A couple of years ago I acquired two tampions/tompion badges that were immediately recognizable as the design that would have been fitted to HMS Glorious‘. This article traces the tampions and the history of HMS Glorious’ 15″ guns and turrets.
These crests were two items in a huge trove of marine artifacts that had originated from a collector associated with HNMB Devonport.
The design does not include the Royal crown and matches the official 1923 design that depicts a rayed flower (rose)
Both crests were sent off to experts for analysis and determined to be original items that match the same design, casting and rear engraving as the single crest hed by the National Maritime Museum, UK.
So what is a tampion?
A tampion or tompion (in the Royal Navy) is a wooden plug, or a metal, canvas, rubber, or plastic cover, for the muzzle of a gun or mortar. Tampions can be found on both land-based artillery and naval guns. Naval tampions have developed into works of art.
Although the cannon of ships of the line were protected as they were retracted inside the ships, many smaller vessels had exposed gundecks which required a plug to protect inside of the barrels. To combat rust when ships were not in action the barrels were sealed, both with a tampion and plugs in the touch hole. A quantity of olive oil and a round shot were left inside in the barrel; With the gun laid horizontally the shot would roll up and down the barrel as the ship caught each wave, effectively lubricating the gun simply through the motion of the ship.
Later, the invention of revolving gun turrets meant that all guns were constantly exposed to water. Hence, when not in use, naval guns were protected by wooden, and, later, rubber, muzzle plugs. They were also used to protect the barrel whenever the guns were placed in storage, for example in the hold where moisture could cause corrosion, and sealed in with putty.
Typically, rubber and plastic tampions can be shot through in case of an emergency. Plastic tampions are normally designed to be expelled by the build-up of pressure in the barrel as the first shell is fired.
Over time, tampions were embossed or engraved with the arms of the unit, and they became collector’s items. Nowadays, even warships that typically would not carry heavy guns, such as submarines, have their own badges in the shape of a tampion
So the items I’m discussing in this article are two of the crests that would have adorned a tampion onboard HMS Glorious (when she was a cruiser).
Ships’ badges first appeared in the 1850s, as identification markings on the stationery used by some Royal Navy ships. These badges were quickly used to mark the boats assigned to a ship, to aid crew in finding their boat at a dark or crowded wharf. The creation of badges was haphazard, and eventually came into use for the ships themselves.
In 1918, Charles ffoulkes, the curator of the newly established Imperial War Museum was asked by the commanding officer of HMS Tower to design a badge for his ship. He quickly received requests to create badges for other Royal Navy vessels, and on 10 December 1918, ffoulkes was appointed the Admiralty advisor on heraldry. Shortly prior to this, a Ships’ Badge Committee had been established to regulate the creation and use of ships’ badges.
In 1919 the badges were standardized as four shapes:
Circular (Battleships & Battle Cruisers),
Pentagonal (Cruisers),
Shield (Destroyers)
Diamond (all other types and shore establishments).
HMS Glorious remained a cruiser during this period and would have been issued a Pentagonal badge.
In 1940, the designs for all ships were standardised to a circular design. This was primarily due to wartime shortages, although another factor was to eliminate difficulties caused when a ship was commissioned with a previously-used name but was a different type of vessel, requiring the badge to be redesigned for the new shape. At the same time, the use of scaled-down badges for a ship’s boats was suspended, and as of 2000 has not been resumed.
After the war, the pentagonal badge shape was assigned to Royal Fleet Auxiliary vessels, and the diamond to commissioned shore bases.
‘Doing the rounds’
Glorious and her sisters (Courageous and Furious) were converted from cruisers into Aircraft carriers during the inter-war period. It was during this conversion that their turrets were removed and placed into storage.
According to research they were initially placed into storage as possible replacements for the ships of the “Revenge” and “Queen Elizabeth” classes. Then, when the new 16″ (40.6 cm) battleships of the “Lion” class, set to follow the “King George V” class battleships were postponed, and then later cancelled it was realized that these turrets could be used in a more modern battleship to follow the “King George V” class to replace the “Lion Class”, at that time postponed.
So it came to pass, that years later they would be modified for installation on Britain’s last battleship HMS Vanguard.
During this period, research shows that the tampion’s and crests were installed to protect them against the elements as well as canvas wrapping the barrels.
My research also pointed at a more complex history for HMS Glorious and Couregeous turrets long before they were completed.
According to the d’Eyncourt Papers (DEY/17-MS72/030, Caird Library, National Maritime Museum) the turrets had been initially assembled for the Revenge class battleship Ramillies before being reallocated to the Harland & Wolff Cruisers (Glorious and Couregeous). The transferal of these turrets is probably due to the delays associated with the delivery of Ramillies (installation of new torpedo blisters and damage sustained during her launch and running aground) which meant she saw no combat service during WWI.
The turret components that were taken from Ramillies for Glorious and Couregeous were then re-ordered. The distribution of guns is also covered in “The Battleship Builders” by Johnson & Buxton
According to the diagram in the d’Eyncourt Papers , Glorious received the “turrets” destined for Ramillies but “trunks” and “shields”, are to be (presumably) custom built, the shields at least are to be “light armour” as per Renown.
So the turrets had been designed for another vessel (Ramillies), were ultimately installed on Glorious and her sister Couregeous. Both vessels saw action in WWI and these turrets and guns were then removed and stored when ships were converted to carriers. The turrets were then destinted for several other ships, ultimately finding a home in HMS Vanguard
It is worth noting that the left hand gun in the forward turret of HMS Glorious was wrecked when a shell detonated inside the gun barrel during the Second Battle of Heligoland Bight (17 November 1917). Glorious required five days of repairs to fix damage caused by premature detonation and her own muzzle blast. She fired 57 15-inch and 213 four-inch shells during the engagement
Despite the age and the unfortunate detonation described above, the BL 15-inch Mark I were solid guns. In World War I they had proved its effectiveness at the Battle of Jutland in 1916, scoring hits out to 19,500 yards (17,800 m), a record for naval gunnery at that time.
In World War II the gun is responsible for one of longest shell-hits ever scored by one battleship on another in combat at sea. At the Battle of Calabria on 9 July 1940, HMS Warspite gained a hit on the Italian battleship Giulio Cesare with her first salvo at 26,400 yards (24,100 m). Ironically, Scharnhorst holds a similar distance record for hitting HMS Glorious at near identical range – sealing HMS Glorious fate.
The BL 15 was the most widely used and longest lasting of any British designs, and arguably the most efficient heavy gun ever developed by the Royal Navy
,Even so, taking these aramarments from a WWI vessel and putting them on a modern battleship involved some major changes in the turrets and revolving structures, this included:.
- New 30-ft rangefinders and rangefinder hoods to replace the original shorter base units, and the sighting hoods on the gun-house roofs were replaced by sighting ports in the face plates as in HMS Hood.
- The ammunition hoists were given more up-to-date anti-flash protection.
- Ammunition hoists were modified to accommodate the change in Vanguard whereby the magazines were re-situated below the shell rooms for added protection.
- The turrets were modified to give 30 degrees of elevation by enlarging the turret gun ports, and the armor face-plates were increased in thickness.
- Remote power control was provided for turret training, although not for gun elevation. Vanguard was thus the first—and last—British battleship to receive RPC for the main turrets.
- frontal armor being increased from 9″(229 mm) to 13″(330 mm), and roof armor from 4.25″(108 mm) to 6″ (152 mm)
- These modifications increased the turrets weight to approximately 855 tons, about 6 % more than the original construction
- Each turret was also modified to use the heavier 1, 938 lb. shell, rather than the lighter original version of 1,920 lbs
The information I have on the Tampion’s indicate that they were removed around the time the turrets were overhauled for use on HMS Vanguard.
The crests then appear to have made there way back to Devonport
HMS Vanguard assumed her own heraldic crest, now in the adopted circular design (shown below)
Research indicates that HMS Glorious guns were shipped to Vanguard aswell:
The actual guns that were installed in VANGUARD are as follows:
Y turret (ex COURAGEOUS A) with barrels No.21 (left), No.24 (right).
X turret (ex COURGEGOUS Y) with barrels No.63, No.30.
B turret (ex GLORIOUS) with barrels No. 105, No.108.
A turret (ex GLORIOUS) with barrels No.65, No.77.
Above: HMS Vanguard showing the turret ID’s. The forward two turrets (A & B) belonged to HMS Glorious while the after turrets came from Couregeous.
By the time that HMS Vanguard was scrapped in 1960, HMS Glorious’ turrets had outlived their original owner, the sisters that had sunk her (Scharnhorst, Gneisenau) and had seen the sun set on the era of the British battleship.
Above: HMS Glorious as a cruiser
