West Point cannon trophy no. 382

[cannonmn]

The cannon at center is of course another one of those eccentric breech breechloaders.  I'm trying to find out what's engraved or stamped on the square brass plate on top of the breech.  That's the way West Point displayed information about historically significant cannons, or in any case interesting information if they had any.  I have some inquiries out, but you never know, maybe the Seacoast boys took better notes than I did and can tell me.  This is one of about 500 photos I took at West Point in April 1982.  West Point is one of those places that anyone intersted in antique cannons has to visit at least once in their life.

[Victor3]

 I see they have three or four of those dang near indestructable Parrott rifles too.

 I bet guys picked to crew those things were happy to hear of their assignment 

[seacoastartillery]

     Wish we could help you out, John, but this time we didn't get there until after 9/11, so all the new security regs were in place which block you from meandering through those rows of tubes like we did in the 60s and 70s as tourists.  We only had permission and enough time in 2004 to study the 8 Inch Armstrong rifle, and the rain chased us out at that. 

T&M

[cannonmn]

A person who has looked at West Point's cannon records says West Point believes it is the 2.5-in. Lyman-Haskell accelerating gun, based on this patent:

http://www.google.com/patents?id=MTlVAAAAEBAJ&pg=PP1&dq=ininventor:Azel+ininventor:Lyman&as_drrb_ap=q&as_minm_ap=1&as_miny_ap=2009&as_maxm_ap=1&as_maxy_ap=2009&as_drrb_is=b&as_minm_is=1&as_miny_is=1857&as_maxm_is=3&as_maxy_is=1857&source=gbs_selected_pages&cad=0_1#PPP1,M1

However they still want to go look at the cannon, the plaque on it, and any other numbers on it, since West Point used at least three sets of trophy numbers at various times.  I'll be anxious to see what's on the plaque since the gun sure doesn't look much like the patent drawing.  It is known that the LH gun blew up, and this gun has blown up, so that's one common point anyway.

[dan610324]

thats an very interesting patent , I think that idea have been used in modern times also .
very very recently actually .

do you remember sadam husseins project babylon ??

I dont have any evidence of that , but from the picture I have seen of a piece of that barrel its way to thin for any other method to force the projectiles to the high speed they tried to achive .
the barrel length should have been 60 - 80 meters on the finished gun .

so what I could understand is the only way to use lots of small charges that goes off after the projectile have been passing them .