8 inch/50 Mark VIII (203 mm)

Description

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Vehicles equipped with this weapon

• HMS Kent
• HMS London
• HMS Norfolk
• HMS York

General info

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Available ammunition

Penetration statistics
Ammunition	Type of warhead	Penetration @ 0° Angle of Attack (mm)
		1,000 m	2,500 m	5,000 m	7,500 m	10,000 m	15,000 m
HE	HE	62	62	62	62	62	62
Mark I.B. SAPCBC	SAPCBC	274	248	209	178	153	119

Shell details
Ammunition	Type of warhead	Velocity (m/s)	Projectile mass (kg)	Fuse delay (s)	Fuse sensitivity (mm)	Explosive mass (TNT equivalent) (kg)	Ricochet
							0%	50%	100%
HE	HE	855	116.1	0	0.1	10	79°	80°	81°
Mark I.B. SAPCBC	SAPCBC	855	116.1	0.025	9	5.2	48°	63°	71°

Comparison with analogues

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Usage in battles

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Pros and cons

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Pros:

Cons:

History

After World War I, the five major nations of the Allied Powers (the United States, United Kingdom, Japan, France, and Italy) agreed to put an end to the naval arms race that had occurred over the last 20 years. Codified in the Washington Naval Treaty in 1922, the five nations agreed to restrictions on new naval ships specifically defined as heavy cruisers by their 8-inch gun armament. The 8-inch/50 Mark VIII was designed to satisfy the restrictions of the Washington Naval Treaty. Originally constructed with an inner A tube, wire, B tube, and overlapping jacket, only half of these wire-wound built-up guns were actually given the inner A tube. The Mark VIII* was later created by relining all the guns with the inner A tube while the Mark VIII** was made without the wires like the original prototypes. The early guns were mounted in turrets intended to give high elevation angles to allow them to serve as dual-purpose guns; however, the mounts were problematic with the training and elevation gears being too slow to serve in this role. In total, 196 guns were built. The first class of heavy cruisers constructed to use these guns and satisfy the restrictions of the treaty were the County class ordered in 1924 which were armed with 8 of these guns in twin mounts of the more reliable Mark II type. However, due to budget cuts after the war, the class was actually divided into three sub-types. The Kent class was the original class ordered but it was followed by the London class and the Norfolk class with slight differences to hull and superstructure. Despite the improvements of the Mark II mounts for these 8-inch guns, the issues were not fully ironed out as there were still complaints about the mountings and torpedoes on HMS London as late as 1938. The only other class to use these 8-inch guns was the York class which used triple turrets, but, due to being smaller than their County-class predecessors, had only 6 guns. Another six guns were used during World War II to serve as coastal defense guns in the Dover-Folkstone area.

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.