Model of a 30-Pounder Carronade on a Carriage and Slide

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

ObjectNumber: NG-MC-795

Model of a 30-pounder carronade on carriage and slide on part of a ship’s deck with a gun port.

The gun is 34.5 cm long and has a 37 mm calibre. It has a breech ring, an elevating screw through the flat button with a rain cap, one sight on the second reinforcement and an experimental percussion lock with a hole in the hammer for the flame that comes out of the vent when the gun is fired, preventing the hammer from being hit back. The carriage consists of two cheeks connected by a transom in the middle, the hind axletree and the fore axle. The fore axle also forms the lug bolt. In front of it, a second axle is set, to which the breeching chain is attached. At the other end, this chain is attached to the fighting bolt which is set in the ledge of the gun port. The hind axletree has a slot for the elevating screw. It can be heightened with a block as well as with a slot. The slide has a frame consisting of two ledges connected with brass cross-beams forward and aft; the forward cross-beam has a hole for the fighting bolt, the hind cross-beam has two braces for the traversing crow. Forward the slide rests on a low crescent, placed on the inside of the gun port. The carriage is placed diagonally inside the slide, i.e., with the fore trucks running on top of the ledges of the slide and the hind trucks running underneath the ledges and supporting them. The train tackle is attached to the hind axletree. The carriage is supplied with an extra axletree with trucks for transportation, to be placed forward underneath the slide. A beam, triangular in section, is to be placed on deck behind the carriage as an extra brake for the hind trucks. The purpose of the design was to tame the recoil. The model is placed on a deck with a gun port with a port-lid with a hole for the muzzle. The accessories consist of two powder flasks, a rammer/sponge, a scratcher/ladle, and an artilleryman’s pouch.

Because of continuing complaints about the carriages for carronades, Artillery Captain H.A. Gobius designed a new carriage in Flushing in 1835. After testing one carriage with success, a dozen more were made with small adjustments and placed in the brigs Koerier and Venus in 1840. Further tests proved unsuccessful, however: the recoil was too wild and the breeching chains broke. The introduction of yet another carriage, as shown by model NG-MC-752, prevented further development of this design. This model was Gobius’s second design.

Scale (according to Obreen)¹¹J.M. Obreen, Catalogus der verzameling modellen van het Departement van Marine, The Hague 1858, no. 795. 1:5.

J.M. Obreen, Catalogus der verzameling modellen van het Departement van Marine, The Hague 1858, no. 795; 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. 50

J. van der Vliet, 2016, 'Rijkswerf Vlissingen, Model of a 30-Pounder Carronade on a Carriage and Slide, Flushing, 1835', in J. van der Vliet and A. Lemmers (eds.), Navy Models in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: https://data.rijksmuseum.nl/20053968