A. Roads: Question about British block trail carriage

[seacoastartillery]

    Three Huzzahs for Cannonmn!  Couldn't have said it any better.  Thanks.  You see Gary, it's like this, we, just like you, and definitely Cannonmn, have looked all over in the U.S. for these drawings (the original British ordnance drawings or American ordnance drawings made using one of the imported guns).  As yet, we have not found any.  Even when we called the Firepower Museum in England, they basically said, "Come over here to do a complete search for the original British drawings or make your own drawings of the Whitworth carriage.  We thanked them very much for the invitation, but this is obviously a very expensive way to accomplish this task.

   

    All you need to do is use the dimensions from the detailed barrel drawing and transfer them to the barrel on the carriage drawings, then use any of those measurements as a scale for the carriage. 

    That's exactly the method we would use and it will save you big bucks in travel money too.

     Bye the way, if you're up for a REAL challenge, try re-creating a gun carriage accurately, for which NO DRAWING exists, ANYWHERE, like the 7" Treble-Banded Brooke Seacoast and Navy Rifle we are building right now.  Two historical photos exist and they are artistic photos taken from quartering angles!!  Oh boy, talk about fun!  Some days we spend 8 hours researching 19th century boot, shoe, or suspender construction, so we can find something of known size to use as a "standard" for measurement of carriage features.  On some photos, we have used dimensions of uniform buttons and belt buckles to good effect.  My son and daughter, who do some sanding and polishing for us, tend to disappear when Mike and I get to "DISCUSSING" the best way to determine a particularly frustrating dimension!!  Count yourself lucky you have those A.O.P. drawings and you have our most sincere, very best wishes as you proceed on this most worthwhile project.

     Boom J,   From what we can see, when comparing that Congreve designed British carriage to the drawings of the Whitworth traversing carriage depicted in the A.O.P. drawings, they are indeed quite different.  We ARE NOT experts in the area of field carriages or guns, but the extreme length of the tube, 105.625" is simply one of the reasons why this carriage is different from the Armstrong gun carriage or other British field carriages of this era.

     The cheeks on the A.O.P. drawing of the British traversing carriage appear to us to be higher than the Congreve carriage in your initial photos, but a bit lower than a typical U.S. No. 2.  The concavity, (transitional radius), of which you speak, is present 3 or 4 inches behind the traversing screw capstan wheel which is behind the elevation screw, but the tangental surface is only half the distance from the traversing screw bracket surface, compared to the separation of trail surfaces on the Congreve carriage.

Regards,

Tracy and Mike

     



     

[Double D]

Was the Whitworth a British Military issue piece?  If so have you contacted the Royal Armoury Museum at Leeds?  The hold sealed patterns and support documents for small arms. If they retained sealed patterns and documents of field pieces, they might have what you need.  I don't know that they do.

 

[seacoastartillery]

    Double D,  Don't know, where is Adrian when you need him?  No, we haven't contacted them.  Now we will.  Let's face it a copy of the original drawing would facilitate carriage construction  a lot.

     Speaking of the original British drawing of the 12 Pdr. Whitworth, while we would not sail with Captain Ahab into the glare of perdition's flame to find it, we fully realize that one would have to expend quite some effort to cast a net large enough to secure it.

Yo, Adrian, where are you?

Mike and Tracy

[seacoastartillery]

oops!

[cannonmn]

Was the Whitworth a British Military issue piece?

No.

[A.Roads]

From the British side of things the Whitworth is a commercial gun, it was not adopted for military service so there won't be a carriage of a set pattern for it.
Adrian

[cannonmn]

I just looked at the photos of the Armstrong field b/l in the opening post and noticed it has strake tires!  There are six strakes going around, each held on by six bolts. 

I was totally unaware that England used strake tires during that period, but then I don't know much about their stuff anyway.  Was that generally the case with their field artillery, or were these wheels incorrectly restored with improper tires, or what??

Two days ago I made the mistake of zooming in on that photo with my cat watching the screen while standing next to the keyboard.  The cat thought the cannon was going to run over it, hissed, arched his back, and jumped straight up several feet to get out of the way, all this in the space of under a second.  That's one of the stranger feline behaviors I've ever seen, but having reactions like that is how they survive I guess.

[gary michie]

 Hi :
Is it 6 bolts or 4 ? Two between spokes and one at each end.
It was mention that the carriage used for a whithworth verses a armstrong would differ, the pic that I have seen the carriage look the same except for the elevator screw base block. on a whithworth, trunnion to elevator pin is about 38+ inches what is a armstrong dim.
Does anyone know how many bolts hold on the cheeks and what size?
Gary

[A.Roads]

"I just looked at the photos of the Armstrong field b/l in the opening post and noticed it has strake tires!  There are six strakes going around, each held on by six bolts. 

I was totally unaware that England used strake tires during that period, but then I don't know much about their stuff anyway.  Was that generally the case with their field artillery, or were these wheels incorrectly restored with improper tires, or what??"

Not an easy question to answer, everything was horse drawn & there was an impressive variety of vehicles, no rule applied to all. If we take the field gun carriage then streak tyres are more correct than ring tyres for the Armstrong. Streaks survived so long in service mainly due to their ease of repair in the field. Ring tyres were however adopted in the time frame of the Armstrong & began to predominate, I haven't seen the written order but I understand that it is L.o.C. paragraph 1619 - prior to this ring tyres were mostly limited to use on small wheels. Not long after the intro of ring tyres gun metal knaves were also intended to be introduced for carriages liable to come under fire - again for ease of field repairs. Streak tyres were held with 4 bolts & 2 nails per streak. Ring tyres were held on with 6 bolts.



"Does anyone know how many bolts hold on the cheeks and what size?"

The brackets had three iron bolts passing thru horizontally, I don't know the bolt size. The brackets also employ a quite complex dovetail connection with the trail, quite unlike the rondelles of the American design of the same era, but serving the same purpose, transmitting the shock of discharge from bracket to trail so that the bolts are not stressed.
When it comes to surviving details of British & American carriages we are talking chalk & cheese. If you were to reconstruct a U.S. field gun carriage & limber you have every piece of info available, down to chain links sizes, nails shank sizes etc. For the British equivalent there is little more than a one page sectional drawing.

The 12 pr Armstong carriage was based on that of the S.B. 9 pr but even in that there were differences, all carriages were made by the Royal Carriage Department. With the Whitworth there was no British military pattern, they would just have been based on similar principles & design etc by whoever made them.

Adrian

[cannonmn]

Thanks Adrian, great info!

When it comes to surviving details of British & American carriages we are talking chalk & cheese.

Chalk and cheese indeed!  I haven't heard that before but it must be the anglo-equivelent of "apples and oranges."

[cannonmn]

Here's a repro that must have been based on the Augusta Arsenal drawings.  The bore is 1.5 in. as I recall.  It  takes custom-made aluminum cartridges cases but uses friction primer ignition.  The actual bore is rifled in a somewhat modern fashion with lots of narrow lands and grooves.  If you look under the weather shield into the traverse mechanism, the shaft is a worm gear and the curved rack gear is attached to the rear end of the top carriage.  The top carriage pivots on the lower carriage.  The breech screw is a single square thread, not a double-thread as in the original Whitworth guns.  These are the best pictures I could get since the gun is in a dusty corner of a dark warehouse.

[Cannoneer]

   Adrian, thanks much for your #1 reply; as usual, accurate information delivered in graceful language. I also appeciated the anecdote about the Australian man who was the prime motivator in getting this British gem refurbished, I had read an article that recounted the provenience of this Armstrong rifle but it didn't include that information.

Richard, your replies #4 and #7 both make some very valid points about the existence of cannon carriages that would fit the descriptive terms "block-trail", "stock-trail" or "single-trail", that predate the chronological appearance of the type of carriage known by the names "double-bracket", "split-trail" and "double-trail". Not only do I not think there is anything frivolous about your observations, I happen to agree with much of what you had to say about the topic but taking all of this information into consideration I'm still going to have to agree with Adrian that for the sake of clarity and because of previous "expert" writers pronouncements on artillery field carriages and their historical chronology that when the majority of knowledgeable people speak of a block-trail carriage they are discussing the type of field carriage that was designed by Thomas Desaguiliers, then later refined and promoted by W. Congreve in England in the last quarter of the eighteenth century.

[thelionspaw]

Ahhhh but every new born has to have the genes of the father, grandfather, etc..   Before there was a chicken, there was an egg and before there was an egg, there was a chicken, etc..   It's a scrambled topic.

I'm going to bed. I have to stack more winter wood tomorrow.

[Cannoneer]

Ahhhh but every new born has to have the genes of the father, grandfather, etc..   Before there was a chicken, there was an egg and before there was an egg, there was a chicken, etc..   It's a scrambled topic.

I'm going to bed. I have to stack more winter wood tomorrow.

   I just knew you were going to come up with the old chicken or egg first routine sooner or later. How come I usually end up hungry after reading some of your posts?

Here, I'm going to make you happy and bolster your position a little, by citing an example of historical carriage that I see no reason not to identify as a "block-trail" carriage. There exists in a German museum an early 16th century bronze culverin (with trunnions)  mounted on a huge one piece carriage. This carriage is made out of a solid baulk of timber, you can imagine the labor intensive cutting and carving that took place to fashion this thing. It resembles a tuning fork with the handle being the trail and the fork being the hollowed out portion of the carriage where the barrel is actually mounted and where there are hollows carved that accept the guns trunnions. Now, it's evident that this carriage has only one trail and that it is carved out of a single block; so why in the world shouldn't it be classified as a block-trail carriage? We now get back to those self styled expert nomenclators who just love to dictate what we will call things and many of these writers state that the cheeks of a "block-trail" carriage are fashioned seperately and then attached to the block-trail (aint that a kick in the pants). However, if this is truly the case then what do we call an American mt. howitzer's 2nd model prairie carriage? After all the trunnion bearing cheeks and the trail itself are cut out of a single (or laminate) piece of lumber; isn't this carriage a block trail carriage? I then thought that maybe it would be more precise to classify a block-trail carriage as a block-trail with attached cheeks designed to be engaged to a limber and drawn by draft animals; but what about our own Civil War siege carriages? These carriages are definitely block- trail carriages but they really weren't meant to be used as mobile field carriages. While all these observations are very problematic, I'm still going to stick to my first opinion and just for the sake of clarity and convenience consider our own Civil War field carriages, the British carriage that started this topic and the similar continental and international artillery field carriages as the true "block-trail" carriages.

[thelionspaw]

Nihilum unquam simplex est!

Richard "The Scholar"

[Cannoneer]

Nihilum unquam simplex est!

Richard "The Scholar"

   Richard, I'm sure that everything you say is steeped in complexity but then again; nemo sine judex.

Ownay, ixnay onay ethay atinlay.

John, the translator

[guardsgunner]

Concerning the Whitworth guns. The U.S. gov only bought one gun that being a 70 pdr.blr. A complete battery was purchased by American's abroad and presented to the U.S. gov.  These were used during the Peninsula Campian.  Somewhere in the OR's there is a report by Knapp about the Whitworth's and why they were put into the ORD. park.
   Their reported arrival is " 
WASIIINUTON, June 14, 1861.
Memorandum of Battery of six guns, Wliitwortlm cannon with carriages,
ammunition, &c., l~rescllted lo the Governineitt of the United States
by Americait citizens in Europe, consigned to Ii. F. Spaulding, city
of New York; all charges l)aid to the port of New York.
   Arrived l)eI steamer Persia, May 22: Two guns without carriages,
100 rounds l)roJectiles, canister, wads, and fuse (no probe). Arrived per
City of Washington (steamer) 4 une S: Two guns with carriages, ~00
   UNION AUTHORITIES.   275

rounds as above. Shipped per steamer City of llaltiinore, sailed June
5, due about 20th: Two guns with four carriages, 1,700 rounds as above,
to complete the battery of six, to arrive per some time in July, a
machine and all its parts capable of making 200 projectiles a day for
the use of these guns.
   WAR I)EPARTMENT,

Sorry the spelling errors are not my mine

   UNION AUTHORITIES.   275

rounds as above. Shipped per steamer City of llaltiinore, sailed June
5, due about 20th: Two guns with four carriages, 1,700 rounds as above,
to complete the battery of six, to arrive per some time in July, a
machine and all its parts capable of making 200 projectiles a day for
the use of these guns.
   WAR I)EPARTMENT,
   UNION AUTHORITIES.   275

rounds as above. Shipped per steamer City of llaltiinore, sailed June
5, due about 20th: Two guns with four carriages, 1,700 rounds as above,
to complete the battery of six, to arrive per some time in July, a
machine and all its parts capable of making 200 projectiles a day for
the use of these guns.
   WAR I)EPARTMENT,
http://library8.library.cornell.edu/cgi-bin/moa/pageviewer?root=%2Fmoa%2Fwaro%2Fwaro0122%2F&tif=00287.TIF&cite=http%3A%2F%2Fcdl.library.cornell.edu%2Fcgi-bin%2Fmoa%2Fmoa-cgi%3Fnotisid%3DANU4519-0122&coll=moa&frames=1&view=text

[thelionspaw]

"Nothing is ever simple"  Every CANNON BUILDER here, knows that.  

However, "nemo sine judex .... .... ... ..."?  "Nobody without judge and oink oink oink"?  

I can hear the gavel dropping on this now.  In closing: I have found that alot of the latin on cannons is not pure or accurate.  Well meaning but convoluted.

Richard "The Unfrocked Altar Boy"

[Cannoneer]

Memorandum of Battery of six guns, Wliitwortlm cannon with carriages,
ammunition, &c., l~rescllted lo the Governineitt of the United States
by Americait citizens in Europe, consigned to Ii. F. Spaulding, city
of New York; all charges l)aid to the port of New York.

   Good find Guardsgunner, it's interesting to note two rifles shipped on each of three ships and the first two arrived without carriages; I wonder why everything wasn't shipped together? This was also a fascinating bit of information; "a machine and all its parts capable of making 200 projectiles a day for the use of these guns." Evidently one of these machines and all its parts didn't make it past the "Union Blockade" to reach the CSA because it's stated in so many different sources that they were running out of ammo and the bolts the Confederate arsenals were producing for these rifles were of an inferior quality. I read in another source I found on the web that only twelve of these Whitworth 12 pounders exist in America today (this includes the original Northern battery of six) and the writer also conjectured that this pobably means that not many of these cannons made it through the Union blockade to reach the hands of the Southern Army. Thanks

[Cannoneer]

"Nothing is ever simple"  Every CANNON BUILDER here, knows that.  

However, "nemo sine judex .... .... ... ..."?  "Nobody without judge and oink oink oink"?  

I can hear the gavel dropping on this now.  In closing: I have found that alot of the latin on cannons is not pure or accurate.  Well meaning but convoluted.

Richard "The Unfrocked Altar Boy"

   Now wait a minute, one of us is wrong and we're both confused; hows that for a Yogi-ism?

Nihilum = Nothing
Unquam, I thought was an err (I couldn't find it) so I changed it to: Inquam = I say
Simplex = Simple
Est = Is
Nothing I say is simple (Now this is pretty eloquent and in my opinion a lot better than "Nothing is ever simple")

Nemo sine judex = No one is a judge of himself

Oink, oink and oink indeed, you tarnish the sterling memory of my heroes Curly, Larry and Moe.

Isn't the proper word defrocked?

[thelionspaw]

Boomer,
Literal:  Nothing simple ever is. 

Build an exact replication 15th c. 500 lb cannon from scratch at a blacksmith's forge without formal plans and you will get my drift. 

After we took the iron from the anvil, we heaved it into a snow drift to cool.  The carriage is made from a pine tree that a local felled, sawed, dried and planed.  It's laminated and pegged to guard against splitting and twisting.  By being laminated, it absorbs the impact of the rearward thrust of the breechblock on multiple butt ends without splitting. The stock is also sheathed with an iron plate at that point.

I had originally stained it but later painted it to show-off the iron to an advantage.  "Experts" are always wrangling and researching the issue of colour etc. but early equipment was often fabricated and owned by an individual. As such, there is latitude for individuality. 

Personally, I like a natural wood carriage that is varnished if it is oak but I have pine because of weight.  Early pieces were coated with linseed oil, kerosene, etc. as a weather protection.  My paint has to be carefully renewed or I mess-up the iron.  It's an annual spring-time ritual and a bother.  Why different countries had differing favourite colours, is beyond my scope.  Nothing is ever simple!

That's why they make vanilla and chocolate. Sorry Boomer but there I go with food again.

rc

 

Nothing is ever simple! 

I restored the wheels as explained in another post.     

"defrocked" was "proper" then, yes  but not now in new-speak.  Besides  I was in a Polish church. 

[Cannoneer]

   The following passages are from "American Civil War Artillery 1861-1865" by Philip Katcher and Tony Bryan.

E.P. Alexander, the Chief of Artillery, First Corps, Army of Northern Virginia, recalled that: "Their breech-loading arrangements, however, often worked with difficulty and every one of the six was at some time disabled by breaking of some of its parts, but all were repaired and kept in service. As a general field piece, the efficiency was impaired by its weight and the very cumbrous English carriage on which it was mounted."

"Confederate ordnance officers also found the Whitworth carriages not only cumbrous, but also incapable of handling the stress of service. One of the Whitworths in Lee's Army broke its axle on the first day, was repaired, and then the same axle broke again under the stress of firing. By 1864 the Richmond Arsenal was producing stronger but lighter carriages for Confederate Whitworths."

An Austrian military officer with the unlikely name of FitzGerald Ross had very strong Southern sympathies and he traveled in the south between June 1863 and April 1864, making a wide range of detailed observations that he recorded in his journal. "There are a few Whitworth guns, which are very accurate and of great range, but require much care. The breech has sometimes been blown off or disabled through carelessness in loading."

[cannonmn]

E.P. Alexander, the Chief of Artillery, First Corps, Army of Northern Virginia, recalled that: "Their breech-loading arrangements, however, often worked with difficulty and every one of the six (the Northern Battery of Whitworth 12 pounders) was at some time disabled by breaking of some of its parts, but all were repaired and kept in service. As a general field piece, the efficiency was impaired by its weight and the very cumbrous English carriage on which it was mounted."

Boom Sir, maybe I haven't had enough coffee yet today, or maybe just gettin' old faster than I thought, but help me understand one thing in that excerpt:

every one of the six (the Northern Battery of Whitworth 12 pounders)

What set off the "tilt" in my logic alarm was that the discussion above concerns Confederate Whitworth guns, since Alexander (one of my wife's ancestors) was certainly a Confederate general, and we're talking about the ANV (Army of No. Va.) which was Confederate.  Then the words "the Northern Battery of Whitworth..."  which sounds like we're now talking about the Union Army.  Tonight I'll probably wake up enough to make sense out of this but I'm lost at the moment.

I think I recall running across Alexander's quote in a ca. 1930's "Southern Historical Review" article or some such.



Thanks

[Cannoneer]

   Sorry about that folks, I think it was me that either needed a strong coffee or better yet, to get a few more hours sleep before trying to make a coherent post, I have no idea what triggered me to tack that on there, it must have been the "six".  Anyway, I've modified the post.

[guardsgunner]

  Boom J,
   There is a interesting quote in Ripley's "artillery and Ammunition of the Civil War".Charles Knap of Knap Battery said of the Whitworth..." As a toy it is the most wonderful gun in the world, but it is not fit for actual service for it requires... very delicatemanipulation and common soldiers in action are not very delicate fellows in handling their projectiles and those guns would be very apt to jam... It is a perfect thing to show the state of the art, but not for actual service, in my opoin it is not worth carring into the feild...."
     I will still build one after I finish my projects already begun.
   

[Cannoneer]

   Thanks Guardsgunner, thats a great quote I hadn't seen before. I'd guess that Charles Knap would be in total agreement with John A. Dahlgren who wrote that "a state of war is a most unfavorable period for experiments."

I admire Sir Joseph Whitworth greatly, I think he was as one author aptly named the biography he wrote about him, "The World's Best Mechanician". It would be fascinating to know if things might have evolved down a different historical path if Great Britain had bought his artillery and/or small arms designs and he had been given the monetary impetus to continue the developement of his ideas.

[gary michie]

Hi;
Is there any more pics. that show the  brackets/cheeks bolt placement? All that I've seen so far are too dark to see any thing with any hope of detail.
gary

[Cannoneer]

   Gary, I have a period photo and a drawing that I'm almost certain was made from this same photo but the wheel and the axle-tree mounted ammunition chest block a clear view of the cheek, all that can be seen is the one bolt on the rear bottom portion of the cheek.

[gary michie]

Hi:
Boom J, Thanks for the pick. and drawing, they do look the same don't they.
I was looking at the muzzle shot at the first of this thread and I think I see that the trail is worked similar to that of a mountain howitzer with the valley under the barrel. Maybe not rounded but cut with two angled sides and a flat bottom. Is there a carriage of a similar style in a museum some where close to someone that can take a good pic/pics. that we could all lock at?
Gary

[Cannoneer]

Gary.

   I just took a good look at the second photo in the opening post using zoom in and I'd say that this more modern carriage's trail breast, brackets and axle-tree are the same as the older repro carriage mounted with a six pounder that is shown in the fourth photo but it appears that there is a metal or wood brace in line with the trunnion holes that is part of the construction of the latter era carriage (unless it's an optical illusion).

As for someone perhaps finding this carriage at a museum and taking photos they would then be nice enough to post I'd guess your best chance of that happening would lie with one of our Australian or British members.