Vickers 4 inch Medium anti aircraft gun 1950's

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mistedupagain

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I am a new member so I apologise if anything is not as it should be

I am looking for information on the Vickers 4 inch medium anti aircraft gun prototypes built i think in the early middle 1950's
The gun was designed as a medium AA gun to supplement the Heavy anti aircraft gun Green Mace.
I understand that prototypes were made and got as far as field trials and running trials with the British Army.

Does anyone have any info?

PS this is not the Red Queen project. Green Mace, Red Queen and the Vickers medium anti aircraft gun appear to all have a similar time window
 
Good morning,

I note my earlier posting has had no replies.
I will ask another question

Does anyone have information on Experimental Anti Aircraft weapons of the 1945 / 50's period?

I am intetrested in both the actual guns and the equipment associated with them

Thanks
 
i assume you've looked here:

http://www.skomer.u-net.com/projects/aaguns.htm

the email contact doesn't work, so don't even try.

Mark
 
Yes I have tried Skomer.
I have also tried the Imperial War museum and the patents office.
I am hoping that some of you will have information or / and pictures which can lead me back to some of the ratefixer / blue mace/black mace/ vickers 4"/ experimental guns.

Any detail will do as hopefully it will eventually all add up
 
I can't remember reading of a 4" Vickers weapon in that timeframe, only the 4" Green Mace prototype in the same calibre. There's a good article in an old IMechE journal (1967 I think) about the Ratefixer program, with lots of information. I can't remember it being mentioned there either but it's been a year or two since I read it.
 
Thank you for this information
Do you think you could send me a copy of this article?

I would also agree with you of the experimental guns of this period the Vickers gun appears to have very little information on it!
Surprising in that I understand that a number of prototypes were built, the gun tested on gunnery ranges by the army and even went as far as undertaking limited field trials, certainly it underwent road and implacement trials.
The weapon itself used a water cooled 4" barrel with a conveyor belt loading system each side in what looked like a wardrobe with a sliding door.
Amunition was fed from both sides using a central loading tray.
I understand the gun was on the Army weapons wants list as late as 1960!

In shape the weapon reminds me of a Quad type vehicle with the gun running down the middle and a small cab on the right hand side. It was a towed weapon
 
Do you think you could send me a copy of this article?
Click to expand...

“The Development of High-Speed Automatic Loading Mechanisms for Heavy Anti-Aircraft Artillery” by D. H. Chaddock in the Proceedings of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers”, Volume 177, Number 21, 1963

Unfortunately I don't have a copy, I looked in the university's collection a few years back. I think I might have taken some photos though, so I'll have a look.

After the bit more detail you've given, I'm reasonably certain that this sounds like Vickers proposing a scaled up version of their naval 3"/70 weapon. Feed mechanism seems the same. This might seem obvious, but are you sure it was 4" calibre and not 3"? It's just that a possible land mounting of the 3" seems more reasonable to have escaped attention.
 
Thank you for the information.
I too followed the Vickers 3 inch naval gun but no the army weapon is quite different.
Feed mechanism to the breech was via a rocking tray which moved from center to left and right.
The vickers 3 inch used what I would call an old fashioned can making conveyer to deliver rounds to the breech.

The gun was quite definately a 4 inch

Ordanance board minutes 29th June 1951 refer to 4 inch full calibre gun Vickers MAA
Ordnance board minute July 1953 notes a change of title to Equipment 102mm Vickers medium anti aircraft gun.

When we talk about barrels for the army anti aircraft guns of this period more confusion arises as a number pf concepts were being tested

5 inch spin stablized (green Mace)
5 inch rifled (green Mace
4 Inch rifled full bore Vickers MAA
3/4 inch littlejohn squeeze bore Vickers MAA

Hope this answers your question, pleas keep asking and sending any info you may have
 
Dear Sirs,
This year I had the privilege to visit the depository The Royal Artillery Museum, which houses cannon "Green Mace."

The only thing I missed in the local shop, was the lack of brochures describing the prototype.

Link
http://forum.valka.cz/viewtopic.php/title/4-2in-ARDE-QF-127-58-SBT-X1/t/43967

P. S.
Sorry, but I can not aglicky, so I used an electronic translator.
 
red admiral said:
“The Development of High-Speed Automatic Loading Mechanisms for Heavy Anti-Aircraft Artillery” by D. H. Chaddock in the Proceedings of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers”, Volume 177, Number 21, 1963
Click to expand...

All you may buy the article for US$32 at http://pme.sagepub.com/content/177/1/571.extract . It seems very interesting indeed.

Piotr
 
This may have been the same gun as the Vickers 4 inch fully automatic naval gun introduced in 1955 and fitted only to the two Almirante class destroyers of the Chilean Navy (four single mountings each). The gun had an L/60 barrel and fired a 16 kg shell at 900 m/s and at a rate of 40 rounds per minute. It had a maximum range of 18.5 km and could engage aircraft up to 12,000 metres. The naval mounting weighed a little over 26 tons and could elevate to 75 degrees.

See: http://www.navweaps.com/Weapons/WNCHL_4-62_Vickers.htm for more details and photos.
 

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