12-inch/45 Vickers (305 mm)

Description

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Vehicles equipped with this weapon

• IJN Ikoma
• IJN Settsu

General info

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Available ammunition

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Comparison with analogues

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Usage in battles

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Pros and cons

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Pros:

Cons:

History

Around the turn of the 20th century, the naval powers of the world would begin a naval arms race and Japan did not want to fall behind. At the time, Japan lacked the capability to build large capital ships, so they frequently turned to Britain to build their battleships while working to obtain the know-how to build capital ships for themselves. The 12-inch/45-calibre Vickers was first built for the Katori-class battleships. These wire-wound guns were based on the 12-inch/45 Mark X first used on HMS Dreadnought. In fact, Katori mounted these very guns as it was built by Vickers while her sister ship Kashima was armed with similarly designed guns made by the Elswick Ordnance Company. The guns would eventually be produced under license in Japan and were designated the 12-inch/45 Type 41 guns in 1908 (1908 being the 41st year of the reign of Emperor Meiji).

The launch of HMS Invincible in 1908 rendered Japan's entire capital ship fleet obsolete, but Japan wasn't far behind. The Ibuki class which was already planned was retrofitted with 12-inch guns and closely followed by the Tsukuba-class battlecruisers Tsukuba and Ikoma which were planned from the start to use 12-inch guns after being on the receiving end of these powerful weapons during the Battle of the Yellow Sea in the Russo-Japanese War. The Mikasa, a pre-dreadnought battleship, was refitted in 1908 with these 12-inch/45 Vickers.

While HMS Dreadnought was the first all-big-gun battleship to be finished in 1906, the Japanese were first to approve construction of such a design in 1904 with what became the Satsuma class. While planned to be armed with a large battery of 12-inch guns, the Satsuma class, the first class of battleships built in Japan, were forced to build with a large secondary battery instead because of budget cutbacks and a lack of 12-inch guns after the Russo-Japanese War. The last Japanese pre-dreadnoughts of the Kawachi class were finished in 1912. Kawachi and Settsu had four of these guns mounted amidships complimenting the fore and aft 12-inch/50 Vickers due the same budget cutbacks. After the Washington Naval Treaty was signed in 1922, the limitations of capital ship tonnage led the IJN to scrap most of their ships using these guns and mounting their turrets as coastal defense guns in Tokyo Bay.

Media

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See also

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• reference to the article about the variant of the cannon/machine gun;
• references to approximate analogues by other nations and research trees.

External links

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• other literature.

Japan naval cannons
20 mm	JM61 · Type 98
25 mm	25 mm/60 Type 96
37 mm	Type 4 · Type 11 pattern 1922
40 mm	40 mm/62 Vickers
57 mm	Type 97
75 mm	Type 88 AA
76 mm	3-inch/40 Type 41 · 8 cm/40 3rd Year Type · 8 cm/60 Type 98
100 mm	100/65 mm Type 98 mod A
120 mm	120 mm/45 3rd Year Type · 120 mm/45 10th year type
127 mm	5 inch/40 Type 89 · 127 mm/50 3rd Year Type
140 mm	140 mm/50 3rd Year Type
152 mm	6-inch/45 Type 41 · 15 cm/50 Type 41
155 mm	155 mm/60 3rd Year Type
200 mm	20 cm 3rd year type No.1
203 mm	20 cm/45 Type 41 · 20 cm/50 3rd year type No.2
356 mm	36 cm/45 Type 41
410 mm	410 mm/45 Type 3
	Foreign:
20 mm	20 mm/70 Oerlikon Mk.II (USA/Britain)
40 mm	Bofors L/60 Mark 1 (USA) · Bofors L/60 Mark 2 (USA) · Bofors L/60 Mark 3 (USA)
47 mm	3 pdr QF Hotchkiss (Britain)
76 mm	3-inch Mark 10 (USA) · 3 inch Mk.33 (USA) · 3-inch Mk.34 (USA)
120 mm	4,7-inch/40 Armstrong (Britain)
127 mm	5 inch/38 Mk.12 (USA)
305 mm	12-inch/45 Vickers (Britain) · 12-inch/50 Vickers (Britain)