The armament of the Spanish training ship 'Juan Sebastián de Elcano' for its defense

The training ship "Juan Sebastián de Elcano" A-71 is one of the most famous units of the Spanish Navy worldwide.

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This fame is due to the training cruises that this ship makes annually, sailing around the world and acting as a formidable ambassador for Spain. Obviously, as its name indicates, the "Elcano" is a ship dedicated to the training of midshipmen who study at the Military Naval School of Marín. Launched on March 5, 1927, it is the oldest ship in the Spanish Navy and is not prepared for combat. The official website of the ship explains its condition as follows:

"Unlike most units of the Navy, this ship - which is a brigantine-schooner sailboat - does not have missiles, torpedoes, or any weapons system for combat. But it does have, like any other warship, light weapons for the self-defense of the unit, in order to maintain an adequate capacity to face an unforeseen threat that may arise at sea or in a foreign port."

The aforementioned site lists the ship's armament as follows: "In total, the ship has 2 37 mm mounts, 2 Browning machine guns and 2 MG machine guns, in addition to portable weapons such as rifles and pistols." Today, the Navy has published several photos on its Twitter account showing some of this armament, during shooting exercises aboard the ship during its voyage to Brazil on its 17th Training Cruise, of which HRH Leonor de Borbón, Princess of Asturias is a part. You can see those photos here.

Here we see one of the two Browning M-2 heavy machine guns carried by the ship. Its ammunition is caliber 50 BMG (12m7 × 99 mm NATO) and they constitute the main armament of the "Elcano" against threats of some magnitude. In the photo we see two midshipmen of the Marine Corps firing, supervised by a captain of the same Corps. Below these lines we can see one of these weapons in more detail (in this case, the photo is of one of the M-2s of the Patrol Boat "Atalaya" P-74, which is based at the Naval Military School of Marín).

The Browning M-2 is a world-famous weapon. Designed in 1918 by the American John Moses Browning, it has been in service since 1921 and has participated in numerous wars and conflicts since then. It has an effective range of 1,800 meters and a rate of fire of between 750 and 850 rounds per minute. In Spain it is used in different variants by the three branches of the Armed Forces.

The two MG-1 machine guns opening fire on the stern of the "Elcano". This type of machine gun was manufactured by the German firm Rheinmetall since 1958 on the basis of the famous German MG-42 machine gun of World War II. The MG1 uses 7.62 x 51 mm NATO caliber ammunition. It has an effective range of about 1,200 meters and a rate of fire of about 1,200 rounds per minute.

These machine guns were manufactured in Spain under license by the Oviedo Weapons Factory and are still used by the Spanish Marine Corps in the MG-1A3 and MG-1A3S variants. Externally it is very similar to the MG-3 machine guns carried by other ships of the Spanish Navy (above these lines you can see one of the MG-3s from the aircraft carrier "Juan Carlos I" L-61).

The Heckler & Koch G-36E assault rifle, caliber 5.56 x 45 NATO, was also used in the aforementioned shooting exercise. It is the current standard-issue rifle of the Spanish Armed Forces. Of German origin, the G-36E version is the export version for Spain. It has an effective range of up to 800 meters and a rate of fire of 750 rounds per minute.

I have left for last the most showy and highest caliber armament of the "Elcano": the two Bazán RB cannons. They are 37 mm caliber, so in theory they should be the most powerful armament on the ship, but they are only used for salute salutes. I have searched the State Contracting Platform and have only found purchases of salute salutes for this type of cannons. These salvos are blank ammunition, so they do not have a projectile.

In the Bazán RB, 37 x 300 R type salvos are used. The website Municion.org states the following about these salute salvos: "It is a 37×380 R shell cut to 300 mm in length and loaded with black powder. Although the official designation is 37mm, the diameter of the mouth of the shell is 45 mm and if it mounted a projectile it would be 42 mm".

The two Bazán RB guns of the "Elcano" are mounted on both sides of the forecastle. (above these lines we see the starboard one, and the rest of the photos are of the port gun). They are white, with some mechanisms painted black.

The Bazán RB is the Spanish version of the German 37 mm Flak SK C/30 anti-aircraft gun, a 1935 model that was usually used in double C/30 mounts with gyroscopic stabilizer on board surface ships and on single C/39 mounts in submarines. According to an article by Lucas Molina Franco published in Revista de Historia Naval number 99 (2007), Spain received 20 Flak SK C/30 from Germany, 4 in C/30 mounts and 16 in C/39 mounts for submarines.

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Photos: Armada Española / Elentir.