5"/51 caliber gun

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5"/51 caliber guns (spoken "five-inch-fifty-one-caliber") formed the secondary batteries of United States Navy battleships built from 1907 through the 1920s. United States naval gun terminology indicates the gun fired a projectile 5 inches (127 mm) in diameter, and the barrel was 51 calibers long. (barrel length is 5" × 51 = 255" or 6.4 meters.)^[1]

The gun weighed about 5 tonnes and used a 24.5-pound (11 kg) charge of nitrocellulose propellant to give a 50-pound (23 kg) projectile a velocity of 3,150 feet per second (960 m/s). Range was 9 miles (15 km) at the maximum elevation of 20 degrees.^[2]

Increased awareness of the need for anti-aircraft protection encouraged mounting of dual-purpose 5"/38 caliber guns in later battleships and most of the older battleships were rearmed. Surplus guns from scrapped or re-armed battleships were mounted in United States Coast Guard cutters, auxiliaries, small aircraft carriers, coast defense batteries, and Defensively Equipped Merchant Ships.^[3]

The 5"/51 caliber gun was mounted on:

USS Delaware (BB-28)[4] USS North Dakota (BB-29)[4] USS Florida (BB-30)[5] USS Utah (BB-31)[5] USS Wyoming (BB-32)[6] USS Arkansas (BB-33)[6] USS New York (BB-34)[7] USS Texas (BB-35)[7] USS Nevada (BB-36)[8] USS Oklahoma (BB-37)[8] USS Pennsylvania (BB-38)[9] USS Arizona (BB-39)[9] USS New Mexico (BB-40)[10] USS Mississippi (BB-41)[10] USS Idaho (BB-42)[10] USS Tennessee (BB-43)[11] USS California (BB-44)[11] USS Colorado (BB-45)[12] USS Maryland (BB-46)[12] USS West Virginia (BB-48)[12] USS Langley (CV-1)[13]

USS Long Island (CVE-1)[14] USS Bogue (CVE-9)[15] USS Card (CVE-11)[15] USS Copahee (CVE-12)[15] USS Core (CVE-13)[15] USS Nassau (CVE-16)[15] USS Altamaha (CVE-18)[15] USS Barnes (CVE-20)[15] USS Block Island (CVE-21)[15] USS Breton (CVE-23)[15] USS Croatan (CVE-25)[15] USS Sangamon (CVE-26)[16] USS Suwannee (CVE-27)[16] USS Chenango (CVE-28)[16] USS Santee (CVE-29)[16] USS Charger (CVE-30)[17] USS Prince William (CVE-31)[15] USCG Tampa Class Cutters[18] USCG Lake Class Cutters[18] USCG Treasury Class Cutters[18] Banff class sloops[18]

[edit] Notes

[edit] References

• Breyer, Siegfried (1973). Battleships and Battle Cruisers 1905–1970. Doubleday and Company. ISBN 0385-0-7247-0. 
• Campbell, John (1985). Naval Weapons of World War Two. Naval Institute Press. ISBN 0-87021-459-4. 
• Fahey, James C. (1939). The Ships and Aircraft of the U.S. Fleet. Ships and Aircraft. 
• Fahey, James C. (1941). The Ships and Aircraft of the U.S. Fleet, Two-Ocean Fleet Edition. Ships and Aircraft. 
• Fairfield, A.P. (1921). Naval Ordnance. The Lord Baltimore Press. 
• Friedman, Norman (1983). U.S. Aircraft Carriers. Naval Institute Press. ISBN 0-87021-739-9.