Hello Folks Im trying to find out which guns (poss. AA or something similar)would have sat on the ground and possibly overhung these concrete curved walls. this is Braefoot Bay in Fife Scotland, its an old WW1 and WW2 Gun Battery.There are 4 mounting rings on the wall (poss for recoil?) and rectanguular holes in the walls with rusted metal outers which once were shutters/doors poss for ammo storage and there is a large circular mounting position on the ground with a large ammount of thick threaded metal bars arranged in three/four thick(in the brush just behind my dog alfie) obviously they are there to bolt down something quite large! u can make sum out on ground of second photo.You will also see a rail system leading from a magazine store to both guns. any help IDing the guns-especially pics would be splendid! cheers,toaffer
Toafer, These pits were for 9.2 inch calibre guns for defence against enemy shipping. If you look at the top of the pit betwen the two rings in picture 2, you should find "300' ASL" ( Feet Above Sea Level) painted there. The gun itself was mounted on a platform which would have brought it level to the top, and the height marker would have helped calculate range/angle etc when firing. The mounting you described is for the holdfast bolts to keep the gun in place, the circular recess along the bottom of the pit is to keep shells for quck reaction; these would have the fuses fitted but not yet set. The long recess higher up the wall in picture 1 is for the ramrod used to clean the barrel; it was collapsible into two long sections. The No. 2 gun has the same features. It's unusual for there only to be one track from the magazine; this would mean that the wagon carrying ammo would have to stop at No.1 gun long enough to unload, before going to the next gun. It can't have been very efficient. Any anti-aircraft guns sited on the hill in WW2 would have been mobile 40mm Bofors guns on trailers, and probably wouldn't leave a trace now.
Hello again folks! just wondering if this is the gun that would have sat in the pit in Braefoot in ww2? -certainly looks big enough
Well that's actually a Howitzer, which was designed to fire shells from an angle of 45 degrees up to 90 degrees. This was ideal for trench warfare, but more usually for engaging hidden targets (such as to the rear of hills etc). Guns of that calibre would have been mounted at Braefoot, though designed for flatter angles of fire to engage shipping. They fired shells up to an angle of 45 degrees, and the range of eight miles would be known as 14,080 yards by a coastal battery, though the range would actually have been greater. This link shows a typical 9.2 inch gun mounted for shore defence. Braefoot would have had something very similar- British 9.2"/47 (23.4 cm) Mark X
Ah ha! now this is more fitting with the large ring of threaded bolts in the pit! Failing the lack of op. photos im kind of planning to photoshop(rank amateur at it!)one of my own pics by adding in the guns,taking away the breezed blocked windows and getting rid of the trees etc.
Couple of pics of guns actually in emplacements for you, the smaller looking gun I think is a ww1 4.5in and the closeup of the gun I think is a 6in, so as you can imagine the 9.2's would have been huge!
