QF 6-pounder Hotchkiss

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QF 6 pounder Hotchkiss
Early Elswick gun on recoil mounting
Type
Place of originFrance
Service history
In service1885–1990
Used bySee
Breech
Vertical sliding-block
RecoilHydro-spring, 4 inch
ElevationDependent on mount
Rate of fire25 / minute[2]
Muzzle velocity1,818 feet per second (554 m/s)[3]
Effective firing range4,000 yards (3,700 m)[4]

The Ordnance QF Hotchkiss 6 pounder gun Mk I and Mk II or QF 6 pounder 8 cwt were a family of long-lived light 57 mm naval guns introduced in 1885 to defend against new, small and fast vessels such as torpedo boats and later submarines. There were many variants produced, often under license which ranged in length from 40 to 58 calibers, but 40 caliber was the most common version.

6-pounders were widely used by the navies of a number of nations and often used by both sides in a conflict. Due to advances in torpedo delivery and performance, 6-pounder guns were rapidly made obsolete and were replaced with larger guns aboard most larger warships. This led to their being used ashore during

Bofors 40mm L/60 autocannon
.

Operational history

Argentine service

Argentina adopted the 40 caliber Hotchkiss 6-pounder in the 1890s, to arm its four Giuseppe Garibaldi-class armored cruisers, purchased from Italy. The Argentinians were at that time engaged in a naval arms race with Chile. The last ships from this class were retired from service on 2 August 1954. Argentinian ships armed with 6-pounder guns include:

Brazilian service

Brazil adopted the 40 caliber Hotchkiss 6-pounder in the 1890s, to arm its

coastal defense ships, protected cruisers
and torpedo-gunboats. The Brazilians also used the competing Nordenfelt 6 pounders in lesser numbers. The last Brazilian ship retired was the coastal defense ship Marshal Floriano in 1936. The former Brazilian coastal defense ship Marshal Deodoro was sold to Mexico in 1924 and renamed Anáhuac, which was retired in 1938.

Chilean service

Chile adopted the 40 caliber Hotchkiss 6-pounder in the 1890s, to arm a battleship, an armored cruiser, and several protected cruisers. The last of these ships was retired in 1933.

Chinese service

China adopted the Hotchkiss 6-pounder in the 1880s, to arm its protected cruisers. During the

.

  • Zhiyuen-class cruisers
  • Chinese cruiser Jingyuen

French service

Despite originating in France the 6-pounder was not widely used by the French. Like the British, who paired their QF 3-pounder Hotchkiss guns with the larger 6-pounder, the French often paired their 3-pounders with the more powerful Canon de 65mm Modéle 1891. This gun is sometimes referred to as a 9-pounder in English publications. During World War II a few Flower-class Corvettes (Aconit, Commandant Drogou, Commandant Détroyat, Commandant d`Estienne d`Orves, Mimosa, Renoncule, Roselys) of the Free French Navy were armed with two 6-pounder guns.

Irish service

A 6-pounder gun was fitted to the single Vickers Mk. D tank used by the Irish Army between 1929 and 1940. When the tank was scrapped in 1940 the gun was removed and used as an anti-tank weapon.

Italian service

Italy adopted the 40 caliber Hotchkiss 6-pounder in 1886 to arm its armored cruisers, battleships, protected cruisers,

Nordenfelt 6 pounder gun and by 1909 the Nordenfelt had replaced the Hotchkiss in service.[5]
This was the opposite of the British who replaced their Nordenfelt guns with Hotchkiss guns.

Japanese service

Japan adopted the 40 caliber Hotchkiss 6-pounder in the 1880s to arm its destroyers, protected cruisers and unprotected cruisers. The Japanese versions of the 6-pounder were known as Yamanouchi guns and were largely identical to their British equivalents.[5] Ships on both sides of the First Sino-Japanese war and Russo-Japanese war were armed with Hotchkiss 6-pounder guns. The 6-pounder was the standard secondary and tertiary armament on most Japanese destroyers built between 1890 and 1920, and was still in service as late as the Pacific War.[6]

Russian service

The Russians began purchasing 40 caliber 6-pounders from France starting in 1904 to replace its 3-pounder and 1-pounder guns in the anti-torpedo boat role. In addition to 40 caliber guns, 50 and 58 caliber guns were also produced under license at the

102mm 60 caliber Pattern 1911 guns when combat experience in the Russo-Japanese war showed the 6-pounders were almost as ineffective as the 3-pounder and 1-pounder guns they had replaced. In 1911–12 a number were turned over to the Army for use as coastal artillery, and later in 1914 some were converted into anti-aircraft guns. In addition to the Hotchkiss guns there were also Nordenfeld Guns which were used as ranging guns for coastal defenses. Finland, a successor state to the Russian Empire, inherited a number of 6-pounders and used them throughout the Winter War and World War II in the coastal artillery role.[7]

Spanish service

Spain adopted both the 40-caliber Hotchkiss 6-pounder and the 42-caliber Nordenfelt 6-pounder in the 1880s to arm its armored cruisers, battleships, protected cruisers and unarmored cruisers. Seven ships (1 battleship, 3 unarmored cruisers and 3 protected cruisers) carried the Hotchkiss guns and eleven (8 unarmored cruisers and 3 protected cruisers) carried the Nordenfelt guns. Ships on both sides of the

USS Isla de Cuba
until sold to Venezuela in 1912 and renamed Mariscal Sucre, was the last ship decommissioned and scrapped in 1940.

United Kingdom service

The UK adopted a 40 calibre (i.e. 90inch barrel) version as Ordnance QF Hotchkiss 6 pounder gun

torpedo boats
which started to enter service in the late 1870s.

The UK also adopted the competing 42 calibre Ordnance QF 6 pounder Nordenfelt at the same time as the QF 6-pounder Hotchkiss, but the Royal Navy was not satisfied with the special Nordenfelt ammunition and fuzes. Following the explosion in 1900 of an ammunition ship due to defective fuses, Britain replaced Nordenfelt fuzes with the Hotchkiss designs and Nordenfelt guns were phased out in favor of the Hotchkiss guns and were declared obsolete by 1919.[8]

The original 1885 Hotchkiss Mk I was a built-up gun with a barrel, jacket and a locking hoop screwed to the front of the jacket. The Mk I lacked a recoil system, but the Mk II of 1890 introduced a hydraulic recoil mechanism with a pair of hydro-spring cylinders.[9] During World War I the navy required many more guns and an autofretted, mono-block barrel version was developed to simplify manufacture and identified as "6 pdr Single Tube". Initially these guns were only allowed to be fired with a special lower charge, but in 1917 they were relined with A tubes as Mk I+++ which enabled them to use the standard 6-pounder ammunition.[9]

After World War I the gun was considered obsolete for combat use, but continued in use as a

6-pdr Mk IIA with auto-loader until late 1944.[12]

Royal Navy ships armed with QF 6-pounder Hotchkiss guns include:

Tank service

Bovington Tank Museum
.

The 6-pounder was used to equip Male versions of the early British

Mk I – Mk III tanks. In 1916 the British Army was faced with the difficulty of quickly providing a new class of weapon. The existing Hotchkiss 6-pounder naval gun appeared to most closely meet the need (a compact enough weapon to fit into a tank sponson with a sufficient high explosive shell). A single gun was mounted in each sponson, i.e. two per Male tank able to fire forwards or to the side. Tanks armed only with machine guns
were designated as 'Female'.

The gun turned out to be too long for practical use as the end of the barrel could come into contact with the ground or other obstacles as the tank traveled over uneven ground. The British chose to shorten the gun rather than change its location and replaced it in 1917 in the

QF 6 pounder 6 cwt Hotchkiss
.

Anti-aircraft service

Britain lacked any dedicated air-defence artillery early in World War I and up to 72[13] 6-pounders were adapted to high-angle pedestal mountings at key establishments in Britain for close air defence by 1916. They are not listed as still being in service in this role at the end of the war,[10] presumably because German bombing attacks were conducted from relatively high altitudes which would have been beyond the gun's range.

United States service

Manufacturer Manufacturers Designation US Designation Caliber
Hotchkiss Mk I Mk I 40
Hotchkiss Mk I (trunnionless) Mk II 40
Hotchkiss Mk I long Mk III 45
Driggs-Schroeder Nos. 2, 4 and 5 rapid-fire field gun Mk IV 50
? Lynch field gun Mk V 35
Driggs-Schroeder Mk I rapid-fire Mk VI 45
Hotchkiss Mk II long Mk VII 45
Driggs-Schroeder Mk II Mk VIII 50
Vickers-Maxim Mk II semi-automatic Mk IX 42
Nordenfelt Mk II rapid-fire Mk X 42
Driggs-Seaburry Mk II semi-automatic Mk XI 50
Bethlehem Steel Mk I (No US designation sold to Britain in WWI) 50[5]
L'Univers Illustré, 1894
).

The history of the Hotchkiss 6-pounder (called the Rapid Fire gun rather than Quick Firer in the US) in

Cramp & Sons, had a license to build both the Hotchkiss and Driggs-Schroeder
and sold both to the Navy in parallel. It appears that Hotchkiss type guns had an edge in production in the first half of the 1890s, but by 1895 Driggs-Schroeders were being produced in quantity to equip a considerable number of newly commissioned ships. The initial purchases by the Navy were in small lots each year and there was no mass-production of these guns like one would see in smaller weapons. The Navy made certain that the ammunition for both the Hotchkiss and Driggs-Schroeder guns were identical.

There is no question that the Driggs-Schroeders were predominant in the new protected and armored cruisers that were being commissioned by 1895. However,

Brooklyn, New York, and Columbia. Although from photographs of particular guns on the vessels in question, it appears that the battleships USS Indiana, USS Oregon, and USS Iowa carried exclusively Hotchkiss 6-pounders with USS Massachusetts carrying Driggs-Schroeders. Unlike her 8-inch guns, the preserved USS Olympia (C-6) retains her Driggs-Schroeder 6-pounders. She is at the Independence Seaport Museum in Philadelphia
.

Beginning in 1910 6-pounder guns were replaced by

3"/50 caliber guns aboard US Navy ships.[14] However smaller ships such as US Coast Guard cutters, gunboats and minesweepers
continued to use 6-pounders in the years between World War I and World War II.

US Army service

The US Army also used the Hotchkiss 6-pounder, referred to as a "2.24-inch gun" in some period references. As the primary defender of coastal fortifications and harbors, the US Army had a need for lighter guns to supplement their shore batteries, particularly since land defense against infantry was a consideration in the 1890s.[b] The Army was in an experimental phase like the Navy, testing new weapons in an era when military budgets were expanding after decades of Congressional stinginess.

It appears that the US Army and US Navy, while both using the "Mark" system, assigned their designations to different ordnance. References indicate that

saluting guns at the post's flagpole.[16] A dozen were deployed at Fort Ruger in Hawaii as part of the Land Defense Project of 1915–1919, while others were deployed in the Philippines under this project.[17]

Ammunition

The 6-pounder fired

common shells. In World War II higher-yield high explosive
rounds were produced.

  • Mk XIV and XIII steel shell rounds with Mk V shell, 1914
    Mk XIV and XIII steel shell rounds with Mk V shell, 1914
  • Common shell rounds with Mk II shell from 1891
    Common shell rounds with Mk II shell from 1891
  • QF 6-pounder common projectile 1891 close-up.
    QF 6-pounder common projectile 1891 close-up.
  • Mk II Shell base, showing fuze hole
    Mk II Shell base, showing fuze hole
  • Mk IV base percussion fuze
    Mk IV base percussion fuze
  • 6-pounder ammunition label from 1893
    6-pounder ammunition label from 1893

Photo gallery

Licensed production

Wars

Users

Surviving examples

See also

Notes

  1. ^ British forces traditionally denoted smaller ordnance by the weight of its standard projectile, in this case approximately 6 lb (2.7 kg)
  2. ^ Somewhat inexplicably, defense against land attack disappeared from the design of forts built after 1900, and the Land Defense Project of the World War I era was apparently not repeated.[citation needed]
  1. ^ Hogg & Thurston 1972 quote 821 lb (372 kg) for the UK 40-calibres coast defence gun. DiGiulian quotes 849 lb (385 kg) for the naval gun. Weights varied according to barrel length.
  2. ^ 25 rounds per minute is the figure given by Elswick Ordnance for their 40-calibres model. Quoted in Brassey's Naval Annual 1901
  3. ^ 1818 ft/s in British service, with 90-inch (2.3 m) bore, using propellant of 1 lb 15 oz (0.88 kg) Q.F. black powder or 7¾ oz cordite size 5. Text Book of Gunnery, 1902, Table XII, Page 337.
  4. ^ Hogg&Thurston 1972, Page 36–39 quote 7,500 yards (6,900 m) maximum for the British version. Text Book of Gunnery 1902 quotes 4,000 yards (3,700 m).
  5. ^
    OCLC 751804655
    .
  6. .
  7. ^ "FINNISH ARMY 1918–1945: LIGHT COASTAL GUNS". www.jaegerplatoon.net. Retrieved 2017-07-09.
  8. ^ Hogg & Thurston 1972, Page 36
  9. ^ a b Hogg & Thurston 1972, Page 36-39
  10. ^ a b Routledge 1994, Page 27
  11. ^ Campbell, Naval Weapons of WWII, p.65.
  12. ^ See Reynolds 'MGB 658'
  13. ^ Routledge 1994, Page 17
  14. .
  15. ^ Lohrer, George L. Ordnance Supply Manual, U. S. Ordnance Dept., 1904, pp. 282-295
  16. ^ a b c Williford, pp. 44-45
  17. ^ Berhow, pp. 188-189, 217
  18. ^ Surviving seacoast artillery at the Coast Defense Study Group Archived 2016-04-18 at the Wayback Machine
  19. ^ a b c Berhow, p. 235

Bibliography

External links