What is this? Civil War cannon?

[USS ALASKA]

@USS ALASKA if you're advising this scout, PM me.

I wasn't intending to but please do sir. On the posted link there seems to be ways to contact them.

Cheers,
USS ALASKA

 

[Rhea Cole]

I wasn't intending to but please do sir. On the posted link there seems to be ways to contact them.

Cheers,
USS ALASKA

What are the wheels made of? Can't imagine they are cast metal display wheels? This scout has bitten off quite a project.

 

[Story]

I wasn't intending to but please do sir. On the posted link there seems to be ways to contact them.

Cheers,
USS ALASKA

Done

 

[Story]

What are the wheels made of? Can't imagine they are cast metal display wheels? This scout has bitten off quite a project.

From the second Lovett link I posted that goes to his restored example, the hubs look like two (cast?) metal plates joined to each other by bolts/rivets.

Lovett Artillery - 15cm. schwere Feldhaubitze (15c. s.F.H. 1893)

Lovett Artillery Collection, 15cm. schwere Feldhaubitze (15c. s.F.H. 1893), gun, cannon, kanone, and mountain guns.

www.lovettartillery.com

 

[USS ALASKA]

Done

Thank you sir! Did you send them a link to this thread? We would love for them to take part and update us on their progress!

Thanks again,
USS ALASKA

 

[aardq]

The barrel looks like it has a liner. Relined or made that way?
Thanks.

 

[Story]

The barrel looks like it has a liner. Relined or made that way?
Thanks.

Appears made-that-way, probably easier to press a liner (and replace) into the (cast) tube. See post #9 for artifact compared to actual period photo.

 

[USS ALASKA]

Maybe we can collect enough information that @LHR Lead can add it to his excellent database - https://livinghistoryregistry.com/index.html

Cheers,
USS ALASKA

 

[Rhea Cole]

From the earliest barrels made by winding straps of iron around a mandrel, cannon barrels have been "built up."

Essentially you want a cannon barrel to do two mutually incompatible things. The bore has to be hard & durable enough to withstand the charge & passage of the round. The surrounding metal has to be able to absorb the stress of both.

An example from the civil war is the Parrott & Wierd rifles with built up breeches.

Built-up gun - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org

In the latter half of the 19th & into the 20th Century an improbable but highly effective process was used. A sleeve was wrapped in up to hundreds of miles of wire. The last use of that technique was in the enormous 18" cannons for the Imperial Japanese super battleships Yamato & Musashi.

Given its age, the howitzer barrel pictured in this thread was built up. A hollow cylinder of hot metal was slid over a sleeve. The surface would have been forged to make it hard as the cooling metal in the center would remain elastic.

The modern day practice for period cannon is drilling out an aluminum casting or reboring period iron guns & pressing a steel sleeve in place is the standard.

The much less expensive, but problematic, practice of casting around the sleeve was demonstrated by the failure of a cannon at Fort McHenry.

Link:

failure of cannon ft mchenry

The Trafalgar Gun Company in England uses a fiberglass shell that surrounds up to eight compressed gas guns for movies & celebratory firings.

As at Fort Defiance in Clarksville TN fiberglass is a very effective substitute for large caliber display cannon.


I highly recommend the link below that documents the evolution of artillery barrel construction:

Artillery - Breech-Loading, Gunnery, Cannons | Britannica

Artillery - Breech-Loading, Gunnery, Cannons: In 1854 William Armstrong, an English hydraulic engineer, designed an entirely new type of gun. Instead of simply boring out a solid piece of metal, Armstrong forged his barrel from wrought iron (later from steel). He then forged a succession of...

www.britannica.com

 

[Rhea Cole]

In answer to a private message:

The early cannon is at the Hôtel Les Invalides in Paris. It is a breechloader. The charge was loaded in the cylinder. The ball was loaded at the rear of the barrel. The charge was screwed in place & fired.

The gunner & his crew made the gunpowder onsite… very exciting that, don't ya know?

 

[LHR Lead]

Maybe we can collect enough information that @LHR Lead can add it to his excellent database - https://livinghistoryregistry.com/index.html

Cheers,
USS ALASKA

I will be adding it this week

 

[LHR Lead]

I live 88 miles from there. I never saw it before. I did find these pictures. I found only one description. It said "a heavy caliber Civil War cannon." IMHO I think not.
View attachment 514695View attachment 514696View attachment 514697

could I use one of your photos for my website? Don Barker, https://www.livinghistoryregistry.com

 

[LHR Lead]

Nice detective work everyone. Next question:

Why are they on display there? Are they war trophies? Where did these ugly brutes come from?

it is a WWI trophy donated in 1925. More than 20,000 trophies were returned to the US.

 

[Rhea Cole]

From the second Lovett link I posted that goes to his restored example, the hubs look like two (cast?) metal plates joined to each other by bolts/rivets.

Lovett Artillery - 15cm. schwere Feldhaubitze (15c. s.F.H. 1893)

Lovett Artillery Collection, 15cm. schwere Feldhaubitze (15c. s.F.H. 1893), gun, cannon, kanone, and mountain guns.

www.lovettartillery.com

Here is the same hub construction on a Wierd carriage:

 

[Rhea Cole]

it is a WWI trophy donated in 1925. More than 20,000 trophies were returned to the US.

I had no idea there were so many. At the Tennessee National Guard base at Smyrna Airport TN there are (+/-) a dozen Iraqi / Russian trophies on display.

Don't recall seeing a foreign. Cannon at a courthouse before.

 

[Story]

it is a WWI trophy donated in 1925. More than 20,000 trophies were returned to the US.

Cool. Source for that specific date?

 

[LHR Lead]

Cool. Source for that specific

Cool. Source for that specific date?

let me get back to you with a specific document info.
btw, Brookville was allocated two 8in howitzers in 1897. this may be a replacement for them. did they get scrapped in WWI? More research needed. https://livinghistoryregistry.com/mitem.php?pasno=1888

 

[Story]

For everyone in this thread, we're laying out all the homework needed to do a supporting paper on this as well as a research template for Lance Spencer - should he ever make his way here.

 

[LHR Lead]

OK guys,

the distribution of WWI trophies across the US was by Act of Congress, and can be found at: tile.loc.gov/storage-services/service/ll/llsl//llsl-c68/llsl-c68.pdf (document pgs. 597-598)
It was enacted on 7 June 1924 and is referred to as Chapter 312.
If you have problems reading it online, download the .pdf and it should work in Acrobat.
**note: this does not specifically tell who got what, just that the Govenor the the State should contact the War Department requesting items. Each state was allocated items by the number of personell active during the war.

 

[LHR Lead]

Anybody in the area? Could you look at the serial number? it can be found right above where the shell goes in. It may be painted over.
thanks