The Amazonian Navy started trials and production of a fully automatic cruiser weapon in 1941. Both 6" and 8" weapons went through the trials with the 6" having the added task of also being an AA gun as well as its normal surface duties. This proved to be one step too far and the Amazons learnt what the Royal Navy learnt back in the early 1920's, a 6" gun does not make a good AA weapon. The twin 6" originally fitted to the Nelson and Rodney had an AA capability but never had any AA shells produced for them. The Amazon Arsenal discounted the 6" and continued with proving the 8" as an automatic gun. Serious work on the design and production started in 1942 at which stage the US BuOrd advised of the parallel design work they were doing on their own 8" Mk.16 automatic weapon. Cross fertilisation of ideas took place. This was very important for the US Bureau of Ordnance as they were under the 'halt all development' order of Franklin D. Roosevelt. The Amazons had no such restrictions and poured more money into development. This meant that while the US 8" got to sea in 1948 on the Des Moines class cruisers, the Amazonian Thorece class were under acceptance trials when the war finished in 1945 and joined the Navy in 1946. Only two ships were ever completed with the automatic 8", the sheer cost of the ships compared to the general purpose cruisers were horrendous. The biggest thing was that within a few short years of their completion, missiles were available to do the same job, cheaper. There would always be a place for these ships as shore bombardment vessels and they would replace what had been the Molpadia classes role. Prepping and firing missiles took minutes, firing the 8" took seconds. A boon for troops ashore requesting fire support.
While only mounting two triple turrets of the 8" full automatic guns, this number equated to 18 guns of the semi-automatic guns on the Androdaixa class. The normal shell load for the 8" semi-auto guns was 150 per barrel. For the automatic weapons, this was increased to 500 rounds per barrel. Which is why a ship the size of the Thorece only had two turrets. The magazine storage was huge. The secondary armament was the twin fully automatic 3" L/70 weapon system produced jointly with the US and UK. The last part of the armament was two twin 24" RATS (Rocket Assisted Torpedo System) torpedo mountings. Depending on the target the data to be programmed into the guidance system in the torpedo could be sourced through masthead radar for surface targets or asdic for subsurface targets.
Changes to the armament were few. The two RATS torpedo mountings were replaced with more modern weapons as they became available, which also meant updating the sonar/asdic systems as well. One of the final upgrades was the removal of the B and X 3" mountings and their replacement with SuperCat AA missiles. 1990 and both ships are removed from active service, then stripped of useful componentry and sold for scrap.
