Author Topic: Shooter2's European Invasion (Read 3376 times)

shooter2 · « **on:** September 22, 2011, 09:46:43 AM »

Our trip to Europe started badly in London, 3 hour wait at Passport control in Heathrow. Nowhere to sit and Sue nursing a recent arm fracture in a sling. Our hotel room was a closet masquerading as accomodation. I say all this to put in place our mood when visiting various english sites and our general dissatisfaction with the British Isles.

The cannon portion of the trip started at the Tower of London. This is part of the Royal Armouries Collection and I expected great things, I was very disappointed. The controllers of the collection seem to have a hate/hate relationship with weaponry of all kinds. I could find no person willing to expand on the information provided in the display cases and a generally antagonistic view that I should be interested in artillery at all. The collection in general had mortars hidden under viewing cases with no way to see the details, cannons mounted on walls hidden behind bunting and advertising facades and a large made up dragon whose body and arm parts consisted of mortars, cannon and smallarms welded together. I found some interesting guns in the courtyards but was forbidden on several occasions from approaching too closely or being allowed to capture details of royal ciphers or other markings.

Below is what I could get.

We shall call this lot The Good!

shooter2 · « **Reply #1 on:** September 22, 2011, 10:23:27 AM »

Following on from The Good, we have The Bad!

Mortars hidden under a viewing case, no way to get a look at the markings.

These cannon were mounted on the wall and hidden behind an advertising bunting for a bank. I was told off by an elderly man in red tights (a beefeater) that I was interfering with British history. I enquired what part of history the bank held with the tower and he left me muttering about tourists.

The Tower took particular pride in displaying the remnants of material destroyed in a great fire in the early 1800's other than morbid curiousity it did not increase my knowledge of the pieces so displayed.

A partially melted 3 barrel breech loading cannon, needless to say no other details were forthcoming.

shooter2 · « **Reply #2 on:** September 22, 2011, 10:33:30 AM »

And finally the Ugly and Bizarre!

This is a cannon ordered specially by the Knights of Malta, they needed some lessons in taste I feel.

A Dragon made up of genuine mortars, cannon and small arms all welded together to amuse the children.

The following mortars are great exhibits in their own right and I have no complaints about them, except I know nothing more about them. They were displayed in the artillery hall along with a few captured 17th and 18th century cannon.

I would like to show photos of the development of British artillery thru to the 19th century but there were no examples in the Tower. It all stops around 1780 or so. There were more captured Russin, French and Dutch guns than British.

I can forecast that things get much better when we move on to Portsmouth and the Royal Navy Museums and Fort Nelson.

Rayfan87 · « **Reply #3 on:** September 22, 2011, 11:23:37 AM »

For every original piece of history on that dragon, someone should be hanged. Small arms, cannons, moartars, everything that was an original piece has just been defaced, dishonored, and destroyed.

Mike_60 · « **Reply #4 on:** September 22, 2011, 11:32:11 AM »

Quote from: Rayfan87 on September 22, 2011, 11:23:37 AM

For every original piece of history on that dragon, someone should be hanged. Small arms, cannons, moartars, everything that was an original piece has just been defaced, dishonored, and destroyed.

+1

KABAR2 · « **Reply #5 on:** September 22, 2011, 11:49:45 AM »

THE LIBERAL COMMUNISTS HAVE TAKEN OVER THE TOWER OF LONDON!!!

I thought this was a museum not a side show for modern art....... really sickens me to see what most of us would happly have and cherish treated as so much as a piece of pipe!

I will now probably never visit England..... like Michael Savage I would probably be banned for my thoughts....

IvarForkbeard · « **Reply #6 on:** September 22, 2011, 02:56:02 PM »

Most of the arms and armour collections have been moved to Leeds.
http://www.royalarmouries.org/home

gulfcoastblackpowder · « **Reply #7 on:** September 22, 2011, 08:35:31 PM »

I will not defend the use of actual historic pieces, but I actually think the dragon is kind of cool. Where it fully composed of replicas, I wouldn't take any issue with it at all.

shooter2 · « **Reply #8 on:** September 22, 2011, 09:42:33 PM »

Ivarforkbeard is mostly correct. The pattern room guns, all of the pieces detailing small arms development etc were moved to Leeds along with the Royal Laboratory collections. the big stuff went to Fort Nelson. Fort Nelson but unfortunately not Leeds was part of my tour, so good things are a coming. Please do not consider my criticism of the Tower to be that of the British generally, what I would like you to do is consider how the Tower presented its history and exhibits in contrast with Fort Nelson and just as importantly the Musee' d Armee' in Paris which I can also show later.
The next installment however will be Portsmouth Dockyard which includes HMS Warrior, HMS Victory, the Royal Navy Musuem and the Mary Rose Exhibit.

HMS Warrior
The brass tracks are what the bow chaser gun had to follow to avoid shooting off the flags.

110 pdr Armstrong Breech Loader

Detail of the firing mechanism

Small broadside gun, top deck

If you like what you saw, consider this. Everything you just saw is Fibreglass and plastic. Not one real gun among them. There is a genuine 110 pdr below decks and wrapped in canvas. The real deck guns (there were only two) are covered as well.

Cannoneer · « **Reply #9 on:** September 22, 2011, 11:01:48 PM »

shooter2,

It's a shame that you couldn't get close ups of those mortars, I really would have enjoyed seeing them, but there's still some very interesting ordnance there. I've seen a pic of Henry VIII's unique three barreled bronze breech loader before, but the angle of the photo didn't show how drastically the piece had bowed from the fire.
You mentioned the Paris museum, so I take it that you've already finished with Britain, and moved on to Europe.

shooter2 · « **Reply #10 on:** September 22, 2011, 11:05:41 PM »

Cannoneer,
Absolutely, we are already in Rome. Owing to travelling commitments I have been delayed in getting this portion of the trip up on the board. I have some time at the moment so I getting out what I can.

shooter2

shooter2 · « **Reply #11 on:** September 22, 2011, 11:32:35 PM »

More shots of the Warrior, the Gun Decks

All fibreglass guns and reproduction small arms.
This treadle lathe however was real

exlimey · « **Reply #12 on:** September 23, 2011, 04:17:21 AM »

Great pix keep them coming. My sentiments are with you on the UK itell my kids its a great place to be FROM ! Hence exlimey 1960

shooter2 · « **Reply #13 on:** September 23, 2011, 10:47:06 AM »

The HMS Victory, no interior shots as photography was banned during the guided tour, one more thing to annoy me in England. How can something that puts itself out there as a tourist attraction ban photography, even video. Its not like the photos will affect the wood.

And yes, the guns except one were fibreglass. The reasoning was the wooden frame of the Victory can no longer support the weight of a full complement of guns. I actually find that reasonable. There were numerous repairs going on during the tour and the rigging was down. The demo of gun firing during the tour gave me concern. It appears there is no provision for a Thumb stall or wet sponging. When asked I was told that sailors during battle had no time for such things. Considering what I have read and understand I find that very hard to believe unless there were lots of explosions on His/Her Majesty's ships.

The Royal Navy Musuem was in two parts, Nelson and the Victory and anything else. Sir Francis Drake did not get a look in so I suupose that is left to the Museum at Plymouth to interpret even though the defeat of the Spanish Armada was a pretty big deal for the fledgling British Navy.

shooter2 · « **Reply #14 on:** September 23, 2011, 11:00:29 AM »

An interesting side display was a series showing the skills used to make and maintain the sialing ships, sailmaking, painters, wood workers etc.

This wood borer was reputedly the largest in the world when it was first produced. I bet Zulu could find a use for it.

Some of the more unusual boring heads

Zulu · « **Reply #15 on:** September 23, 2011, 11:07:39 AM »

Quote from: shooter2 on September 23, 2011, 11:00:29 AM

An interesting side display was a series showing the skills used to make and maintain the sialing ships, sailmaking, painters, wood workers etc.

This wood borer was reputedly the largest in the world when it was first produced. I bet Zulu could find a use for it.

Some of the more unusual boring heads

I could indeed!
Nice photos.
Zulu

shooter2 · « **Reply #16 on:** September 23, 2011, 11:25:39 AM »

FORT NELSON

This is what a cannon museum should always be. It was free to get in, it was run by enthusiatic volunteers and it had an accessible and comprehensive collection. Even the bookstore had interseting volumes to purchase that I could not resist.
For the edification of Mike and Tracy I give you first - Mallet's Mortar in every detail. Scale provided by the lovely and infinitely patient Sue.

shooter2 · « **Reply #17 on:** September 23, 2011, 11:27:55 AM »

More shots of Mallets Mortar

shooter2 · « **Reply #18 on:** September 23, 2011, 11:37:14 AM »

And yet MORE shots of the mortar.

This should keep you guys happy for a while. I must confess though that I failed to get any shots of the Mortar in Woolwich. Sue got very tired after the Firepower Museum and we had to head back to the accomodation to allow her to rest. Maybe someone else can treck out there and get the shots.

seacoastartillery · « **Reply #19 on:** September 23, 2011, 05:25:16 PM »

Never have we seen those views. So that is what the elevation screw and wheel look like. Thank you very much, Shooter2! Excellent photos of the wood boring machine were nice too. We built one and know how hard it is to bore a straight, 1.50" Dia., hole for 42" in the end grain of kiln dried white oak.

Thanks for ALL the excellent photos!

Mike and Tracy

shooter2 · « **Reply #20 on:** September 23, 2011, 11:12:14 PM »

The rest of Fort Nelson now for those of us with wider interests. The collection is very comprehensive,but light on for Seacoast guns. We have more variety of those back in OZ as that was their final stop before decommissioning.

And now follows a small sampling of the very large collection held there.

A Turkish Bronze Bombard of 25 inch bore. Try lugging this screw gun up a mountain, it weighs 16 tons.

An English Saker of 1600.

A French Field gun, captured at Waterloo and the name translates as 'The Lawyer'.

A 9cm Krupp field Gun 1874. The info sheet next to it includes Krupp's efforts to perfect steel production, altogether very informative.

shooter2 · « **Reply #21 on:** September 23, 2011, 11:28:41 PM »

Continuing with Fort Nelson

A 32 pounder Flank Defence Gun in position at the Fort. The info sheet includes a very good summary of how the Fort defences were organised.

A series of excellent models

Including this model of the prototytpe Hydro-pneumatic disappearing gun.

shooter2 · « **Reply #22 on:** September 23, 2011, 11:50:16 PM »

Ornate Sikh made gun form 1800

Three Barrelled French Gun actually used and captured at Ramilles in 1706

Sikh made weapon designed to fire multiple musket balls captured 1816

oltom · « **Reply #23 on:** September 24, 2011, 01:32:42 AM »

great pictures!...

i wanna fire that BIG MORTAR!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

shooter2 · « **Reply #24 on:** September 24, 2011, 06:55:28 AM »

When is an Elephant a Dolphin? When its on a Danish Cannon.

A superbly detailed model of a 7 inch RML. No doubt ancestors of Mike and Tracy

An original and complete Bira Gun from Nepal

shooter2 · « **Reply #25 on:** September 24, 2011, 07:12:24 AM »

It occurs to me, rather late, that I should have started a separate thread just for Fort Nelson. I am only picking out highlights and we have not even left the interior displays. The major stuff is outdoors in the parade ground. Anyway, on with the tour.

Early Georgian Bronze Mortar

Another over the top commission from the Knights of Malta. Made in 1689 by a Venetian gunfounder.

Indian Mortar in the shape of a Tiger. There is another one of these at Firepower museum in Woolwich but it is unfinished and straight from the mold.

2.75 inch mountain gun by one A.T. Blakely. Listed as original carriage and one of only three Blakely's of any kind in the UK. Perhaps the Washington Navy Yard could lend them a couple, they have plenty.

shooter2 · « **Reply #26 on:** September 24, 2011, 07:57:34 AM »

11 inch 25 ton RML of 1872 vintage.

12.5 inch 38 Ton RML 1876.
There is something wrong here. By this time in Europe the Germans were using Krupp Breech loaders of increasingly larger calibre, the French had the 75mm and the British were stuck with Muzzle Loading still clinging to the hope Breech loading was a passing phase.

Russian Licorne damaged and captured at Sebastopol. It was guns such as these that supplied the original materials for the Victoria Cross to be cast from.

Closeup of damage. I like these shots. They are a frozen moment in time demonstrating the power of cannon fire.

A.Roads · « **Reply #27 on:** October 11, 2011, 12:43:03 PM »

"For every original piece of history on that dragon, someone should be hanged. Small arms, cannons, moartars, everything that was an original piece has just been defaced, dishonored, and destroyed." "I thought this was a museum not a side show for modern art....... really sickens me to see what most of us would happly have and cherish treated as so much as a piece of pipe! " src="http://www.gboreloaded.com/forums/Smileys/default/angry.gif">

I will now probably never visit England....."

Having just been overseas for several weeks, including a visit to the TOWER, you can rest assured that the components used for this entertaining piece of art are all reproduction, as was obvious from even a quite cursory inspection. The Royal Armouries are generally very responsible with their original items, & this is a case of jumping to conclusions from a simple erroneous posting coment. Also it should be pointed out that for many years now the Royal Armouries collection is spread over three sites. Arms & Armour at Leeds, Artillery at Fort Nelson & the tower castle etc is the TOWER site. The Tower's past use as an arms store is but one small part of its history. Hence whilst one will find artillery represented at the Tower & at Leeds it is only in small scope & the main collection & relevant expertise is found at the site dedicated to that field of study - Fort Nelson for artillery - as demonstrated by the later postings here. Adrian

Cannoneer · « **Reply #28 on:** October 13, 2011, 04:27:27 AM »

Hi Adrian,
I haven't seen your name at the top of the first page in a while, it's good to hear from you. Have you been up to anything exciting in the world of historic artillery lately?

A.Roads · « **Reply #29 on:** October 13, 2011, 11:32:18 AM »

Nothing exciting unfortunately, just some involvement with a couple of minor local OZ projects.
Adrian