Naval Historywith Dr. Alex

Q&A · 1:25:45-1:27:21

Why Royal Navy gun standardization took years

Overlapping 4-inch, 4.5-inch, 4.7-inch, and 5.25-inch weapons reflected different roles and the slow conversion of a very large fleet.

Industrial ProductionMilitary LogisticsNaval ArtilleryRoyal Navy
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Question

Why did the Royal Navy operate so many different small and secondary gun calibers?

Short answer

Different roles and inherited production overlapped while an eight-year fleet-wide move toward the 4.5-inch gun was underway.

Notes

The 4-inch anti-aircraft gun, 4.7-inch destroyer weapon, 5.25-inch dual-purpose system, and newer 4.5-inch gun entered the fleet through different requirements and production cycles. Existing factories, mountings, and ammunition stocks could not simply be discarded during rearmament. The 4.5-inch gun was intended to combine anti-ship and anti-aircraft duties, but the Admiralty expected standardization begun in 1936 to take until roughly 1944 across so large a navy. Wartime need therefore made every usable system valuable during the long transition.