Model of a 30-pounder carronade in a battery Vlissingen

Rijkswerf Vlissingen, 1838

The carronade was invented by the Carron ironworks in Scotland. In English, the weapon was commonly known as a ‘smasher’, owing to its devastating power at close range. Thanks to its modest dimensions and sliding mount to absorb recoil, this short cannon could also be deployed on smaller ships. The model displays all the requisite accessories: an ammunition rack, powder horns, pouch-topped powder kegs, shrapnel shells and cartridge cases.

  • Artwork typedemonstration model, gunmodel
  • Object numberNG-MC-796
  • Dimensionsheight 49 cm x width 70 cm x depth 53 cm
  • Physical characteristicswood, brass, rope, leather, wool and paint

Rijkswerf Vlissingen

Model of a 30-Pounder Carronade on Deck

Flushing, 1838

Inscriptions

  • label, on the part of the ship:796 former inventory label

Provenance

…; Ministerie van Marine (Department of the Navy), The Hague, June 1838;1HNA 2.12.01 Min. Marine, Exh. 16/6/1838 N21. transferred to the museum, 1883

Object number: NG-MC-796

Entry

Model of a 30-pounder carronade in position on deck, with all its accessories.

The wooden barrel is 35 cm long and has a 31 mm calibre, is painted black and has a sight on the second reinforcement, a breech ring and an elevating screw through the button with a rain cap. The carriage, with brass fittings and rings, is slightly trapezoidal in plan, with the fore end and rear rounded off. To the rear, a traversing plate with traversing crow and a slot for the elevating screw are positioned, to the front the lugs and lug bolt, and the pintle moving between the longitudinal beams of the slide. The slide has a wooden frame, rounded off at the front, partly sheathed with brass and has two fighting bolts in the crescent on the inside of gun port. At the rear, the frame broadens and the back is slightly rounded, with two brass rollers in the transom, their axes radial to the bolt. In the middle, the slide is supported by a cross-beam with two rollers running in a longitudinal direction. The slide is set in a gun port, shut with a port-lid with a hole for the muzzle. The ship’s side shows diagonal trussing. The accessories are a rack with nine cannonballs hanging underneath the slide, four rounds of case shot in a rack against the ship’s side, two powder flasks, a rammer/sponge, scratcher/ladle, wad hook/spoon, a crowbar, an artilleryman’s pouch, a thumbstall, a priming iron, a tangent sight, two budge barrels and two cartridge boxes.

The model was ordered on 17 April 1837 from the Flushing Navy dockyard.2HNA 2.12.01 Min. Marine, Exh. 17/4/1837 N50. On 6 June 1838 it was added to the Navy Model Room.3HNA 2.12.01 Min. Marine, Exh. 16/6/1838 N21.

Scale (according to Obreen)4J.M. Obreen, Catalogus der verzameling modellen van het Departement van Marine, The Hague 1858, no. 796. 1:5.

Literature

J.N. Calten, Leiddraad bij het onderrigt in de zee-artillerie, Delft 1832, chapters 2-5 with pl. and fig.; L.K. Turk, Gegevens en tekeningen van geschut en munitie, verstrekt op verschillende schepen en sloepen van de Koninklijke Marine, s.l. [c. 1848], manuscript in NSM, inv. no. A.0356(0006), p. 174; J.M. Obreen, Catalogus der verzameling modellen van het Departement van Marine, The Hague 1858, no. 796; W.G.M.H. Canisius, ‘De ontwikkeling van scheepsgeschut bij de Nederlandse marine in 1780-1880’, Erfgoed van Industrie en Techniek 2 (1993), no. 2, pp. 43-62, no. 3, pp. 80-87, p. 51

Citation

J. van der Vliet, 2016, 'Rijkswerf Vlissingen, Model of a 30-Pounder Carronade on Deck, Flushing, 1838', in J. van der Vliet and A. Lemmers (eds.), Navy Models in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: https://data.rijksmuseum.nl/200315908

(accessed 6 December 2025 18:21:28).

Footnotes

  • 1HNA 2.12.01 Min. Marine, Exh. 16/6/1838 N21.
  • 2HNA 2.12.01 Min. Marine, Exh. 17/4/1837 N50.
  • 3HNA 2.12.01 Min. Marine, Exh. 16/6/1838 N21.
  • 4J.M. Obreen, Catalogus der verzameling modellen van het Departement van Marine, The Hague 1858, no. 796.