80-Pounder 5-Ton RML Gun
This is a modified weapon, originally built as a 68-pounder 112-cwt (hundredweight), which had first been designed in 1841 by a Colonel William Dundas.
Royal Navy 68-pounders were removed from ships, landed, and used in action during the Crimean War (1853-56). Britain's first armour-plated, iron-hulled warship in 1860, HMS Warrior, was fitted with 26 68-pounders.
On land the 68-pounder was used extensively in British coastal defences constructed during the 1850s. They were also used to equip similar facilites in the colonies. Two were installed on Signal Hill, on the approaches to the Australian port of Newcastle, New South Wales, in 1874.
In the UK, a Captain William Palliser patented a method of boring out the gun barrel and inserting a wrought-iron rifled liner. The resulting weapon, introduced in 1872, was the 80-pounder, 5-ton RML (rifled, muzzle loading) gun.
In 1877, in light of the perceived increasing threat from Russia, an Australian government report recommended building a fort on Signal Hill and equipping it with three 9-inch and four 80-pounder RML guns. This was eventually named Fort Scratchley, after Colonel Peter Scratchley, co-author of the report and the man responsible for the detailed planning for the fort.
Three of the 80-pounders were positioned in casemates that looked across the Hunter River, rather than out to sea. One of them, on a replica gun carriage, is seen above.
Fort Scratchley's 80-pounders were replaced in 1898 by 1.5-inch Nordenfelt quick-firing guns, but 80-pounders remained in commission elsewhere until they were eventually declared obsolete in 1921!
The only action ever seen by Fort Scratchley was on 8 June 1942 when two 6-inch guns engaged I-21, a Japanese submarine, which briefly shelled the port. It closed as a military site in 1972 and became a museum in 1982. Subsequent extensive refurbishment included the emplacement of the above weapon in 2000.
80-Pounder 5-Ton RML Gun
This is a modified weapon, originally built as a 68-pounder 112-cwt (hundredweight), which had first been designed in 1841 by a Colonel William Dundas.
Royal Navy 68-pounders were removed from ships, landed, and used in action during the Crimean War (1853-56). Britain's first armour-plated, iron-hulled warship in 1860, HMS Warrior, was fitted with 26 68-pounders.
On land the 68-pounder was used extensively in British coastal defences constructed during the 1850s. They were also used to equip similar facilites in the colonies. Two were installed on Signal Hill, on the approaches to the Australian port of Newcastle, New South Wales, in 1874.
In the UK, a Captain William Palliser patented a method of boring out the gun barrel and inserting a wrought-iron rifled liner. The resulting weapon, introduced in 1872, was the 80-pounder, 5-ton RML (rifled, muzzle loading) gun.
In 1877, in light of the perceived increasing threat from Russia, an Australian government report recommended building a fort on Signal Hill and equipping it with three 9-inch and four 80-pounder RML guns. This was eventually named Fort Scratchley, after Colonel Peter Scratchley, co-author of the report and the man responsible for the detailed planning for the fort.
Three of the 80-pounders were positioned in casemates that looked across the Hunter River, rather than out to sea. One of them, on a replica gun carriage, is seen above.
Fort Scratchley's 80-pounders were replaced in 1898 by 1.5-inch Nordenfelt quick-firing guns, but 80-pounders remained in commission elsewhere until they were eventually declared obsolete in 1921!
The only action ever seen by Fort Scratchley was on 8 June 1942 when two 6-inch guns engaged I-21, a Japanese submarine, which briefly shelled the port. It closed as a military site in 1972 and became a museum in 1982. Subsequent extensive refurbishment included the emplacement of the above weapon in 2000.