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Asbury Mechanism
An Asbury Mechanism opens and closes the breech of heavy artillery for reloading with a projectile and bags of propellant. It was widely used for naval artillery of the world wars and similar coastal artillery and railway guns. The device was invented at the Washington Navy Yard in 1916 by draftsman Dorsey Frost Asbury. It is sometimes called a Smith-Asbury mechanism by the United States Navy in recognition of Asbury's supervisor, Lieutenant Commander George Leonard Smith, USN. Large caliber breech-loading artillery became practical with French development of the obturator by Charles Ragon de Bange in 1872; and speed of reloading was improved by adaptation of the interrupted screw breech plug, which was later further improved by Axel Welin in 1890 as the Welin breech block The Welin breech block was a revolutionary stepped, interrupted thread design for locking artillery breeches, invented by Axel Welin in 1889 or 1890. Shortly after, Vickers acquired the British patents. Weli ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Breech-loading Weapon
A breechloader is a firearm in which the user loads the ammunition (cartridge or shell) via the rear (breech) end of its barrel, as opposed to a muzzleloader, which loads ammunition via the front ( muzzle). Modern firearms are generally breech-loading – except for replicas of vintage weapons. Early firearms before the mid-19th century were almost entirely muzzle-loading. Mortars and the Russian GP-25 grenade launcher are the only muzzleloaders remaining in frequent modern usage. However, referring to a weapon specifically as breech loading is mostly limited to single-shot or otherwise non-repeating firearms, such as double-barreled shotguns. Breech-loading provides the advantage of reduced reloading time, because it is far quicker to load the projectile and propellant into the chamber of a gun/cannon than to reach all the way over to the front end to load ammunition and then push them back down a long tube – especially when the projectile fits tightly and the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Propellant
A propellant (or propellent) is a mass that is expelled or expanded in such a way as to create a thrust or other motive force in accordance with Newton's third law of motion, and "propel" a vehicle, projectile, or fluid payload. In vehicles, the engine that expels the propellant is called a reaction engine. Although technically a propellant is the reaction mass used to create thrust, the term "propellant" is often used to describe a substance which is contains both the reaction mass and the fuel that holds the energy used to accelerate the reaction mass. For example, the term "propellant" is often used in chemical rocket design to describe a combined fuel/propellant, although the propellants should not be confused with the fuel that is used by an engine to produce the energy that expels the propellant. Even though the byproducts of substances used as fuel are also often used as a reaction mass to create the thrust, such as with a chemical rocket engine, propellant and fuel are two ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Naval Artillery
Naval artillery is artillery mounted on a warship, originally used only for naval warfare and then subsequently used for naval gunfire support, shore bombardment and anti-aircraft roles. The term generally refers to tube-launched projectile-firing weapons and excludes self-propelled projectiles such as torpedoes, rockets, and missiles and those simply dropped overboard such as depth charges and naval mines. Origins The idea of ship-borne artillery dates back to the classical era. Julius Caesar indicates the use of ship-borne catapults against Britons ashore in his ''Commentarii de Bello Gallico''. The dromons of the Byzantine Empire carried catapults and Greek fire, fire-throwers. From the late Middle Ages onwards, warships began to carry cannon, cannons of various calibres. The Mongol invasion of Java introduced cannons to be used in naval warfare (e.g. Cetbang by the Majapahit). The Battle of Arnemuiden, fought between England and France in 1338 at the start of the Hundred Y ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
World War
A world war is an international conflict which involves all or most of the world's major powers. Conventionally, the term is reserved for two major international conflicts that occurred during the first half of the 20th century, World WarI (1914–1918) and World WarII (1939–1945), although historians have also described other global conflicts as world wars, such as the Seven Years' War and the Cold War. Etymology The ''Oxford English Dictionary'' cited the first known usage in the English language to a Scottish newspaper, ''The People's Journal'', in 1848: "A war among the great powers is now necessarily a world-war." The term "world war" is used by Karl Marx and his associate, Friedrich Engels, in a series of articles published around 1850 called ''The Class Struggles in France''. Rasmus B. Anderson in 1889 described an episode in Teutonic mythology as a "world war" (Swedish: ''världskrig''), justifying this description by a line in an Old Norse epic poem, "Völuspá: fo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Coastal Artillery
Coastal artillery is the branch of the armed forces concerned with operating anti-ship artillery or fixed gun batteries in coastal fortifications. From the Middle Ages until World War II, coastal artillery and naval artillery in the form of cannons were highly important to military affairs and generally represented the areas of highest technology and capital cost among materiel. The advent of 20th-century technologies, especially military aviation, naval aviation, jet aircraft, and guided missiles, reduced the primacy of cannons, battleships, and coastal artillery. In countries where coastal artillery has not been disbanded, these forces have acquired amphibious capabilities. In littoral warfare, mobile coastal artillery armed with surface-to-surface missiles can still be used to deny the use of sea lanes. It was long held as a rule of thumb that one shore-based gun equaled three naval guns of the same caliber, due to the steadiness of the coastal gun which allowed for ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Railway Gun
A railway gun, also called a railroad gun, is a large artillery piece, often surplus naval artillery, mounted on, transported by, and fired from a specially designed railroad car, railway wagon. Many countries have built railway guns, but the best-known are the large Krupp-built pieces used by German Reich, Germany in World War I and World War II. Smaller guns were often part of an armoured train. Only able to be moved where there were good tracks, which could be destroyed by artillery bombardment or airstrike, railway guns were phased out after World War II. Design considerations The design of a railway gun has three firing issues over and above those of an ordinary artillery piece to consider. Namely how the gun is going to be traversed – i.e. moved from side to side to aim; how the horizontal component of the recoil force will be absorbed by the gun's carriage and how the vertical recoil force will be absorbed by the ground. Methods of traverse The first method of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Washington Navy Yard
The Washington Navy Yard (WNY) is the former shipyard and ordnance plant of the United States Navy in Southeast Washington, D.C. It is the oldest shore establishment of the U.S. Navy. The Yard currently serves as a ceremonial and administrative center for the U.S. Navy, home to the Chief of Naval Operations, and is headquarters for the Naval Sea Systems Command, Naval Reactors, Naval Facilities Engineering Systems Command, Naval History and Heritage Command, the National Museum of the United States Navy, the U.S. Navy Judge Advocate General's Corps, Marine Corps Institute, the United States Navy Band, and other more classified facilities. In 1998, the yard was listed as a Superfund site due to environmental contamination. History The history of the yard can be divided into its military history and cultural and scientific history. Military The land was purchased under an Act of Congress on July 23, 1799. The Washington Navy Yard was established on October 2, 1799, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
United States Navy
The United States Navy (USN) is the maritime service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. It is the largest and most powerful navy in the world, with the estimated tonnage of its active battle fleet alone exceeding the next 13 navies combined, including 11 allies or partner nations of the United States as of 2015. It has the highest combined battle fleet tonnage (4,635,628 tonnes as of 2019) and the world's largest aircraft carrier fleet, with eleven in service, two new carriers under construction, and five other carriers planned. With 336,978 personnel on active duty and 101,583 in the Ready Reserve, the United States Navy is the third largest of the United States military service branches in terms of personnel. It has 290 deployable combat vessels and more than 2,623 operational aircraft . The United States Navy traces its origins to the Continental Navy, which was established during the American Revo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Obturating Ring
{{Other uses, Obturator (other){{!Obturator An obturating ring is a ring of relatively soft material designed to obturate under pressure to form a seal. Obturating rings are often found in artillery and other ballistics applications, and similar devices are also used in other applications such as plumbing, like the ''olive'' in a compression fitting. The term "O-ring" is sometimes used to describe this kind of pressure seal. Ballistics uses Obturating rings are common in artillery, where the hard steel casing of the shell is too hard to practically deform to provide a tight seal for the propellant gases. An obturating ring or driving band made of a softer material is the typical solution. Mortar bombs also use obturating rings to provide a seal around the projectile. Recoilless rifles and some artillery use rings with a reverse impression of the rifling cut in them for a tighter seal even at very low pressures. Some artillery shells use an obturating ring at the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Charles Ragon De Bange
Charles Ragon de Bange (17 October 1833 – 9 July 1914) was a French artillery officer and Polytechnician. He invented the first effective obturator system for breech-loading artillery, which remains in use. He also designed a system of field guns of various calibers which served the French Army well into World War I: the ''Système de Bange''. Career De Bange breech obturator system Many attempts had been made at developing breech-loading cannons, but had only partial success sealing of the breech. When fired, hot gases and burning gunpowder could escape, losing power and potentially burning the operating crew. Rifles, with smaller loads and thus less stress, were able to use rubber in O-rings as on the Chassepot rifle. The same principle of breech sealing applied on cannons was not as easy to develop. Several materials were able to hold the pressure and heat of cannon fire, but did not expand like rubber, thereby failing to provide a tight seal. The most successful of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Interrupted Screw
Breech from Russian 122 mm M1910 howitzer, modified and combined with 105 mm H37 howitzer barrel An interrupted screw or interrupted thread is a mechanical device typically used in the breech of artillery guns. It is believed to have been invented in 1845. The system has also been used to close other applications, including the joint between helmet (bonnet) and breastplate (corselet) of standard diving suit helmets, and the locks of diving chambers. Design An interrupted screw has a section of thread along its axis removed. The screw is mated with a partially threaded hole in the receptacle: threadless channels in the breechblock screw line up with the threaded parts of the screw, and vice versa. The screw can thus be smoothly inserted all the way into the receptacle, after which as little as one-eighth of a turn can engage the two sets of threads securely, sealing the joint. The amount of rotation required to achieve full closure depends on the number of unthread ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
