15.2cm Single Gun Mount
Introduction
英国開発のものを国産化、「金剛」型戦艦や「扶桑」型戦艦の副砲として搭載されました。
「伊勢」型戦艦以降は改良軽量型14cm砲が搭載されるようになりました。
対空射撃は不可能で、後に近代化改修に伴い、対空火器増設や軽量化のため、表舞台から去っていきました。
"Knocking down British-made gun, this weapon was utilised as secondary gun on Kongo-class and Fuso-class. After Ise-class the renewed, lightened variant of 14cm caliber was adapted. Anti-air firing was impossible; during later modernisations these guns either gave their way to anti-air weapons or were taken down for weight reduction."
The 15.2cm guns were originally designed by Vickers as secondary weapons for the battlecruiser Kongo, which was built in Britain by Vickers-Armstrong (Barrow). The Japanese version was designed by Engineer Hata Chiyokichi and adopted in 1908. In the Japanese Navy, Vickers built guns were designated as Mark II while those built in Japan were designated as Mark III. The design itself was outstanding at its time, but 15.2cm shell proved too heavy for Japanese sailors and had inferior firing rate (circa 6rpm), thus the lighter variant of 14cm caliber was later designed in-house.
When the Kongo-class was modernized in the 1930s, these guns were removed and reused on the Agano-class light cruisers in new twin mountings. There are also some coastal defense batteries at Guam were also equipped with these weapons.
Note
Buildable.
This type of gun comes in a casemate mounting and would be mounted in an armored room along the side of the ship known as a casemate. Casemates too close to the waterline or too close to the bow of the ship were prone to flooding thus making the gun ineffective.
See Also