Small fast boats with torpedos (or other explosives) have always been a threat to large warships. One of the weapons the British Royal Navy adopted to counter that threat was the Hotchkiss Model 1886 “Quick Fire” gun. This meant that it was a breech-loaded gun that used self-contained cartridge ammunition, instead of separate powder bags and projectiles. Mounted on a recoil-adsorbing soft mount with a wide range of movement and steep depression angle, guns like this could fire at small mobile torpedo boats that a capital ship’s main armament couldn’t handle.
This particular model is a 47mm bore, or 3-pounder as described in British service. It uses a vertically-traveling breech block, and more than 3,000 or them were acquired by the British. Two of them were employed as part of the Falkland Islands coastal defenses at one time. This example is one of two brought down from Gibraltar fairly recently and refurbished for ceremonial use on the Islands. Thanks to the FIDF for setting it up on its mount so I could film it for you!
Further impetus to build the model quick firing gun, I’ve had the plans since you posted them way back and had actually just pulled them out to look over this past week.
Let’s see them make a technical out of that!
“(…)boats with torpedos(…)”
If you are interested in torpedo warfare in 19th century then read Torpedoes and Torpedo Warfare
Containing a Complete and Concise Account of the Rise and Progress of Submarine Warfare by Sleeman available at https://gutenberg.org/ebooks/44990
Is this smokeless powder gun(round)?
From what I remember, it was transitional and was loaded in both black powder and smokeless.
Well you can see why when bazookas got invented, folks thought; nice. “Big guns” well… Bigger, in regards this to a rifle, as oppose bigger guns, eh… Drones now, shells cheap’ish but all that steel needed to contain the BANG!!! I.e. Like a rifle, lessened – Bazookas; rocket lark. Recoiless rifles, drones. I think loitering drone muntions launched from wee blimps might prove, well sort of like floating “Prowling” mines – Nobody likes mines, with good reason. Sensors, so they just go to targets and swarm. Unsettling all this new “Mini airpower” really. Via batteries, battety tech, and little shitty leccy motors; that do the job. Floating helium double skin condoms with the trellis niti spriral inside breathing… With its wee drone “Piece of targeted” shrapnel inside. Brave new world really.
Maybe it could prove anti-war sort of like nukes; in the sense of, would/could they become THAT effective, heat seeking & whatnot; would ground troops be cost effective at all, I mean could any use of humans succeed at all? Conversely that might be a counter, covering fire so to speak… loitering fuel air bombs, you just sit over vulnerable points; grids quare take outs, via a lot of fuel air mixtures. Anyway, brave new world.
Infact thats why I went storm of steel that German ww1 book thing, it won’t evolve into a deterent per se. Just more of that; but now no shrapnel piece will miss… Progress they call it, anyway.
And giant fuel air bombs “Of that type” could potentially aid in drone defence; turbulance, if they have one weak point, it is the little shitty motor… Try flying in that BANG!!!
Man made thunder, no chance; drone.
And then you get robots, charming.
Be warned that TROCANO and similar would affect also other objects present in its’ radius (around 1 km)
https://engenharia360.com/projeto-trocano-e-bomba-termobarica-brasil/
“(…)rocket lark(…)”
Keep in mind http://www.astronautix.com/l/lark.html does sport manual radio-guidance, then please consider if it is acceptable for envisioned usage.
“(…)leccy motors(…)”
What does that mean? Is that corrupted way of writing de Laval turbine?
https://youtube.com/clip/Ugkx1V-obWm9IRXm98o48cL7_VaVF14EyWdy?si=6VupRhDAx1iCAQDa anyway, might not… Happen.
The forerunner of pretty much all such “quick-firing” guns.
Thew Williams gun’s breech operated much like the shuttle in a loom.
https://i.ytimg.com/vi/QcMsxl3GExA/maxresdefault.jpg
As the eccentric cam on the crank withdrew the breechblock, the loader shoved a linen cartridge containing projectile (solid shot or time-fused shell) and propellant powder into the breech and capped the nipple. When the crank completed the rotation, the breechblock was fully forward and the self-sprung hammer was released to strike the cap.
While it could fire up to 60 R/M, that heated the breechblock up enough to cause it to expand and possibly hang up. Its rated maximum RoF was about 30 R/M, which is still pretty impressive by the standards of the day.
While not really all that effective as a land service gun, it pointed the way to later naval anti-torpedo boat quick-firers.
clear ether
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