Question of the Hour

[geo]

ON May 8, 1945, the British cruiser HMS Dido was en route to Copenhagen in Denmark.
At one point during the journey, the ship was approached by a lone German aircraft.
The Dido's guns fired one shot and the plane flew away - it was VE day and that was the last shot fired in the Second World War in Europe.


The first Dido was a 28-gun sixth-rate launched in 1784 and sold 1817.
The second Dido was an 18-gun corvette launched in 1836, used as a coal hulk after 1860, and sold 1903.
The third Dido was to be a wooden screw-propelled corvette. Laid down 14 January 1861, construction was cancelled 12 December 1863.
The fourth Dido was a wooden screw corvette launched in 1869, hulked 1886, renamed Actaeon in 1906 and sold 1922.
The fifth Dido was a 2nd class cruiser launched in 1896, used as a depot ship after 1913 and sold 1926.
The sixth Dido, a light cruiser, was launched on July 18 1939. The ship took part in the evacuation of troops and defense of Crete, where she was damaged on B gun, resulting in the deaths of 46 men. Dido also took part in the Second Battle of Sirte during 1942, sinking three supply ships off North Africa, and in the Anzio landings and the invasion of Southern France in August 1944. The ship was broken up after 1958.
The seventh Dido (F104) was a Leander-class frigate laid down in 1959 and launched in 1961 at Yarrow, Scotstoun. After being sold to the Royal New Zealand Navy in 1980 the ship was renamed HMNZS Southland.


http://www.hms-dido.com/hms_dido.htm

 

[armchair]

HMS DIDO
Original
8x5.25
1x4.0
2x.5 in MG quadruple guns
3x2 pdr pom-poms quad guns
2x21in torpedos
1941-1943
10x5.25
5x20mm single guns
3x2pdr pom-poms
2x21in torpedos
1943-1945
10x5.25
2x20mm single guns
4x20 dual guns
3x2pdr pom-poms
2x21in torpedos

 

[larry Strong]

An AA Lt Cruiser

HMS Dido:

Launched (type I):   1939
Displacement:         6,970 tons
Armament:             8x 133mm/5.25" DP, 8 or 12x 2 pdr AA, 12x 20mm AA, 6x 533/21" torpedo tubes.

The dual purpose turrets  were originally designed as secondary armament for the "King George V" class battleships.

The Complete Encyclopedia of Weapons of WW ll  Chris Bishop

 

[redleafjumper]

Larry, Geo and Armchair that was the very historic HMS Dido I was looking for.


What Waterloo veteran gave the ambiguous order that led to the Charge of the Light Brigade at the Battle of Balaclava?

 

[Jantor]

Hi,

some pictures of HMS Dido

http://www.navyphotos.co.uk/dido%20bat.htm

 

[armchair]

Professor Rausenberger designed two famous guns Gamma+ Big Bertha.
What other famous gun did he design tell a little about it?

 

[redleafjumper]

He also designed this one.  Information is taken from: http://encyclopedia.thefreedictionary.com/Paris%20Cannon

The Paris Gun was the name of a set of artillery pieces with which the Germans bombarded Paris during World War I. This oversized railway gun was used from March to August 1918. It was the largest gun used during the war, and is considered to be a supergun.

Also called the "Kaiser Wilhelm Geschütz" (Kaiser Wilhelm Gun), it is often confused with Big Bertha, the howitzer used by the Germans against the Liège forts in 1914, and indeed the French called it by this name as well. It is also confused with the smaller "Lange Max" (Long Max) cannons from which it was derived. Although the famous Krupp-family artillery makers produced all these guns, the resemblance ended there.

As a military weapon the gun was not a great success: the payload was minuscule, the barrel had to be regularly replaced, and the accuracy was only good enough for city-sized targets. However, the German objective was to build a psychological weapon to attack the morale of the Parisians; not to destroy the city itself.

It was later one of the inspirations of Gerald Bull in his work on advanced artillery; he researched the history of the Paris Gun and published an extensive book about it. Description The Paris Gun was a weapon like no other, but its exact capabilities are not known, and all figures available are approximate. This is due to the weapon's apparent total destruction by the Germans in the face of the Allied offensive. Figures stated for the weapon's size, range and performance may vary widely depending on the source - not even the number of shells fired is certain.

It was capable of hurling a 94-kg shell to a range of 130 km and a maximum altitude of 40 km - the greatest height reached by a human-made projectile until the first successful V-2 flight test in October 1942.

At the start of its 170-second trajectory, each shell from the Paris Gun reached a speed of 1,600 m/s (almost five times the speed of sound).

The gun itself, which weighed 256 tons and was mounted on rails, had a 28-m-long, 210-mm-caliber rifled barrel with a 6-m-long smoothbore extension.

Originally conceived as a naval weapon, the gun was manned by a crew of 80 Kriegsmarine sailors under the command of an admiral, and was surrounded by several batteries of standard army artillery to create a "noise-screen" around the big gun so that it could not be located by French and British spotters. The projectile reached a maximum height of almost 40km, making it the first man-made object ever to reach the altitude of the stratosphere, thus virtually eliminating drag from air resistance, allowing the shell to achieve a phenomenal range of over 80 miles. Not until liquid-fuel ballistic missiles were developed 30 years later was this accomplishment equaled and finally surpassed. The shells were propelled at such high velocity that each successive shot wore away a considerable amount of steel from the rifle bore, and each shell was sequentially numbered according to its increasing diameter, and had to be fired in numeric order lest the projectile lodge in the bore and the gun explode. After 65 shells had been fired, each of progressively larger caliber to allow for wear, the barrel was rebored to a caliber of 240 mm.

The Paris Gun was the largest gun ever built for its time, only to be surpassed in World War II by machines such as the Schwerer Gustav or the V-3 cannon. Use in World War I The gun was fired from the forest of Coucy and the first shell landed at 7.18 a.m. on March 21, 1918. Only when sufficient shell fragments had been collected was it realized that the explosion had come from a shell.

The Paris gun was used to shell Paris at a range of 75 miles. The distance was so far that the Coriolis effect - the rotation of the earth - was substantial enough to affect trajectory calculations. The gun was fired at an azimuth of 232 degrees (west-southwest) from Crépy-en Laon, which was at a latitude of 49.5 degrees North. The gunners had to account for the fact that the projectiles landed 393 meters short and 1343 meters to the side of where it would have hit if there was no Coriolis effect.

A total of 320-367 shells were fired, killing 250 people and wounding 620, as well as causing considerable damage to property.

The gun was taken back to Germany in August 1918 as Allied advances threatened its security. The gun was never seen by the Allies; towards the end of the war it was completely destroyed by the Germans. One spare mounting was captured by American troops near Chateau-Thierry, but no gun was ever found.


Gerald Bull is mentioned above as a researcher of artillery.  What artillery system did he design and sell to South Africa?  What other significant artillery projects was he involved in and how did his work on one of them lead to his untimely demise?

(edited to add question)

 

[redleafjumper]

Oops! I leapfrogged myself - I asked a question about the order to charge at Balaclava and then another about Gerald Bull.
Sorry about that; I better get a grip on myself or we'll have questions everywhere and few answers!

 

[larry Strong]

Right off the top of my head, he made what the South Africans call the G4 155mm Howitzer. and he was working on a "Super gun" for "ole Sodamn Insane" when the Mossad allegedly terminated him in France, IIRC

 

[redleafjumper]

That's a nice concise answer on Mr. Bull from Larry.

Any takers on the order to charge at Balaclava?

 

[geo]

At Raglan’s direction General Airey wrote the famous order to Lucan, stating: “Lord Raglan wishes the cavalry to advance rapidly to the front, and try to prevent the enemy carrying away the guns. Troop of horse artillery may accompany. French cavalry is on your left. Immediate.”

 

[Long in the tooth]

Gerald Bull was born in Montreal and attended McGill University before working for the US govt.  He designed the G5 towed howitzer and G6 8 wheel mobile gun for SA during their various 'counter insurgencies' with neighbours.  He was found dead of suspicious causes outside his apartment near his office in Brussells.

 

[larry Strong]

Aha thats what happens when you work off of a failing mind. Thanks for putting me straight

 

[armchair]

Gerald Bull was born in Montreal and attended McGill University before working for the US govt.  He designed the G5 towed howitzer and G6 8 wheel mobile gun for SA during their various 'counter insurgencies' with neighbours.  He was found dead of suspicious causes outside his apartment near his office in Brussells.
[/qu
He also work for the Canadian Government up at Churchill so time in 60ts shootting modified 16in naval guns doing research on the North Light

 

[TangoTwoBravo]

I guess that five bullets in the back of the neck/head would qualify as suspicious causes.

"There, sir, are your guns!"  Capt Nolan at Balaclava.

 

[armchair]

Colonel Sir Alexander Moncrieff was noted for want military invention?
Hint has to do with Artillery

 

[redleafjumper]

Great posts on Gerald Bull and the charge of the light brigade!

Lord Raglan's ambiguous order contributed to this disaster for the Light Brigade. 

 
The following information is from:

http://www.britishbattles.com/crimean-war/balaclava.htm

Now at Balaclava, in the absence of the infantry, the cavalry was required to play a major role. The Heavy Brigade had played its part to the full. The opportunity was passing to the Light Brigade and Cardigan refused to act. There seems to be no doubting Cardigan’s personal courage. He claimed that Lucan had forbidden him to take offensive action.

The opportunity for the Light Brigade was particularly apparent to Raglan’s staff watching from the Sapouné Hills, amongst whom there was considerable excitement, particularly on the part of Captain Lewis Nolan of the 15th Hussars, General Airey’s adc, a fine horseman and a ferocious advocate of the aggressive use of cavalry.


Lord Raglan's Order to the Cavalry to attack

As the Russian cavalry force withdrew along the North Valley to take up a position behind a battery of eight guns at the far end, Raglan’s staff saw that the Russians on the Causeway Heights were preparing to remove the naval guns captured from the Turks in the redoubts. Loss of guns was a clear indicator of success or failure in battle and could not be allowed to go unchallenged. The two British infantry divisions had still not reached the valley floor so that the only force available to prevent the removal of the guns was the cavalry division.


At Raglan’s direction General Airey wrote the famous order to Lucan, stating: “Lord Raglan wishes the cavalry to advance rapidly to the front, and try to prevent the enemy carrying away the guns. Troop of horse artillery may accompany. French cavalry is on your left. Immediate.”

(edited to fix link problem)

 

[redleafjumper]

Say Armchair, I had a lot of trouble finding information about your Colonel Sir Alexander Moncrieff.  The best I can find is that he was either the inventor of the Moncrieff Disappearing Gun, or a Presbyterian minister!  Apparently it is actually a gun carriage design that permits a large cannon to be concealed and put in cover.

Given your hint, my money is on the gun.  See: http://palmerstonforts.org.uk/fortlog/monc.htm 

 

[redleafjumper]

Part of the British fortifications at Quebec include some rather stout built stone buildings to be found on the Plains of Abraham.
What are these fortifications called and what is their origin and purpose?  What is the meaning of their name?

 

[stukirkpatrick]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martello_tower

Martello Towers
...are small defensive forts built by the British Empire at the time of the Napoleonic Wars. They stand about 40 feet (12m) high (with two floors) and had a garrison of one officer and 25 men. Their round structure and thick walls of solid masonry made them very resistant to cannon fire, while their height made them an ideal platform for a single heavy artillery piece, mounted on the flat roof and able to traverse a 360° arc

...Quebec City originally had four Martello towers. One stands on the Plains of Abraham, overlooking the St Lawrence River. It has been restored as a museum and can be visited during the summer months. A second tower stands nearby, and it currently hosts an 1812 Murder Mystery Dinner. The third tower in Quebec was demolished in the 1900s after being used as a residence, and the fourth surviving Martello Tower in Quebec is located on the north side of the Upper City.

...The towers' design was inspired by a round fortress, part of a larger Genovese defense system, at Mortella Point in Corsica (see picture in external link below). In 1794, the tower's defenders successfully resisted an attack by two British warships, HMS Fortitude (74 guns) and HMS Juno (32 guns). The tower was eventually captured by land-based forces under John Moore after two days of heavy fighting.

The British were impressed by the effectiveness of the tower against their most modern warships and copied the design. However, they got the name wrong, misspelling "Mortella" as "Martello".