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84-643: The Nahverteidigungswaffe was a roof mounted, breech-loaded , single shot , multi-purpose, 360 ° rotating grenade launcher that could fire a variety of ammunition . It was typically found on German tanks such as the Panzer IV , Panther I , Tiger I , and Tiger II from 1944 until the end of the war and was intended to replace three previous devices: the Nebelwurfgerät , the Minenabwurfvorrichtung , and pistol ports . The Nahverteidigungswaffe

168-608: A muzzleloader , in which the user loads the ammunition from the ( muzzle ) end of the barrel . The vast majority of modern firearms are generally breech-loaders, while firearms made before the mid-19th century were mostly smoothbore muzzle-loaders. Only a few muzzleloading weapons, such as mortars , rifle grenades , some rocket launchers , such as the Panzerfaust 3 and RPG-7 , and the GP series grenade launchers, have remained in common usage in modern military conflicts. However, referring to

252-489: A swivel for easy rotation, loaded by inserting a mug-shaped chamber already filled with powder and projectiles. The breech-loading swivel gun had a high rate of fire, and was especially effective in anti-personnel roles. Breech-loading firearms are known from the 16th century. Henry VIII possessed one, which he apparently used as a hunting gun to shoot birds. Meanwhile, in China, an early form of breech-loading musket, known as

336-410: A tower . A small turret, or sub-turret set on top of a larger one, is called a cupola . The term cupola is also used for a rotating turret that carries a sighting device rather than weaponry, such as that used by a tank commander. Before the development of large-calibre, long-range guns in the mid-19th century, the classic battleship design used rows of gunport-mounted guns on each side of

420-411: A barbette the protection was fixed, and the weapon and crew were on a rotating platform inside the barbette. In the 1890s, armoured hoods (also known as "gun houses") were added to barbettes; these rotated with the platform (hence the term "hooded barbette"). By the early 20th century, these hoods were known as turrets. Modern warships have gun-mountings described as turrets, though the "protection" on them

504-549: A barrel tip-down, remove the plug and reload actions. The later breech-loaders included the Ferguson rifle , which used a screw-in/screw out action to reload, and the Hall rifle , which tipped up at 30 degrees for loading. The better breech loaders, however, used percussion caps , including the Sharps rifle , using a falling block (or sliding block ) action to reload. And then later on came

588-547: A cylindrical breech plug secured by a horizontal wedge in 1837. In the 1850s and 1860s, Whitworth and Armstrong invented improved breech-loading artillery. The M1867 naval guns produced in Imperial Russia at the Obukhov State Plant used Krupp technology. A breech action is the loading sequence of a breech loading naval gun or small arm . The earliest breech actions were either three-shot break-open actions or

672-578: A failed 1916 experiment, a variant of the SPAD S.A two-seat fighter was probably the first aircraft to be fitted with a remotely-controlled gun, which was located in a nose nacelle . As aircraft flew higher and faster, the need for protection from the elements led to the enclosure or shielding of the gun positions, as in the "lobsterback" rear seat of the Hawker Demon biplane fighter. The first British operational bomber to carry an enclosed, power-operated turret

756-530: A few years later. The carbine was used extensively by the Forest Rangers, an irregular force led by Gustavus von Tempsky that specialized in bush warfare and reconnaissance. Von Tempsky liked the short carbine, which could be loaded while lying down. The waterproofed cartridge was easier to keep dry in the New Zealand bush. Museums in New Zealand hold a small number of these carbines in good condition. During

840-453: A gun turret mounted along the side, or the wings, of a warship , off the centerline. The positioning of a wing turret limits the gun's arc of fire, so that it generally can contribute to only the broadside weight of fire on one side of the ship. This is the major weakness of wing turrets as broadsides were the most prevalent type of gunnery duels. Depending on the configurations of ships, such as HMS Dreadnought but not SMS  Blücher ,

924-416: A large, cylindrical gun turret mounted amidships above the low-freeboard upper hull , also referred to as the "raft". This extended well past the sides of the lower, more traditionally shaped hull. A small, armoured pilot house was fitted on the upper deck towards the bow; however, its position prevented Monitor from firing her guns straight forward. Like Coles's, one of Ericsson's goals in designing

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1008-406: A previously fired weapon with a fouled barrel. Gun turrets and emplacements for breechloaders can be smaller since crews don't need to retract the gun for loading into the muzzle end. Unloading a breechloader is much easier as well, as the ammunition can be unloaded from the breech end and is often doable by hand; unloading muzzle loaders requires drilling into the projectile to drag it out through

1092-636: A ready-to load reusable cartridge. Patrick Ferguson , a British Army officer, developed in 1772 the Ferguson rifle , a breech-loading flintlock firearm. Roughly two hundred of the rifles were manufactured and used in the Battle of Brandywine , during the American Revolutionary War , but shortly after they were retired and replaced with the standard Brown Bess musket . In turn the American army, after getting some experience with muzzle-loaded rifles in

1176-527: A revolver using rimfire cartridges. The first centrefire cartridge was introduced in 1855 by Pottet, with both Berdan and Boxer priming . In 1842, the Norwegian Armed Forces adopted the breech-loading caplock, the Kammerlader , one of the first instances in which a modern army widely adopted a breech-loading rifle as its main infantry firearm. The Dreyse Zündnadelgewehr ( Dreyse needle gun )

1260-429: A revolving gun turret. Coles's aim was to create a ship with the greatest possible all round arc of fire, as low in the water as possible to minimise the target. The Admiralty accepted the principle of the turret gun as a useful innovation, and incorporated it into other new designs. Coles submitted a design for a ship having ten domed turrets each housing two large guns. The design was rejected as impractical, although

1344-425: A ship's upperworks and secondary armaments, as distances of battle were limited by fire control and weapon performance. In the early 1900s, weapon performance, armour quality and vessel speeds generally increased along with the distances of engagement; the utility of large secondary batteries reducing as a consequence, and in addition at extreme range it was impossible to see the fall of lesser weapons and so correct

1428-474: A small team passing fixed ammunition into the feed system. Smaller calibre weapons often operate on the autocannon principle, and indeed may not even be turrets at all; they may just be bolted directly to the deck. On board warships, each turret is given an identification. In the British Royal Navy , these would be letters: "A" and "B" were for the turrets from the front of the ship backwards in front of

1512-547: A turret mounting, except for large destroyers, like the American Fletcher and the German Narvik classes. In naval terms, turret traditionally and specifically refers to a gun mounting where the entire mass rotates as one, and has a trunk that projects below the deck . The rotating part of a turret seen above deck is the gunhouse, which protects the mechanism and crew, and is where the guns are loaded. The gunhouse

1596-399: A turret where the rammer is fixed to the cradle that carries the guns, allowing loading to occur across a wider range of elevations. Earlier turrets differed significantly in their operating principles. It was not until the last of the "rotating drum" designs described in the previous section were phased out that the "hooded barbette" arrangement above became the standard. A wing turret is

1680-411: A weapon specifically as breech-loading is mostly limited to non-repeating firearms, including single-shots , derringers , double-barreled shotguns , double-barreled rifles , combination guns , and volley guns . Breech-loading provides the advantage of reduced reloading time because it is far quicker to load the projectile and propellant into the chamber of a gun or cannon than to reach all

1764-465: Is handled, and the main trunk, which accommodates the shell and propellant hoists that bring ammunition up from the magazines below. There may be a combined hoist ( cf the animated British turret) or separate hoists ( cf the US turret cutaway). The working chamber and trunk rotate with the gunhouse, and sit inside a protective armoured barbette . The barbette extends down to the main armoured deck (red in

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1848-518: Is limited to protection from the weather. Rotating turrets can be mounted on a fortified building or structure such as a coastal blockhouse, be part of a land battery , be mounted on a combat vehicle , a naval ship , or a military aircraft , they may be armed with one or more machine guns , automatic cannons , large- calibre guns, or missile launchers . They may be manned or remotely controlled and are most often protected to some degree, if not actually armoured . The protection provided by

1932-475: Is supported on a bed of rotating rollers, and is not necessarily physically attached to the ship at the base of the rotating structure. In the case of the German battleship Bismarck , the turrets were not vertically restrained and fell out when she sank. The British battlecruiser Hood , like some American battleships, did have vertical restraints. Below the gunhouse there may be a working chamber, where ammunition

2016-465: The American Civil War , at least nineteen types of breech-loaders were fielded. The Sharps used a successful dropping block design. The Greene used rotating bolt-action, and was fed from the breech. The Spencer , which used lever-actuated bolt-action, was fed from a seven-round detachable tube magazine . The Henry and Volcanic used rimfire metallic cartridges fed from a tube magazine under

2100-588: The Che Dian Chong , was known to have been created in the second half of the 16th century for the Ming dynasty's arsenals . Like all early breech-loading fireams, gas leakage was a limitation and danger present in the weapon's mechanism. More breech-loading firearms were made in the early 18th century. One such gun known to have belonged to Philip V of Spain , and was manufactured circa 1715, probably in Madrid . It came with

2184-594: The Dreyse needle gun that used a moving seal (bolt) to seal and expose the breech. Later on, however, the Mauser M71/84 rifle used self-contained metallic cartridges and used a rotating bolt to open and close the breech. Gun turret Rotating gun turrets protect the weapon and its crew as they rotate. When this meaning of the word "turret" started being used at the beginning of the 1860s, turrets were normally cylindrical. Barbettes were an alternative to turrets; with

2268-768: The United States Army Air Corps , almost simultaneously with the RAF's Overstrand biplane bomber design. The Martin XB-10 prototype aircraft first featured the nose turret in June 1932—roughly a year before the less advanced Overstrand airframe design—and was first produced as the YB-10 service test version by November 1933. The production B-10B version started service with the USAAC in July 1935. In time

2352-488: The radio alphabet was used on naming the turrets (e.g. "Anton", "Bruno" or "Berta", "Caesar", "Dora") as on the German battleship Bismarck . In the United States Navy , main battery turrets are numbered fore to aft . Secondary gun mounts are numbered by gun muzzle diameter in inches followed by a second digit indicating the position of the mount, with the second digit increasing fore to aft. Gun mounts not on

2436-611: The "Q" turret amidships in favour of heavier guns in fewer mountings. Like pre-dreadnoughts , the first dreadnoughts had two guns in each turret; however, later ships began to be fitted with triple turrets. The first ship to be built with triple turrets was the Italian Dante Alighieri , although the first to be actually commissioned was the Austro-Hungarian SMS ; Viribus Unitis of the Tegetthoff class . By

2520-551: The Admiralty remained interested in turret ships and instructed its own designers to create better designs. Coles enlisted the support of Prince Albert , who wrote to the first Lord of the Admiralty, the Duke of Somerset, supporting the construction of a turret ship. In January 1862, the Admiralty agreed to construct a ship, HMS Prince Albert which had four turrets and a low freeboard, intended only for coastal defence. While Coles designed

2604-540: The Overstrand was fitted with an enclosed and powered nose turret , mounting a Lewis gun . Rotation was handled by pneumatic motors while elevation and depression of the gun used hydraulic rams. The pilot's cockpit was also enclosed but the dorsal (upper) and ventral (belly) gun positions remained open, though shielded. The Martin B-10 all-metal monocoque monoplane bomber introduced turret-mounted defensive armament within

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2688-552: The Russian town of Taganrog in the Black Sea during the Siege of Taganrog . The Lady Nancy "proved a great success" and Coles patented his rotating turret design after the war. The British Admiralty ordered a prototype of Coles's patented design in 1859, which was installed in the ironclad floating battery, HMS Trusty , for trials in 1861, becoming the first warship to be fitted with

2772-684: The aim. Therefore, most early dreadnought battleships featured "all big gun" armaments of identical calibre, typically 11 or 12 inches (280 or 300 mm), some of which were mounted in wing turrets. This arrangement was not satisfactory, however, as the wing turrets not only had a reduced fire arc for broadsides, but also because the weight of the guns put great strain on the hull and it was increasingly difficult to properly armour them. Larger and later dreadnought battleships carried superimposed or superfiring turrets (i.e. one turret mounted higher than and firing over those in front of and below it). This allowed all turrets to train on either beam, and increased

2856-407: The aim. This provided faster rates of fire, but this is not directly related to whether the gun is breech-loading or not. Now that guns were able to fire without the entire carriage recoiling, the crew was able to remain grouped closely around the gun, ready to load and put final touches on the aim, prior to firing the next shot. That led to the development of an armored shield fitted to the carriage of

2940-402: The animation). At the base of the turret sit handing rooms, where shell and propelling charges are passed from the shell room and magazine to the hoists. The handling equipment and hoists are complex arrangements of machinery that transport the shells and charges from the magazine into the base of the turret. Bearing in mind that shells can weigh around a 5 long tons (5.6 short tons; 5.1 t),

3024-512: The barrel. These held a significant advantage over muzzle-loaders. The improvements in breech-loaders had spelled the end of muzzle-loaders. To make use of the enormous number of war surplus muzzle-loaders, the Allin conversion Springfield was adopted in 1866. General Burnside invented a breech-loading rifle before the war, the Burnside carbine . The French adopted the new Chassepot rifle in 1866, which

3108-490: The beginning of World War II , most battleships used triple or, occasionally, quadruple turrets, which reduced the total number of mountings and improved armour protection. However, quadruple turrets proved to be extremely complex to arrange, making them unwieldy in practice. The largest warship turrets were in World War II battleships where a heavily armoured enclosure protected the large gun crew during battle. The calibre of

3192-546: The bridge and behind the "B" turret, thus having restricted training fore and aft. Secondary turrets were named "P" and "S" ( port and starboard ) and numbered from fore to aft, e.g. P1 being the forward port turret. There were exceptions; the battleship HMS Agincourt had the uniquely large number of seven turrets. These were numbered "1" to "7" but were unofficially nicknamed "Sunday", Monday", etc. through to "Saturday". In German use, turrets were generally named "A", "B", "C", "D", "E", going from bow to stern. Usually

3276-509: The bridge, and letters near the end of the alphabet (i.e., "X", "Y", etc.) were for turrets behind the bridge ship, "Y" being the rearmost. Mountings in the middle of the ship would be "P", "Q", "R", etc. Confusingly, the Dido -class cruisers had a "Q" and the Nelson -class battleships had an "X" turret in what would logically be "C" position; the latter being mounted at the main deck level in front of

3360-474: The centerline would be assigned odd numbers on the port side and even numbers on the starboard side. For example, "Mount 52" would be the forwardmost 5 inches (130 mm) gun mount on the starboard side of the ship. During World War I, air gunners initially operated guns that were mounted on pedestals or swivel mounts known as pintles . The latter evolved into the Scarff ring , a rotating ring mount which allowed

3444-577: The firepower of those guns unable to engage an enemy because they sited on the wrong beam into a more powerful, and more versatile unified battery. Designs for a rotating gun turret date back to the late 18th century. In the mid-19th century, during the Crimean War , Captain Cowper Phipps Coles constructed a raft with guns protected by a 'cupola' and used the raft, named the Lady Nancy , to shell

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3528-590: The first rimfire metallic cartridge , constituted by a bullet fit in a percussion cap. Usually derived in the 6 mm and 9 mm calibres, it is since then called the Flobert cartridge but it does not contain any powder; the only propellant substance contained in the cartridge is the percussion cap itself. In English-speaking countries the Flobert cartridge corresponds to the .22 BB and .22 CB ammunitions. In 1846, yet another Frenchman, Benjamin Houllier , patented

3612-511: The first fully metallic cartridge containing powder in a metallic shell. Houllier commercialised his weapons in association with the gunsmiths Blanchard or Charles Robert. But the subsequent Houllier and Lefaucheux cartridges, even if they were the first full-metal shells, were still pinfire cartridges, like those used in the LeMat (1856) and Lefaucheux (1858) revolvers, although the LeMat also evolved in

3696-423: The first fully self-contained cartridges : the cartridges incorporated a copper base with integrated mercury fulminate primer powder (the major innovation of Pauly), a round bullet and either brass or paper casing. The cartridge was loaded through the breech and fired with a needle. The needle-activated central-fire breech-loading gun would become a major feature of firearms thereafter. The corresponding firearm

3780-589: The first seagoing warship to carry her guns in turrets. Laid down in 1866 and completed in June 1869, it carried two turrets, although the inclusion of a forecastle and poop prevented the turret guns firing fore and aft. The gun turret was independently invented in the United States by the Swedish inventor John Ericsson , although his design was technologically inferior to Coles's version. Ericsson designed USS  Monitor in 1861, its most prominent feature being

3864-597: The gap and jammed the turrets during the First Battle of Charleston Harbor in April 1863. Direct hits at the turret with heavy shot also had the potential to bend the spindle, which could also jam the turret. Monitor was originally intended to mount a pair of 15-inch (380 mm) smoothbore Dahlgren guns , but they were not ready in time and 11-inch (280 mm) guns were substituted, each gun weighing approximately 16,000 pounds (7,300 kg). Monitor ' s guns used

3948-731: The gun had numerous deficiencies; specifically, serious problems with gas leaking. However, the rifle was used to great success in the Prussian army in the Austro-Prussian war of 1866. This, and the Franco-Prussian war of 1870–71, eventually caused much interest in Europe for breech-loaders and the Prussian military system in general. In 1860, the New Zealand government petitioned the Colonial Office for more soldiers to defend Auckland . The bid

4032-594: The gun to be turned to any direction with the gunner remaining directly behind it, the weapon held in an intermediate elevation by bungee cord , a simple and effective mounting for single weapons such as the Lewis Gun though less handy when twin mounted as with the British Bristol F.2 Fighter and German "CL"-class two-seaters such as the Halberstadt and Hannover -designed series of compact two-seat combat aircraft. In

4116-510: The gun, to help shield the crew from long-range area or sniper fire from the new, high-velocity, long-range rifles, or even machine guns. Although breech-loading firearms were developed as far back as the early 14th century in Burgundy and various other parts of Europe, breech-loading became more successful with improvements in precision engineering and machining in the 19th century. The main challenge for developers of breech-loading firearms

4200-688: The heaviest armament: four 0.303 in (7.7 mm) Browning machine guns or, late in the war, two AN/M2 light-barrel versions of the US Browning M2 machine gun as in the Rose-Rice turret . The tail gunner or "Tail End Charlie" position was generally accepted to be the most dangerous assignment. During the war, British turrets were largely self-contained units, manufactured by Boulton Paul Aircraft and Nash & Thompson . The same model of turret might be fitted to several different aircraft types. Some models included gun-laying radar that could lead

4284-427: The hoists have to be powerful and rapid; a 15 inches (380 mm) turret of the type in the animation was expected to perform a complete loading and firing cycle in a minute. The loading system is fitted with a series of mechanical interlocks that ensure that there is never an open path from the gunhouse to the magazine down which an explosive flash might pass. Flash-tight doors and scuttles open and close to allow

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4368-512: The late 18th century, adopted the second standard breech-loading firearm in the world, M1819 Hall rifle , and in larger numbers than the Ferguson rifle. About the same time and later on into the mid-19th century, there were attempts in Europe at an effective breech-loader. There were concentrated attempts at improved cartridges and methods of ignition. In Paris in 1808, in association with French gunsmith François Prélat , Jean Samuel Pauly created

4452-410: The late 19th century up until the 1910s. In pre-dreadnought battleships, the wing turret contributed to the secondary battery of sub-calibre weapons. In large armoured cruisers , wing turrets contributed to the main battery, although the casemate mounting was more common. At the time, large numbers of smaller calibre guns contributing to the broadside were thought to be of great value in demolishing

4536-473: The latter half of the 19th Century, but were slowly replaced by various designs for repeating rifles , first used in the American Civil War. Manual breech-loaders gave way to manual magazine feed and then to self-loading rifles . Breech-loading is still commonly used in shotguns and hunting rifles . The first modern breech-loading rifled gun is a breech-loader invented by Martin von Wahrendorff with

4620-489: The main armament on large battleships was typically 300 to 460 mm (12 to 18 in). The turrets carrying three 460 mm (18 in) guns of Yamato each weighed around 2,500 t (2,500 long tons; 2,800 short tons). The secondary armament of battleships (or the primary armament of light cruisers ) was typically between 127 and 152 mm (5.0 and 6.0 in). Smaller ships typically mounted guns of 76 mm (3.0 in) and larger, although these rarely required

4704-603: The much faster firing 8-inch to shoot during the long reload time necessary for 12-inch guns by superposing secondary gun turrets directly on top of the primary turrets (as in the Kearsarge and Virginia -class battleships), but the idea proved to be practically unworkable and was soon abandoned. With the advent of the South Carolina -class battleships in 1908, the main battery turrets were designed so as to superfire , to improve fire arcs on centerline mounted weapons. This

4788-522: The number of turrets carried and the number of guns mounted increased. RAF heavy bombers of World War II such as the Handley Page Halifax (until its Mk II Series I (Special) version omitted the nose turret), Short Stirling and Avro Lancaster typically had three powered turrets: rear, mid-upper and nose. (Early in the war, some British heavy bombers also featured a retractable, remotely-operated ventral /mid-under turret). The rear turret mounted

4872-485: The passage between areas of the turret. Generally, with large-calibre guns, powered or assisted ramming is required to force the heavy shell and charge into the breech . As the hoist and breech must be aligned for ramming to occur, there is generally a restricted range of elevations at which the guns can be loaded; the guns return to the loading elevation, are loaded, then return to the target elevation, at which time they are said to be "in battery". The animation illustrates

4956-420: The ship was to present the smallest possible target to enemy gunfire. The turret's rounded shape helped to deflect cannon shot. A pair of donkey engines rotated the turret through a set of gears; a full rotation was made in 22.5 seconds during testing on 9 February 1862. However, fine control of the turret proved to be difficult, as it would have to be reversed if it overshot its mark. In lieu of reversing

5040-423: The ship, often mounted in casemates . Firepower was provided by a large number of guns, each of which could traverse only in a limited arc. Due to stability issues, fewer large (and thus heavy) guns can be carried high on a ship, but as this set casemates low and thus near the waterline they were vulnerable to flooding, effectively restricted their use to calm seas. Additionally casemate mounts had to be recessed into

5124-523: The side of a vessel to afford a wide arc of fire, and such recesses presented shot traps , compromising the integrity of armour plating. Rotating turrets were weapon mounts designed to protect the crew and mechanism of the artillery piece and with the capability of being aimed and fired over a broad arc, typically between a three-quarter circle up to a full 360 degrees. These presented the opportunity to concentrate firepower in fewer, better-sited positions by eliminating redundancy, in other words combining

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5208-485: The standard propellant charge of 15 pounds (6.8 kg) specified by the 1860 ordnance instructions for targets "distant", "near", and "ordinary", established by the gun's designer Dahlgren himself. They could fire a 136-pound (61.7 kg) round shot or shell up to a range of 3,650 yards (3,340 m) at an elevation of +15°. HMS  Thunderer (1872) represented the culmination of this pioneering work. An ironclad turret ship designed by Edward James Reed , she

5292-511: The strain on the hull would have been too great. Many modern surface warships have mountings for larger calibre guns, although the calibres are now generally between 3 and 5 inches (76 and 127 mm) for use against both air and surface targets . The gunhouses are often just weatherproof covers for the gun mounting equipment and are made of light un-armoured materials such as glass-reinforced plastic . Modern turrets are often automatic in their operation, with no humans working inside them and only

5376-577: The target and compensate for bullet drop . As almost a 1930s "updated" adaptation of the First World War Bristol F.2b concept, the UK introduced the concept of the "turret fighter", with aeroplanes such as the Boulton Paul Defiant and Blackburn Roc where the armament was four (0.303 in (7.7 mm)) machine-guns was in a turret mounted behind the pilot, rather than in fixed positions in

5460-456: The turret from sliding sideways. When not in use, the turret rested on a brass ring on the deck that was intended to form a watertight seal. However, in service, the interface between the turret and deck ring heavily leaked, despite caulking by the crew. The gap between the turret and the deck proved to be another kind of problem for several Passaic -class monitors , which used the same turret design, as debris and shell fragments entered

5544-482: The turret may be against battle damage, the weather conditions, general environment in which the weapon or its crew will be operating. The name derives from the pre-existing noun turret , from the French "touret", diminutive of the word "tower", meaning a self-contained protective position which is situated on top of a fortification or defensive wall as opposed to rising directly from the ground, in which case it constitutes

5628-413: The turret, a full rotation would have to be made to train the guns where desired. Including the guns, the turret weighed approximately 160 long tons (179 short tons; 163 t); the entire weight rested on an iron spindle that had to be jacked up using a wedge before the turret was free to rotate. The spindle was 9 inches (23 cm) in diameter which gave it ten times the strength needed in preventing

5712-638: The turrets, the ship was the responsibility of Chief Constructor Isaac Watts . Another ship using Coles' turret designs, HMS  Royal Sovereign , was completed in August 1864. Its existing broadside guns were replaced with four turrets on a flat deck and the ship was fitted with 5.5 inches (140 mm) of armour in a belt around the waterline. Early ships like the Royal Sovereign had little sea-keeping qualities being limited to coastal waters. Sir Edward James Reed , went on to design and build HMS Monarch ,

5796-471: The way over to the front end to load ammunition and then push them back down a long tube – especially when the projectile fits tightly and the tube has spiral ridges from rifling . In field artillery , the advantages were similar – crews no longer had to get in front of the gun and pack ammunition in the barrel with a ramrod , and the shot could now tightly fit the bore, greatly increasing its power, range, and accuracy. It also made it easier to load

5880-461: The weight of fire forward and aft. The superfiring or superimposed arrangement had not been proven until after South Carolina went to sea, and it was initially feared that the weakness of the previous Virginia -class ship's stacked turrets would repeat itself. Larger and later guns (such as the US Navy's ultimate big gun design, the 16"/50 Mark 7 |16-inch) also could not be shipped in wing turrets, as

5964-461: The whole length of the barrel, and in some cases the guns are simply fired to facilitate unloading process. After breech-loading became common, it also became common practice to fit counter-recoil systems, such as the hydro-pneumatic recoil mechanism on the Canon de 75 modèle 1897 , onto field guns and howitzers to prevent the recoil from rolling the carriage back and forth with every shot and ruining

6048-526: The wing turrets could fire fore and aft, so this somewhat reduced the danger when an opponent crossed the T enabling it to fire a full broadside. Attempts were made to mount turrets en echelon so that they could fire on either beam, such as the Invincible -class and SMS  Von der Tann battlecruisers , but this tended to cause great damage to the ships' deck from the muzzle blast. Wing turrets were commonplace on capital ships and cruisers during

6132-489: The wings. The Defiant and Roc possessed no fixed, forward-firing guns; the Bristol F.2 was designed with one synchronized Vickers machine gun firing forward on a fuselage mount. The concept came at a time when the standard armament of a fighter was only two machine guns and in the face of heavily armed bombers operating in formation, it was thought that a group of turret fighters would be able to concentrate their fire flexibly on

6216-458: Was a simple breech-loaded launcher tube oriented at a 50° angle and fitted in a traversable mounting on the turret roof. Unlike the previous externally mounted launchers, it was not exposed to enemy fire, being reloaded from within the vehicle through a hinged breech. The Nahverteidigungswaffe was designed to mate with the standard 26 millimetres (1 in) Kampfpistole flare gun and could be sealed by an armored plug when not in use. Aiming

6300-419: Was a single-shot breech-loading rifle using a rotating bolt to seal the breech. It was so called because of its .5-inch needle-like firing pin, which passed through a paper cartridge case to impact a percussion cap at the bullet base. It began development in the 1830s under Johann Nicolaus von Dreyse and eventually an improved version of it was adopted by Prussia in the late 1840s. The paper cartridge and

6384-443: Was also developed by Pauly. Pauly made an improved version, which was protected by a patent on 29 September 1812. The Pauly cartridge was further improved by the French gunsmith Casimir Lefaucheux in 1828, by adding a pinfire primer, but Lefaucheux did not register his patent until 1835: a pinfire cartridge containing powder in a cardboard shell. In 1845, another Frenchman Louis-Nicolas Flobert invented, for indoor shooting ,

6468-448: Was by periscopes located on the turret and cupola. The device could fire the following ammunition: The Sprenggranatpatrone 326 Lp had a range of 7 to 10 meters (23 to 33 ft) with a blast point of 0.5 to 2 meters (2 to 7 ft) above the ground. It splintered to a circumferential distance of 100 meters (328 ft) after an initial delay time of one second . All turret hatches and openings were to be closed when this round

6552-445: Was equipped with revolving turrets that used pioneering hydraulic turret machinery to maneouvre the guns. She was also the world's first mastless battleship , built with a central superstructure layout, and became the prototype for all subsequent warships. With her sister HMS  Devastation of 1871 she was another pivotal design, and led directly to the modern battleship. The US Navy tried to save weight and deck space, and allow

6636-596: Was fired. The Nahverteidigungswaffe was first mounted in March 1944 on the Panther tank . It was equipped on a variety of late-war vehicles, including the Sturmtiger and the Maus tank . Breechloader A breechloader is a firearm in which the user loads the ammunition from the breech end of the barrel (i.e., from the rearward, open end of the gun's barrel), as opposed to

6720-692: Was much improved over the Dreyse needle gun as it had dramatically fewer gas leaks due to its de Bange sealing system. The British initially took the existing Enfield and fitted it with a Snider breech action (solid block, hinged parallel to the barrel) firing the Boxer cartridge. Following a competitive examination of 104 guns in 1866, the British decided to adopt the Peabody -derived Martini-Henry with trap-door loading in 1871. Single-shot breech-loaders would be used throughout

6804-483: Was necessitated by a need to move all main battery turrets to the vessel's centerline for improved structural support. The 1906 HMS  Dreadnought , while revolutionary in many other ways, had retained wing turrets due to concerns about muzzle blast affecting the sighting mechanisms of a turret below. A similar advancement was in the Kongō -class battlecruisers and Queen Elizabeth -class battleships, which dispensed with

6888-442: Was sealing the breech. This was eventually solved for smaller firearms by the development of the self-contained metallic cartridge in the mid-19th century. For firearms too large to use cartridges, the problem was solved by the development of the interrupted screw . Breech-loading swivel guns were invented in the 14th century. They were a particular type of swivel gun , and consisted in a small breech-loading cannon equipped with

6972-473: Was the Boulton & Paul Overstrand twin-engined biplane, which first flew in 1933. The Overstrand was similar to its First World War predecessors in that it had open cockpits and hand-operated machine guns. However, unlike its predecessors, the Overstrand could fly at 140 mph (230 km/h) making operating the exposed gun positions difficult, particularly in the aircraft's nose. To overcome this problem,

7056-554: Was unsuccessful and the government began instead making inquiries to Britain to obtain modern weapons. In 1861 they placed orders for the Calisher and Terry carbine , which used a breech-loading system using a bullet consisting of a standard Minié lead bullet in .54 calibre backed by a charge and tallowed wad, wrapped in nitrated paper to keep it waterproof. The carbine had been issued in small numbers to English cavalry ( Hussars ) from 1857. About 3–4,000 carbines were brought into New Zealand

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