV
Typical naval deck mounting, 1890s
Type	Naval gun Medium field gun Coastal defence gun
Place of origin	United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland
Service history
In service	1887–1918
Used by	Naval: United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland Kingdom of Italy Empire of Japan Field: United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland Union of South Africa Australia
Wars	Second Boer War World War I
Production history
Designer	Elswick Ordnance
Designed	ca. 1885
Manufacturer	Elswick Ordnance Vickers Sons and Maxim
No. built	1,167
Variants	Mark I, II, III, IV, VI
Specifications
Mass	Barrel & breech 4,592 lb (Mk I–III); 4,704 lb (Mk IV)
Barrel length	189 inch bore (40 cal)
Crew	10
Shell	Separate loading QF; WWI : AP, Shrapnel, Common Lyddite, Common pointed, HE 45 pounds (20.41 kg)
Calibre	120 millimetres (4.72 in)
Breech	Single motion interrupted screw
Recoil	12 inch (carriage Mk I)
Elevation	-6° – 20° (Mk I field carriage)
Traverse	0°
Rate of fire	5–6 rounds per minute
Muzzle velocity	Gunpowder : 1,786 feet per second (544 m/s) Cordite : 2,150 feet per second (660 m/s) with Cordite
Maximum firing range	10,000 yards (9,100 m) at 20°, 12,000 yards (11,000 m) at 24°

The QF 4.7 inch Gun Mks I, II, III, and IV were a family of British quick-firing 120-mm naval and coast defence guns of the late 1880s and 1890s which served with the navies of various countries. They were also mounted on various wheeled carriages to provide the British Army with a long range gun. They all had a bore of 40 calibres length.

The gun was originally designed to replace the older BL 5 inch (127 mm) naval guns. It was optimised for the modern smokeless propellants such as Cordite and could be loaded and fired far more rapidly than the BL 5-inch gun while firing a shell only slightly lighter.

Design and development

The guns were designed and manufactured by the Elswick Ordnance Company, part of Armstrong Whitworth. They were a major export item and hence were actually of 120 mm calibre (4.724 inches) to meet the requirements of metricised navies: 4.7 inch is an approximation used for the British designation. The guns, Mark I to Mark III, were Pattern P, Pattern Q and Pattern T respectively. All three differed in detail of construction but were of the tube and hoop types. The Mark IV differed from these by incorporating a wire wound element to its construction. As first built, all used a three-motion screw breech, some were altered later by modifying the three-motion screw becoming "A" subtypes, or by fitting a single motion breech ("B" type). Army guns altered to use a bagged charge with a steel (instead of the more usual brass) case were renumbered as Mark VI.

United Kingdom service

Royal Navy service

British pre-dreadnoughts and cruisers of the period used these guns. Total production was 154 Mark I, 91 Mark II, 338 Mark III and 584 Mark IV. The Royal Navy received 776 of these guns directly. The Army transferred a further 110 to the Navy.

The Latona-class minelayer gave up their guns to produce high-angle anti-aircraft guns to defend London.

By World War I the guns were obsolete for warship use, but many were re-mounted on merchant ships and troopships for defence against enemy submarines and commerce raiders.

British Army service

In land service, limited numbers were mounted for use as coast artillery. In addition, some Mark IV guns were mounted on converted 40-Pr Rifled Breech Loading Gun carriages for use by batteries of the Volunteer Artillery. These were semi-mobile guns with limbers, which could be drawn by horses or gun tractors. They continued in use with artillery units of the Territorial Force, with some being used into the First World War.

Second Boer War (1899–1902)

"Joe Chamberlain" at Magersfontein.

Gun on static siege mounting, Siege of Ladysmith.

British forces in the Second Boer War were initially outgunned by the long range Boer artillery. Captain Percy Scott of HMS Terrible first improvised timber static siege mountings for two 4.7-inch (120 mm) guns from the Cape Town coastal defences, to counter the Boers' "Long Tom" gun during the Siege of Ladysmith in 1899–1900.

Gun on "Percy Scott" carriage at the Battle of Colenso.

Captain Scott then improvised a travelling carriage for 4.7 inch guns removed from their usual static coastal or ship mountings to provide the army with a heavy field gun. These improvised carriages lacked recoil buffers and hence in action drag shoes and attachment of the carriage by cable to a strong point in front of the gun were necessary to control the recoil. They were manned by Royal Navy crews and required up to 32 oxen to move.

World War I

South-West Africa Campaign (1914–1915)

In sand, South West Africa Campaign, WWI. Note oxen.

The same guns mounted on "Percy Scott" carriages were used by South African forces against German forces in the South-West Africa Campaign in World War I. Guns were landed at Lüderitz Bay in October 1914 and later at Walvis Bay in February 1915 and moved inland across the desert in support of South African troops.

Western Front (1914–1917)

On 1900 Mk I "Woolwich" carriage, Sausage Valley, Somme 1916.

Germans with captured QF gun, on "Woolwich" carriage, in Belgium

Up to 92 QF 4.7 inch guns on more modern Mk I "Woolwich" carriages dating from June 1900 with partially effective (12 inch) recoil buffers, and on heavier "converted" carriages from old RML 40 pounder guns, went to France with Royal Garrison Artillery units, mostly of the Territorial Force, in 1914–1917.

They figured prominently in the early battles, such as at Neuve Chapelle in March 1915 where there were 32, and only 12 60 pounders, assigned to counter-battery fire. General Farndale reports that counter-battery fire there failed to deal with the German artillery, but ascribes the failure to the as yet imprecise nature of long range map shooting, and the difficulty of maintaining forward observers on the flat terrain.

By the Battle of Aubers Ridge on 9 May 1915 the barrels of the 28 guns of the 3rd and 8th Heavy Brigades and the 1st West Riding and 1st Highland Heavy Batteries engaged were now so worn that driving bands were stripped off shells at the muzzle, limiting accuracy. In addition two guns in the armoured train "Churchill" were in action at Aubers Ridge. Thirty-three 60 pounders were available. Counter-battery fire again failed due to the inaccuracy of the worn-out guns and also because the army still lacked accurate means of locating enemy guns, as air observation and reporting and use of radio was only beginning.

The inaccuracy through wear and relatively light shell diminished their usefulness in the developing trench warfare, and they were replaced by the modern 60 pounder guns as they became available. At the Battle of the Somme in June–July 1916 there were 32 4.7-inch (120 mm) guns and 128 60-pounders engaged. The last were however not withdrawn until April 1917. Guns withdrawn from the Western Front were redeployed to other fronts such as Italy and Serbia.

Battle of Gallipoli (1915)

Dragging the gun up to its position at Anzac, July 1915.

Gun in emplacement at Anzac, Gallipoli.

A 4.7 inch gun was used by the 1st Heavy Artillery Battery, a joint unit of Australians and Royal Marines, on Gallipoli to counter long range Turkish fire from the "Olive Grove" (in fact "Palamut Luk" or Oak Grove) between Gaba Tepe and Maidos. Lt-Colonel Rosenthal, commanding 3rd Australian Field Artillery Brigade, noted : "I had made continual urgent representations for two 4.7-inch guns for right flank to deal with innumerable targets beyond the range of 18-prs., but it was not till 11 July that one very old and much worn gun arrived, and was placed in position on right flank, firing its first round on 26 July." This gun was destroyed and left behind at the withdrawal from Gallipoli but later salvaged as a museum piece. The burst barrel is on display at the Australian War Memorial.

Salonika Front

Several 4.7-inch (120 mm) guns mounted on "Percy Scott" carriages served with British and Serb forces in the Salonika (Macedonian) campaign from January 1916 onwards.

Japanese service

The Japanese Type 41 4.7-inch/40 (12 cm) naval gun was a license-produced copy of the Elswick Mark IV. Initially, a number were procured directly from Elswick in England. After the turn of the century, production in Japan was under the designation “Mark IVJ”. The gun was re-designated as Type 41 on 25 December 1908, after the 41st year in the reign of Japanese Emperor Meiji. It was further re-designated in centimeters on 5 October 1917 as part of the standardization process for the Imperial Japanese Navy to the metric system. Although finally classified as a "12 cm" gun the bore was unchanged at 4.724 inches.

During World War I, the Japanese Navy transferred 24 original Elswick-built and 13 Mark IVJ to Britain as part of their military assistance to the Allies under the Anglo-Japanese Alliance. In 1940, some of these weapons were emplaced in British coastal defence batteries; for instance, at Mersea Island in Essex.

It was the standard secondary or tertiary armament on most Japanese cruisers built between 1900 and 1920, and was the primary armament on a number of destroyers, including the Umikaze class. Some units were still in service as late as the Pacific War.

Italian service

These guns were mounted on Italian cruisers built by Ansaldo.

Ammunition

Early armour-piercing and practice rounds

Surviving examples

Japanese-built 4.7"/40 Mark IV in Manege Military Museum

• Preserved 4.7"/40 (12 cm) Mark IV*/VI on field carriage outdoors at Artillery Park, Valladolid, Spain.
• The burst gun barrel from Gallipoli is displayed at the Australian War Memorial, Canberra.
• Naval gun on display at the Museo Tecnico Navala Della Spezia, Italy.
• Japanese-built 4.7"/40 Mark IV in the Military Museum of Finland in Suomenlinna, Finland
• 4.7 inch QF Gun, No.563, Mark IV, manufactured in 1894 by Royal Gun Factory, preserved in courtyard of Indian Museum at Kolkata (Calcutta)

See also

• QF 4.7 inch Mk V naval gun - 45-calibre version used on merchant ships in World War I and World War II
• List of naval guns
• List of field guns

Weapons of comparable role, performance and era

• 4.7 inch Gun M1906 US field gun of same calibre

Bibliography

• Text Book of Gunnery, 1902. London: Printed for His Majesty's Stationery Office, by Harrison and Sons, St. Martin's Lane
• Handbook of the Q.F. 4.7-inch B (Mark IV*) Gun, on travelling carriage. For Volunteer Batteries. Land Service, 1902. London: Printed for His Majesty's Stationery Office, by Harrison and Sons, St. Martin's Lane
• Tony Bridgland, Field Gun Jack Versus the Boers: The Royal Navy in South Africa 1899–1900. Leo Cooper, 1998. ISBN 0-85052-580-2.
• Dale Clarke, British Artillery 1914–1919: Field Army Artillery. Osprey Publishing, Oxford UK, 2004. ISBN 1-84176-688-7.
• Tony DiGiulian, 4.7"/40 (12 cm) Elswick 4.7"/40 (12 cm) QF Marks I, II, III, IV and VI
• General Sir Martin Farndale, History of the Royal Regiment of Artillery. [New Series. Vol.1] Western Front 1914–18. London: Royal Artillery Institution, 1986. ISBN 1-870114-00-0.
• Major Darrell Hall, "Guns in South Africa 1899-1902 Part III and IV". South African Military History Society, Military History Journal, Vol 2 No 2, December 1971.
• Major Darrell Hall, "The Naval Guns in Natal 1899–1902". The South African Military History Society Military History Journal, Vol 4 No 3, June 1978.
• I.V. Hogg & L.F. Thurston, British Artillery Weapons & Ammunition 1914–1918. London: Ian Allan, 1972.
• Ross Mallett, MA Thesis, 1999. 2. Gallipoli
• Ross Mallett, AIF Artillery. updated 2005
• Lieut.-Colonel Charles Rosenthal, Commanding 3rd Australian Field Artillery Brigade, 1st Australian Division, Notes relating to Artillery at Anzac, from 25th April to 25th August, 1915. (Compiled from personal diary.) Appendix II in General Sir Ian Hamilton, G.C.B. Gallipoli Diary Vol. II. New York: George H. Doran Company, 1920.
• Admiral Percy Scott, Fifty Years in the Royal Navy, published 1919.
• "Instructions for 4.724 inch 120 mm Quick Firing Armstrong Gun and Automatic Centre Pivot Mounting", 1880s, as supplied to Australian colonies. From National Archives of Australia.

External links

• Diagram and photograph of gun on RML 40-pounder "Converted" traveling carriage at Victorian Forts and Artillery website
• Paul Benyon, Illustrated London News Dec 1899 - Apr 1900 - Blue Jackets with their Guns ashore
• Per Finsted, Dansk Militærhistorisk Selskab (Danish Military History Society) QF 4.7-in Field Gun (in Danish)