Armstrong Gun captured at Fort Fisher

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Apr 21, 2013
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Currently residing at Trophy Point, United States Military Academy at West Point.
 
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How did these guns compare to other ACW weapons with respect to reliability, accuracy and ability to do damage?
I am absolutely no kind of expert but the interpreter on site mentioned that they could fire a round up to five miles away and with decent accuracy around three miles (I'm not even sure how you see a target at three miles) - it fired an elongated shell that fit the grooves of the bore which was where a lot of the accuracy came from. If memory serves, they had it placed on the Mound Battery - but I cant really remember.
 
I think this was the piece that had a twin that burst when loaded incorrectly. It had an "air chamber" at the rear of the bore that was supposed to remain free of gunpowder, but somebody didn't pay attention to the directions and packed it in solid.

(I also seem to recall that the painting that Andy shared [the second image in his post] has it in the wrong location-- the artist placed it there because it was a well-known piece at Fort Fisher.)
 
I've always wondered how they loaded large guns like the 20inch Rodman or the Dictator
I’m sure it was similar to this block & tackle "lift".
15inch-Rodman-Gun.jpg

The 15-inch Rodman gun shown here was the Army's major coastal fortification artillery piece during and after the Civil War. Rodman guns of this and other sizes were produced using innovative manufacturing methods developed by Army officer Thomas J. Rodman.
http://www.goordnance.army.mil/history/ORDhistory.html
 
I’m sure it was similar to this block & tackle "lift".
View attachment 92283
The 15-inch Rodman gun shown here was the Army's major coastal fortification artillery piece during and after the Civil War. Rodman guns of this and other sizes were produced using innovative manufacturing methods developed by Army officer Thomas J. Rodman.
http://www.goordnance.army.mil/history/ORDhistory.html
Thanks! Another mystery solved. Btw didn't the rounds for a 20inch Rodman gun weigh something like half a ton?
 
I'm not sure about half a ton. They could fire a 400 pound projectile 3 1/2 miles with a forty pound charge of powder:

"These beasts are the most common of all of the heavy Civil War era artillery. These giant coastal guns could be added to a simple wood and earth battery to give it the strength to sink even the most modern ironclad warship of the day. In terms of hardware, 40-pounds of cannon-grade black powder was exploded inside the breech to 25,000psi in the chamber and could send a 400-pound piece of steel shot some 20,000-feet (3.5-miles) with reasonable accuracy. The shells could penetrate up to 10-inches of iron railway type armor. These guns were the reason for the "3-mile limit" in claiming US coastal waters of the time. These amazing iron cannon weighed more than 25-tons or about the weight of 14 Jeep Wranglers and took a 12-man crew to operate. "

http://www.firearmstalk.com/Rodman-Heavy-Artillery.html
 
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I'm not sure about half a ton. They could fire a 400 pound projectile 3 .5 miles with a forty pound charge of powder:

"These beasts are the most common of all of the heavy Civil War era artillery. These giant coastal guns could be added to a simple wood and earth battery to give it the strength to sink even the most modern ironclad warship of the day. In terms of hardware, 40-pounds of cannon-grade black powder was exploded inside the breech to 25,000psi in the chamber and could send a 400-pound piece of steel shot some 20,000-feet (3.5-miles) with reasonable accuracy. The shells could penetrate up to 10-inches of iron railway type armor. These guns were the reason for the "3-mile limit" in claiming US coastal waters of the time. These amazing iron cannon weighed more than 25-tons or about the weight of 14 Jeep Wranglers and took a 12-man crew to operate. "

http://www.firearmstalk.com/Rodman-Heavy-Artillery.html
Thanks, they were monster guns. 40 pounds of black powder!
 
I'm not sure about half a ton. They could fire a 400 pound projectile 3 1/2 miles with a forty pound charge of powder:

"These beasts are the most common of all of the heavy Civil War era artillery. These giant coastal guns could be added to a simple wood and earth battery to give it the strength to sink even the most modern ironclad warship of the day. In terms of hardware, 40-pounds of cannon-grade black powder was exploded inside the breech to 25,000psi in the chamber and could send a 400-pound piece of steel shot some 20,000-feet (3.5-miles) with reasonable accuracy. The shells could penetrate up to 10-inches of iron railway type armor. These guns were the reason for the "3-mile limit" in claiming US coastal waters of the time. These amazing iron cannon weighed more than 25-tons or about the weight of 14 Jeep Wranglers and took a 12-man crew to operate. "

http://www.firearmstalk.com/Rodman-Heavy-Artillery.html

1864 Rodman moved on from his puny 15-inch design to something slightly bigger-- a cannon with a bore of 20-inches wide. For those of you that talk in millimeters, that's 506mm. This beast weighed 58-tons and was over 20-feet long. The 20-inch Rodman's were the largest bore cannon ever used by a military in the Western Hemisphere, the largest bore cannon ever used by the US military of any era, and the largest muzzleloading cannon ever forged on US soil.

Four were made, one of which for sale to Peru (which disappeared in 1881). One was mounted at Fort Hamilton, New York, another at Fort Hancock, NJ and are still there on display today. The fourth, a shortened piece, was to be mounted on the never commissioned "super monitor" USS Puritan. Packed with 200-pounds of black powder, they could fire a 1080-pound piece of steel shot over 8000-yards. These huge cannon were only fired 8 times in peacetime practice and never in war.

That's what I was referring to, 20 inch rodman. I took that from the same website you posted
 
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