140-ton 'Gunset' wagons

[Beatty 139]

Are you sure that Walter Somers forged naval gun barrels? There is no mention of it in their official history. In both World Wars they were tasked, along with other work, with forging naval shells up to 15" diameter.

Well when I did a factory visit in the 1980's they had a Gun barrel lathe they had acquired as war reparations from WW1 at the time it was working on a secret project, odd as the drawings were laid out on the bench next to it as US Navy USS Iowa, we were told (under the counter) that they were one of the few places in the world who could still forge and machine a 16" navel gun barrel, so you can see it was no surprise a few years later when it came out they built the Super Gun.

 

If they were still doing them in the late 1980's I am sure they would have been doing the same during the wars, the other big job they used to do at the time we visited were submarine propeller shafts that apparently had to have almost perfect balance to prevent noise when running silent.

 

The Rose Gun Barrel works on the other side of the road is a mystery to me other than having found it so described on old maps I know it was a large works in later years before being converted to a trading estate. All that remains now is one building facing Somers

 

I would guess that the Admiralty must have had a source of local gun barrels to justify a proof testing site just outside the Birmingham area. It could be a case of putting 2 + 2 and coming up with 12 but I thought it was worth asking the question.

[Arthur]

.

 

That's certainly interesting and I can see the logic in it. I've no doubt that Somers had the basic skills to make gun barrels, I'm still not sure that they actually did, at least not routinely.

 

I've looked at a couple of other sources and they confirm that there were six large gun forges in the UK and Somers wasn't one of them. I doubt any 15" barrels were forged post 1944, in fact I suspect it was much earlier than that. The last British battleship, HMS Vanguard, was launched in 1944 and the admiralty already had sufficient 15" gun barrels in stock to equip it. They had a pool of around 170 barrels.

 

What had changed by the 1980's was that most of the other large forges which previously had made large gun barrels had long closed. I can well believe that Somers were claiming to be one of the few forges who could still make them.

 

So who would need a large naval barrel in the 1980's? I guess it's just possible that they could have made 16" barrels for the US battleships re-commissioned in 1984. However, I would have thought the US already had spares in stock and I think that the Bethlehem Steel Company in the US still had the capacity to forge them.

 

The 'Super Gun' was nothing like a conventional artillery piece, it was 'merely' a long pipe formed by bolting together several shorter, flanged sections. These sections were very high quality forgings, machined to a high tolerances and specifications. As a product it was much more like Somers usual forgings than a gun barrel

 

The proof testing site might have served the Coventry Ordnance Works, which was one of the six large gun forges.

 

Somers had long been Admiralty approved suppliers and propellor shafts were one of their main products.

 

Anyway, I'd never say never, it just seems odd that there's no mention in their own published history.

Edited September 30, 2013 by Arthur

[br2975]

You want guns senor ?

.

One of my regular haunts when I retreat to Spain is Cabo Tinoso located on the coast between Puerto de Mazarron and Cartagen.

 

One of a pair of batteries built between the wars to defend the Spanish naval base at Cartagena and still containing a pair of 15" Vickers weapons, and several smaller 6" guns.

.

It's a hair raising 5 mile drive along a single track road with hairpin bends and sheer drops - but it's well worth it if you're in the area.

.

Brian R

 

[adrianbs]

        Hi All   Just a few points and for those who model,  I  have  scratch built models in 4mm  of both a 13,5" rail mounted gun and a 9"  made by a friend

      with some help from me which he generously  GAVE me when he downsized and moved !!!!!!  Now you are green with envy !!

        The Gun mountings for the WW1 14"   railguns are actually  15 axles  - 3 bogies with 4 and one with only 3.  Not quite sure why they did that

     unless to keep the overall weight  down a bit.  I did get confused on this till I got the drawings from the IWC many moons ago.   In fact the IWC has a

     quite large scale model of one of these and that has 4 x 4 axle bogies but I have seen no full size photos like that..

       Most of the Gun sets were built in such a way as to be usable for other purposes and often were split into two.  The GWR Pollen E  now at Didcot

    was their contribution to the WW1 war effort and the outer pair (with headstocks) were used for long loads like bridge girders etc.  Later the inner pair

    were modified with bolt on headstocks to double up the stock as originally they were only coupled with links. Bob Essery in MR wagons has got one of

    pictures wrongly identified as it is not the wagon described,  The  CR also contributed a heavy gun set of 4 x 3 axle units and the NER had a series of

    basically  standard 6 wheel tender underframes  which could be used singly or paired or as a triple.  None of the pregroup .SR companies built any

    although the SR bought a second hand  Railgun chassis  (without gun! ) to use as a transformer wagon, does anyone have a photo ??  We only know

    what it looked like before they got it.

        There must have been quite a few Concrete beam sets as I photographed every set that came to Poole many years ago and there were

    3 complete trains with BR Banana vans as barrier wagons and 8 beam sets each with 2 x 80' plus concrete beams roughly flatbottom rail section but

    rather larger.   They were a motley collection of cobbled together plate wagons, trestrols with the well flame cut off and various spacer wagons either

    4 wheeled or bogie.         Totally Knackered now so off to bed    Adrian BS

[The Stationmaster]

.

 

That's certainly interesting and I can see the logic in it. I've no doubt that Somers had the basic skills to make gun barrels, I'm still not sure that they actually did, at least not routinely.

 

I've looked at a couple of other sources and they confirm that there were six large gun forges in the UK and Somers wasn't one of them. I doubt any 15" barrels were forged post 1944, in fact I suspect it was much earlier than that. The last British battleship, HMS Vanguard, was launched in 1944 and the admiralty already had sufficient 15" gun barrels in stock to equip it. They had a pool of around 170 barrels.

 

What had changed by the 1980's was that most of the other large forges which previously had made large gun barrels had long closed. I can well believe that Somers were claiming to be one of the few forges who could still make them.

 

So who would need a large naval barrel in the 1980's? I guess it's just possible that they could have made 16" barrels for the US battleships re-commissioned in 1984. However, I would have thought the US already had spares in stock and I think that the Bethlehem Steel Company in the US still had the capacity to forge them.

 

The 'Super Gun' was nothing like a conventional artillery piece, it was 'merely' a long pipe formed by bolting together several shorter, flanged sections. These sections were very high quality forgings, machined to a high tolerances and specifications. As a product it was much more like Somers usual forgings than a gun barrel

 

The proof testing site might have served the Coventry Ordnance Works, which was one of the six large gun forges.

 

Somers had long been Admiralty approved suppliers and propellor shafts were one of their main products.

 

Anyway, I'd never say never, it just seems odd that there's no mention in their own published history.

As far as I'm aware the last large calibre gun barrels manufactured in Britain were the 14" barrels for the 'King George V'   and soem of the 16 inch guns for the 'Lion ' Class battkleships with both types of gun using the standard British design feature of wire wound construction although the breeches would most likely have been forgings as, presumably, were the liners and possibly the outer casing of the barrels.  Internet sources - which seem fairly reliable would indicate from the total number of 14 inch barrels made that the spares ratio was 56% of the number of barrels in service although this ratio increased after HMS Prince of Wales was lost.

 

There seem to be a small disagreement regarding the number of 16 inch barrels manufactured for the 'Lion' class ships but all sources indicate that no more than a handful were made - they were presumably scrapped along with the two part built ships when the project was cancelled.

 

Britain's last battleship - HMS Vanguard - commissioned in 1946 was armed with 15 inch guns the barrels of which  had originally been installed on HM Ships Courageous and Glorious and had been put into storage when those ships were converted to aircraft carriers in the 1920s.   These were BL15 Mk1 guns of which 186 were manufactured between 1912 and 1918, when production ceased.  No source which I can find lists Somers as a manufacturer of large calibre naval gun barrels.

[bubbles2]

Not what you expect to find in deepest Devon!

 

http://www.flickr.com/photos/16118167@N04/6405058679/in/photolist-aKZANc-edMLFB-axta3k-de1EQu-fePnq5-bgfAKK-eq2JRh-ep6B7T-ep6fk2-gq1Ghp-bu4Q93-bEhsjv-cmEMud-c8WbgA-c8WvwU-fmZn4Z-dTtMGL

 

 

http://www.flickr.com/photos/16118167@N04/6405058219/in/photolist-aKZAEg-aKZANc-edMLFB-axta3k-de1EQu-fePnq5-bgfAKK-eq2JRh-ep6B7T-ep6fk2-gq1Ghp-bu4Q93-bEhsjv-cmEMud-c8WbgA-c8WvwU-fmZn4Z-dTtMGL

 

This gun looks similar to the one Jon linked in post 37, also a link in post 47, both on page 2.

Edited October 18, 2013 by bubbles2

[Clive Mortimore]

As far as I'm aware the last large calibre gun barrels manufactured in Britain were the 14" barrels for the 'King George V' and soem of the 16 inch guns for the 'Lion ' Class battkleships with both types of gun using the standard British design feature of wire wound construction although the breeches would most likely have been forgings as, presumably, were the liners and possibly the outer casing of the barrels. Internet sources - which seem fairly reliable would indicate from the total number of 14 inch barrels made that the spares ratio was 56% of the number of barrels in service although this ratio increased after HMS Prince of Wales was lost.

 

There seem to be a small disagreement regarding the number of 16 inch barrels manufactured for the 'Lion' class ships but all sources indicate that no more than a handful were made - they were presumably scrapped along with the two part built ships when the project was cancelled.

 

Britain's last battleship - HMS Vanguard - commissioned in 1946 was armed with 15 inch guns the barrels of which had originally been installed on HM Ships Courageous and Glorious and had been put into storage when those ships were converted to aircraft carriers in the 1920s. These were BL15 Mk1 guns of which 186 were manufactured between 1912 and 1918, when production ceased. No source which I can find lists Somers as a manufacturer of large calibre naval gun barrels.

Hi Mike

 

From Naval Weapons of WW2 by John Campbell there were twenty nine 16 inch guns made, Rodney and Nelson had 3 triple turrets with these guns. These were the only warships to carry these guns.

 

During WW1 the navy introduced the 15 inch gun for its battleships. This was a very good gun and was fitted to most British battleships that served in WW2. There were 4 or 5 (depending on which book you read) on coastal mountings at Singapore....the Japanese attacked from Malaya and these guns were facing the wrong direction. Two were mounted at Dover and were used to fire on the German shipping dashing through the straights and at the German heavy batteries on the French coast. The two barrels outside the Imperial War Museum are 15 inch guns.

 

The naval 14 inch MkVII was a 1930s weapon mounted in the King George V class. Two were mounted on land at Dover, manned by Royal Marines and were named Winnie and Pooh. These were used in much the same way the Army's 15 inch guns, their last action was in support of the Canadian army attacking Calais. There had been earlier marks of 14 inch gun that either came from ships or guns being made in Britain for other countries in 1914 or from the US during WW1. This is where the railway guns come into the story, two of the carriages used in WW2 had been used in WW1 to mount 14 inch MkIII guns. HMG Boche Buster was rearmed with the 18 inch Howitzer after WW1 and is the subject of Bubbles 2's flicker photos. The other gun was HMG Scene Shifter and was rearmed with a 13.5 inch gun in WW2.

 

The next size down was the 13.5 inch gun, this had been the main battleship gun of WW1 and saw limited use in WW2 as a railway gun. As noted above one was mounted on Scene Shifter. Two more were on Elswick designed 12 inch gun railway gun carriages (which were the same design as the 14 inch ones). These were HMG Piecemaker and HMG Gladiator. In a previous post I have given a more detailed history of these 3 and HMH Boche Buster.

 

For our pre-grouping friends there were various marks of 12 inch guns used on the pre-Dreadnought and Dreadnought battleships. These seem to have been withdrawn from service after WW1. As noted above some were used on railway mountings, 2 on Vickers mountings and 2 on Elswick mountings. The Vickers mountings did not last long after WW1. Some guns in the 20's were used as coast guns but they seem to have been removed before WW2.

 

Mike you are correct about no heavy navy guns were made by Somers.

Edited October 18, 2013 by Clive Mortimore

[juggy0_1]

        Hi All   Just a few points and for those who model,  I  have  scratch built models in 4mm  of both a 13,5" rail mounted gun and a 9"  made by a friend

      with some help from me which he generously  GAVE me when he downsized and moved !!!!!!  Now you are green with envy !!

        The Gun mountings for the WW1 14"   railguns are actually  15 axles  - 3 bogies with 4 and one with only 3.  Not quite sure why they did that

     unless to keep the overall weight  down a bit.  I did get confused on this till I got the drawings from the IWC many moons ago.   In fact the IWC has a

     quite large scale model of one of these and that has 4 x 4 axle bogies but I have seen no full size photos like that..

       Most of the Gun sets were built in such a way as to be usable for other purposes and often were split into two.  The GWR Pollen E  now at Didcot

    was their contribution to the WW1 war effort and the outer pair (with headstocks) were used for long loads like bridge girders etc.  Later the inner pair

    were modified with bolt on headstocks to double up the stock as originally they were only coupled with links. Bob Essery in MR wagons has got one of

    pictures wrongly identified as it is not the wagon described,  The  CR also contributed a heavy gun set of 4 x 3 axle units and the NER had a series of

    basically  standard 6 wheel tender underframes  which could be used singly or paired or as a triple.  None of the pregroup .SR companies built any

    although the SR bought a second hand  Railgun chassis  (without gun! ) to use as a transformer wagon, does anyone have a photo ??  We only know

    what it looked like before they got it.

        There must have been quite a few Concrete beam sets as I photographed every set that came to Poole many years ago and there were

    3 complete trains with BR Banana vans as barrier wagons and 8 beam sets each with 2 x 80' plus concrete beams roughly flatbottom rail section but

    rather larger.   They were a motley collection of cobbled together plate wagons, trestrols with the well flame cut off and various spacer wagons either

    4 wheeled or bogie.         Totally Knackered now so off to bed    Adrian BS

Hi Adrian, will you posting your photo's of the concrete beam wagons, i for one would be most interested...

[The Stationmaster]

Hi Mike

 

From Naval Weapons of WW2 by John Campbell there were twenty nine 16 inch guns made, Rodney and Nelson had 3 triple turrets with these guns. These were the only warships to carry these guns.

 

During WW1 the navy introduced the 15 inch gun for its battleships. This was a very good gun and was fitted to most British battleships that served in WW2. There were 4 or 5 (depending on which book you read) on coastal mountings at Singapore....the Japanese attacked from Malaya and these guns were facing the wrong direction. Two were mounted at Dover and were used to fire on the German shipping dashing through the straights and at the German heavy batteries on the French coast. The two barrels outside the Imperial War Museum are 15 inch guns.

 

The naval 14 inch MkVII was a 1930s weapon mounted in the King George V class. Two were mounted on land at Dover, manned by Royal Marines and were named Winnie and Pooh. These were used in much the same way the Army's 15 inch guns, their last action was in support of the Canadian army attacking Calais. There had been earlier marks of 14 inch gun that either came from ships or guns being made in Britain for other countries in 1914 or from the US during WW1. This is where the railway guns come into the story, two of the carriages used in WW2 had been used in WW1 to mount 14 inch MkIII guns. HMG Boche Buster was rearmed with the 18 inch Howitzer after WW1 and is the subject of Bubbles 2's flicker photos. The other gun was HMG Scene Shifter and was rearmed with a 13.5 inch gun in WW2.

 

The next size down was the 13.5 inch gun, this had been the main battleship gun of WW1 and saw limited use in WW2 as a railway gun. As noted above one was mounted on Scene Shifter. Two more were on Elswick designed 12 inch gun railway gun carriages (which were the same design as the 14 inch ones). These were HMG Piecemaker and HMG Gladiator. In a previous post I have given a more detailed history of these 3 and HMH Boche Buster.

 

For our pre-grouping friends there were various marks of 12 inch guns used on the pre-Dreadnought and Dreadnought battleships. These seem to have been withdrawn from service after WW1. As noted above some were used on railway mountings, 2 on Vickers mountings and 2 on Elswick mountings. The Vickers mountings did not last long after WW1. Some guns in the 20's were used as coast guns but they seem to have been removed before WW2.

 

Mike you are correct about no heavy navy guns were made by Somers.

Clive there were indeed 29 Mk1 16" guns (according to what appear to be reliable sources) plus, probably 4 of the Mk2 design which were made for the 'Lion' Class battleships and which don't appear to have been compatible with the earlier Mk1 design as they seem to have disappeared from any sort of comment when the two 'Lion' class vessels under construction were scrapped on the slipways.

 

The RN 15" gun was in manufacture from 1912 to 1918 although it didn't enter service until c.1915 and it was the longest serving of the RN big guns lasting until 1959 (although HMS Vanguard had by then been quite a long time in reserve) although turret mountings might have survived longer on the monitor HMS Roberts (which for years was visible from the train when passing Devonport on the ex GW line).

[billbedford]

As far as I'm aware the last large calibre gun barrels manufactured in Britain were the 14" barrels for the 'King George V'   and soem of the 16 inch guns for the 'Lion ' Class battkleships with both types of gun using the standard British design feature of wire wound construction although the breeches would most likely have been forgings as, presumably, were the liners and possibly the outer casing of the barrels.  

 

 

There were also three 18" guns originally intended for the Furious, later fitted to the monitors General Wolfe and Lord Clive

[PhilH]

One of these please guv.

 

Apologies if this has been on before, I just found it mighty interesting.

[69843]

That is quite a beast.

 

I love the name as well!

[Fat Controller]

The smaller gun was based about 200 yards from where I'm typing this. 

There were other railway guns based around the area between Dover and Deal which saw more regular action- their range was such that they could reach about half-a-mile or so in from the port at Calais.

[lmsforever]

You could build a layout based on the coast and have shore guns similar to the real ones in Kent ,they fired at Dunkirk, Calais and caused the Germans to fire back and cause a great deal of damage  to Dover ,Hythe,Deal  Dymchurch  etc.That rail gun is a massive piece of kit didn't one of the continental manufacturers make one?

[talbotsteve]

Lima built a German railgun in HO, "Leopold", came in a train set with two diesel locos and a couple of wagons.

[talbotsteve]

Here you go, there are also 1/72 scale kits from hasegawa.

 

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Lima-HO-Gauge-Golden-Series-Militarzug-Leopold-K5-Railway-Gun-Pack-/390683125477?pt=UK_Trains_Railway_Models&hash=item5af68766e5

 

 

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Hasegawa-1-72-20mm-Leopold-K5-E-Railway-Gun-/360768665188?pt=UK_ToysGames_ModelKits_ModelKits_JN&hash=item53ff7cf664

[Kelly]

Hmm, I could have it in 'storage' at Chlmark (not being far from Salisbury) and back date Chilmark to the 1940s ... oh don't tempt lol

 

However a diorama of one would be nice, or of the German/French guns from WW1.

[Baby Deltic]

You ain't seen Dora and Gustav!

 

[Fat Controller]

The tunnel at Bourne Park, shown in the photo, is under the buildings in the centre of this view:-

http://goo.gl/maps/o17q7

The route of the EVR is the sinuous line of trees running more-or-less north-south. It's a shame the whole route isn't a cyclepath, not just the bit from Newington to Etchinghill, as the road through the valley's a nightmare- you should have seen the chaos when a bus failed between Etchinghill and Lyminge last night.

[Gilbert]

How about this?

 

http://www.vonabt.co.uk/models/Dora/DoraBuild.htm

 

Chris

[Adrian Wintle]

ModelPower in HO: http://www.hobbylinc.com/htm/mdp/mdp99163.htm

 

Adrian

[Kelly]

How about this?

 

http://www.vonabt.co.uk/models/Dora/DoraBuild.htm

 

Chris

 

 

Impressive!

[Ceptic]

One of these please guv.

 

Apologies if this has been on before, I just found it mighty interesting.

I've got a Son-in-Law just like you.....I try to remind him, the Brits had something similar..... I just need to find a link

[gwrrob]

You ain't seen Dora and Gustav!

 

 

Rmweb member Trains&Armour has an unbuilt kit of this on his workbench.

[corax67]

I recall seeing a huge tunnel gun kit made up in the window of a model shop (I think it was Leatherhead) as I drove past and it was so impressive I actually slowed to stare.

 

It would be a fabulous centrepiece for a layout.