page_title: BL 5-inch gun Mk I – V
section_title: Naval service
hierarchical_section_title: BL 5-inch gun Mk I – V / Naval service
caption_attribution_description: Photograph of seamen training with a starboard broadside 5-inch gun, on board British corvette HMS Calliope (1884). In the background is a 6-inch gun. At top left is a multi-barrelled Gardner handcranked machine-gun. The man at right holds a case which contains a powder cartridge ready for loading.
context_page_description: The BL 5-inch guns Mk I – Mk V were early British 5-inch rifled breechloading naval guns after it switched from rifled muzzle-loaders in the late 1870s. They were originally designed to use the old gunpowder propellants. The 5-inch calibre was soon discontinued in favour of QF 4.7-inch.
context_section_description: Guns equipped the following British warships :
  Mariner-class gunvessels of 1883
  Satellite-class sloops of 1883
  Comus-class corvettes as re-gunned in the 1880s
  Nymphe-class sloops laid down in 1885
  Calypso-class third class cruiser/corvettes of 1883–84
  Iris-class cruisers as re-gunned in 1888
  Beagle-class sloops of 1889
  Bacchante-class corvettes as re-gunned in the 1880s
  These guns also equipped several small gunboats of Colonial navies of Australia in the 1880s in response to the perceived threat of Russian expansionism in the Pacific (The "Russian scares").
caption: Working a starboard broadside gun on Vavasseur recoil mounting on HMS Calliope
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