1.
Napier of Magdala Battery
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Napier of Magdala Battery is a former coastal artillery battery on the south-western cliffs of the British Overseas Territory of Gibraltar, overlooking the Bay of Gibraltar. It also overlooks Rosia Bay from the north, as does Parsons Lodge Battery from the south and it contains one of two surviving Armstrong 100-ton guns. Earlier, in 1879, they had mounted another such gun in Gibraltar at Victoria Battery. These two batteries, together with two in Malta, were a response to the Italians having, in 1873, built the battleship Duilio, which was to receive four Armstrong Guns of the same design. The British authorised the construction of Victoria and Napier of Magdala batteries in December 1878, they completed Victoria in 1879 and Napier of Magadala in 1883, at a total cost of £35,707. The gun that is now at Napier of Magdala Battery originally armed Victoria Battery, the gun at Napier Battery received the nickname, The Rockbuster. During World War II, the British Army stationed a battery of four 3.7 quick-firing anti-aircraft guns at the site. These never fired a shot in anger, though in 1945 they almost fired upon an Iberia Airlines Junkers Ju 88 that had wandered into Gibraltars airspace while on a flight from Málaga to Tetouan. The Rockbuster was last fired in 2002 to mark the 2002 Calpe Conference between Gibraltar and Malta, in 2010 Gibraltar and Malta jointly issued a four-stamp set of stamps featuring the two countries 100-ton guns. Two stamps show the gun at Napier of Magdala Battery, one of each pair is a view from 1882, and the other is a view from 2010. The stamps from Gibraltar bear a denomination of 75 pence, while those from Malta bear a denomination of 0.75 euros, history of Gallianos Bank, The Smallest Bank in the World. Gibraltar. govs site on the Napier of Magdala Battery
2.
Naval artillery
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Naval artillery is artillery mounted on a warship, originally used only for naval warfare, later also for naval gunfire support against targets on land, and for anti-aircraft use. The idea of artillery dates back to the classical era. Julius Caesar indicates the use of ship-borne catapults against Britons ashore in his Commentarii de Bello Gallico, the dromons of the Byzantine Empire carried catapults and fire-throwers. From the late Middle Ages onwards, warships began to carry cannon of various calibres, the Battle of Arnemuiden, fought between England and France in 1338 at the start of the Hundred Years War, was the first recorded European naval battle using artillery. The English ship Christopher was armed with three cannons and one hand gun, by the 15th century most Mediterranean powers were utilising heavy cannon mounted on the bow or stern of a vessel and designed to bombard fortresses on shore. By mid-century some vessels also carried smaller broadside cannons for bombarding other vessels immediately prior to an attempted boarding and these small guns were anti-personnel weapons and were fired at point blank range to accompany engagement with muskets or bows. From the 1470s both the Portuguese and Venetian navies were experimenting with cannons as anti-ship weapons, in 1489 John of Portugal further contributed to the development of naval artillery by establishing the first standardized teams of trained naval gunners. The 16th century was an era of transition in naval warfare, since ancient times, war at sea had been fought much like that on land, with melee weapons and bows and arrows, but on floating wooden platforms rather than battlefields. Though the introduction of guns was a significant change, it slowly changed the dynamics of ship-to-ship combat. As guns became heavier and able to more powerful gunpowder charges, they needed to be placed lower in the ship. Although some 16th-century galleys mounted broadside cannon, they did so at the expense of rowing positions which sacrificed speed, most early cannon were still placed in the forecastle and aftercastle of a ship where they might be conveniently pointed in any direction. Early naval artillery was a weapon to deter boarders, because cannon powerful enough to damage ships were heavy enough to destabilize any ship mounting them in an elevated castle. Being a crown industry, cost considerations did not curb the pursuit of the best quality, best innovations, the crown paid wage premiums and bonuses to lure the best European artisans and gunners to advance the industry in Portugal. This made broadsides, coordinated volleys from all the guns on one side of a ship, possible for the first time in history, at least in theory. Ships, such as Mary Rose, carried a mixture of cannon of different types and sizes, many designed for land use, and using incompatible ammunition at different ranges and rates of fire. The Mary Rose, like other ships of the time, was built during a period of development of heavy artillery. The heavy armament was a mix of older-type wrought iron and cast bronze guns, the bronze guns were cast in one piece and rested on four-wheel carriages which were essentially the same as those used until the 19th century. The breech-loaders were cheaper to produce and both easier and faster to reload, but could take less powerful charges than cast bronze guns, the majority of the guns were small iron guns with short range that could be aimed and fired by a single person
3.
Armstrong Whitworth
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Sir W G Armstrong Whitworth & Co Ltd was a major British manufacturing company of the early years of the 20th century. With headquarters in Elswick, Newcastle upon Tyne, Armstrong Whitworth engaged in the construction of armaments, ships, locomotives, automobiles and aircraft. In 1882, it merged with the firm of Charles Mitchell to form Armstrong Mitchell & Company. Armstrong Mitchell merged again with the firm of Joseph Whitworth in 1897. The company expanded into the manufacture of cars and trucks in 1902, and created a department in 1913. In 1927, it merged with Vickers Limited to form Vickers-Armstrongs. the Wilson-Pilcher was an advanced car, originally with a 2. 4-litre engine, that had been made in London from 1901 until 1904 when production moved to Newcastle. When Armstrong-Whitworth took over production two models were made, a 2. 7-litre flat four and a 4. 1-litre flat six, the engines had the flywheel at the front of the engine, and the crankshaft had intermediate bearings between each pair of cylinders. Drive was to the wheels via a preselector gearbox and helical bevel axle. The cars were listed at £735 for the four and £900 for the six and they were still theoretically available until 1907. The first Armstrong-Whitworth car was the 28/36 of 1906 with a water-cooled, drive was via a four-speed gearbox and shaft to the rear wheels. A larger car was listed for 1908 with a choice of either 5-litre 30 or 7. 6-litre 40 models sharing a 127 mm bore, the 40 was listed at £798 in bare chassis form for supplying to coachbuilders. These large cars were joined in 1909 by the 4. 3-litre 18/22 and in 1910 by the 3. 7-litre 25, which seems to have shared the same chassis as the 30 and 40. In 1911, a new car appeared in the shape of the 2. 4-litre 12/14, called the 15.9 in 1911. This model had an 88-inch wheelbase compared with the 120 inches of the 40 range and this was joined by four larger cars ranging from the 2. 7-litre 15/20 to the 3. 7-litre 25.5. The first six-cylinder model, the 30/50 with 5. 1-litre 90 mm bore by 135 mm stroke engine came in 1912 with the option of electric lighting and this grew to 5.7 litres in 1913. At the outbreak of war, as well as the 30/50, the range consisted of the 3-litre 17/25, the cars were usually if not always bodied by external coach builders and had a reputation for reliability and solid workmanship. The company maintained a London sales outlet at New Bond Street, when Armstrong Whitworth and Vickers merged, Armstrong Whitworths automotive interests were purchased by J. D. Siddeley as Armstrong Siddeley. An Armstrong Whitworth car is displayed in the Discovery Museum, Newcastle upon Tyne, in the bibliography heading links are given to the museums information sheet as available through Wiki Commons
4.
Gun barrel
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A gun barrel is a part of firearms and artillery pieces. The hollow interior of the barrel is called the bore, a gun barrel must be able to hold in the expanding gas produced by the propellants to ensure that optimum muzzle velocity is attained by the projectile as it is being pushed out by the expanding gas. Modern small arms barrels are made of known and tested to withstand the pressures involved. Artillery pieces are made by various techniques providing reliably sufficient strength, early firearms were muzzle-loading, with powder, and then shot loaded from the muzzle, capable of only a low rate of fire. During the 19th century effective mechanical locks were invented that sealed a breech-loading weapon against the escape of propellant gases, the early Chinese, the inventors of gunpowder, used bamboo, a naturally tubular stalk, as the first barrels in gunpowder projectile weapons. Early European guns were made of iron, usually with several strengthening bands of the metal wrapped around circular wrought iron rings. The Chinese were the first to master cast-iron cannon barrels, early cannon barrels were very thick for their caliber. Bore evacuator Bore snake Cannon Muzzle Polygonal rifling Rifling Slug barrel Smoothbore
5.
Shell (projectile)
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A shell is a payload-carrying projectile that, as opposed to shot, contains an explosive or other filling, though modern usage sometimes includes large solid projectiles properly termed shot. Solid shot may contain a pyrotechnic compound if a tracer or spotting charge is used, originally, it was called a bombshell, but shell has come to be unambiguous in a military context. Words cognate with grenade are still used for an artillery or mortar projectile in some European languages, shells are usually large-calibre projectiles fired by artillery, combat vehicles, and warships. Shells usually have the shape of a cylinder topped by a nose for good aerodynamic performance, possibly with a tapering base. Solid cannonballs did not need a fuse, but hollow munitions filled with something such as gunpowder to fragment the ball, needed a fuse, percussion fuses with a spherical projectile presented a challenge because there was no way of ensuring that the impact mechanism hit the target. Therefore, shells needed a fuse that was ignited before or during firing. The earliest record of shells being used in combat was by the Republic of Venice at Jadra in 1376, shells with fuses were used at the 1421 siege of St Boniface in Corsica. These were two hollowed hemispheres of stone or bronze held together by an iron hoop, as described in their book, these hollow, gunpowder-packed shells were made of cast iron. At least since the 16th Century grenades made of ceramics or glass were in use in Central Europe, a hoard of several hundred ceramic greandes were discovered during building works in front of a bastion of the Bavarian City of Ingolstadt, Germany dated to the 17th Century. Lots of the grenades obtained their orignal blackpowder loads and igniters, most probably the grenades were intentionally dumped the moat of the bastion before the year 1723. Early powder burning fuses had to be loaded fuse down to be ignited by firing or a portfire put down the barrel to light the fuse, other shells were wrapped in bitumen cloth, which would ignite during the firing and in turn ignite a powder fuse. Nevertheless, shells came into use in the 16th Century. By the 18th Century, it was known that the fuse towards the muzzle could be lit by the flash through the windage between the shell and the barrel, the use of exploding shells from field artillery became relatively commonplace from early in the 19th century. Until the mid 19th century, shells remained as simple exploding spheres that used gunpowder and they were usually made of cast iron, but bronze, lead, brass and even glass shell casings were experimented with. The word bomb encompassed them at the time, as heard in the lyrics of The Star-Spangled Banner, typically, the thickness of the metal body was about a sixth of their diameter and they were about two thirds the weight of solid shot of the same calibre. To ensure that shells were loaded with their fuses towards the muzzle, in 1819, a committee of British artillery officers recognised that they were essential stores and in 1830 Britain standardised sabot thickness as a half inch. The sabot was also intended to reduce jamming during loading, despite the use of exploding shell, the use of smoothbore cannons, firing spherical projectiles of shot, remained the dominant artillery method until the 1850s. By the late 18th century, artillery could use canister shot to defend itself from infantry or cavalry attack and this involved loading a tin or canvas container filled with small iron or lead balls instead of the usual cannonball
6.
Recoil
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Recoil is the backward movement of a gun when it is discharged. To apply this counter-recoiling force, modern mounted guns may employ recoil buffering comprising springs and hydraulic recoil mechanisms, early cannons used systems of ropes along with rolling or sliding friction to provide forces to slow the recoiling cannon to a stop. Recoil buffering allows the maximum counter-recoil force to be lowered so that strength limitations of the gun mount are not exceeded, however, the same pressures acting on the base of the projectile are acting on the rear face of the gun chamber, accelerating the gun rearward during firing. This results in the required counter-recoiling force being proportionally lower, modern cannons also employ muzzle brakes very effectively to redirect some of the propellant gasses rearward after projectile exit. This provides a force to the barrel, allowing the buffering system. The same physics affecting recoil in mounted guns and cannons applies to hand-held guns, hands, arms and shoulders have considerable strength and elasticity for this purpose, up to certain practical limits. For this reason, establishing recoil safety standards for small arms remains challenging, a change in momentum of a mass requires a force, according to Newtons first law, known as the law of inertia, inertia simply being another term for mass. That force, applied to a mass, creates an acceleration, according to Newtons second law, the law of momentum -- changing the velocity of the mass changes its momentum. It is important to understand at this point that velocity is not simply speed, velocity is the speed of a mass in a particular direction. In a very technical sense, speed is a scalar, a magnitude, in summation, the total momentum of the system equals zero, surprisingly just as it did before the trigger was pulled. There are two conservation laws at work when a gun is fired, conservation of momentum and conservation of energy, recoil is explained by the law of conservation of momentum, and so it is easier to discuss it separately from energy. The nature of the process is determined by the force of the expanding gases in the barrel upon the gun. It is also determined by the force applied to the gun. The recoil force only acts during the time that the ejecta are still in the barrel of the gun, except for the case of zero-recoil, the counter-recoil force is smaller than the recoil force but lasts for a longer time. Since the recoil force and the force are not matched. In the zero-recoil case, the two forces are matched and the gun will not move when fired. In most cases, a gun is very close to a free-recoil condition, an example of near zero-recoil would be a gun securely clamped to a massive or well-anchored table, or supported from behind by a massive wall. For example, placing the butt of a large caliber gun directly against a wall, the recoil of a firearm, whether large or small, is a result of the law of conservation of momentum
7.
Muzzle-loading rifle
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A muzzle-loading rifle is a muzzle-loaded small arm or artillery piece that has a rifled barrel rather than a smoothbore. The term rifled muzzle loader typically is used to describe a type of artillery piece, a shoulder arm is typically just called a rifle, as almost all small arms were rifled by the time breechloading became prevalent. Muzzle and breechloading artillery served together for decades, making a clear distinction more important. A muzzle loading weapon is loaded through the muzzle, or front of the barrel and this is the opposite of a breech-loading weapon or rifled breechloader, which is loaded from the breech-end of the barrel. The rifling grooves cut on the inside of the cause the projectile to spin rapidly in flight, giving it greater stability and hence range. Hand held rifles were well-developed by the 1740s, a popularly recognizable form of the muzzleloader is the Kentucky Rifle, which was actually developed in Pennsylvania. The American Longrifle evolved from the German Jäger rifle, there are also muzzle-loading pistols and shotguns. The Minié ball of the middle 19th century increased the rate of fire of rifles to match that of smoothbores and these have gradually given way to firearms that use alternative methods of inserting a projectile into the chamber. The La Hitte rifled guns were used from 1859 during the Franco-Austrian War in Italy and these guns were a considerable improvement over the previous smooth-bore guns which had been in use. They were able to shoot at 3,000 meters either regular shells and they appear to have been the first case of usage of rifled cannons on a battlefield. Until the middle of the 19th century Royal Navy warships had been armed with progressively larger smoothbore muzzle-loading cannon and these had by then approached their limit in terms of armour penetration, range and destructive power. These weapons, however, were prone to failure, frequently explosively. The type of gun finally adopted was a weapon which fired projectiles with external studs which engaged with the rifling. Furthermore, the muzzle velocity obtainable in these guns was no more than half of that obtained in interrupted screw breeched guns of the following century, rifled muzzle loader are artillery pieces of muzzle-loading rifle format, invented in the mid-19th century. In contrast to smooth bore cannon which preceded it, the rifling of the gun barrel allowed greater accuracy. Typical guns weighed 30 tonnes with 10 diameter muzzles, and were installed in forts and this new gun and the rifled breech loader generated a huge arms race in the late 19th century, with rapid advances in fortifications and ironclad warships. This distinction did not survive with the larger calibres, which were all called RMLs. Many artillery pieces were converted from older smooth bore weapons once technical problems in strengthening the original cast iron body had been overcome
8.
Malta
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Malta, officially known as the Republic of Malta, is a Southern European island country consisting of an archipelago in the Mediterranean Sea. It lies 80 km south of Italy,284 km east of Tunisia, the country covers just over 316 km2, with a population of just under 450,000, making it one of the worlds smallest and most densely populated countries. The capital of Malta is Valletta, which at 0.8 km2, is the smallest national capital in the European Union, Malta has one national language, which is Maltese, and English as an official language. John, French and British, have ruled the islands, King George VI of the United Kingdom awarded the George Cross to Malta in 1942 for the countrys bravery in the Second World War. The George Cross continues to appear on Maltas national flag, the country became a republic in 1974, and although no longer a Commonwealth realm, remains a member state of the Commonwealth of Nations. Malta was admitted to the United Nations in 1964 and to the European Union in 2004, in 2008, Catholicism is the official religion in Malta. The origin of the term Malta is uncertain, and the modern-day variation derives from the Maltese language, the most common etymology is that the word Malta derives from the Greek word μέλι, meli, honey. The ancient Greeks called the island Μελίτη meaning honey-sweet, possibly due to Maltas unique production of honey, an endemic species of bee lives on the island. The Romans went on to call the island Melita, which can be considered either as a latinisation of the Greek Μελίτη or the adaptation of the Doric Greek pronunciation of the same word Μελίτα. Another conjecture suggests that the word Malta comes from the Phoenician word Maleth a haven or port in reference to Maltas many bays, few other etymological mentions appear in classical literature, with the term Malta appearing in its present form in the Antonine Itinerary. The extinction of the hippos and dwarf elephants has been linked to the earliest arrival of humans on Malta. Prehistoric farming settlements dating to the Early Neolithic period were discovered in areas and also in caves. The Sicani were the tribe known to have inhabited the island at this time and are generally regarded as being closely related to the Iberians. Pottery from the Għar Dalam phase is similar to found in Agrigento. A culture of megalithis temple builders then either supplanted or arose from this early period, the temples have distinctive architecture, typically a complex trefoil design, and were used from 4000 to 2500 BCE. Animal bones and a knife found behind an altar stone suggest that temple rituals included animal sacrifice. Tentative information suggests that the sacrifices were made to the goddess of fertility, the culture apparently disappeared from the Maltese Islands around 2500 BC. Archaeologists speculate that the builders fell victim to famine or disease
9.
Gibraltar
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Gibraltar is a British Overseas Territory located on the southern end of the Iberian Peninsula. It has an area of 6.7 km2 and shares its border with Spain. The Rock of Gibraltar is the landmark of the region. At its foot is a populated city area, home to over 30,000 Gibraltarians. An Anglo-Dutch force captured Gibraltar from Spain in 1704 during the War of the Spanish Succession on behalf of the Habsburg claim to the Spanish throne, the territory was subsequently ceded to Great Britain in perpetuity under the Treaty of Utrecht in 1713. Today Gibraltars economy is based largely on tourism, online gambling, financial services, the sovereignty of Gibraltar is a major point of contention in Anglo-Spanish relations as Spain asserts a claim to the territory. Gibraltarians overwhelmingly rejected proposals for Spanish sovereignty in a 1967 referendum, under the Gibraltar constitution of 2006, Gibraltar governs its own affairs, though some powers, such as defence and foreign relations, remain the responsibility of the British government. The name Gibraltar is the Spanish derivation of the Arabic name Jabal Ṭāriq, earlier, it was known as Mons Calpe, a name of Phoenician origin and one of the Pillars of Hercules. The pronunciation of the name in modern Spanish is, evidence of Neanderthal habitation in Gibraltar between 28,000 and 24,000 BP has been discovered at Gorhams Cave, making Gibraltar possibly the last known holdout of the Neanderthals. Within recorded history, the first inhabitants were the Phoenicians, around 950 BC, subsequently, Gibraltar became known as one of the Pillars of Hercules, after the Greek legend of the creation of the Strait of Gibraltar by Heracles. The Carthaginians and Romans also established semi-permanent settlements, after the collapse of the Roman Empire, Gibraltar came briefly under the control of the Vandals. The area later formed part of the Visigothic Kingdom of Hispania from 414 AD until the Islamic conquest of Iberia in 711 AD, in 1160, the Almohad Sultan Abd al-Mumin ordered that a permanent settlement, including a castle, be built. It received the name of Medinat al-Fath, on completion of the works in the town, the Sultan crossed the Strait to look at the works and stayed in Gibraltar for two months. The Tower of Homage of the Moorish Castle remains standing today, from 1274 onwards, the town was fought over and captured by the Nasrids of Granada, the Marinids of Morocco and the kings of Castile. In 1462, Gibraltar was finally captured by Juan Alonso de Guzmán, after the conquest, King Henry IV of Castile assumed the additional title of King of Gibraltar, establishing it as part of the comarca of the Campo Llano de Gibraltar. In 1501, Gibraltar passed back to the Spanish Crown, the occupation of the town by Alliance forces caused the exodus of the population to the surrounding area of the Campo de Gibraltar. As the Alliances campaign faltered, the 1713 Treaty of Utrecht was negotiated and ceded control of Gibraltar to Britain to secure Britains withdrawal from the war. Unsuccessful attempts by Spanish monarchs to regain Gibraltar were made with the siege of 1727 and again with the Great Siege of Gibraltar, during the American War of Independence
10.
RML 12.5 inch 38 ton gun
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The RML12.5 inch guns were large rifled muzzle-loading guns designed for British battleships and were also employed for coast defence. The gun originated from a desire for a longer 12-inch gun than the existing RML12 inch 35 ton gun and this was approved in January 1875. The gun was rifled on the Woolwich pattern of a number of broad shallow rounded grooves. Mark II had a powder chamber and attained higher muzzle velocity. This gun was the development of large British rifled muzzle-loading guns before it switched to breechloaders beginning in 1880. It was succeeded in its class on new battleships by the BL 12-inch Mk II gun, guns were mounted on HMS Dreadnought commissioned in 1879, HMS Agamemnon commissioned in 1883, and HMS Ajax commissioned in 1885, the last British warships completed with muzzle-loading guns. When the gun was first introduced projectiles had several rows of studs which engaged with the rifling to impart spin. Sometime after 1878, attached gas-checks were fitted to the bases of the shells, reducing wear on the guns and improving their range. Subsequently automatic gas-checks were developed which could rotate shells, allowing the deployment of a new range of studless ammunition, by this time the gun no longer fired studded ammunition without gas-checks. Instead there were two sets of ammunition available, namely, older studded ammunition with attached gas-checks Mk II, case ammunition neither was studded nor required gas-checks. Also by this time, attached gas-checks Mk I as shown in image 2 had been superseded by attached gas-checks Mk II, War Office, UK,1877 Text Book of Gunnery,1887. LONDON, PRINTED FOR HIS MAJESTYS STATIONERY OFFICE, BY HARRISON AND SONS, MARTINS LANE Sectretary of State for War. 12. 5-inch 38-ton Gun, Marks I and II,12. 5-inch 38-ton gun, marks I and II, casemate, dwarf, and small port mountings. 1885 at State Library of Victoria Handbook for the 12. 5-inch 38-ton R. M. L
