History
Earlier anti-aircraft guns based on 13 pounder and 18 pounder guns proved unsatisfactory, primarily due to their low muzzle velocities. On 18 February 1915 Sir John French, commander of the British Expeditionary Force in France, asked for an anti-aircraft gun with a muzzle velocity of 2,000 feet per second (610 m/s). On 19 August 1915 the Army Council proposed adapting existing 18-pounder guns (3.3-inch bore) to use 13-pounder (3-inch) shells, thus meeting the requirement for higher velocity.
This weapon combined an 18 pounder breech and barrel with a liner (sleeve) inserted to reduce the bore from 3.3-inch (84 mm) to 3-inch (76 mm) so that it could fire the slightly smaller 13 pounder shell but still use the larger cartridge and propellant charge of the 18 pounder resulting in a much higher velocity. A slight neck was introduced in the 18 pounder cartridge to hold the slightly narrower 13 pounder shell in place.
The initial Mk III mounting was based on the 13 pounder Mk II anti-aircraft mounting, but proved to be not strong enough for the extra power of the 18 pounder cartridge.
The Mk IV mounting which followed raised the height by 9 inches (230 mm) and increased recoil from 24 to 35 inches (890 mm) and hence relieved the strain on the mounting.
Several guns are known to have been mounted on 2-wheeled high-angle field carriages and deployed on the Italian front. Hogg & Thurston state that they could theoretically be used as anti-aircraft guns, field guns or howitzers, but they were not officially introduced and may have been of an experimental nature. Routledge states that the carriage was improvised because some of 4th AA Group's guns had arrived in Italy without mountings.
Read more about this topic: QF 13 Pounder 9 Cwt
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