|
French Ironclad Triomphante
''Triomphante'' (''Triumphant'') was the third and last ship of the of wooden-hulled, armored corvettes built for the French Navy during the 1870s. Her construction was delayed for years and the navy took advantage of the extended construction time to upgrade her armament in comparison to the lead ship, . She and her half-sister ''La Galissonnière'' participated in a number of battles during the Sino-French War of 1884–85. The ship remained in Asia and never returned to France after the war. She was condemned in 1896 and sold in 1903. Design and description The ''La Galissonnière''-class ironclads were designed as faster, more heavily armed versions of the s by Henri Dupuy de Lôme. They used the same central battery layout as their predecessors, although the battery was lengthened to provide enough room to work the larger guns. ''Triomphante'' and her sister ship were modified by Constructor Sabattier who reduced the number of screws from two to one to improve their sai ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Rochefort, Charente-Maritime
Rochefort ( oc, Ròchafòrt), unofficially Rochefort-sur-Mer (; oc, Ròchafòrt de Mar, link=no) for disambiguation, is a city and communes of France, commune in Southwestern France, a port on the Charente (river), Charente estuary. It is a Subprefectures in France, subprefecture of the Charente-Maritime Departments of France, department, located in the administrative regions of France, administrative region of Nouvelle-Aquitaine (before 2015: Poitou-Charentes). In 2018, it had a population of 23,583. Geography Rochefort lies on the river Charente (river), Charente, close to its outflow into the Atlantic Ocean. It is about 30 km southeast of La Rochelle. Rochefort station has rail connections to La Rochelle, Nantes and Bordeaux. History In December 1665, Rochefort was chosen by Jean-Baptiste Colbert as a place of "refuge, defence and supply" for the French Navy. The Arsenal de Rochefort served as a naval base and dockyard until it closed in 1926. In September 1757, Rochefor ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Central Battery Ship
The central battery ship, also known as a centre battery ship in the United Kingdom and as a casemate ship in European continental navies, was a development of the (high-freeboard) broadside ironclad of the 1860s, given a substantial boost due to the inspiration gained from the Battle of Hampton Roads, the first battle between ironclads fought in 1862 during the American Civil War. One of the participants was the Confederate casemate ironclad , essentially a central battery ship herself, albeit a low-freeboard one. The central battery ships had their main guns concentrated in the middle of the ship in an armoured citadel. The concentration of armament amidships meant the ship could be shorter and handier than a broadside type like previous warships. In this manner the design could maximize the thickness of armour in a limited area while still carrying a significant broadside. These ships meant the end of the armoured frigates with their full-length gun decks. In the UK, the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Shell (projectile)
A shell, in a military context, is a projectile whose payload contains an explosive, incendiary, or other chemical filling. Originally it was called a bombshell, but "shell" has come to be unambiguous in a military context. Modern usage sometimes includes large solid kinetic projectiles that is properly termed shot. Solid shot may contain a pyrotechnic compound if a tracer or spotting charge is used. All explosive- and incendiary-filled projectiles, particularly for mortars, were originally called ''grenades'', derived from the French word for pomegranate, so called because of the similarity of shape and that the multi-seeded fruit resembles the powder-filled, fragmentizing bomb. Words cognate with ''grenade'' are still used for an artillery or mortar projectile in some European languages. Shells are usually large-caliber projectiles fired by artillery, armored fighting vehicles (e.g. tanks, assault guns, and mortar carriers), warships, and autocannons. The shape ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Muzzle (firearms)
A gun barrel is a crucial part of gun-type weapons such as small firearms, artillery pieces, and air guns. It is the straight shooting tube, usually made of rigid high-strength metal, through which a contained rapid expansion of high-pressure gas(es) is used to propel a projectile out of the front end ( muzzle) at a high velocity. The hollow interior of the barrel is called the bore, and the diameter of the bore is called its caliber, usually measured in inches or millimetres. The first firearms were made at a time when metallurgy was not advanced enough to cast tubes capable of withstanding the explosive forces of early cannons, so the pipe (often built from staves of metal) needed to be braced periodically along its length for structural reinforcement, producing an appearance somewhat reminiscent of storage barrels being stacked together, hence the English name.''A History of Warfare'' - Keegan, John, Vintage 1993. History Gun barrels are usually metal. However, the earl ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Wrought Iron
Wrought iron is an iron alloy with a very low carbon content (less than 0.08%) in contrast to that of cast iron (2.1% to 4%). It is a semi-fused mass of iron with fibrous slag Inclusion (mineral), inclusions (up to 2% by weight), which give it a wood-like "grain" that is visible when it is etched, rusted, or bent to structural failure, failure. Wrought iron is tough, malleable, ductile, corrosion resistant, and easily forge welding, forge welded, but is more difficult to welding, weld electrically. Before the development of effective methods of steelmaking and the availability of large quantities of steel, wrought iron was the most common form of malleable iron. It was given the name ''wrought'' because it was hammered, rolled, or otherwise worked while hot enough to expel molten slag. The modern functional equivalent of wrought iron is Carbon steel#Mild or low-carbon steel, mild steel, also called low-carbon steel. Neither wrought iron nor mild steel contain enough carbon to be ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Muzzle Velocity
Muzzle velocity is the speed of a projectile (bullet, pellet, slug, ball/shots or shell) with respect to the muzzle at the moment it leaves the end of a gun's barrel (i.e. the muzzle). Firearm muzzle velocities range from approximately to in black powder muskets, to more than in modern rifles with high-velocity cartridges such as the .220 Swift and .204 Ruger, all the way to for tank guns firing kinetic energy penetrator ammunition. To simulate orbital debris impacts on spacecraft, NASA launches projectiles through light-gas guns at speeds up to . Projectile velocity For projectiles in unpowered flight, its velocity is highest at leaving the muzzle and drops off steadily because of air resistance. Projectiles traveling less than the speed of sound (about in dry air at sea level) are ''subsonic'', while those traveling faster are ''supersonic'' and thus can travel a substantial distance and even hit a target before a nearby observer hears the "bang" of the shot. Projec ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Caliber (artillery)
In artillery, caliber or calibredifference in British English and American English spelling is the internal diameter of a gun barrel, or - by extension - a relative measure of the barrel length. Rifled barrels Rifled barrels introduce ambiguity to measurement of caliber. A rifled bore consists of alternating grooves and lands. The distance across the bore from groove to groove is greater than the distance from land to land. Projectiles fired from rifled barrels must be of the full groove to groove diameter to be effectively rotated by the rifling, but the caliber has sometimes been specified as the land to land diameter before rifling grooves were cut. The depth of rifling grooves (and the consequent ambiguity) increases in larger calibers. Steel artillery projectiles may have a forward bourrelet section machined to a diameter slightly smaller than the original land to land dimension of the barrel and a copper driving band somewhat larger than the groove to groove diameter t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Armor-piercing Shot And Shell
Armour-piercing ammunition (AP) is a type of projectile designed to penetrate either body armour or vehicle armour. From the 1860s to 1950s, a major application of armour-piercing projectiles was to defeat the thick armour carried on many warships and cause damage to their lightly-armoured interiors. From the 1920s onwards, armour-piercing weapons were required for anti-tank warfare. AP rounds smaller than 20 mm are intended for lightly-armoured targets such as body armour, bulletproof glass, and lightly-armoured vehicles. As tank armour improved during World War II, anti-vehicle rounds began to use a smaller but dense penetrating body within a larger shell, firing at very high muzzle velocity. Modern penetrators are long rods of dense material like tungsten or depleted uranium (DU) that further improve the terminal ballistics. History The late 1850s saw the development of the ironclad warship, which carried wrought iron armour of considerable thickness. This armour ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Chase Gun
A chase gun (or chaser), usually distinguished as bow chaser and stern chaser, was a cannon mounted in the bow (aiming forward) or stern (aiming backward) of a sailing ship. They were used to attempt to slow down an enemy ship either chasing (pursuing) or being chased, when the ship's broadside could not be brought to bear. Typically, the chasers were used to attempt to damage the rigging and thereby cause the target to lose performance. Bow chasers could be regular guns brought up from the gundeck and aimed through specially cut-out ports on either side of the bowsprit, or dedicated weapons made with an unusually long bore and a relatively light ball, and mounted in the bow. Stern chasers could also be improvised, or left permanently in the cabins at the stern, covered up and used as part of the furniture. Development In the Age of Sail, shiphandling had been brought to a high art, and chases frequently lasted for hours or sometimes days, as each crew fine-tuned their sail ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sponson
Sponsons are projections extending from the sides of land vehicles, aircraft or watercraft to provide protection, stability, storage locations, mounting points for weapons or other devices, or equipment housing. Watercraft On watercraft, a sponson is a projection that extends outward (usually from the hull, but sometimes other parts of the vessel) to improve stability while floating, or to act as a securing point for other equipment. Vessels with unstable body shapes or unevenly distributed weight are likely to feature sponsons to help prevent capsizing or other instabilities. On many vessels, these projections from the main body of the vessel can be attached and removed quickly and fairly easily. Canoes and kayaks sometimes feature sponson attachments as well, for stability in rough waters. These differ from outriggers, which extend a significant distance away from the body of the craft, and are employed on craft designed for open waters. A sponson's terminus is close to the cr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Barbette
Barbettes are several types of gun emplacement in terrestrial fortifications or on naval ships. In recent naval usage, a barbette is a protective circular armour support for a heavy gun turret. This evolved from earlier forms of gun protection that eventually led to the pre-dreadnought. The name ''barbette'' ultimately comes from fortification - it originally meant a raised platform or mound, as in the French phrase ''en barbette'', which refers to the practice of firing a cannon over a parapet rather than through an embrasure in a fortification's casemate. The former gives better angles of fire but less protection than the latter. The disappearing gun was a variation on the barbette gun; it consisted of a heavy gun on a carriage that would retract behind a parapet or into a gunpit for reloading. Barbettes were primarily used in coastal defences, but saw some use in a handful of warships, and some inland fortifications. The term is also used for certain aircraft gun mounts. Sh ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Breech-loading
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 tub ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
