us carriage drawings

[dan610324]

Im looking for the best possible drawings to find of us carriages . and possible also cannons .
can you folks who have experiance from carriage building tell me who have the best quality on the copies and the most detailed drawings .
I bought some crap before on ebay , but that was very low quality and just 2 sheets .
I dont care if its gbo sponsors or no sponsors , I just want the best .
price isnt important , I just want the most complete manufacturing drawings and the best quality thats possible to find .
hope to have lots of replies on this .
if you recomend one particular company , please explain why .
or is this an to sensitive topic to discuss here ??
if you dont want to discuss it in public please pm me your opinion . I want the best .

[Double D]

Yes Dan, here is the best resource for your request.  Antique Ordnance Publishers

Their drawings are made from a microfiche of the orignal drawings of most U.S. Civil War ordnance

[Artilleryman]

Yes Dan, here is the best resource for your request.  Antique Ordnance Publishers

Their drawings are made from a microfiche of the orignal drawings of most U.S. Civil War ordnance

I have used drawings that I have gotten from Antique Ordnance Publishers to build three different carriages.  They are reasonably priced and have all the dimensional information that you need.  I recommend getting your drawings from them.

[cannonmn]

If you want the entire set and don't mind having to use 35mm microfilm, you can get the microfilm reel from the US National Archives, then you can print out what you need later.  The set as i recall  is entitled "Artillery for the Land Service of the United States" by Maj. Alfred Mordecai, originally published in 1849 but with later additions.

[Double D]

John,

Would they by any chance have a similar film for seacoast and navel guns?

[cannonmn]

ALL of the US Army field, siege, seacoast artillery is in the set contained on the microfilm. 

There is no such comprehensive document for US Navy ordnance.  For that I'd recommend Spencer Tucker's "Arming the Fleet" as it has many line drawings reproduced from those found in the National Archives.

[Rickk]

The US Navy will sell you the entire set of prints for the USS Constitution, including all it's guns. They come on a single CD. I think they cost me something like 15 bucks and are of excellent detail.

[GGaskill]

The Constitution CD drawings are good and have a lot of supporting data with them but they are drawings of the armament of the ship as of about 1930, by which time all on board armament was replica and the mix of guns did not necessarily reflect the actual outfitting of the ship at any particular point in time.

[dan610324]

as this post now have been read 114 times  and not anyone have had any other opinion I will buy the drawings from antique ordnance publishers .
thanks all of you for the recomendation .
only problem now is that they dont accept visa , but I will solve that problem .

[leesecw]

For Naval Records on ships if you have a particular ship in mind there is a list available in softcover that you can buy from the National Archives that are the logbooks of the ships in the National Archives that survive. I have a few of these logbook pages on microfilm that I bought from the National Archives that show a number of things on a ship from adding water, troops, all sorts of odds and ends like provisions and other things. This also covers shore installations if the logbooks survive but they tend to be from about 1900 to 1947. Some of the others Ive seen are adding and removing artillery pieces and ammunition but back then I didnt pay too much attention to them. All the info I wanted was on the Infantry units from the Civil War on those ships.  You can buy this book and other special lists from the National Archives and Records Service, General Services Administration. Published 1978. Title is  "Lists of Logbooks of US Navy Ships, Stations, and Miscellaneous Units, 1801-1947, Special List 44, compiled by  Claudia Bradley, Michael Kurtz, Rebecca Livingston, Timothy Mulligan, Muriel Parseghian, Paul Vanderveer, and James Yale. I paid about 16 bucks if I remember right about 1990 for this book of 562 pages.   I have the book off the shelf if anyone wants a log lookup for a ship to see if its available.

[dan610324]

could you see if any of the ships had been armed with the mountain howitzer
if so what carriages or svivels used ??

[cannonmn]

>could you see if any of the ships had been armed with the mountain howitzer
if so what carriages or svivels used ??

The Navy's version of the mountain howitzer was the 12-pounder Dahlgren boat howitzer, which is very well documented on web and elsewhere.  An iron field carriage was used for amphibious operations, and a sliding wooden pivot carriage was used for mounting in bows of boats, or occasionally mounting in fighting tops.

The Navy only ever bought two Army-style mountain howitzers (M1835) but didn't use them much after some testing ca. late 1840's.  They were not considered suitable for naval use, so Dahlgren developed his famous boat howitzers.

[leesecw]

Do you know which boats used these and when? The logbooks might give some info if they are available but you would have to purchase copies of those pages from the National Archives. I still have the book laying here next to my computer

[cannonmn]

The quickest way to determine the armament of various vessels is to go into the Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships (DANFS.)  These use ordnance records such as "ordnance returns" to compile what the armament of a given vessel was.  The armament changed a lot over a ship's lifetime so the list for each ship in that book (and corresponding online copies of it) is the armament at a certain time which is not usually identified.  If you want the exact armament at a certain time, you have to go into the archives and look at various entried within Record Group 74, Records of the Ordnance Department, US Navy.  It is far easier to go online and pull up the DANFS entry for a given vessel.  All naval guns down through boat howitzers are listed in DANFS, and sometimes which size of boat howitzer if it was a 12-pounder.  There was only one size of 24-pounder boat howitzer.