QF 2-pounder naval gun

QF 2 pdr Mark VIII ("pom-pom")
QF 2 pdr Mark VIII ("pom-pom")
	Quadruple 2 pdr MK VIII guns on Mk.VII mounting aboard HMAS Nizam August 1941
Type	Autocannon
Place of origin	United Kingdom
Service history
In service	1917–1940s (Mk II); 1930–1940s (Mk VIII)
Used by	British Empire; Japan; Thailand; Russian Empire; Kingdom of Italy; Netherlands
Wars	First World War; Second World War
Production history
Designer	Vickers Armstrongs
Designed	1915 (Mk II); 1923 (Mk VIII)
Variants	Low-velocity (LV) & high-velocity (HV); RHI, LHI, RHO, LHO for multiple mountings; Type 91 HI Shiki (Japanese)
Specifications (Mk.VIII HV)
Mass	850 lb (390 kg)
Length	8 ft 6 in (2.59 m)
Shell	40×158mmR
Calibre	40 mm (1.6 in)
Barrels	1, 4 or 8
Rate of fire	115 rpm
Muzzle velocity	new gun: 732 m/s (2,400 ft/s); worn gun: 701 m/s (2,300 ft/s)
Effective firing range	3,960 m (13,300 ft) A/A ceiling
Maximum firing range	6,220 m (20,400 ft) at 701 m/s (2,300 ft/s)
Feed system	14-round steel-link belt
Filling weight	71 g (2.5 oz)

The 2-pounder gun, officially the QF 2-pounder (QF denoting "quick firing") and universally known as the pom-pom, was a 40 mm (1.6 in) British autocannon, used as an anti-aircraft gun by the Royal Navy.^{[note 1]} The name came from the sound that the original models make when firing. This QF 2-pounder was not the same gun as the Ordnance QF 2-pounder, used by the British Army as an anti-tank gun and a tank gun, although they both fired 2 lb (0.91 kg), 40 mm (1.6 in) projectiles.

Predecessors – Boer War and the Great War

QF 1 pounder

The first gun to be called a pom-pom was the 37 mm Nordenfelt-Maxim or "QF 1-pounder" introduced during the Second Boer War, the smallest artillery piece of that war. It fired a shell 1 lb (0.45 kg) in weight accurately over a distance of 3,000 yd (1.7 mi; 2.7 km). The barrel was water-cooled, and the shells were belt-fed from a 25-round fabric belt. This "auto cannon" fired explosive rounds (smokeless ammunition) at 450 rounds per minute. The Boers used them against the British, who, seeing their utility, bought guns from Vickers, which had acquired Maxim-Nordenfelt in 1897.^[3]^[4] During the First World War, it was used in the trenches of the Western Front against aircraft.

QF 1+1⁄2-pounder

The first naval pom-pom was the QF 1.5-pdr Mark I, a piece with a calibre of 37 mm (1.46 in) and a barrel 43 calibres long. This was tested in the Arethusa-class light cruisers HMS Arethusa and Undaunted but did not enter full service, being replaced instead by a larger weapon, the QF 2-pdr Mark II (see below).

QF 2-pounder Mark II

Posed photo of Mk II guarding a train against air attack, Mesopotamia, 1918

The QF 2-pounder Mark II was a larger version of the QF 1-pounder Maxim gun produced by Vickers. It was a 40 mm calibre gun with a water-cooled barrel and a Vickers-Maxim mechanism. It was ordered in 1915 by the Royal Navy as an anti-aircraft weapon for ships of cruiser size and below. The original models fired from hand-loaded fabric belts, although these were later replaced by steel-link belts. The enlargement was not entirely successful, as it left the mechanism rather light and prone to faults such as rounds falling out of the belts. In 1915, sixteen 2-pounders were mounted in armoured lorries as the Pierce-Arrow armoured AA lorry. In 1918, one example of this weapon was experimentally mounted on the upper envelope of His Majesty's Airship 23r.^[5]

Surviving weapons were brought out of storage to see service in World War II, mainly on board ships such as naval trawlers, motor boats and "armed yachts". It was used almost exclusively in the single-barrel, unpowered pedestal mountings P Mark II (Royal Navy nomenclature gave mountings and guns separate Mark numbers) except for a small number of weapons on the mounting Mark XV, which was a twin-barreled, powered mount. These were too heavy to be of any use at sea and were mounted ashore. All were scrapped by 1944.

Calibre: 40 mm L/39
Total length: 96 in (2,400 mm).^[6]
Length of bore: 62 in (1,600 mm).^[6]
Rifling: Polygroove, plain section, 54.84 in (1,392.94 mm), uniform twist 1 in 30 in (760 mm), 12 grooves.^[6]
Weight of gun & breech assembly: 527 lb (239 kg)^[6]
Shell Weight: 2 lb (0.91 kg) HE.
Rate of Fire: 200 rpm
Effective Range: 1,200 yd (1,100 m)
Muzzle Velocity: 1,920 ft/s (590 m/s)

Some 7,000 guns were made. The gun was also used by the Japanese as the 40 mm/62 "HI" Shiki. The Regia Marina also used it from the Great War throughout World War II. It was superseded in the 1930s as a primary AA weapon on Italian warships by more modern guns, such as the Cannone-Mitragliera da 37/54 (Breda).^[7]

QF 2-pounder Mark VIII

8-barrelled "Chicago piano" on HMS *Rodney*, viewed from below

The Royal Navy had identified the need for a rapid-firing, multi-barrelled close-range anti-aircraft weapon at an early stage. Design work for such a weapon began in 1923 based on the earlier Mark II, undoubtedly to use the enormous stocks of 2-pounder ammunition left over from the First World War. Lack of funding led to a convoluted and drawn-out design and trials history and it was not until 1930 that these weapons began to enter service. Known as the QF 2-pounder Mark VIII, it is usually referred to as the "multiple pom-pom".

The initial mounting was the 11.8 to 17.35 ton, eight-barrelled mounting Mark V (later Mark VI), suitable for ships of cruiser and aircraft carrier size upward.^[9]^[10] From 1935, the quadruple mounting Mark VII, essentially half a Mark V or VI, entered service for ships of destroyer and cruiser size. These multiple gun mounts required four guns and were nicknamed the "Chicago Piano".^[6] The mount had two rows each of two or four guns. Guns were produced in both right- and left-hand and "inner" and "outer" so that the feed and ejector mechanisms matched.

Single-barrelled mounts, the Mark VIII (manual) and Mark XVI (power operated), were also widely used, mainly in small escorts (such as the Flower-class corvettes) and coastal craft (especially early Fairmile D motor torpedo boats). The Mark XVI mounting was related to the twin mounting Mark V for the Oerlikon 20 mm cannon and the "Boffin" mounting for the Bofors 40 mm gun. Magazines ranged from 140 rounds per gun for the eight-barrelled mount to 56 rounds for the single mounts.^[11] This large ammunition capacity (1,120 rounds) gave the eight-barrelled mount the ability to fire continuously for 73 seconds without reloading. A high velocity (HV), 1.8 lb (820 g), round was developed for the pom-pom, just before the Second World War, which raised the new gun muzzle velocity from 2,040 ft/s (622 m/s) to 2400 ft/s (732 m/s).

Many older mountings were modified with conversion kits to fire HV ammunition, while most new mounts were factory built to fire HV ammunition. A mount modified or designed for HV ammunition was given a '*' designation; for example a Mk V mount modified for HV ammunition would be a Mk V*.^[11]

US Navy

The United States Navy also considered adopting the pom-pom gun prior to its entry into the Second World War, and conducted a series of trials between their own 1.1" gun, the U.S. Army 37 mm Gun, the Vickers 40 mm pom-pom, and the Bofors 40 mm:

Among the machine guns under consideration were the Army's 37-mm and the British Navy's 2-pounder, more commonly known as the "pompom." The decision soon narrowed to a choice between the Bofors and the British gun. The British were anxious to have their gun adopted, and the fact that British aid would be readily available in initiating manufacture was put forward as an argument in favor of its selection. The 2-pounder, moreover was giving a good account of itself on British ships. On the other hand, there was the distinct disadvantage that the gun was designed for cordite powder, and no manufacturing facilities for the production of this ammunition were available in the United States. Thorough study revealed that the gun could not be converted to take American powder. Another consideration was muzzle velocity: The pompom had a relatively low velocity, 2350 feet per second as compared with 2830 for the Bofors. The success of the pompom in action was more than offset by the proved qualities of the Bofors in the hands of a number of powers who were using it, and the Bureau decided to join that group. Shortly after the Bureau's selection of the Bofors, British naval officials also decided to adopt the gun.^[12]

Wartime use

Although an advanced weapon when it was introduced, by the outbreak of World War II advances in aircraft would have made it obsolete but for the introduction of the high-velocity round and new director designs. It was intended that the curtain of fire it threw up would be sufficient to deter attacking aircraft, which it did, but was hampered by the ineffective Mk III director.^[13] The MK IV Director with a Gyro Rate Unit and Type 282 radar^[14] was a great advance and was introduced on the King George V-class battleships. In January 1941, HMS Illustrious′s Mk VIII (HV) mountings performed flawlessly firing 30,000 rounds with very few stoppages.^[13] When HMS Prince of Wales was attacked and sunk by Japanese aircraft near Singapore, the subsequent report judged that a single 40 mm Bofors gun firing tracer was a more effective anti-aircraft weapon^[15]^[16] than a multiple pom-pom in director control, as the pom-poms did not have tracer ammunition and the pom-pom ammunition had deteriorated badly in its ready use lockers, while the Type 282 radar units also failed in the equatorial heat.^[17]^[18] In the same action, the Commissioned Gunner of HMS Repulse spent the whole action running from one pom-pom mount to another trying to keep them operational due to the faulty ammunition. The pom-poms on Repulse shot down two of the four confirmed kills made by Force Z,^[19] while Prince of Wales' pom-poms did record hits on enemy aircraft.^[20]

The Royal Navy judged the pom-pom's effectiveness to range from about half that of the Bofors, per gun, against torpedo planes to about equal against Kamikaze attackers.^[21] It was a ubiquitous weapon that outnumbered the Bofors gun in Commonwealth naval service^[22] up to the end of World War II and it shot down many Axis aircraft. Later innovations such as Remote Power Control (RPC) coupled to a radar-equipped tachymetric (speed predicting) director increased the accuracy enormously and problems with the fuses and reliability were also remedied. The single mountings received a reprieve toward the end of the war as the 20 mm Oerlikon guns had insufficient stopping power to counter Japanese kamikaze aircraft and there were insufficient numbers of Bofors guns to meet demand.

Calibre: 40 mm L/39
Shell Weight: 2 lb. (980 g) or 1.8 lb. (820 g) for High-Velocity (HV) round
Rate of Fire: 115 rpm fully automatic
Effective Range: 3,800 yards (3,475 m) or 5,000 yards (4,572 m) HV
Effective Ceiling (HV): 13,300 feet (3,960 m)
Muzzle Velocity: 2,040 ft/s (622 m/s) or 2400 ft/s (732 m/s) for HV ^[23]

QF 2-pounder Mark XIV

The QF 2-pounder Mark XIV was the Rolls-Royce 40 mm cannon, which had been developed by Rolls-Royce as a competitor to the 40 mm "Vickers S" gun as an aircraft weapon. The latter was the more successful design, and found some use as an anti-tank weapon. A reworked version was adopted by the Royal Navy as a weapon for Motor Gun Boats, being adopted in the Fairmile C type as well as British Power Boat Company 60- and 70-foot (18- and 21-metre) type MGBs. It had a semi-automatic horizontally sliding breech block and was shipped on a manually trained pedestal mount. The weapon was not a success and of the 1,200 ordered only some 600 were delivered. It was initially replaced in various MGBs by single 20 mm Oerlikon cannon in order to make good, being ultimately succeeded in the large quick-firer role later in the war by the 57 mm Molins 6-pounder gun, the British Army's QF 6-pounder gun anti-tank gun with an auto-loader.

Ammunition

World War II high-velocity 2-pounder shells.
A stack of 14 linked rounds of naval pom-pom ammunition.

Notes

^ British military of the period traditionally denoted smaller guns in terms of the approximate weight of the standard projectile, rather than by its bore diameter, which in this case was 40 mm. References to 40-mm anti-aircraft guns invariably mean the Bofors gun, while references to 2-pounder anti-aircraft guns mean this gun.

References

^ Naval Weapons of WW2, Campbell, p. 71
^ Campbell, p.71
^ Horn, Bernd (22 December 2012). Doing Canada Proud: The Second Boer War and the Battle of Paardeberg. Dundurn. p. 56. ISBN 9781459705784.
^ Krott, Rob (January 2002). "South Africa's National Museum of Military History". Archived from the original on 11 February 2020. Retrieved 27 August 2019.
^ Patrick Abbott and Nick Walmsley, British Airships in Pictures: An Illustrated History, House of Lochar 1998, ISBN 1-899863-48-6 (p.62)
^ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e I.V. Hogg & L.F. Thurston, British Artillery Weapons & Ammunition 1914-1918. London: Ian Allan, 1972, Page 28.
^ Bagnasco, Erminio (1978). Le armi delle navi italiane. Parma: Albertelli. pp. 77–80. ISBN 978-8887372403.
^ "Star Wars". The Belgian Coast. Archived from the original on 26 November 2020. Retrieved 1 November 2021.
^ Raven and Roberts, British Cruisers of WW2, p224. The first eight-barrelled mounting weighed 11.8 tons while a Remote Power Control mount along with 1.6 tons (1,200 rounds) of ammunition weighed 17.35 tons.
^ Campbell, Naval Weapons of WW2, p67 and p149. Campbell notes that a quad USN Bofors mount weighed 11.12 to 11.88 tons and only carried a maximum of 10 rounds per gun on the mount.
^ ^a ^b Campbell, Naval Weapons of WW2, P72
^ Rowland and Boyd, U. S. NAVY BUREAU OF ORDNANCE IN WORLD WAR II, USN Bureau of Ordnance, p223-224.
^ ^a ^b Campbell, Naval Weapons of WW2, p. 20
^ The Gunnery Pocket Book, p. 164
^ Middlebrook, Battleship, p. 340. The report does not note any 40mm Bofors kills or even hits from the Prince of Wales' Bofors gun, while hits from pom-pom fire were recorded by the crew of the Prince of Wales.
^ Middlebrook, Battleship, p. 340: "It is considered that a Bofors with tracer ammunition in local control is a more valuable weapon than an 8 barrelled pom-pom in director control without tracer..."
^ Brown, A radar history of World War II: technical and military imperatives, p. 220. Brown notes that 3 out of 4 type 282 radars were out of service when Prince of Wales departed Singapore.
^ Garzke and Dulin, Allied Battleships, p. 204, notes that the remaining type 282 and two type 285 radars failed after the first torpedo hit.
^ Middlebrook, Battleship, p. 224
^ Middlebrook, Battleship, p. 340
^ Campbell, Naval Weapons of WW2, p. 67: "...if control and mountings were of equal efficiency, the Bofors was reckoned to be twice as effective as the pom-pom against torpedo planes but not much better against very close range targets such as Kamikazes."
^ Campbell, pp. 67, 74.
^ Campbell,Naval Weapons of WW2, p. 71

Bibliography

Louis Brown, A radar history of World War II: technical and military imperatives. Institute of Physics Publishing, 1999. ISBN 0-7503-0659-9.
John Campbell, Naval Weapons of World War Two. Naval Institute Press, 1986. ISBN 978-0-87021-459-2.
Rowland and Boyd, U. S. NAVY BUREAU OF ORDNANCE IN WORLD WAR II, USN Bureau of Ordnance
Garzke and Dulin, Battleships: Allied Battleships of World War II. Naval Institute Press, 1980. ISBN 978-0-87021-100-3.
I.V. Hogg & L.F. Thurston, British Artillery Weapons & Ammunition 1914-1918. London: Ian Allan, 1972
Martin Middlebrook and Patrick Mahoney, Battleship: The Loss of the Prince of Wales and the Repulse. Penguin Classic Military History, 2001. ISBN 978-0-14-139119-9.
Alan Raven and John Roberts, British Cruisers of World War Two. Naval Institute Press, 1980. ISBN 978-0-87021-922-1.

External links

THE 2-PDR. MARK VIII GUN ON THE MARK VII MOUNTING. in The Gunnery Pocket Book, B.R. 224/45, 1945 placed online courtesy of maritime.org
Tony DiGiulian, "United Kingdom / Britain Miscellaneous 2-pdr [4 cm (1.575")] Guns"
Tony DiGiulian, 2-pdr [4 cm/39 (1.575")] QF Mark II, Mark II* and Mark II*C
Tony DiGiulian, 2-pdr [4 cm/39 (1.575")] QF Mark VIII
Tony DiGiulian, Japanese 40 mm/62 (1.575") "HI" Type 91
Anthony G Williams, 37MM AND 40MM GUNS IN BRITISH SERVICE
Convoy to Malta; video footage of the pom pom in action. Archived 4 November 2011 at the Wayback Machine
Malta Convoy; more video and audio footage of the pom-pom in action. Archived 11 June 2011 at the Wayback Machine
Newsreel video of HMS Scylla's quad pom-pom fighting the Luftwaffe while protecting convoy PQ18

[3] British military of the period traditionally denoted smaller guns in terms of the approximate weight of the standard projectile, rather than by its bore diameter, which in this case was 40 mm. References to 40-mm anti-aircraft guns invariably mean the Bofors gun, while references to 2-pounder anti-aircraft guns mean this gun.

[1] Naval Weapons of WW2, Campbell, p. 71

[2] Campbell, p.71

[4] Horn, Bernd (22 December 2012). Doing Canada Proud: The Second Boer War and the Battle of Paardeberg. Dundurn. p. 56. ISBN 9781459705784.

[5] Krott, Rob (January 2002). "South Africa's National Museum of Military History". Archived from the original on 11 February 2020. Retrieved 27 August 2019.

[6] Patrick Abbott and Nick Walmsley, British Airships in Pictures: An Illustrated History, House of Lochar 1998, ISBN 1-899863-48-6 (p.62)

[Hogg&Thurston1972Page28-7] I.V. Hogg & L.F. Thurston, British Artillery Weapons & Ammunition 1914-1918. London: Ian Allan, 1972, Page 28.

[8] Bagnasco, Erminio (1978). Le armi delle navi italiane. Parma: Albertelli. pp. 77–80. ISBN 978-8887372403.

[9] "Star Wars". The Belgian Coast. Archived from the original on 26 November 2020. Retrieved 1 November 2021.

[10] Raven and Roberts, British Cruisers of WW2, p224. The first eight-barrelled mounting weighed 11.8 tons while a Remote Power Control mount along with 1.6 tons (1,200 rounds) of ammunition weighed 17.35 tons.

[11] Campbell, Naval Weapons of WW2, p67 and p149. Campbell notes that a quad USN Bofors mount weighed 11.12 to 11.88 tons and only carried a maximum of 10 rounds per gun on the mount.

[ReferenceA-12] Campbell, Naval Weapons of WW2, P72

[13] Rowland and Boyd, U. S. NAVY BUREAU OF ORDNANCE IN WORLD WAR II, USN Bureau of Ordnance, p223-224.

[Campbell_p20-14] Campbell, Naval Weapons of WW2, p. 20

[15] The Gunnery Pocket Book, p. 164

[16] Middlebrook, Battleship, p. 340. The report does not note any 40mm Bofors kills or even hits from the Prince of Wales' Bofors gun, while hits from pom-pom fire were recorded by the crew of the Prince of Wales.

[17] Middlebrook, Battleship, p. 340: "It is considered that a Bofors with tracer ammunition in local control is a more valuable weapon than an 8 barrelled pom-pom in director control without tracer..."

[18] Brown, A radar history of World War II: technical and military imperatives, p. 220. Brown notes that 3 out of 4 type 282 radars were out of service when Prince of Wales departed Singapore.

[19] Garzke and Dulin, Allied Battleships, p. 204, notes that the remaining type 282 and two type 285 radars failed after the first torpedo hit.

[20] Middlebrook, Battleship, p. 224

[21] Middlebrook, Battleship, p. 340

[22] Campbell, Naval Weapons of WW2, p. 67: "...if control and mountings were of equal efficiency, the Bofors was reckoned to be twice as effective as the pom-pom against torpedo planes but not much better against very close range targets such as Kamikazes."

[23] Campbell, pp. 67, 74.

[24] Campbell,Naval Weapons of WW2, p. 71

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v t e British Empire artillery of the First World War
Armoured vehicle guns	QF 3-pounder Vickers QF 6-pounder Hotchkiss QF 6-pounder 6 cwt
Infantry guns	1.59-inch breech-loading Vickers Q.F. gun, Mk II
Field artillery	BL 12-pounder 6 cwt QF 12-pounder 8 cwt QF 12-pounder 18 cwt QF 13-pounder BL 15-pounder BLC 15-pounder QF 15-pounder QF 18-pounder QF 4-inch gun Mk III BL 4-inch gun Mk VII QF 4.5-inch howitzer
Medium & heavy artillery	QF 4.7-inch gun BL 5-inch howitzer BL 5.4-inch howitzer BL 60-pounder gun BLC 6-inch siege gun BL 6-inch gun Mk VII BL 6-inch gun Mk XIX BL 6-inch 26 cwt howitzer BL 6-inch 30 cwt howitzer BL 8-inch howitzer Mk I – V BL 8-inch howitzer Mk VI – VIII
Siege artillery	BL 7.5-inch Mk III naval gun BL 9.2-inch howitzer BL 9.2-inch Mk X naval gun BL 12-inch howitzer BL 12-inch Mk X naval gun BL 15-inch howitzer
Mountain artillery	RML 2.5-inch mountain gun BL 10-pounder mountain gun BL 2.75-inch mountain gun QF 2.95-inch mountain gun QF 3.7-inch mountain howitzer
Mortars	Garland trench mortar 3-inch Stokes mortar Vickers 1.57-inch mortar 2-inch medium mortar Newton 6-inch mortar 9.45-inch Heavy Mortar
Smoke and chemical weapons	4-inch Stokes Mortar Livens Projector Livens Large Gallery Flame Projector
Anti-aircraft guns	QF 1-pounder pom-pom QF 2-pounder "pom-pom" Mk II 75 mm AA gun QF 12-pounder 12 cwt QF 13-pounder 6 cwt QF 13-pounder Mk IV QF 13-pounder 9 cwt QF 3-inch 20 cwt QF 18-pounder QF 4-inch Mk V
Coastal artillery	QF 12-pounder 12 cwt QF 4-inch naval gun Mk I – III BL 6-inch Mk VII naval gun BL 9.2-inch Mk IX – X naval gun RML 9-inch
Railway guns	BL 9.2-inch railway gun BL 12-inch railway gun BL 12-inch railway howitzer BL 14-inch railway gun

v t e British Empire naval weapons of the First World War
Monitor guns	BL 9.2-inch Mk VI BL 9.2-inch Mk VIII BL 9.2-inch Mk X BL 9.2-inch Mk XII BL 12-inch Mk VIII BL 14-inch Mk II (US built) BL 15-inch Mk I BL 18-inch Mk I
Capital ship main armament	Vickers 10-inch 45 cal. EOC 10-inch 45 cal. BL 12-inch Mk VIII BL 12-inch Mk IX BL 12-inch Mk X BL 12-inch Mk XI & XII EOC 12-inch 45 cal. Mk XIII BL 13.5-inch Mk I – IV BL 13.5-inch Mk V BL 13.5-inch Mk VI EOC 14-inch 45 cal. Mk I BL 15-inch Mk I
Armoured cruiser main armament	BL 7.5-inch Mk I BL 9.2-inch Mk X BL 9.2-inch Mk XI
Secondary armament and light cruiser main armament	QF 12-pounder 18 cwt QF 14-pounder Maxim-Nordenfelt QF 14-pounder Mk I & II QF 4-inch Mk III BL 4-inch Mk VII QF 4-inch Mk V BL 4-inch Mk IX BL 5.5-inch Mk I QF 6-inch Mk I – III BL 6-inch Mk VII BL 6-inch Mk XI BL 6-inch Mk XII BL 6-inch Mk XIII-XVIII BL 7.5-inch Mk II – Mk V
Destroyer and small cruiser armament	QF 12-pounder 12 cwt Mk II QF 4-inch Mk III BL 4-inch Mk VIII QF 4-inch Mk IV BL 4.7-inch Mk I
Merchant ship armament	QF 4.7-inch Mk I – IV QF 4.7-inch Mk V*
Submarine guns	BL 4-inch Mk XI QF 4-inch Mk XII
Anti-aircraft guns	QF 2-pounder "pom-pom" Mk II QF 3-inch 20 cwt QF 4-inch Mk V
Light weapons	.303 Vickers machine gun QF 3-pounder Hotchkiss QF 3-pounder Vickers QF 6-pounder Hotchkiss
Torpedoes	18-inch Mk V – VIII 21-inch Mk II 21-inch Mk IV
Mines	Spherical Mk I, II and III Vickers Elia mine Type H mine
Anti-submarine weapons	Type A Depth charge Type B Depth charge Type C Depth charge Type D Depth charge Type E Depth charge Type F Depth charge Type G Depth charge Cruiser Mine 7.5-inch howitzer
Landing guns	QF 12-pounder 8 cwt

v t e British Commonwealth naval weapons of the Second World War
Monitor guns	BL 15-inch
Capital ship main armament	BL 14-inch BL 15-inch BL 16-inch
Heavy cruiser main armament	BL 7.5-inch Mk VI BL 8-inch Mk VIII
Secondary armament and light cruiser main armament	QF 4-inch Mk V QF 4.5-inch QF 5.25-inch BL 5.5-inch BL 6-inch Mk XII BL 6-inch Mk XXII BL 6-inch Mk XXIII
Minesweeper, Sloop, Corvette, Frigate and Destroyer armament	QF 6-pounder 10 cwt QF 12-pounder 12 cwt Mk V QF 4-inch Mk IV BL 4-inch Mk IX QF 4-inch Mk XVI QF 4-inch Mk XIX QF 4.5-inch BL 4.7-inch Mk II QF 4.7-inch Mk IX & XII QF 4.7-inch Mk XI
Submarine guns	QF 12-pounder 12 cwt Mk V QF 3-inch 20 cwt QF 4-inch Mk XII & XXII
Anti-aircraft weapons	Unrotated projectile Holman Projector 20 mm Oerlikon QF 2-pounder "pom-pom" Mk VIII 40 mm Bofors QF 3-inch 20 cwt QF 4-inch Mk V QF 4-inch Mk XVI QF 4.5-inch QF 4.7-inch Mk VIII
Light weapons	.303 Lewis machine gun .50 Vickers Mk III machine gun QF 3-pounder Vickers
Torpedoes	21-inch Mk VII 21-inch Mk VIII 21-inch Mk X 21-inch Mk XI 24.5-inch Mk I
Anti-submarine weapons	Thornycroft depth charge thrower Hedgehog Squid
Small craft armament	Molins 6-pounder Vickers K machine gun 18-inch torpedo
Foreign-sourced weapons	20 mm Oerlikon 40 mm Bofors 3-inch 23 caliber gun (US) 3-inch 50 caliber gun (US) 4-inch 50 caliber Mark 9 gun (US) 5-inch 51 caliber Mark 8 gun (US) Y-gun depth charge projector (US) Mark 8 torpedo (US)