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15 cm SK L/45

Naval gun

15 cm SK L/45
Gun salvaged from SMS Bremse, at the Scapa Flow Visitor Centre, Hoy, Orkney
Type	Naval gun Railroad gun Coastal artillery
Place of origin	German Empire
Service history
In service	1908—45
Used by	Germany
Wars	World War I World War II
Production history
Designer	Krupp
Designed	1906
Manufacturer	Krupp
Produced	1908
Specifications
Mass	5,730 kilograms (12,630 lb)
Length	6.71 metres (22 ft 0 in)
Barrel length	6.32 metres (20 ft 9 in)L/45
Shell	separate loading quick fire
Caliber	149.1 millimetres (5.87 in)
Breech	horizontal sliding-wedge
Recoil	Hydro-spring
Elevation	See table
Traverse	−150° to +150°
Rate of fire	5-7 rpm
Muzzle velocity	840 metres per second (2,800 ft/s)
Maximum firing range	See table

The 15 cm SK L/45^{[Note 1]} was a German naval gun used in World War I and World War II.

Naval service[edit]

The 15 cm SK L/45 was a widely used naval gun on many classes of World War I dreadnoughts and cruisers in both casemates and turrets. It was constructed of an A tube and two layers of hoops with a Krupp horizontal sliding-wedge breech block. During World War I a few pre-war cruisers that were armed with 10.5 cm guns were rearmed with these weapons. In World War II the 15 cm SK L/45 was widely used as coastal artillery and as primary armament on German auxiliary cruisers.

Ship classes that carried the 15 cm SK L/45 include:

Ammunition[edit]

Ammunition was of separate loading quick fire type. The projectiles were 61 cm (2 ft) long with a single bagged charge which weighed 13–14 kg (29–31 lb).

The gun was able to fire:

• Armor piercing 45.3 kg (100 lb)
• High explosive base fuzed 45.3 kg (100 lb)
• High explosive nose fuzed 45.3 kg (100 lb)
• Common shell 45.3 kg (100 lb)

Coast defense gun[edit]

The same gun was used for coast defense duties in concrete emplacements after World War I. One example was 3./Marine-Artillerie Abteilung 604 ("3rd Battery of Naval Artillery Battalion 604") in Jersey.^[2] They show it using 44 kilograms (97 lb) shells with a range of 18,000 metres (20,000 yd)

Railroad gun[edit]

It was also used as a railroad gun during World War I.

See also[edit]

Weapons of comparable role, performance and era[edit]

• BL 6 inch Mk XII naval gun British equivalent

Footnotes[edit]

Notes

Citations

References[edit]

• Gander, Terry; Chamberlain, Peter (1979). Weapons of the Third Reich: An Encyclopedic Survey of All Small Arms, Artillery and Special Weapons of the German Land Forces 1939–1945. New York: Doubleday. ISBN 0-385-15090-3.
• Campbell, John (1985). Naval Weapons of World War Two. Naval Institute Press. ISBN 0-87021-459-4.
• Friedman, Norman (2011). Naval Weapons of World War One. Barnsley, South Yorkshire, UK: Seaforth. ISBN 978-1-84832-100-7.
• Gardiner, Robert; Gray, Randal, eds. (1985). Conway's All the World's Fighting Ships 1906–1921. Annapolis, Maryland: Naval Institute Press. ISBN 0-85177-245-5.

External links[edit]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to 15 cm Schnelladekanone L/45.

• the 15cm SK L/45 on NavWeaps