5"/54 Caliber Mark 45 Gun

5"/54 Caliber Mark 45 Gun

The 5-Inch/54-caliber (Mk 45) lightweight gun is a modern U.S. naval artillery gun mount consisting of a 5-inch (127 mm) L54 Mark 19 gun on the Mark 45 mount. Originally designed and built by United Defense, it is now manufactured by BAE Systems Land & Armaments after the former was acquired. The latest 5-inch/62-caliber version consist of a longer barrel L62 Mark 36 gun fitted on the same Mark 45 mount. The gun is designed for use against surface warships, anti-aircraft and shore bombardment to support amphibious operations.

The gun mount features an automatic loader with a capacity of 20 rounds. These can be fired under full automatic control, taking a little over a minute to exhaust those rounds at maximum fire rate. For sustained use, the gun mount would be occupied by a three-man crew (gun captain, panel operator, and ammunition loader) below deck to keep the gun continuously supplied with ammunition.

Read more about 5"/54 Caliber Mark 45 Gun:  History, Variants, Users

Famous quotes containing the words mark and/or gun:

    The things that were coming to be talked about
    Have come and gone and are still remembered
    As being recent. There is a grain of curiosity
    At the base of some new thing, that unrolls
    Its question mark like a new wave on the shore.
    John Ashbery (b. 1927)

    Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired, signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. The world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its labourers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children.
    Dwight D. Eisenhower (1890–1969)