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The 100-ton gun (also known as the Armstrong 100-ton gun) [6] was a british coastal defense gun and is the world's largest black powder cannon. It was a 17.72-inch (450 mm) rifled muzzle-loading (RML) gun made by Elswick Ordnance Company, the armaments division of the British manufacturing company Armstrong Whitworth, owned by William Armstrong.
It was not until March 1883 that the guns arrived at Gibraltar, aboard the SS Stanley, and it took from 12 July to 1 September to move the gun to the battery. The gun was finally mounted on its barbette on 12 September 1883. [2] The battery's design was similar to that of the 100 ton gun batteries on the British-ruled island of Malta.
In 2010 Gibraltar and Malta jointly issued a four-stamp set of stamps featuring the two countries' 100-ton guns. Two stamps show the gun at Napier of Magdala Battery, and two the gun at Fort Rinella. One of each pair is a view from 1882, and the other is a view from 2010.
An aerial view of modern Gibraltar, looking north-west. The nature and position of Gibraltar's defences have been dictated by the territory's topography.It is a long, narrow peninsula measuring 5.1 kilometres (3.2 miles) by 1.6 kilometres (1 mile) wide at maximum, with a land area of about six square kilometres (2.3 square miles).
The battery is the site of the 100-ton gun, installed in the late 19th century, and one of the only two remaining in the world. (The other is located at the Rinella Battery in Malta.) The weapon was one of two 100-ton guns that Gibraltar received in the late 19th century.
While improvements were made to the area, ultimately opposition to the suggestion put the plans on hold. The guns have recently been refurbished. [ 4 ] [ 7 ] The restoration of gun No. 3 at Princess Anne's Battery was performed in two phases, in July 2006 and September 2007.
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The British installed a second pair of 100-ton guns to defend Gibraltar, mounting one each in Victoria Battery (1879) and Napier of Magdala Battery (1883), which did not have Cambridge or Rinella's self-defence capabilities. The gun at Cambridge was eventually scrapped, and today only two 100-ton guns survive, at Rinella and Napier of Magdala.