I have now completed the assembly of my two latest (and largest) model coastal defence guns.
They are heavy guns, and should be able to match any guns carried by larger warships.
All I have to do now is to paint them ... and then I hope that they will see some action!
They are heavy guns, and should be able to match any guns carried by larger warships.
All I have to do now is to paint them ... and then I hope that they will see some action!
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Let the escalation begin!
ReplyDeleteThose should make for a very interesting match-up!
-Steve
Hi Bob,
ReplyDeleteVery nice indeed! I like the recoil dampeners - nice touch and helps to differentiate them from the smaller types.
I hope the Rusland Navy has something to deal with this lot!
All the best,
DC
Steven Page,
ReplyDeleteThe two new guns should even things up nicely ... and I am looking forward to using them in the near future.
All the best,
Bob
David Crook,
ReplyDeleteThese two heavy guns are substantially bigger that the medium guns I have already built. Their design is based on a number of photographs of Krupp and Vickers-Armstrong heavy guns that I looked at, with the result that they are a mixture of the best bits of both.
All the best,
Bob
A couple of sites in re disappearing guns. turns out the ones at Ripapa Island were Armstrongs, 2x6" and 2x8"
ReplyDeletehttp://riv.co.nz/rnza/hist/dgun/index.html
and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Derelict_Armstrong_guns_Ripapa_Island.JPG
In the latter, those little porthole-like orifices were there to accommodate the long handles of the mops used to swab out the gun barrels after a firing.
Archduke Piccolo,
ReplyDeleteThanks very much for the links. The photograph was very useful and led me to look at an article about Ripapa Island and the other New Zealand 'Russian Invasion Scare' forts that were built.
All the best,
Bob
I did some further research into the disappearing guns, and discover that their 'cool' factor is somewhat diminished by their apparently slow rate of fire, and they weren't all that accurate, neither. In fact the 6" gun turned out to have faults that the Armstrong company would fix ... at a further cost to their customers!
ReplyDeleteIn the end, some smart dude in some ordnance department in the British military conducted a study that determined that the chances of a warship ever hitting a dug gun emplacement was so close to zero, that disappearing guns weren't worth the cost. This led to disappearing guns being dropped from use.
Interesting finding. I am supposing that the shore guns were assumed to be 'en barbette' in emplacements like those at Ripapa (they are just about flush with the surrounding ground - entirely dug in and concreted, and not built up at all).
I seem to recall that your rules reflected that if the warships were some distance off. At point blank range their chances might be better, but the ships would be commensurately more vulnerable as well.
'Interestinger and interestinger,' said Alice...
Archduke Piccolo,
ReplyDeleteIt always struck me that they were a rather complicated solution to the problem ... and your research seems to bear that out. Mind you, the US seems to have kept their disappearing gun mounts until quite late so they must have either found a way to remove the complexity or were happy to live with it.
My rules do make it difficult – but not impossible – to hit an en barbette gun mounting. The big advantage that coastal defence guns have is that they do not move (i.e. they are stable) whereas most bombarding ships do; hence their generally better accuracy.
All the best,
Bob