The Cult of the 'Four Point Seven'
British Heavy Artillery (1899-1915)
On 12 February 1900, while speaking in the House of Commons, the Marquess of Landsdowne, then serving as Secretary of State for War, proposed the procurement of a large number of 4.7-inch guns. These weapons, he explained, ‘which have done such excellent service in South Africa, and which are apparently regarded as the most efficient guns of that description which we can find’ would be used to arm the sixty position batteries of the Volunteer Force.1 2
This proposal, it seems, owed much to the attention lavished on the 4.7-inch guns employed by landing parties of the Royal Navy during the two weeks or so that preceded it. In particular the Illustrated London News had recently published pictures of a particular weapon of that type, a shipboard piece on an improvised carriage that had been given the nickname of ‘Joe Chamberlain’.3 The captions on both of these pictures, moreover, underscored the ability of shells fired by the piece to reach distant targets.4
Keep reading with a 7-day free trial
Subscribe to The Tactical Notebook to keep reading this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives.