5.2 cm SK L/55 naval gun

The 5.28 cm SK L/55^{[Note 1]} was a German naval gun that was used before and during World War I on a variety of mounts, in torpedo boats and cruisers.

5.2 cm SK L/55 gun
Krupp gun in Royal Australian Armoured Corps Tank Museum, Puckapunyal, Victoria, Australia.
Type	Naval gun
Place of origin	German Empire
Service history
In service	1906—1920?
Used by	German Empire
Wars	World War I
Production history
Designed	around 1905[1]
Specifications
Mass	386 kg (851 lb)[2]
Barrel length	2.87 m (9 ft 5 in) L/55[2]
Shell	Fixed QF 52 x 463 R[3]
Shell weight	1.75 kg (3 lb 14 oz)[2]
Caliber	5.2 cm (2 in)
Action	Semi-automatic
Breech	Horizontal sliding wedge
Recoil	Hydro-pneumatic
Carriage	Central pivot
Elevation	-5° to +20°[1]
Traverse	360°
Rate of fire	10 rpm[1]
Muzzle velocity	850 m/s (2,800 ft/s)
Effective firing range	7.1 km (4.4 mi) at +20°[1]

Design and description

The 5.2 cm SK L/55 gun was designed around 1905, and used fixed ammunition. It had an overall length of about 2.86 m (9 ft 5 in).^[1] The gun was of built-up steel construction with a central rifled tube, reinforcing hoops from the trunnions to the breech. The gun used a semi-automatic Krupp horizontal sliding-block breech and used fixed quick fire ammunition.

Service

This gun was installed in several torpedo boats and cruisers of the Imperial German Navy, as well as in some torpedo boats ordered by the Royal Netherlands Navy, among them:

• SMS V106 torpedo boat (ex-Dutch)
• A-class torpedo boat (coastal)
• S90-class torpedo boats
• Dresden-class cruisers
• Kolberg-class cruisers
• Königsberg-class cruisers
• Pillau-class cruisers
• Wiesbaden-class cruisers

During World War I it was sometimes replaced with larger guns (as the 8.8 cm L/30, 8.8 cm L/35 or 8.8 cm L/45), while in turn replaced the less powerful 5 cm SK L/40 gun in some older torpedo boats.^[1]

See also

• List of naval guns

The gun must have been used during WW2 too, since the Polte factory in Magdeburg, manufactured cartridge cases for this gun, at least august 1942.