Major Updates

12 March 2024 - New History and Technology entry, A Brief History of the Battle of Skagerrack, May 31-June 1, 1916

28 February 2024 - New History and Technology entry, The Report on the Battle of Jutland by the Austro-Hungarian Naval Attaché in Berlin, Fregattenkapitän Colloredo-Mannsfeld

07 January 2024 - New History and Technology entry, Guns at Dahlgren

27 November 2023 - New History and Technology entry, The British 14in Quadruple Mark III Turret

02 November 2023 - New History and Technology entry, Battlecruiser Chronology: North Sea Operations in World War One

10 August 2023 - Revised many World War II-era US range tables to include Angle of Fall, Striking Velocity and Maximum Ordinate

23 July 2023 - New Robert Lundgren Historical Resource entry, U.S.S. Nevada (BB-36) at Normandy

29 April 2023 - New Order of Battle: Atlantic and Arctic entry, USN Atlantic Fleet Composition on 07 December 1941

21 April 2023 - New Robert Lundgren Historical Resource entry, The Naval Battle for Henderson Airfield, First Night

19 October 2022 - New History and Technology entry, The Limits of Japanese Strength and Strategic Alternatives in December, 1941

14 October 2022 - New History and Technology entry, The Myth of the Unusable Gun Turret: Legend or Reality?

09 March 2022 - New History and Technology entry, Do Turrets really fall out if a Battleship capsizes?

26 February 2022 - A large update to the USN 16"/50 (40.6 cm) Mark 7 datapage.

29 October 2021 - Four new History and Technology entries added; From Fellside to Flyplane, a digital book about British AA fire control system development, Lessons Not Learned, an essay about cruise-missile attacks, A Bridge Too Far, an essay about Cold War UAVs, and Ready Ammunition on SMS Hindenburg, a listing of ammunition carried during World War I.

28 October 2021 - New Nathan Okun essay British Fuzes after Jutland added.

11 June 2021 - New Nathan Okun essay USN Special Common Projectiles added.

17 May 2021 - Added new History and Technology article, USN Large Caliber Gun Construction by James Poynor

01 March 2021 - Added new History and Technology article, USN Anti-Aircraft Fire Control Comparison by G. R. Pomerat and J. M. Dobbie

08 December 2020 - Converted the South Dakota Damage Analysis to php format at the Robert Lundgren Historical Resource.

12 November 2020 - Added USS South Dakota Action Report, USS South Dakota Gunnery Summary and USS Washington Gunnery Summary to The Robert Lundgren Historical Resource.

25 September 2020 - Added Austria-Hungary section to Naval Propellants - A Brief Overview essay.

27 July 2020 - Added new Austria-Hungary Torpedoes datapage.

07 May 2020 - Added new History and Technology essay, HACS: A Debacle or Just-in-Time? by Peter Marland

21 February 2020 - Added audio recording of Cdr. Harry L. Thompson to Pearl Harbor OOB.

09 February 2020 - Updated Do Battleships move sideways when they fire? on the Naval Technical Board.

05 February 2020 - Added Naval Battle of Guadalcanal to The Robert Lundgren Historical Resource.

27 January 2020 - Added Kirishima Wreck Analysis to The Robert Lundgren Historical Resource.

15 June 2019 - New Nathan Okun essay HMS HOOD: British 1919 Tests on Upper Belt and Deck Armor and new HCWCAL6 program added.

21 May 2019 - Large update to USN Ship Designations.

24 February 2019 - Many updates to German Weapons of World War I and II thanks to Thorsten Wahl who provided me with dozens of German original source documents.

04 September 2018 - Updates to Nathan Okun Resource: FaceHard 8.0 armor program; plus new 'Metallurgical Investigation of 13.5" Class "A" Ex-OKLAHOMA Armor Plate', 'USN Comparison of Japanese and USA Armor Plate of World War II', 'British World War I APC Cap and Windscreen Weights' and 'Problems Involved in Evaluating Armor Penetration' documents.

16 August 2018 - Updates to French World War I guns at French Naval Guns.

28 June 2018 - Updated Santa Cruz OOB to add USA and Japan Carrier Aircraft and Aircraft Crew Losses

17 May 2018 - New HCWCAL5 program added.

26 February 2018 - Added new information and photographs to the Bofors 25 mm/64 Model 1932, 40 mm/43 Model 1932, 40 mm/60 Model 1936 and 40 mm/70 Model 1948 datapages.

11 February 2018 - New FaceHard 7.9 program added.

30 January 2018 - Almost all datapages have been updated to the HTML 5 standard thanks to very hard work by Matthew Lam.

13 October 2017 - New FaceHard 7.8 program added.

27 August 2017 - All INRO articles now converted over to HTML 5 format.

11 June 2017 - All gun datapages now converted over to HTML 5 format.

03 June 2017 - New FaceHard 7.6 program added.

12 May 2017 - New HCWCAL3 program added. Many Weapon datapages have been updated to the HTML 5 format with new data and photographs added, take a look around.

30 December 2016 - New FaceHard 7.5 and HCWCAL2 programs added.

20 September 2016 - New FaceHard 7.4 programs added.

23 July 2016 - New FaceHard 7.3 programs added.

16 July 2016 - New Tech Board Essay, "Naval Camouflage" added.

30 March 2016 - Started conversion of NavWeaps to HTML 5 format. This will be a long-term project as there are over 1,000 webpages that will need to be converted. Trying not to break existing links, but this may change as I go forward with this conversion.

02 December 2015 - Changed Vickers Photographic Archive links to point at Wayback Archive.

24 September 2015 - Updated French destroyer guns of the inter-war period - 15 cm Tbts, 75mm/50 Model 1922, 130 mm/40 Model 1919, 130 mm/40 Model 1924, 138.6 mm/40 Model 1923, 138.6 mm/40 Model 1927, 138.6 mm/50 Model 1929/1934 and 130 mm/45 Model 1932.

16 January 2014 - New FaceHard 7.0 programs added.

28 December 2013 - Raided the Imperial War Museum for photographs and updated the datapages associated with many of them. This link, link and link will find most of them for you.

08 April 2013 - Added data, photographs and sketches to many French weapons - 203 mm Model 1924, 155 mm Model 1920, 152 mm Model 1930, 138 mm Model 1923, 138 mm Model 1927, 127 mm Model 1948, 100 mm Model 1925, 100 mm 1930, 90 mm Model 1926, 57 mm Model 1951, 37 mm Model 1933 and a German weapon in French service 10.5 cm SK/C33.

17 March 2013 - Added new Order of Battles for The Mediterranean Sea

09 June 2012 - Added HCWCAL programs and graphs by Nathan Okun

23 March 2012 - New FaceHard 6.9 programs added.

18 March 2012 - Updated The Loss of H.M.S. Hood with more sketches and photographs from the original article.

26 July 2011 - New FLTNOSE and TPRFLTNS programs and four new essays by Nathan Okun.

24 July 2011 - New Order of Battle listings for Battle off Cape Sarych, Battle off the Bosporus and Battle off Östergarn.

23 June 2011 - Added new essay to the Naval Technical Board, Speed Thrills V.

20 December 2010 - Additional information for USA Torpedoes.

01 October 2010 - Added South Dakota Damage Analysis to the Robert Lundgren Historical Resource.

29 November 2009 - Added information to French naval guns of the World War II period - 380 mm Model 1935, 340 mm Model 1912, 330 mm Model 1931, 152 mm Model 1930, 130 mm Model 1932, 100 mm Model 1930, 100 mm Model 1945, 57 mm Model 1951, 37 mm Model 1933, 37 mm Model 1935 and 13 mm Model 1929.

15 November 2009 - Added FaceHard Naval Gun Armor Penetration Tables.

30 October 2009 - Added new essay to the Naval Technical Board, R2D2 with Attitude.

08 October 2009 - Nathan Okun updated Table of Metallurgial Properties of Naval Armor & Construction Materials.

19 June 2009 - Added new section to the website, the Robert Lundgren Historical Resource.

21 April 2009 - Added new essay to the Naval Technical Board, VT Fuze - What does "VT" Mean?

07 January 2009 - I have decided to add a "Page History" section at the bottom of each weapons datapage for all changes going forward. This will show a "Benchmark" date of the last previous change plus the dates and descriptions of any new changes. An example of this may be found here.

26 November 2008 - New FaceHard 6.8 programs and a new article on shell vs. armor both by Nathan Okun.

07 April 2008 - Several photographs of guns used in the South American Navies thanks to Carlos Mey. See here, here, here, here, here and here. Also added a few pictures of USN guns. See here, here and here.

13 January 2008 - Added information for Argentina Naval Guns.

08 January 2008 - Added information for Brazil Naval Guns.

05 January 2008 - Added information for Chile Naval Guns.

20 November 2007 - Added information for People's Republic of China Naval Guns.

22 May 2007 - Major upgrades to the data for ammunition used in USN guns of the 1920 to 1947 time period.

07 January 2007 - Added additional armor penetration data for British 5.25"/50 Mark I, 6"/45 Mark VII, 6"/50 Mark XI, 6"/50 Mark XXIII, 7.5"/45 Mark I, 7.5"/50 Mark II, 9.2"/47 Mark X,9.2"/50 Mark XI, 12"/35 Mark VIII, 12"/40 Mark IX and 12"/45 Mark X.

17 October 2006 - Added new Search page with notes and hints.

12 June 2006 - Updated template for weapon data pages. The changes should be transparent to most visitors, mainly a matter of a better listing of sources and modifying the HTML configuration of these pages such that they have a uniform appearance.

14 April 2006 - New armor penetration calculation programs from Nathan Okun. Added information and photographs for British ASW, French ASW, German ASW, USA ASW, British Mines and German Mines of World War I. Added information and photographs for USA Pre-World War II Torpedoes. Added some additional armor penetration information for the British 15"/42 Mark I. Several photographs of Elswick guns built around 1897 and photographs of submarine guns of the World War I period thanks to Paul Benyon and Dave Perkins. See here, here, here, here, here, here, here and here. Additional data for USA 16" guns.

02 December 2005 - Added a good deal of ammunition information to many Japanese guns of the World War II period.

16 October 2005 - Vladimir Yakubov has kindly sent me many pictures related to his trips to naval museums all over the world. See here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here and here.

04 September 2005 - Decided to carry the color theme of the front page through more of the website. Changed picture on home page.

05 April 2005 - Added data pages for early British 4", 6", 8" and 9.2" Breech Loader guns and the converted 4" QFC and 6" QFC. This completes my series for British guns of these calibers.

15 March 2005 - Added a Site Map and a customized 403/404 page.

10 March 2005 - Reorganized the Order of Battle indexes. This is mainly a bookkeeping change, no changes to the OOB listings themselves with the exception of the Jutland/Skagerrak OOB to which I have added a little additional information.

07 February 2005 - Added additional projectile data, mainly length and burster weight, to many French, Italian and a few Japanese weapons. Added new definitions and illustrative pictures to Gun Data.

18 December 2004 - Rescanned and reformatted dozens of photographs, mainly in the United States, German, Japanese and Spanish sections. A few new ones not listed above were tucked in here and there. The previously unpublished photograph of Bismarck taken from Dorsetshire has been moved HERE.

18 October 2004 - Modified links to Vickers Photographic Archive to reflect changes on that website. FYI, I have found that the search engine used on that website does not support searching by single digit numbers nor by search criteria that includes short words. For instance, searching for 3" does not work but searching for 4.5" does work. Likewise, searching for guns in shop does not work but searching for guns shop does work.

11 October 2004 - Changed data pages for Russian/Soviet guns built prior to 1960 to more accurately reflect their designations.

15 September 2004 - A page turns. After many years as part of "Battleships, Carriers and all other Warships," I have made "Naval Weapons of the World" into an independent website. Mixed emotions, but I believe that this is the best course.

28 June 2004 - Added data pages for many miscellaneous and experimental US and British guns.

16 May 2004 - Changed links to external websites such that clicking on one of them will now open a new window.

05 April 2004 - Changed data pages for Japanese guns built prior to 1930 to more accurately reflect their designations.

12 November 2003 - Added range tables to several US guns built prior to 1930 including the 1-pdr. Added data pages for two Italian 100 mm (3.9") guns of the 1930s and one for the new German 155 mm/52 MONARC prototype. Much additional US mine information. A few new pictures for US 8"/55 (20.3 cm), US 6"/47DP (15.2 cm) and German 20.3 cm/60 (8") guns. Some additional data for the US 5"/38 (12.7 cm) mountings of the Mark 30 series.

06 October 2003 - Obtained a copy of "Die Geschichte der deutschen Schiffsartillerie" [History of German Ship Artillery] by Paul Schmalenbach. This book has allowed me to update most of my pages on large-caliber German guns built prior to World War I, including adding armor penetration values.

19 September 2003 - Data pages for nearly all US guns planned or built are now completed, including one for the little known 9"/98 (22.9 cm) Mark 1.

10 August 2003 - Grooves, Lands and Twist information added to about 170 data pages. A few Austrian-Hungary, Italian and German weapons added. A large number of new definitions added to all of the "Definitions and Information about Naval Guns" pages and to the German and Japanese definition pages.

23 June 2003 - All British 4.7-inch (12 cm) guns have now been added.

24 April 2003 - Added several pages for small-caliber Japanese machine guns, data on British mines of the 1920s and the proposed 155 mm British naval gun.

20 January 2003 - Time of Flight added for several large and medium caliber naval guns. Substantial upgrades made to Modern Italian Naval Gun data pages.

21 November 2002 - Navigation has been made easier by adding links to other weapon pages.

27 September 2002 - Vladimir Yakubov has once again been busy. This time, he has provided data and pictures for most Soviet submarine launched ballistic missiles.

06 September 2002 - A major upgrade to the Russian and Soviet Post-World War II torpedo page thanks to Grigoriy Chernov. New material and photographs have been added to many British naval guns, along with a few new gun pages, thanks in part to permission from Ian Buxton to use material from his "Big Gun Monitors" book.

19 August 2002 - Nearly all British 6" (15.2 cm) BL guns and all British 4" (10.2 cm) QF guns have now been added.

03 July 2002 - Thanks again to the tremendous efforts of Vladimir Yakubov, I have been able to add new pages for ASW weapons, mines, post-World War II torpedoes, and World War II radars used by the Russian / Soviet Navy.

01 May 2002 - A large number of photographs have been added to illustrate many USN guns and torpedoes of the 1880 to 1900 time period. Also added were a few photographs of French and Spanish guns of the same period.

05 April 2002 - A huge amount of work by Vladimir Yakubov has allowed me to add many previously unlisted Russian/Soviet weapons along with several additions to existing data pages.

15 January 2002 - New Year and new data books. All pages have now been updated to my current format with new data added where available. Many new pictures have been added and some old ones rescanned for improved resolution. In addition, through the wonderful efforts of Vladimir Yakubov, I have been able to greatly improve the quality of the data for Russian weapons, including many new pictures. Vladimir has also completed a listing of the torpedoes used during World War II. Neil Stirling very kindly shared with me several documents that he obtained from the British Public Record Office (PRO). These have allowed me to improve the data I have on British large caliber projectiles. As always, at the bottom of each data page there is a listing of sources used including each person who has sent in data or photographs.

15 October 2001 - A good many pages for British Guns have been updated in the past month to add information and to upgrade them to the current template. I have also been able to add many new pictures to illustrate lessor known weapons.

10 June 2001 - All weapons for which I have ammunition stowage figures have now had their webpages updated. More Russian weapons have been added, thanks to Vladimir Yakubov's efforts.

17 May 2001 - Currently, I am adding "Ammunition stowage per gun" figures for British, German, Japanese and US weapons. I lack information to be able to add these figures for other nations except in a few instances. I hope to have this process completed by the middle of June. I am also taking the opportunity to make miscellaneous corrections and additions to each page as I review them. Pages updated after 10 April 2001 should have whatever ammunition stowage information I have available.

24 November 2000 - An "Ammunition" section has been added to all gun weapon pages. This shows whatever information I have available as to the types and performance of the ammunition used for each weapon.

29 June 1998 - Co-owner of "Battleships, Carriers and all other Warships" at Warships1.com.

10 June 1997 - The start of the Naval Weapon data pages.

A Note on Source Material

Written in 1998

One of the things any researcher quickly finds while gathering data is that information sources often conflict with each other. In the data for weapons, this may be even more of a problem than usual, as many nations often exaggerated the capabilities of their weapons in order to intimidate their rivals or else hid the details in order to conceal their true worth. For these reasons, one must be able to sort through the conflicting information to try to glean the "true facts" so as to present as accurate a data sheet as possible for each weapon.

I cannot speak for other researchers, but my methodology for resolving such conflicts has been to construct a "totem pole" scheme whereby I stack my sources in the order in which I perceive their accuracy. This totem pole varies for each nation's weapons. For example, a data source with a high rating for Japanese weapons may not be rated very highly for data on US weapons. Likewise, a source may have very good information about weapons used in World War II, but may also contain poorly researched information about those used prior to World War I. In general, I asses a higher worth to works that list specific original source material (for example, USN BuOrd or German Bundesarchiv documents) over those that list secondary sources as the basis for their information.

At the very top of my totem poles is the work of three individuals who have been of immense help to me: Leo Fischer, a Project Engineer at United Defense; Peter Lienau, a volunteer at the German Bundesarchiv, who cheerfully shifts through reams of paper tracking down various esoteric points of interest to me regarding German weapons; and Vladimir Yakubov, who has been translating into English newly available - and reliable - documents on Russian and Soviet weapons. Further help of great importance has been that of Nathan Okun, one of the foremost experts on projectiles and armor in the world today. Special thanks also go to the many people who have contacted me to fill in missing pieces of data on my webpages or have sent me photographs illustrating the weapons in question.

At the bottom of each weapon webpage is a listing of whatever reference works and people that were used and consulted in compiling that particular page. Contributions by specific individuals are gratefully acknowledged on each webpage where the data provided has been used. These listings are not necessarily in order of importance, but are meant to be a complete tally of all sources used in constructing that particular page. The great majority of facts and statements used on each webpage came from the sources listed and may be checked against them, with the exception of my "editorial" comments, for which I take full responsibility for any error contained therein.

I must also note that I have been collecting data on naval weapons for over thirty years. Much of this has been kept in notebooks where I jotted down the odd fact as I came across it while reading various books and documents. Sadly, as I never foresaw the day where I would use these notebooks for any purpose other than my own private uses, these notes do not always contain the title of the book or data sheet where I found the information. In those cases where I have used my notes in constructing a webpage but cannot provide the source of the data, I list "Tony DiGiulian's personal data files" at the bottom of the page and accept responsibility for any errors that may have crept in during my transcribing.

Finally, in some cases I simply cannot resolve the differences between conflicting sources of information. In those instances, I either present both sets of data with a note explaining the conflict or else I select the one that I believe to be most reliable with a note stating the selection. For specific details where the data is not available, such as rate of fire or angles of train, the word "about" is used to imply a reasonable estimate. The use of a "(?)" is intended to imply a rough guess.