Engaged, p23, states: "The Italians did not press home their attacks very hard and I thought they had a lot to put up with, as each (10 × 5.25 in gun) cruiser could fire 100 rounds of 5.25" HE shell per minute..." Ronald Sired was a gunnery petty officer on board . The accuracy of Sired's account was praised by Captain FC Flynn RN. Official Historian of the Naval Campaigns in the Mediterranean A wartime account describes demonstration firing her main armament: ...the ship's company closed to action-stations and gave a demonstration of the cruiser's firepower to the army officers... in the form of a low angle barrage. Set to burst at 2000 yds range, a terrific barrage was put up for two minutes and we fired some two hundred rounds of 5.25-inch HE...A wall of bursting shell was thrown up just above sea level and I could see that the army officers were impressed... The ballistic performance of the QF 5.25 was very good, with a maximum range of at 45 degrees with an HE shell. In comparison, the French Mle 1934 guns as used on the s had a maximum range of at 30 degrees with an SAP shell. The Italian 135/45 mm gun as used on the s had a maximum range of at 45 degrees with a AP shell. The QF 5.25 guns performed well on during Operation Halberd, escorting a convoy to Malta under, but later Prince of Wales was overwhelmed and sunk while operating along with Repulse when Force Z was attacked by Japanese aircraft, due to factors unrelated to the guns' performance. No Dido-class cruisers were lost to air attack, although four were sunk by submarine or surface-launched torpedoes. However , a Bellona-class cruiser (Improved Dido), was sunk at anchor in 1944 by a Luftwaffe guided missile. According to postwar publications the gunhouses were cramped, and the heavy projectile and cartridge cases resulted in a reduced sustained rate of fire to seven or eight rounds per minute rather than the designed twelve rounds per minute. However, these factors do not appear to have reduced Euryaluss rate of fire, over a one-minute period, which was typical for a World War II AA engagement. The dual-mount turrets 10 deg/s traversal speed was considered too slow to engage higher-speed aircraft at close range. Nevertheless, these elevation and traverse rates were still higher than some contemporary weapons,