Talk:155 mm caliber

Comparison of 155mm howitzer and British Naval 4.5" Gun Mk8

The presented discussion of the relative merits of the 155mm as against the current British 4.5" Mk8 Naval Gun seems rather lopsided and biased. For one, the comparison is between the L55 4.5" Mk8 and the L39 155mm howitzer of the British AS90, when a more meaningful comparison would have been with one of the modern L52 155mm howitzers such as the German Panzerhaubitze 2000 or the South Korean K9 Thunder. These would have been closer parallels particularly in terms of shell velocity. Unsurprisingly, the Mk8 has better range than the AS90 (27.5 km against 24.7 km for a "regular" HE shell), but 155mm L52 howitzers regularly shoot to 30 km with unassisted ordinance and up to over 50 km with base-bleed or rocket-assisted shells. The fact that naval guns can be built more strongly and heavily than mobile land-based guns has nothing to do with the caliber; obviously, if a 155mm gun were built for naval use, it could also be built thicker and heavier. The 4.5" might still be able to keep up a higher rate of fire owing to its lighter moving assembly, but this would be offset by the heavier throw weight of the 155mm as shells for the latter tend to weigh at least twice as much as 4.5" shells (41-46 kg vs. 21 kg). As for a 4.5" shell "carrying twice the HE payload of a standard 155mm round", the American standard M795 155mm HE howitzer round carries a 10.6 kg HE filling and I would like to see how anyone could cram twice that into a 21 kg 4.5" shell, not to mention being able to shoot it out of a gun! --Death Bredon (talk) 21:45, 19 February 2017 (UTC)

"the comparison is between the L55 4.5" Mk8 and the L39 155mm howitzer of the British AS90, when a more meaningful comparison would have been with one of the modern L52 155mm howitzers such as..."

That would be true if the article was talking about replacing 4-5" naval guns with 155mm guns in general but it isn't. It is specific to replacing RN guns with AS90 155mm guns. The British Army has reduced the number of AS90s in service and so the guns are, or at least were, spare and so available for free. Using any other 155mm gun would require buying those guns and so put the price of the project up.

Also I believe that one of the drivers was to use the same ammo in RN guns as in the AS90 and I am not sure that this would be the case if a different 155mm gun was used on the RN ships. FerdinandFrog (talk) 15:51, 6 August 2018 (UTC)

@Death Bredon Agreed. I don't have time to do much right now, but I added a citation needed tag at least to hopefully highlight the implausibility of the claim. I might try to come back later and clean it up.

@FerdinandFrog: the entire point of the 155 NATO standard is that ammunition is interchangeable. Yes, modern long barrel 155s like the K9 thunder and PzH 2000 are completely compatible with it, and with advanced ammunition like rocket assisted or base bleed projectiles, or the US's Excalibur guided round, ranges in excess of 60km have been repeatedly demonstrated, far in excess of the range of a 4.5 naval gun.

Furthermore, although it's correct that the RAP has a smaller explosive charge than a standard shell, it's still likely a larger charge than in the 4.5 British, since the overall shell is still twice the volume and weight (and the claim that the British has 2x more explosive is clearly and obviously bogus - it's physically impossible to put 48lb of explosive in a 55lb shell and not have it disintegrate when fired, especially since one of the claimed benefits of naval guns was higher chamber pressure).

Finally, if the comparison was meant to be specific to the AS90, that should be clearly stated. As is, this leaves the distinct impression that the statements apply to all NATO 155 (and even then, large parts of it are still incorrect, as I stated above). 8.42.78.169 (talk) 00:31, 30 May 2022 (UTC)