British Heavy Artillery (1899-1915)
Part III: New Weapons of the 1890s
This is the third installment of a multi-part series. For the first two parts, follow the following links:
In the course of the 1890s, most garrison artillery companies received new weapons. In addition to being more powerful than their predecessors, made of newer materials, and built to make the most of the new smokeless propellants, these new pieces served more specialized purposes. The new 6-inch (152mm) and 5.4-inch (137mm) howitzers issued to siege companies had been optimized for the task of dropping of heavy shells on top of low-profile fortresses. To this end, they sported special platforms that, though difficult to transport, allowed their shells to be fired at very high angles.1 The long-barrelled, high-velocity guns that replaced the multi-purpose ordnance of coast defence companies bore a close family resemblance to the ordnance then being installed upon warships of the Royal Navy. Like their shipboard siblings, these weapons enjoyed the high muzzle velocities needed to send capped shells through the armor of hostile vessels.2
The achievement of high muzzle velocities required the use of large propellant charges. These, in turn, required very long barrels and, as a result, made the piece much heavier than it otherwise would have been. The 12-pounder (75mm) coast defence gun introduced in 1894, for example, fired the exact same projectile as the 12-pounder gun adopted that year by the Royal Horse Artillery. Nonetheless, the propellant charge used by the coast defence 12-pounder was nearly three times as large as the one used with the horse artillery 12-pounder. In addition, the barrel of coast defence piece extended twice as far as the tube of its horse artillery counterpart and, as a result, weighed twice as much.3
The only garrison artillery weapons of the 1890s that retained some of the multi-purpose character of the pieces they had replaced were the 4-inch (102mm) and 5-inch (127mm) guns provided to the inland fortresses of India. Like the newer coast-defence pieces, these guns had originally been designed as anti-ship weapons. Soon after their introduction, however, progress in naval armor had deprived them of usefulness in that role. They were thus relegated to land-locked stations, where they stood ready to serve as fortress guns, siege artillery pieces or mobile heavy guns.4
I.V. Hogg and L.F. Thurston British Artillery Weapons and Ammunition (London: Ian Allen, 1972) pages 120-125.
British Artillery Weapons and Ammunition pages 94-95 and 114-115
British Artillery Weapons and Ammunition pages 52-55 and War Office Treatise on Ammunition (London: HMSO, 1902) page 465