1/350 Royal Navy 14"/45 (35.6cm) MKI x5 (HMS Canada) w. Blast Bags

1/350 Scale Royal Navy 14"/45 (35.6cm) MKI (HMS Canada) with Blast Bags as seen upon her launch. Highly detailed guns modelled from plans and many reference photographs. Ideal replacements for the low quality/inaccurate resin versions found in the Iron Shipwrights Kit.

• 5x Turrets
  
• Highly detailed and accurate parts, modelled from plans and photographic reference
• Details include: Rivets, Hex nuts, Crew Access Hatches, Ladders, Sighting Ports, open Rangefinder Ports
• Highly detailed Blast Bags with Barrels set at 3º elevation.

HISTORICAL DATA
The Chilean government had two battleships building in British yards at the start of World War I, Almirante Latorre and Almirante Cochrane, both armed with Elswick weapons. These ships were taken over by the British in 1915, with Almirante Latorre being completed as the battleship HMS Canada and Almirante Cochrane completed as the aircraft carrier HMS Eagle. At the end of the war, HMS Canada was sold back to Chile, once again named Almirante Cochrane, and served in the Chilean Navy until stricken in 1958.

The Mark I was an Elswick design of wire-wound construction with a three-motion short-arm breech mechanism. Fourteen guns were produced with the four reserve guns, which were never used, differing in having a sharper taper on the inner A tube. These spare guns were scrapped in 1922. Ten additional guns were ordered for Almirante Cochrane and three of these were completed with railway mountings but never used in France. The railway guns had the forward slope of their chambers reduced from 1 in 8 to 1 in 15 in order to prevent the shell from slipping back at high elevations.

The Mark III was the designation given to two guns built by Elswick for the Japanese battleship Yamashiro but not delivered. They are thought to have been the same as other 14-inch (35.6 cm) guns built for the Japanese Navy. These two guns were altered to give a ballistic performance identical to the Mark I. Compared to the Mark I, the main constructional differences were that they were about 1.5 tons (1.6 mt) lighter, had Vickers breech mechanisms, the inner A tube had forward shoulders with cannelured rings - to reduce “steel choke” - and were not tapered. These Mark III guns were not used afloat but were used on railway mountings in France.

The muzzle velocity and shell weight of the 14” (35.6 cm) Mark I did not differ appreciatively from that of the 14” (35.6 cm) Mark VII carried by the King George V class battleships of World War II. If anything, the older guns had slightly better performance considering that they fired shells of poorer aerodynamic qualities than did the newer guns (4crh vs. 6crh).

The data that follows is specifically for the Mark I guns used on HMS Canada although the Mark III should have had similar if not identical performance.

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