During the Boers Wars in South Africa, Royal Navy officer, Captain Percy Scott, proposed to assemble a 6 inches tube from the HMS Terrible cruiser on a wooden carriage. This improvisation provided good results on the battlefield, particularly in counter-artillery fire that needed a long range.

The gun was adopted in 1898 as a coastal defence gun, named 'BL 6 inches 26 cwt Gun' thanks to its good ballistic characteristics. Some of these wooden carriage guns took part in the early fight in 1914, but it was quickly decided to equip this tube with a more robust steel carriage. This carriage was unhopefully still rigid and needed wooden blocks with slopes under the wheels to absorb the recoil energy. Moreover the distance between the frame and the tube limited the elevation angles, thus the range. The new types of carriages that came later never completely solved these issues.

211 such guns were put into service during WW1, whose 84 were equipped with a modernized tube.

Main characteristics :

Weight in firing position : 25000 kg
Calibre : 152.4 mm (6 in.)
Tube length : 46.6 calibres
Projectile weight : 45.4 kg
Initial velocity : 762 m/s
Maximum range : 12530 m (MkII)
Elevation range : -0 / + 33 degrees (MkI) +52 degrees (MkII)
Direction range : 8 degrees