BL 5-inch howitzer

Combat service

Sudan Campaign

The weapon was used by the Royal Field Artillery and served successfully at the Battle of Omdurman in 1898. During that campaign they gained the distinction of being the first British guns to fire the new Lyddite shells in action.

Second Boer War

Major D Hall states that in the Second Boer War the Lyddite shells often failed to detonate; the gun was too heavy to be used as a field howitzer, and for siege use its range was too short and shell too light. However, it achieved some success in Natal when able to get close enough to bombard Boers in trenches.

World War I

By 1908 it was obsolete and replaced in British Regular Army brigades by the modern QF 4.5-inch howitzer.

Territorial Force brigades, however, continued to use the howitzer in World War I into 1916, including notably at the ANZAC and Suvla beachheads, Gallipoli, and in the East African campaign.

A lighter 40-pound (18.14 kg) shell with Amatol filling replaced the original 50-pound (22.68 kg) Lyddite shell early in World War I Together with an increase in cordite propellant from 11 oz 7 drams to 14 oz 5 drams, this increased the maximum range from 4,800 to 6500 yd. Administrative error led to the new 40-pound shells being sent to Gallipoli without range tables or fuze keys for the new pattern fuzes, rendering them useless.

Gallery

File:BL 5 inch Howitzer US Field Artillery Journal 1915.jpeg|A rear view of the BL 5-inch Howitzer. File:BL 5 inch Howitzer Second Boer War LOC LC-USZ62-48652.jpg|Approaching Maddox Hill, Northern Cape, January 1900. File:5inchHowitzerFiringGallipoli1915.jpeg|In action on Gallipoli, 1915. File:Chargement d'un obusier et groupe d'artilleurs - Médiathèque de l'architecture et du patrimoine - AP62T122974.jpg|A BL 5-inch Howitzer in Romanian service during World War I. Romania received 28 howitzers in 1917.

Ammunition

Bibliography

• Text Book of Gunnery, 1902. LONDON : PRINTED FOR HIS MAJESTY'S STATIONERY OFFICE, BY HARRISON AND SONS, ST. MARTIN'S LANE
• Dale Clarke, British Artillery 1914-1919. Field Army Artillery. Osprey Publishing, Oxford UK, 2004
• Major Darrell D. Hall, "Guns in South Africa 1899-1902" in The South African Military History Society. Military History Journal - Vol 2 No 1, June 1971
• I.V. Hogg & L.F. Thurston, British Artillery Weapons & Ammunition 1914-1918. London: Ian Allan, 1972
• Brigadier-General Sir Hugh Simpson-Baikie, Ex-Commander of the British artillery at Cape Helles. Appendix I STATEMENT ON ARTILLERY in General Sir Ian Hamilton, G.C.B. Gallipoli Diary Vol. II. New York: George H. Doran Company, 1920
• Hogg, Ian. Twentieth-Century Artillery. New York: Barnes & Noble Books, 2000. Pg.46
• România în războiul mondial 1916-1919, Documente, Anexe, Volumul 1, Monitorul Oficial și Imprimeriile Statului, București. Pg. 42

Surviving examples

• At Karak Castle, Jordan
• National Military Museum, Bucharest, Romania

References

1. Hogg, Ian. ''Twentieth-Century Artillery.'' New York: Barnes & Noble Books, 2000. {{ISBN. 0-7607-1994-2 Pg.46
2. Text Book of Gunnery 1902, Table XII page 336
3. [[Treatise on Ammunition]] 1915, accurate as at 1 August 1914, mentions that there are both "Heavy" {{convert. 50. lb. 40. lb. 40. lb. 50. lb. 40. lb
4. Hogg & Thurston 1972 page113. Text Book of Gunnery 1902 gives {{convert. 782. ft/s. m/s. 50. lb. kg
5. Hogg & Thurston 1972, page 113
6. Hall June 1971
7. Simpson-Baikie 1920