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Originally Posted by KPII
Thanks for this - I'm still a little sceptical that the average crew could keep up a sustained fire of 15-18 rounds per minute - that is a VERY, VERY QUICK. Would be interesting to hear if anyone has some historial references to engagements where they could achieve this high rate of aimed fire.
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I'm not an expert on the subject (actually I've never held a gun in my life) but I think it was possible to sustain such a quick (really quick as you correctly point out) rate of fire. My reasoning (and I'm speculating here) is that they were not firing a lot of rounds, as they were not engaged in gun fights. The whole idea of the deck gun was to finish off targets and engage small unarmed vessels. Usually 5-10 rounds should do the job in those situations. Therefore the actual rate of fire can be sustained for a few minutes, but probably not for a prolonged period of time.