Model of a Gun and Carriage

...; transferred from the Ministerie van Marine (Department of the Navy), The Hague, to the museum, 1883

ObjectNumber: NG-MC-1265

Model of a gun on a disappearing carriage.

The wooden barrel, 39.3 cm long, is a reinforced muzzle-loader and has a breech ring on the button. The bore, of 24 mm calibre, is not rifled. The carriage consists of two main parts: the upper carriage has two cheeks, of which the lower sides are toothed curves running on horizontal racks on the lower carriage. The upper carriage thus rocks on the lower carriage. The gun is fixed with its trunnions in the aftermost corners of the cheeks of the upper carriage, so that it is raised when the carriage is rocked forwards, and lowered when it is rocked backwards. The forward end of the upper carriage has a box for a counterweight. A pair of rods between the breech and the lower carriage maintain the gun in a horizontal position, and are connected to an elevating system for vertical sighting in the lower carriage. Another pair of rods, attached to the cheeks of the upper carriage, move with riders in rails on the cheeks of the lower carriage: they stabilize the upper carriage and also function as brakes for the recoil. The lower carriage consists of no more than a pair of cheeks with racks, and a base. The gun is fired in the raised position, the recoil lowering it to its reclined position, where it can be loaded.

This model demonstrates the principle of the carriage designed by Alexander Moncrieff (1820-1906). The design does not allow for horizontal sighting. These carriages, in various guises but on the same principle, were used in coastal batteries and on gunboats. On the latter horizontal, aiming was achieved by manoeuvring the boat. Moncrieff obtained a Dutch patent for this design in 1868.

C. Bijleveld, ‘Beschrijving der affutage aan boord van ZM stoomkanonneerboot Hydra’, Mededelingen betreffende het zeewezen 57 (1874), pp. 1-8 and figs.; W. Kemmis, Treatise on Military Carriages and Other Manufactures of the Royal Carriage Department, London 1874; J.M. Obreen et al., handwritten inventory list for items 944 to 1431, 1884, manuscript in HNA 476 RMA, inv. no. 1089, no. 1265; G. Doorman, Het Nederlandsch octrooiwezen en de techniek der 19de eeuw, The Hague 1947, p. 509, no. 4375

J. van der Vliet, 2016, 'anonymous, Model of a Gun and Carriage, Woolwich, c. 1868', in J. van der Vliet and A. Lemmers (eds.), Navy Models in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: hdl.handle.net/10934/RM0001.COLLECT.245077