November 20, 2024: The Oto Melara 76mm cannon is housed in a 7.5-ton turret and remotely controlled by the fire control officer on the ship's bridge. The cannon is water cooled and able to fire up to 120 rounds a minute. The magazine in the turret holds 80 rounds. Range of the shells is 20 kilometers or 40 kilometers for the guided Vulcano shell. Each shell weighs 6.3 kg with a muzzle velocity of 920 meters a second.

The 76mm gun can hit small targets including cruise missiles out to 20 kilometers or 40 kilometers using a smaller guided shell. The gun can also be used against aircraft when the gin is elevated to 85 degrees.

The standard 76mm shell is 12.5 kg, which is capable of accurately hitting and destroying small speedboats. This 76mm gun can fire rapidly and with a new carousel magazine fire at a rate of 125 rounds per minute. hit 60 targets in a few minutes. Firing that many shells at a single target is impressive and creates a large explosive effect normally associated with larger artillery shells.

The 76mm gun is also used to destroy incoming missiles, much like the Phalanx 20mm autocannon does. For that reason Phalanx is not required on ships armed with the 76mm cannon. About six thousand of the 76mm cannon have been produced since 1964.

Using similar technology, Oto Melara produced a 127mm/5 inch naval cannon that fires 30 kg shells out to 30 kilometers, or 120 kilometers using the guided round. Housed in a 33-ton turret, the remotely controlled gun can fire at the rate of 32 RPM from a 56 round magazine.

U.S. Navy Mk 45 127mm/5 inch gun system weighs 22 tons, including turret and ammunition delivery system. The Mk 45 is remotely controlled by the ship fire control officer. The turret is unmanned and uses an automatic loader so that up to 20 shells a minute can be fired. Rarely is this high rate-of-fire mode used anymore because it was originally needed for air defense during World War II against Japanese Kamikaze aircraft. The Mk 45 used shells with proximity fuzes that exploded when near an aircraft.

The U.S. Navy also developed a GPS guided 127mm shell that detonates above swarms of small boats and destroys or disables these fast-moving boats with shell fragments. The Mk 45 has become a popular armament for other navies and is currently exported to ten countries.

In the 1930s the 127mm gun became standard armament for U.S. warships, mainly destroyers, when the Mk 12 was introduced and used until the 1950s when replaced by the Mk 42. In 1971 the current Mk 45 was introduced and has undergone many upgrades to remain in use. There was a major Mk 45 upgrade in 2000 when the 54 caliber long 6.9-meter barrel was replaced by the 60-caliber 7.9-meter Mod 4. All the earlier mods used the shorter barrel, which could fire a shell out to 24 kilometers. The longer barrel can fire out to 37 kilometers. The 60-caliber barrel wears out after firing about 7,000 shells. American destroyers armed with the Mk 45 carry 680 127mm shells of various types. Most of the shells are HE/High Explosive with detonation on contact or proximity fuzes. Illumination shells are common as well. These shells weigh 30 to 32 kg each. The separate propellant charge weighs about 18 kg. Most 127mm shells have an initial velocity of 830 meters a second but some types of shells move at over a thousand meters a second. In effect the Mk 45 is a very large rifle and at one time warship designers called such naval guns rifles.