Model of a Carronade on a Slide

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

ObjectNumber: NG-MC-793

Model of a carronade on a slide, mounted on a base representing part of a ship’s deck.

The carronade is 29 cm long and has a 21 (16.6) mm calibre. It has a vent patch with a sight, a sight at the second reinforcement and one front sight, a breech ring and an elevating screw through the button. The elevating screw has a cap. The carriage, with brass fittings and rings, is slightly trapezoidal in plan, with the fore end and rear rounded off. To the rear it has a traversing plate and a brass plate to support the elevating screw, to the front the lugs and lug bolt; it slides between the ledges of the side with a pintle. The slide consists of a wooden frame with brass fittings, narrowing slightly towards the front, where it is rounded off. In the middle and to the rear it has transoms fitted with wheels underneath, the rear ones pivoting. At the rear the slide has a traversing plate. The base represents part of an upper deck, with a gunwale. The slide can be set with a fighting bolt at three different positions on the gunwale. The gun port is flanked by two posts to which the gun tackles are attached. The rail, with hammock netting is, probably, missing.

This model shows one phase in the amelioration of carronade slides, with regard to traversing and stability. It is not known whether it was ever carried out.

J.M. Obreen, Catalogus der verzameling modellen van het Departement van Marine, The Hague 1858, no. 793; 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. 48

J. van der Vliet, 2016, 'anonymous, Model of a Carronade on a Slide, Netherlands, 1785 - 1795', in J. van der Vliet and A. Lemmers (eds.), Navy Models in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: https://data.rijksmuseum.nl/20053966