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Paixhans
Henri-Joseph Paixhans (; January 22, 1783, Metz – August 22, 1854, Jouy-aux-Arches) was a French artillery officer of the beginning of the 19th century. Henri-Joseph Paixhans graduated from the École Polytechnique. He fought in the Napoleonic Wars, was the representative ( Député) for the Moselle department between 1830 and 1848, and became "General de Division" in 1848. In 1823, he invented the first shell guns, which came to be called Paixhans guns (or " canon-obusiers" in the French Navy). Paixhans guns became the first naval guns to combine explosive shells and a flat trajectory, thereby triggering the demise of wooden ships, and the iron hull revolution in shipbuilding. Paixhans also invented a "Mortier monstre" ("Monster Mortar"), using 500 kg bombs, which was used to terrible effect in the Siege of Antwerp in 1832. He was also a naval theorist claiming that a few aggressively armed small units could destroy the largest naval units of the time, making him a p ...
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Monster Mortar
The Monster Mortar (french: Mortier Monstre, links=no) was one of the largest mortars ever developed. Also called Leopold or the Liège mortar, the caliber mortar was conceived by the French artillery officer Henri-Joseph Paixhans. The mortar was manufactured under the direction of the Belgian Minister of War Baron Louis Evain and cast at the Royal Canon Foundry (''Fonderie royale de canons'') in Liège, Belgium in 1832. It saw action at the Battle of Antwerp in December 1832. Description The Monster Mortar was ordered by the Belgian Minister of War Baron Empain. Conceived by the French artillery officer Henri-Joseph Paixhans, the caliber mortar was cast at the Belgian royal foundry of Cannons in 1832 in Liège, Belgium. Next to the ''Monster Mortar'', the largest mortars ever developed were two caliber mortars: Mallet's Mortar, designed by Robert Mallet and tested by the Woolwich Arsenal, London, in 1857; and "Little David" developed in the United States for use in World W ...
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Canon-obusier
The Canon-obusier (literally "Shell-gun cannon", "gun-howitzer") was a type of cannon developed by France in the 1850s. The canon-obusier was a smoothbore cannon using either explosive shells, solid shot, or canister, and was therefore a vast improvement over previous cannon firing only solid and canister shot, such as the Gribeauval system. The very first canon-obusiers were naval shell guns, invented in 1823 by Henri-Joseph Paixhans and introduced in the French Navy in 1842. This invention was related to the origin of the development of the Dahlgren shell gun in the United States in 1849. The French Army introduced the canon-obusier de 12 in 1853. The US version of this type of canon-obusier, commonly called the "12-pounder Napoleon Model 1857", was one of the most-used cannon in the American Civil War. Over 1,100 of these "Napoleons" were manufactured by the Union, and 600 by the Confederacy. The canon-obusier de 12 followed rifled cannon of the Treuille de Beaulieu sy ...
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French Ship Pacificateur (1811)
The ''Pacificateur'' was a 80-gun ship of the line of the French Navy, designed by Sané. She was the first ship to sustain damage from Paixhans shells, during test-firing of Paixhans' canon-obusiers. History Commissioned in Antwerp in 1814, ''Pacificateur'' remained anchored at the entrance of the harbour to protect it until the Bourbon Restoration. In September 1814, she arrived in Brest, where she stayed until she was condemned, in 1824. In January 1824, ''Pacificateur'' was used as a target ship to test new 22 cm canon-obusiers invented by Henri-Joseph Paixhans. The wooden sides of ''Pacificateur'' sustained devastating damages from the explosive shell, starting the decline of wooden warships and rise of the ironclad An ironclad is a steam engine, steam-propelled warship protected by Wrought iron, iron or steel iron armor, armor plates, constructed from 1859 to the early 1890s. The ironclad was developed as a result of the vulnerability of wooden warships .. ...
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Battle Of Sinop
The Battle of Sinop, or the Battle of Sinope, was a naval battle that took place on 30 November 1853 between Imperial Russia and the Ottoman Empire, during the opening phase of the Crimean War (1853–1856). It took place at Sinop, a sea port on the southern shore of the Black Sea (the northern shore of Anatolian Turkey). A Russian squadron attacked and decisively defeated an Ottoman squadron anchored in Sinop's harbor. The Russian force consisted of six ships of the line, two frigates and three armed steamers, led by Admiral Pavel Nakhimov; the Ottoman defenders were seven frigates, three corvettes and two armed steamers, commanded by Vice Admiral Osman Pasha. The Russian navy had recently adopted naval artillery that fired explosive shells, which gave them a decisive advantage in the battle. All the Ottoman frigates and corvettes were either sunk or forced to run aground to avoid destruction; only one steamer escaped. The Russians lost no ships. Nearly 3,000 Turks were killed ...
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La Gloire
The French ironclad ''Gloire'' (, "Glory") was the first ocean-going ironclad, launched in 1859. It was developed after the Crimean War,The Battle of Sinop at the start of the war convinced the world's naval powers that wooden warships could not withstand the new weapons. in response to new developments of naval gun technology, especially the Paixhans guns and rifled guns, which used explosive shells with increased destructive power against wooden ships, and after the development of the ironclad floating batteries built by the British and French for the bombardment of Russian forts during the Crimean War. Design and description ''Gloire'' was designed by the French naval architect Henri Dupuy de Lôme as a 5,630-ton broadside ironclad with a wooden hull. Its 12 cm-thick (4.7 in) armour plates, backed with 43 cm (17 in) of timber, resisted hits by the experimental shooting of the strongest guns of the time (the French 50-pounder and the British 68-pounder) ...
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Jeune École
The ''Jeune École'' ("Young School") was a strategic naval concept developed during the 19th century. It advocated the use of small, heavily armed vessels to combat larger battleships, and the use of commerce raiders to cripple the trade of the rival nation. The idea was developed among French naval theorists: the French government had the second largest navy of the time, and the theorists desired to counteract the strength of the larger British Royal Navy. Small units against battleships One of the first proponents of the ''Jeune École'' was the artillery general Henri-Joseph Paixhans, who invented explosive shell guns for warships during the 1820s. He advocated the use of these powerful guns on numerous small steam warships that could destroy much larger battleships. Later, the French Navy developed the concept more elaborately as it experimented with torpedoes and torpedo boats. The French Navy became one of the strongest proponents of this combat system by the end of the ...
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Metz
Metz ( , , lat, Divodurum Mediomatricorum, then ) is a city in northeast France located at the confluence of the Moselle and the Seille rivers. Metz is the prefecture of the Moselle department and the seat of the parliament of the Grand Est region. Located near the tripoint along the junction of France, Germany and Luxembourg,Says J.M. (2010) La Moselle, une rivière européenne. Eds. Serpenoise. the city forms a central place of the European Greater Region and the SaarLorLux euroregion. Metz has a rich 3,000-year history,Bour R. (2007) Histoire de Metz, nouvelle édition. Eds. Serpenoise. having variously been a Celtic ''oppidum'', an important Gallo-Roman city,Vigneron B. (1986) Metz antique: Divodurum Mediomatricorum. Eds. Maisonneuve. the Merovingian capital of Austrasia,Huguenin A. (2011) Histoire du royaume mérovingien d'Austrasie. Eds. des Paraiges. pp. 134,275 the birthplace of the Carolingian dynasty,Settipani C. (1989) Les ancêtres de Charlemagne. Ed. ...
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Crimean War
The Crimean War, , was fought from October 1853 to February 1856 between Russia and an ultimately victorious alliance of the Ottoman Empire, France, the United Kingdom and Piedmont-Sardinia. Geopolitical causes of the war included the decline of the Ottoman Empire, the expansion of the Russian Empire in the preceding Russo-Turkish Wars, and the British and French preference to preserve the Ottoman Empire to maintain the balance of power in the Concert of Europe. The flashpoint was a disagreement over the rights of Christian minorities in Palestine, then part of the Ottoman Empire, with the French promoting the rights of Roman Catholics, and Russia promoting those of the Eastern Orthodox Church. The churches worked out their differences with the Ottomans and came to an agreement, but both the French Emperor Napoleon III and the Russian Tsar Nicholas I refused to back down. Nicholas issued an ultimatum that demanded the Orthodox subjects of the Ottoman Empire be placed ...
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Warship
A warship or combatant ship is a naval ship that is built and primarily intended for naval warfare. Usually they belong to the armed forces of a state. As well as being armed, warships are designed to withstand damage and are usually faster and more maneuverable than merchant ships. Unlike a merchant ship, which carries cargo, a warship typically carries only weapons, ammunition and supplies for its crew. Warships usually belong to a navy, though they have also been operated by individuals, cooperatives and corporations. In wartime, the distinction between warships and merchant ships is often blurred. In war, merchant ships are often armed and used as auxiliary warships, such as the Q-ships of the First World War and the armed merchant cruisers of the Second World War. Until the 17th century it was common for merchant ships to be pressed into naval service and not unusual for more than half a fleet to be composed of merchant ships. Until the threat of piracy subsided in the ...
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HMS Warrior (1860)
HMS ''Warrior'' is a 40-gun steam-powered armoured frigate"Ironclad" is the general term for armoured warships of this period. Armoured frigates were initially designed for the same role as traditional wooden frigates; this later changed as the size and expense of these ships forced them to be used in the line of battle. built for the Royal Navy in 1859–1861. She was the name ship of the ''Warrior''-class ironclads. ''Warrior'' and her sister ship were the first armour-plated, iron-hulled warships, and were built in response to France's launching in 1859 of the first ocean-going ironclad warship, the wooden-hulled ''Gloire''. ''Warrior'' conducted a publicity tour of Great Britain in 1863 and spent her active career with the Channel Squadron. Obsolescent following the 1873 commissioning of the mastless and more capable HMS ''Devastation'', she was placed in reserve in 1875, and was "paid off" – decommissioned – in 1883. She subsequently served as a storeship and de ...
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John A
Sir John Alexander Macdonald (January 10 or 11, 1815 – June 6, 1891) was the first prime minister of Canada, serving from 1867 to 1873 and from 1878 to 1891. The dominant figure of Canadian Confederation, he had a political career that spanned almost half a century. Macdonald was born in Scotland; when he was a boy his family immigrated to Kingston in the Province of Upper Canada (today in eastern Ontario). As a lawyer, he was involved in several high-profile cases and quickly became prominent in Kingston, which elected him in 1844 to the legislature of the Province of Canada. By 1857, he had become premier under the colony's unstable political system. In 1864, when no party proved capable of governing for long, Macdonald agreed to a proposal from his political rival, George Brown, that the parties unite in a Great Coalition to seek federation and political reform. Macdonald was the leading figure in the subsequent discussions and conferences, which resulted in the Brit ...
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