Model of a Carriage for a 4-Pounder Gun

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

ObjectNumber: NG-MC-780

Model of a multipurpose carriage for a 4-pounder gun.

The barrel is missing, and so is some additional equipment. Assembled in one way as a field carriage, it can be rearranged in another way as a ship carriage. The main body consists of two cheeks connected by a long stool bed and forward by the transom. The quoin has a toothed rail underneath and is moved forward and backward mechanically by means of a worm screw with a crank; it slides in a groove in the bed, from which it cannot be lifted. When used as a field carriage, it moves on two large wheels, which have an axletree going straight through the cheeks. The cheeks are prolonged at the rear with a trail which has a pintle hole and is attached to the forward cheeks with braces. To convert the carriage to a sea carriage, the aft portion of the cheeks, the wheels and the axle are removed, and the remaining body is set on a lower four-wheeled carriage. This carriage consists of two low cheeks, connected by a vertical transom and the axletrees, which are attached to the cheeks with removable braces. The wooden trucks are double and the fore trucks are larger than the hind trucks.

Although this type of carriage is recorded in literature,¹¹H. van Goens, Handleiding tot de kennis van de zee-artillerie, Rotterdam 1861-65, p. 636, pl. XXVIII. its origin is unclear. Jochem Pietersz Asmus (1755-1837) claimed it as his own invention,²²HNA 2.01.29.02 Dept. Marine, Aanhangsel I, inv. no. 20, La. H no. 12. which De Scheel seems to contradict.³³M. de Scheel, Mémoires d’artillerie contenant l’artillerie nouvelle, ou les changements faits dans l’artillerie françoise en 1765 avec l’exposé et l’analyse des objections que ont été faites contre ces changemens, Paris 1795 (2nd ed.), pl. X.

Scale (according to Obreen)⁴⁴J.M. Obreen, Catalogus der verzameling modellen van het Departement van Marine, The Hague 1858, no. 780. 1:6.

M. de Scheel, Mémoires d’artillerie contenant l’artillerie nouvelle, ou les changements faits dans l’artillerie françoise en 1765 avec l’exposé et l’analyse des objections que ont été faites contre ces changemens, Paris 1795 (2nd ed.), pl. X; J.M. Obreen, Catalogus der verzameling modellen van het Departement van Marine, The Hague 1858, no. 780; H. van Goens, Handleiding tot de kennis van de zee-artillerie, Rotterdam 1861-65, p. 636, pl. XXVIII

J. van der Vliet, 2016, 'possibly Jochem Pietersz. Asmus, Model of a Carriage for a 4-Pounder Gun, Netherlands, 1800', in J. van der Vliet and A. Lemmers (eds.), Navy Models in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: hdl.handle.net/10934/RM0001.COLLECT.244594