12 Inch Shell

12 Inch Shell. . , The HE (high explosive) 12-inch shell was the main projectile fired by the big guns of British battleships from 1895, with gunpowder as the high pressure propellant. , The shells weighed 850lbs with an effective range of five nautical miles, this is just over 9km - which as the crow flies is the distance from Gunwharf Quays to Hayling Island. The shells were fired with a muzzle velocity of 2,376 feet per second and were capable of piercing 33-inches of armour plating at 1,000 yards. The 12-inch shell was the most common ammunition fired by the Grand Fleet at the Battle of Jutland in 1916, the main naval battle of the First World War. , The revolutionary big gun battleship HMS Dreadnought, launched here in Portsmouth in 1905, was armed with ten 12-inch guns which would have fired these shells. , In making a single 12-inch gun, about 135 miles of steel ribbon was used and each time a 12-inch gun was discharged it cost the country about £100. , The gunners which operated these guns were trained here in Portsmouth at the Naval Base on Whale Island.