Russian Artillery Museum

[cannonmn]

In keeping with the rules of this site, please only look at the items which are obviously antique artillery and do not open the others, this museum has a fantastic collection but I don't have a way to delete the items which are not antique.  There are some antique pieces pictured on this site which are unique to put it mildly.  There with some with oval bores, some with rectangular bores, there's a rotating muzzle-loading mortar with 68 (or whatever) bronze barrels, there's....


http://xenophon-mil.org/rusarmy/artymuseum/arttbl.htm

[GGaskill]

If you read through the listing, you will notice some of their cannon described as "1-Pud", etc.  A Pud (or pood) is a pre-communist weight measure equal to 36.11 lbs.  So a 1 pud gun is virtually a 36 pounder which is about 6.5" in diameter.  2 pud is about 8.15" diameter.

[cannonmn]

Well I gotta put my favorite right up here so no one misses it.  I'll bet one of you guys goes out and builds one of these before long.   When you get that wheel movin', kinda watch out for those nasty hangfires, ok?  Their site won't let me hotlink it so ya gotta click on it.

http://xenophon-mil.org/rusarmy/artymuseum/arty063s.htm

[Terry C.]

I saw another cannon there listed as "12-funt."

From what I can find on the web, 'funt' is a Slovenian word for the Russian artillery pound.

1 funt = 115 zolotniks = 490.5 gram = 1.081 lb.

So, if I have my figures right, a 12-funt cannon would be approximately a 13-pounder.

[Terry C.]

A Pud (or pood) is a pre-communist weight measure equal to 36.11 lbs.

Yikes, here's a 30-pud bronze mortar made in 1605.

30 x 36.11 = 1083.3 pounds!

Bore diameter is 543 mm (21.377"), weight is 1813 kg (4217.438 lb.).

30-pud siege mortar

[lance]

 Cannonmn, now that's a ton of cool pics!!!  for a moment i had a vision of building a 44 shot golf ball mortar system, But, i'll probably just build the hand crank stone bow in golf ball size. Could be fun i guess, and it's mostly all wood

[lance]

 NO, Wait, there's hope! i can build that cool looking 6-funt bronze mortar model 1707 on tripod.......well, i know my little lathe could handle a 1-funt size one! hey, and the tripod is mostly all wood too

[Cannon caster]

Very interesting pictures. I didn't know that square (and other non-round shapes) cannons existed. How were they bored?

[cannonmn]

>How were they bored?

The really old ones were cast on a square (or whatever) cross-section core.

Later ones (post-1800 anyway) probably had a central hole drilled, then used a type of chamfer that had a reciprocal cutting stroke.  Just a guess, but I'm not sure how else you'd do it.

[cannonmn]

I bet Mike and Tracy could make a working scale model of that rotary mortar system over their lunch hour.

[seacoastartillery]

      Actually, we were so impressed with that particular battlefield terror, that we already have our version on the drawing board.  We will probably build this one full size, however, because the size of the projectiles looks to be the smallest effective diameter for that particular use.  Mike is even enthusiastic about this future project.  He said, "Imagine the crowds you could draw at one of the nearby machine gun and cannon shoots as you set-up your Russian Rotary Mortar!!"  We would probably add a deflector shield in the area of the trail to protect the fearless gunner!!!  Maybe a retirement project, we'll see.   

What a great museum.  Thanks for that link!

Mike and Tracy

[cannonmn]

>Imagine the crowds you could draw at one of the nearby machine gun and cannon shoots as you set-up your Russian Rotary Mortar

Then I guess I'd have to call that thing the "Russian Roulette Wheel!"

[Artilleryman]

A couple of observations/questions about the rotary mortar.  Seems like a low angle for a mortar, wonder how they changed the elevation?  Normally when you load a mortar you do it without a patch or sabot, but if you didn't with this gun the shells would roll out on the low side of the wheel.  I wonder how long it took to load, and how did they fire it without having a chain fire?  My guess is that this wasn't too effective or there would have been more of them.  You are right Mike and Tracy, it would draw a crowd.

[Cannon caster]

The really old ones were cast on a square (or whatever) cross-section core.

Later ones (post-1800 anyway) probably had a central hole drilled, then used a type of chamfer that had a reciprocal cutting stroke.  Just a guess, but I'm not sure how else you'd do it.

What did they use as the core?

And how were cannons bored in the 18 and 19 centuries when no modern equipment existed? From what materials where the drill bits made?

[cannonmn]

What did they use as the core?

And how were cannons bored in the 18 and 19 centuries when no modern equipment existed? From what materials where the drill bits made?

The core could be wood covered with horse dung and straw to make it smoother and more heat-resistant.

Lathes go way back.  By 1750 or so, some countries were requiring all cannons to be cast solid then bored out with boring machines.  There are pix you can get on the web of vertical and horizontal gang-boring machines that bored many cannons at once by animal or water power, and those existed well prior to 1800.  By about 1780, all civilized countries that I know of were requiring guns to be cast solid then be bored out, since they all had the proper machinery by then.