Gooner1 wrote:sitalkes wrote:
The emergency coastal batteries were sited to fire out to sea and often could not depress enough to cover the beaches.
You're making that up. Depression on a typical 6-inch coast defence guns was - 7° from the horizontal.
No I'm not, I've been researching this for my MA. The guns were sited as high up above the beach (eg on top of a cliff) as possible and back from the coast somewhat so even if they could be depressed enough, the terrain was in the way. They were meant to shoot at ships, not troops on land. In many cases they weren't sited to defend beaches but ports.
M. Jones,
History of the Coast Artillery of the British Army, R.A. Institute, 1959, Pages 227-229 - also has a complete list of every gun starting pp 229 (available on Google Books)
This is my major source for the following:
After Dunkirk there were 47coastal batteries, of two (very old) guns each, with very little ammunition. Emergency Coastal Batteries were constructed to protect ports and likely landing places. They were fitted with whatever guns were available, which mainly came from naval vessels scrapped since the end of the First World War. These included 6inch (152mm), 5.5inch (140mm), 4.7 inch (120mm) and 4inch (102mm) guns. There were 54 batteries each of two 6" guns, two batteries each of two 4" guns and nine batteries each of two 4.7" guns on the East, South East and South Coasts from Shetland to Fowey. These had little ammunition, sometimes as few as ten rounds apiece, and some were of calibres long out of production, so their ammunition was old and of uneven quality. They were installed between 200 and 400 metres from the beach and often their barrels could not be lowered enough to hit targets on the beach.
These high velocity First World War guns had originally been mounted in the secondary armament positions of major warships. The primary role of the 'beach batteries' was seaward defence, with beach defence being their secondary role. Placed in open pits without overhead protection, they relied on camouflage to prevent them being dive-bombed, strafed or shelled from the sea. Those that did have overhead concrete protection were in rectangular boxes with open fronts. Also, to aid concealment for as long as possible as well as to save ammunition that was in critically short supply and to offset the inexperience of the crews, orders were given that the gunners should hold their fire until the enemy approached within four miles. The six inch guns normally had a range of 7 miles (12,000 yards effective range), so unfortunately this would limit them to about half their effective range and such batteries were likely to prove woefully inadequate to stop a determined invasion force from pressing ashore.
In Sussex, coastal batteries were sited, seven miles apart, at Bognor, Angmering, Littlehampton, Worthing, Shoreham and Brighton. They were armed with two 6” guns except for the one at Bognor, opposite Aldwick Avenue, which had two 5.5” guns. Their control HQ was inland at Washington, and they were manned by gunners of the Territorials.
Few of the Emergency Coast Batteries really qualified as coast artillery. Normal coast artillery was provided with range-finding and position-finding equipment which enabled them to engage enemy warships on the move and at considerable range. But the ‘Emergency Batteries’ and many of the beach batteries were simply concerned with direct shooting at vessels attempting to land troops and equipment, though many of them were given rudimentary fire-control systems which extended their sphere of activity a little. Actual additions to the coast defences around Britain between 1939 and 1945 were largely concerned with placing better weapons in significant positions; thus, several twin 6pdr emplacements were placed in the Thames Estuary in order to protect coastal shipping from possible torpedo boat raids.
Coast artillery may be divided into three types:
• Coast Artillery Batteries: Established and formal positions, many of which were sited in artillery forts that had been in occupation (and an almost continuous state of development) for four hundred years
• Emergency Coast Batteries: Properly configured gun positions built hastily in 1940 to defend vulnerable coastal points that had previously been overlooked
• Beach Batteries: Improvised positions in which a gun of almost any type or vintage might be bolted to a Heath-Robinson firing platform from which it could be used to engage an enemy landing force over open sights.
There was scarcely any reserve of coast-defence armament held by the Ordnance Department, but luckily and wisely the Royal Navy had kept in store a great assortment of guns and mountings from the ships which had been scrapped after the First War. From this providential supply, 6 inch, 5.5 inch, 4.75 inch, and 4 inch guns were issued in great number for what were now named "Emergency Coast Batteries" and which were to protect the minor ports and cover every threatened beach of Great Britain. Ammunition for these guns was also produced from naval sources, but quantities were very meagre, averaging only about 50 rounds per gun. The second problem was to equip these emergency batteries with the necessary searchlights (with their engines) and instruments, for without the former no firing could be done at night, and without the latter such firing as was done by day would be most inaccurate and ineffective. Searchlights were in very short supply and could only be issued to batteries being erected along what was considered to be the most threatened part of the coast, i.e. from Harwich to Portsmouth, but all kinds of substitutes were produced for the other batteries, ranging from portable lights on tripods to magnesium flares burnt in front of polished metal reflectors (Ryder Flares). A means of finding the range was the foremost requirement in instruments, for none of the naval guns were equipped with auto- sights, and there were very few spare D. R.F.s. However every available Barr and Stroud rangefinder of every possible size, large or small, was produced and hurried to the emergency batteries, and these, together with Dumaresques and rate-clocks, furnished the necessary instruments for engaging rapidly moving targets. The third problem was the provision of officers and men to man and serve the emergency batteries. The first to be installed were manned by the Royal Navy and Royal Marines, but it was soon obvious that the Fleet could not spare the large number of men required so it was decided that the batteries should be taken over by Coast Artillery. The sources from which Coast Artillery could produce trained coast-gunners were slight, in fact there were only the Territorial regiments already on duty at the major ports and the staff and recruits under training at the Coast Artillery Training Unit at Plymouth. G.H.Q. Home Forces finally laid down that personnel for the Emergency Batteries should be provided as follows :-
(a) (b) (c) (d) (f) Officers: by posting from the Territorial Coast Artillery regiments at the major ports and by calling up officers of the 'Officers Emergency Reserve" and the "Territorial Army Reserve". Senior N.C.O.s: by posting from the Coast Artillery Training Unit. Junior N.C.O.s: by posting from the Territorial Coast Artillery regiments at the major ports. Search-light Personnel: by posting from the School of Electric Lights at Gosport. Specialists: from recruits under training as such at the Coast Artillery Training Unit. The main Body of Gunners:- (i) from Medium and Heavy Regiments which had returned from Dunkirk having lost their guns. (ii) from Recruits who had done one month's basic training at any R.A. training unit.
The establishments for the Emergency Coast Batteries varied according to the size and number of the guns, ranging from about four officers and 135 men for a three gun 6 inch battery to three officers and 90 men for a two gun 4 inch battery. The mounting of the guns at the selected positions, the construction of concrete gun-houses to protect them from hostile dive-bombers, normal air bombing, and shell fire, the building of command and observation posts, searchlight emplacements, and engine houses, and the erection of accommodation for officers and men were no light task, but by employing a mixture of special gun-mounting parties, experts from the Coast Artillery School, sailors from the Royal Navy, gunners who were to man the guns when they were in position, and the Royal Engineers Services with contract labour, and by using vast quantities of quick-setting concrete, the job was done with surprising speed. It was carried out in seven instalments:-