Inspiration from the Imperial Science Museum

During our return journey from the New World, my family enjoyed a few days seeing the sights of London.  A bit of a world wind visit but we hit the main sights and enjoyed them once again (the kids were tiny last time and didn't remember them).  Couldn't help but take a few inspiring snaps at the Imperial Science Museum which I thought I needed to share.

First up, the famous Babbage Difference Engine, Mk1

And the larger Mk II, made in 1991 from Charles Babbage's designs

Detail of the computational mechanisms and brass pinwheels

 The Museum also had some wonderful models of period Flying machines - lots of dirigibles and early powered machines, not so many aeronefs!

La France 1884 (above) and Gifford Airship 1852 (below)

WW1 era designs 

Stringfellow's Flying Machine, 1848 - unconfirmed reports claim this as the first powered flight

Bleriot Criss Channel design, 1909 (1:10 scale)

Classic Rumpler Taube monoplane, originally designed in 1904

 Then there was the fantastic bit of engineering - one of the first steam locomotives - just look at those rivets and all the cross bracing - great stuff!  Note that the boiler is encased in a cask styled wooden sheath.

 A very worthwhile few hours meandering through the collection - highly recommended!

RML 9 inch Armstrong Fortress Guns, Fort Gellibrand, Melbourne

These 9 inch (228mm) Rifled Muzzle Loading guns are 12 ton Armstrong Fortress guns (300 pounder guns - actual weight of shot was 256lb). With a 9 man crew, rate of fire was approx one round every 3 minutes with either solid palliser shot or exploding shell ammunition, cast in water cooled moulds to harden the tip to enhance armour penetration. Effective range approx 5000 metres

This pair are situated in Williamstown (near my parents' house), an inner suburb of Melbourne, and cover the final approaches to the port. These guns (Nos 1679 and 1683) purchased by Sir George Vernon in 1866 to upgrade the existing 32 pounder smoothbore guns at Fort Gellibrand, constructed in 1855 during the Crimean War "Invasion Scare", to cover the southern approaches to the harbour.  

The Point Gellibrand shore batteries were first developed as part of an immediate defensive system for the city and port of Melbourne. The strategy for the defence of the port of Melbourne at this time was based on a number of shore batteries inside Port Phillip Bay. 

From the Military History and Heritage of Victoria website here: http://www.mhhv.org.au/?p=2351

"1869 Sir William Armstrong rifled muzzle-loading fortress gun"
- Military History & Heritage Victoria

This pic appears to be the same location as the one above it - quite unchanged really for well over a century earlier (other than a fence!) 

The first permanent battery was built by penal labour on Gellibrand’s Point in 1855. Convicts from the hulks moored offshore were employed on these works and accommodated in an old military barracks at the Fort. The buried central magazine at the Fort dates from this period. Further gun emplacements were added by private contracts, along the foreshore in the 1860’s."

The importance of the Fort batteries declined from the 1890s with the advent of new technologies allowing enemy ships to stand further out and shell Melbourne at range. Accordingly, they were replaced by new outer harbour defences at Queenscliff and Point Nepean, though they were still used for gunnery practice. Local residents, through the Williamstown Town Council, complained to the Acting Minister for Defence that the concussion from the guns damaged windows, walls and foundations of buildings. 

When the cannons were relegated to garden ornaments

Now deemed not just obsolescent but also a public nuance, the Armstrong Cannons were moved from Fort Gellibrand to the Williamstown Gardens in 1906 as static displays, where they stayed until 1970 when the development of the Esplanade saw them taken to their current position.

"Williamstown cannons being fired in 1988" (assumed for the Australian Bicentenary celebrators).
This was the last time the guns were fired

In addition to coastal fortifications, this type of gun was also typically fitted to smaller British ironclads and as the secondary broadside armament on larger battleships. The primary ammunition was solid Palliser shot, primarily employed for Armour Piercing work. Initial design was 1865 and 3 successive upgrades were implemented.

http://www.mhhv.org.au/?p=2351

Two additional Armstrong guns, also originally emplaced at Fort Gellibrand, are displayed in another nearby Melbourne suburb where they were relocated in 1910.

https://historicalragbag.com/2024/07/

https://www.gleneira.vic.gov.au/our-city/history-and-heritage/our-monuments-and-sites/cannons-in-hopetoun-gardens

Nordenfelt Gun

A very Happy New Year to one and all!

As the next instalment in my weaponry posts, here are some snaps I took of a 4 barrelled Nordenfelt gun I came across at the Tower of London recently.

The Business end - note this particular gun was captured from the Ottomans at Gallipoli 

The organ gun design of this weapon was patented in 1873 and ammunition was gravity fed from a hopper above the breach (see diagram below) and fired in volleys.   The Nordenfelt came in various calibers, many of them .45 small arms, but this particular version is the larger 1-inch model which fired solid shot (explosive shot being banned by treaty).  Primarily designed for torpedo boat defence, it also had an excellent capability to suppress shore targets.

This is how the two man crew operated with the gunner loading and firing while the gun captain aimed via the elevation and training hand wheels

And here is a deck mounted version in action - this pic was taken on the Australian monitor HMVS Cerberus

And if you want to go really mad for the Nordenfelt, here is a copy of the drill manual used by the Victorian Navy: Handbook of the 1" 4-barrel Nordenfelt gun, 1894

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More facts from the Old British Guns site here: http://oldbritishguns.com/the-nordenfelt-gun

The 19th Century saw a proliferation of hand operated machine guns, that was kicked off by the success of the Gatling Gun. In the beginning, the Nordenfelt  gun had 4 to 10 barrels operated by a crank on the right side, using back and forth motion as opposed to the Gatlings rotary handle. Invented and built by the Swedes, the British Navy adopted it in the 1870's, mainly in calibers as large as 25mm for use against the new torpedo boat threat. 

However, in rifle calibers, the gun can keep up a semblance of automatic fire by how quickly the handle is operated and the ammunition kept supplied. In a test by the British, the gun demonstrated 3000 rounds a minute with no stoppages. During the Sudan War in the 1880s, the Nordenfelt was mounted on General Gordons Nile riverboat fleet, to good effect. In the end the Maxim gun replaced this, as well as the Gatlings in British service, when the Nordenfelt Guns and Ammunition Company was absorbed by Hiram Maxim in 1888. The Nordenfelt was fielded by the British navy to counter the new torpedo boats, which were quickly spreading to all navies in the late 1870's. A small fast steam powered boat loaded with torpedo's could take down a capital ship, and losing some of these cheap boats in the attempt would pose little loss for the user.  In the end, the defense against the torpedo boat became a new class of fast fighting ship, the destroyer.

The single barrel Nordenfelt gun. The more interesting of the Nordenfelt guns was one that was ignored by British military leaders. The small single barrel gun was only 13 or 14 pounds in weight, not much more than a Martini-Henry. This could have been the predecessor of the Bren gun or a squad fielded mobile machine gun. The navy thought of the rifle caliber Nordenfelt as a gun to sweep the decks of an enemy ship prior to boarding, which with the big guns of the time was highly unlikely anymore. The army only thought of the machine gun as a defense for their artillery, or just an adjunct to the infantry in fending off human wave attacks. If the British military had been forward thinking, this could have advanced tactics by at least 40 years.

Nemo's War 2nd Ed KS Live

Its live and has already passed its initial funding goals!  Lots of shiny stretch goals there too, including the plastic nautilus model and co-op rules for playing with 2-4 players which would be a lot of fun.  The first edition of this game was great and this promises to be even better - go check it out!

[EDIT - Note that ALL of the stretch goals have now been unlocked!]

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/567823005/nemos-war-second-edition

PS I am trying to organise a group buy for Antipodean players - if you are interested go have a look at this BGG thread: https://www.boardgamegeek.com/article/21336647#21336647

Merry Christmas!

Out and about in London

More pics to follow of some excellent sights but just had to share this one right away!

Imperial Skies update

Well the core rules are funded and the project is moving toward its first stretch goal.  Just over a week to go, so go check it out here:

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/rottenlead/imperial-skies-wargame/description

Imperial Skies

Check out this Kickstarter for a new Flying Game partnered with Brigade Models.  Written y the guy who made Gruntz (15mm SF), its is set in WW1 vice a VSF period.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/rottenlead/imperial-skies-wargame

Nemo's War 2nd Ed tutorial

Enjoy - I can't wait for this Kickstarer campaign to get underway!

One More Gaming Project: HAWKs Run Memorial "The Sword and The Flame Game"

One More Gaming Project: HAWKs Run Memorial "The Sword and The Flame Game":     Friday night, and their regular meeting, the HAWKs played a memorial "The Sword and the Flame" game to commemorate the passing...

All Quiet at Fall-In

Saw these nice AQOTMF minis at Fall-In recently. Very shiny!  Loved the LED effects in particular.

Kaiserin class Dig Carrier

New goodies this week for the relatively under equipped Austro-Hungarian Air Service, the very nice looking Kaiserin class Dig Carrier!
http://www.brigademodels.co.uk/Aeronef/Austro-Hungary/VAN-713.html

HMS DISRAELI

Another great offering from those clever chaps at WestWind - clearly based on there HMLS GLADSTONE but with a twin Gatling turret instead of the breechloading cannon

The Disreali is the Empire’s foremost choice for situations when her colonial holdings are threatened by indigenous hordes – earning much respect during the Zulu wars, nothing says ‘British Might’ more than a Disreali Landship pouring fire upon the unruly masses. For ‘crowd control’ the Disreali is fitted with a twin linked Gatling Gun.

In Warship development of the 19th century, the transformation from broadside to batteries, turrets and barbettes was just as pivotal as the shift from sail to steam (and took less time too). The excellent Weapons and Warfare site recently publicised an article on this topic which I highly recommend.  While I have reproduced it here in full from the original I strongly recommend you peruse the site for a range of other excellent posts: http://weaponsandwarfare.com/2015/09/16/centre-battery-ship/

Centre-battery ship

Redoutable was a central battery and barbette ship of the French Navy. She was the first warship in the world to use steel as the principal building material.
Compared to iron, steel allowed for greater structural strength for a lower weight. France was the first country to manufacture steel in large quantities, using the Siemens process. At that time, steel plates still had some defects, and the outer bottom plating of the ship was made of wrought iron.
All-steel warships were later built by the Royal Navy, with the dispatch vessels Iris and Mercury, laid down in 1875-1876.

HMS Inflexible was a Victorian ironclad battleship carrying her main armament in centrally placed turrets. The ship was constructed in the 1870s for the Royal Navy to oppose the perceived growing threat from the Italian Regia Marina in the Mediterranean.
The Italian Navy had started constructing a pair of battleships, Duilio and Dandolo, equipped with four Armstrong 15-inch (381 mm) guns weighing 35 tons each. These were superior to the armament of any ship in the British Mediterranean Squadron, and Inflexible was designed as a counter to them.
Packed with innovations, Inflexible mounted larger guns than those of any previous British warship and had the thickest armour ever to be fitted to a Royal Navy ship. Controversially, she was designed so that if her un-armoured ends should be seriously damaged in action and become water-logged, the buoyancy of the armoured centre section of the ship would keep her afloat and upright.
The ship was the first major warship to depend in part for the protection of her buoyancy by a horizontal armoured deck below the water-line rather than armoured sides along the waterline.

The centre-battery ship was a major warship and a development of the ironclad ships. The man behind the design was the newly appointed Chief Constructor of the Royal Navy, Edward James Reed. The centre-battery ships had their main guns concentrated to the middle of the ship in an armoured citadel. The concentration of armament amidships mean the ship could be shorter and handier than a broadside type like previous warships. In this manner the design could maximize the armour in a limited space while still carrying a significant broadside. These ships meant the end of the full deck broadside warships.

The development of major warships in the latter half of the 19th century was extreme. New designs were obsolete by the time of commissioning. The first centre-battery ship was the HMS Bellerophon of 1865. The previous Royal Navy ironclad design, represented by the HMS Warrior, had proven to be seaworthy, fast under power and sail – however, when under sail alone, she had left much to wish for in terms of seagoing qualities.

The disadvantage of the centre-battery was that, while more flexible than the broadside, each gun still had a relatively restricted field of fire and few guns could fire directly ahead. The centre-battery ships were soon succeeded by turreted warships.

Stabilimento Tecnico Triestino had its origins in a private shipyard founded by Giuseppe Tonello at San Marco, on the coastline west of Trieste, in 1838. In 1857, the shipyard was merged with a local manufacturer of marine engines to become STT. A second shipyard was also acquired, at San Rocco near the town of Muggia just south of Trieste.

STT was the largest and most important shipbuilder in the Austrian Empire and its successor state, the Austro-Hungarian Empire. The company built most of the Austro-Hungarian Navy’s capital ships, as well as many merchant vessels. In the 1860s and 1870s, STT built five of the Austro-Hungarian Navy’s seven centre-battery ships (a forerunner of the battleship), as well as a number of ironclads, cruisers, frigates and corvettes.

Flying Fortress "Behemoth", 1918

Fantasy aircraft in the form of armoured and cannon armed German aircraft inspired by the Zeppelin Staaken R.VI, but most notably the Caproni Ca 4, Caproni Ca.48 and similar projects. Three doomed British aircraft go down ion flames at the bottom of the picture.

This watercolour was on the cover of “La Domenica della Gazzetta”- 1 Settembre 1918.