The 130mm/55 B7 Pattern 1913 naval gun was a 5.1-inch naval gun used predominantly on ships of the

Imperial Russian Navy The Imperial Russian Navy () operated as the navy of the Russian Tsardom and later the Russian Empire from 1696 to 1917. Formally established in 1696, it lasted until dissolved in the wake of the February Revolution of 1917. It developed from ...

and later by the Soviet Navy. It was manufactured mainly by the

Obukhov State Plant Obukhov State Plant (also known Obukhovski Plant, russian: Государственный Обуховский Завод, Gosudarstvennyy Obukhovskiy Zavod) is a major Russian metallurgy and heavy machine-building plant in St. Petersburg, Russi ...

(OSP) in

St. Petersburg Saint Petersburg ( rus, links=no, Санкт-Петербург, a=Ru-Sankt Peterburg Leningrad Petrograd Piter.ogg, r=Sankt-Peterburg, p=ˈsankt pʲɪtʲɪrˈburk), formerly known as Petrograd (1914–1924) and later Leningrad (1924–1991), i ...

, as well as under licence by

Vickers Limited Vickers Limited was a British engineering conglomerate. The business began in Sheffield in 1828 as a steel foundry and became known for its church bells, going on to make shafts and propellers for ships, armour plate and then artillery. Entir ...

in Great Britain. The gun was used as medium artillery on several Russian dreadnoughts and as main artillery on cruisers, as well as coastal artillery. It was succeeded by the

130 mm/50 B13 Pattern 1936 The 130 mm/50 B13 Pattern 1936 was a 50 caliber Soviet naval gun. The gun was used as a standard destroyer weapon during World War II, and it was also used as a coastal gun and railway gun. The gun was produced in three different version ...

naval gun, which became the standard destroyer gun of the Soviet Navy during

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...

History

In 1911 OSP received an order to design a semi-automatic 130 mm/60 caliber naval gun for the Main Shipping Administration. The order asked for two prototypes, one for cartridges, one for rounds. On 12 July 1912 the cartridge-version with a 55 caliber barrel was approved. In September 1912 it was decided to go with the hydro-spring rather than the hydro-pneumatic recoil system. Earlier an OSP designed semi-automatic breech mechanism was rejected in favor of a Vickers design. In 1913 an initial order of 471 guns was placed with OSP. By 1 January 1917 143 guns had been delivered, with 96 due until the end of that year. The remaining 282 guns were supposed to be delivered in 1918. The first charge of guns was used to equipped the cruiser ''Svetlana'' and the ''Imperatritsa Mariya''-class battleships of the Black Sea Fleet. Another order of 100 guns was placed in 1913 with Vickers Ltd., of which 24 were ready for delivery by 16 September 1914. Of these 7 were shipped to

Arkhangelsk Arkhangelsk (, ; rus, Арха́нгельск, p=ɐrˈxanɡʲɪlʲsk), also known in English as Archangel and Archangelsk, is a city and the administrative center of Arkhangelsk Oblast, Russia. It lies on both banks of the Northern Dvina near ...

in October 1914. A further 12 guns destined for Russian cruiser ''Varyag'' were delivered to Russia on the same route as the repairs of ''Varyag'' were delayed, where they were put to the defense of

Saaremaa Saaremaa is the largest island in Estonia, measuring . The main island of Saare County, it is located in the Baltic Sea, south of Hiiumaa island and west of Muhu island, and belongs to the West Estonian Archipelago. The capital of the isla ...

island. The Soviet Navy retained the 130mm/55 Pattern 1913 naval gun and produced additional guns under the designation B-7, as the OSP had been renamed Works No. 232 "Bolshevik" in 1922. In 1923, 12 guns had been placed in four coastal batteries, one in Odessa and three along the Caucasian coast. In 1930 a minor modernizations were made to a few guns at the "Bolshevik" works, improving the loading mechanism and enhancing elevation to +40°.

References

* * * {{DEFAULTSORT:130 mm 55 B7 Pattern 1913 Coastal artillery 130 mm artillery Artillery of the Soviet Union Artillery of the Russian Empire Obukhov State Plant products