Armstrong gun

Half way through making a model of an Armstrong cannon I came across This

As per the norm a total disregard to safety and the size of machinery is tremendous.

Edited By Eric Cox on 02/08/2017 15:24:55

Edited By Eric Cox on 02/08/2017 15:25:58

Quite rightly, nowadays would not be allowed to produce such a thing in case it hurt someone, not to mention the noise level!

Tongue firmly in cheek.

Of course, in the manufacture of such items a lot of one commodity, very scarce today, was used: Common sense!

Howard

I recall reading somewhere that once all the gubbins was added onto a big gun an 18 inch naval gun was almost twice as heavy as a sixteen inch gun (150 vs 300 tons)

This was why the Japanese were the only battleship builders who ever bothered

confirm? Deny? discuss!

That's some machinery...so is this one showing small arms manufacture & the what we would now class as vintage equipment... lathes, mills, drills etc but in 1918 gave full employment to the US...



​As for PPE... just keep producing the goods... there's another war coming...

George.

Edited By mechman48 on 02/08/2017 17:27:33

Foreman bowler hat, workers, flat caps.

Accurately measuring breech diameter with a stick...

I suppose the logic would be a bigger gun and battleship would give you longer range with which to hit something.(Heavy weight isn't necessarily as much of a problem at sea, what matters is how well balanced the weight is and buoyancy. It just means you need a longer distance to come to a halt, like those big oil tankers do.)

A heavier gauge weapon in this type of warfare was the way to outclass an opponent because you could hit them before they could hit you.

Submarines and aircraft advancement has kind of taken out the one upmanship of nations building what are essentially floating fortresses, they were considered untouchable. They still have them, of course, (Nimitz, Kirov etc) but they aren't the force they once represented.

The HMS Hood for e.g before the germans sent it to the bottom, once was the pride of the royal navy, was probably their biggest ship, and therefore the only match they had for the bizmark. It didn't go their way but you can see how they gauged up what was suitable vessel to take on such a beast in direct combat. That being said, the bizmark was also very lucky to have landed a plunging shot on the wooden deck. This led to the loss of around 1400 men. Very sad. 

Michael W

Edited By Michael-w on 02/08/2017 18:12:55

Confirm! I got some numbers for Swedish Naval Guns circa 1912:

• 28cm - 63000kg
• 25cm - 30000kg
• 24cm - 26000kg
• 21cm - 11000kg
• 15cm - 7630kg
• 12cm - 2800kg
• 75mm - 975kg
• 57mm - 380kg
• 47mm - 243kg
• 37mm - 78kg

I can't find the reference, but I recall the all up weight of a British twin 16" turret in 1918 was about 2000 tons. This includes a pair of barrels with breeches, armour plate, shell lifts, winches, hydraulics, shock absorbers, compressed air gear, manual handling equipment, a turntable, anti-flash doors, fire-control equipment, plumbing and much other paraphenalia. From magazine floor to turret top about 70 or 80 feet.

Dave

I have worked lathes that size and getting a very large hot chip down your overalls was no joke!!

I don't know how true, it is but I was told that on large guns the shells got bigger in diameter as the barrels wore each time they were fired!

I seem to remember that the shells on the large guns were numbered. Ialso remember when the defence force wanted 155 mm guns as well as the 105 mm howitsers, and parliment turned them down because the thought(or someone thought)the 155 mm guns were too big and agressive!

Ian S C

The gun being made in the video may have been constructed at Armstrong's, but it wasn't what's normally referred to as an Armstrong gun, which uses a breech screw to tighten against a sliding block and was more usual in the 1860s/70s than the Welin interrupted screw breech seen in the clip. The gun shown looked like an early 20th C weapon such as might have been carried by late pre-Dreadnoughts.

Only on weapons with exceptionally severe temperatures and pressures, such as the German WW1 Paris Guns, was it necessary to sequence shells with ascending diameters to compensate for erosion. There's evidence that one of these guns was destroyed through a round loaded out of sequence, illustrating the risks of such a procedure.

Edited By Mick Burmeister 1 on 03/08/2017 08:43:47

Around the time the Japanese supergiants were being finished, the Swordfish attack on Bismarck, a most modern fast battleship with large and varied AA armament, manoeuvreing freely in open ocean many hundreds of miles from land, proved that these ships were critically vulnerable in the face of air attack.

If my memory is good there is an Armstrong Disapearing Gun between Oamaru and Dunedin in NZ ---maybe Ian can confirm?

the Swordfish attack on Bismarck, a most modern fast battleship with large and varied AA armament, manoeuvreing freely in open ocean many hundreds of miles from land, proved that these ships were critically vulnerable in the face of air attack.

The last battleship ever launched was British.

We kept upgrading the build to reflect various battleship weaknesses exposed by WW2,

it took from 1941 to 1946 to get her built

HMS Vanguard

Edited By Ady1 on 03/08/2017 09:30:05

Yes I think they have resurected the Armstrong disappearing gun at the heads of the Otago harbour. There was something on TV 1 not long ago of test firing of one of the guns, Auckland I think, a small charge and no projectile, I think there is one at Wellington, and I'm not too sure of the status of the Christchurch one. these guns were put in place in 1885  as protection against the Russians, and were manned during WW1 and WW2.

I think the Christchurch gun put a shell through the fishing boat Dolphin killing the skipper(probably the first casulty of WW2 because he didn't stop at the harbour barrier, and fly the correct signal flag, about 12 hours before war was declare in Europe.

The Godley Head gun at Christchurch was last fired in 1959.

There were 10  8", and 13  6" Armstrong guns around the country, the Dunedin one at Tairoa Head (near the Albatross rookery) is the only one in it's original fort, and in full working condition.

worth having a look at Coastal Fortifications of New Zealand  wiki.

Ian S C

Edited By Ian S C on 03/08/2017 11:03:16

We saw that when we visited the Royal Albatrosses. You have to pay extra to see the gun but there was an albatross on a nest right outside one of the gun emplacement windows. I seem to remember that it takes a couple of hours manual winding to charge up the hydraulic reservoir to raise the gun.

That was a good holiday

Rod

Hi Rod, it's an amazing weapon considering it's age. There is one thing that bugs me about the Taiaroa Head Albatross rookery, albatross are like sheep, one sheep, a thousand sheep, they are not sheeps, likewise with a dozen albatross. I know that down there all the written stuff refers to albatrosses, I don't know where these guys were taught, but they didn't go to any school that I went to. rant over.

If the gun in Dunedin is set up as the Canterbury ones were there is a hydraulic lift to deliver the shells and charges etc to the gun.

Ian S C

Edited By Ian S C on 03/08/2017 16:01:46

In the south of the island (Malta) there is a fort with an Armstrong RML 17.72 inch gun...it's a pig of a gun, muzzle loader weighing around 100tons - its really big considering its in a Victorian fort it should date from the 1880's or there abouts. Sometimes they do some re-enactments and fire the big gun, seen it once...impressive!

Chris B the gun you refer to in Malta is at Fort Rinella, one of the forts built to guard the entrance to Grand Harbour at Valletta. A truly impressive piece of kit, and as you say a muzzle loader imagine having to swing a 100 ton barrel to reload it, last time I was there a few years ago they were planning to load it with just black powder, no projectile, to fire during their re-enactments, guess they must have done it by now. If anyone goes to Malta they are big on re-enactments and most are on Sunday's during the summer season at various locations, well worth going to.

Dave

Would the report of a big gun be different without a projectile?

Probably a lot less chance of hitting a ship and doing serious damage if firing blanks!!!

Dave