Another Rodman 20-inch cannon model found

[cannonmn]

Remember the large model I posted pix of a while back (sorry could not find that discussion.)

Anyway, I may have mentioned that it had corroded enough that I couldn't read all the muzzle markings. 

Amazingly another one has shown up, privately owned, and a friend sent me pictures.  All the muzzle marks are legible or mostly so, on the other one, so now I know a lot more about that marks that were on mine way back when.

The black one is mine, and the rust-patinated one in the last picture is the other person's.  The full set of marks should read something like

"Fort Pitt, PA         No. 3     115,400 Lbs.  TJR      1864"

On mine I could read the "TJ_" and part of "1864" and some other letters but it was tough and uncertain.  Now I know!  Must be livin' right as they say.






No one I've talked to knows exactly why these were made but the way things were done back then, we suspect these were poured form the same metal heat as the big guns, for presentation to bigshots or something like that.  I'd love to find some official documentation on them some day.

[KABAR2]

Is it possible these are classroom models sort of a 19th. Century version of the over sized training cutaway models of the Browning and other guns produced in the 1950s for training? Or the Bofor's trainers the Navy had to keep gun crews practiced on loading?

New recruits would have been smaller in number it would be easy for an instructor to show each of the crews positions around the model, after showing them several times have the crew go through the motions with the model, it would be easier to observe the men in a situation like this instead of around a full scale gun where the instructor's view would be blocked by the the size of the gun itself. and would also be economical to fire rather than the full scale version.

[cannonmn]

Thanks, sure that's possible.  The model was not made to fire, since the vent was not bored all the way through.  I think discovery of the real purpose of these will have to await discovery of either photographs or documents describing them.  Has anyone found anything?  I had it at a gun show as a display one time and a gentleman came by and said he'd seen a CW-period photo of a model "that looks just like it" with troops gathered around it, in a possible training scenario, but he never produced a copy of it, so I have to take that input with a grain of salt.

[KABAR2]

Maybe there would be something in the archives of West Point, being our Army's training College they might have some period photos......
The next time I get over to Fort Monroe I'll ask the curator if they have anything, the Casement Museum has a nice collection of working
cannon models, most dating from the late 19th to mid 20th Centuries.

[cannonmn]

Here's an old engraving, I think it is from a period newspaper, if anyone knows the source please advise.  What you see are wooden patterns for two sizes of Rodman gun. 

The small models are on top of the large pattern.  I'm guessing the model in the center is the 20-inch, on the left is the 15-inch, and on the right, the 10-inch.  I have an original 20-inch model as shown in this post, and also the smaller 15-inch.  I've never seen a 10-inch Rodman model of this particular type.  When I found the 15-inch model in an antiques market in PA, there was a heavy cast-iron model of a 13-inch mortar with it, probably from the same foundry, so I bought both.

http://www.ijnhonline.org/howard_special/The_Guns_at_Filipstad_pics_docs/20-in%20Rodman%20drawing.jpg

[KABAR2]

If that is from "The Guns at Filipstad:" (some very interesting reading) it is the second plate in row 16

the credits gives it as:

"(20-inch Rodman illustration)

“ “An illustration of the 20-inch Rodman smoothbore, in comparison with contemporary ordnance.  From Paul F. Mottelay and T. Campbell-Copeland (eds.), The Soldier in Our Civil War, 2 vols. (New York: Stanley Bradley Publishing Company, 1890), 2: 212."

Allen <><

[cannonmn]

Thanks Allen, I'm a little show this AM, just figured out how to get the captions for that article, for some reason they are on a whole separate webpage.  How inconvenient!

You are right, the article is very interesting.  For anyone interested in the MONITOR, Ericsson, Dahlgren, Rodman, and how they all interacted (and sometimes refused to do so) I'd recommend it.  The pix are very good and seldom seen.

http://www.ijnhonline.org/volume2_number3_Dec03/article_fuller_filipstad_dec03.htm

[Siskiyou]

Thanks for the interesting link.