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"New pattern" 72-inch barrel and breech The gun incorporated some advanced features for its day. It was one of the first breech-loaders: shell and gunpowder propellant were loaded through the gunner's end of the barrel, rather than through the muzzle as in previous guns, allowing a higher rate of fire.
The 12-pdr rifle was designed in the early 1850s by British manufacturer Joseph Whitworth, who had recently been contracted to improve the Pattern 1853 Enfield.During his experiments with the Enfield, Whitworth was inspired to begin experimenting with a hexagonally-rifled barrel; Whitworth would later apply these principles to his field guns.
It was produced by Armstrong Whitworth, Elswick and used on Royal Navy warships, exported to allied countries, and used for land service. [4] In British service "12-pounder" was the rounded value of the projectile weight, and "12 cwt (hundredweight)" was the weight of the barrel and breech, to differentiate it from other "12-pounder" guns.
The gun at right, towed by elephants, appears to be a rifled breech loader (RBL) 40-pounder Armstrong. [10] Two of the five examples known to survive in Bermuda, on display at the UNESCO World Heritage Centre, St. George's. A number of different carriages for guns employed for Land Service were available.
The first modern breech-loading rifled gun is a breech-loader invented by Martin von Wahrendorff with a cylindrical breech plug secured by a horizontal wedge in 1837. In the 1850s and 1860s, Whitworth and Armstrong invented improved breech-loading artillery.
The abandonment of the Armstrong breech-loading design led Britain to begin a major program of building rifled muzzle-loaders to equip its fleet. The Armstrong 110-pound gun was succeeded by various RML 7 and 8-inch guns. 7-inch Armstrong breech-loaders under construction at the time of cancellation were completed as RML 64-pounder muzzle-loaders.
A rifled breech loader (RBL) is an artillery piece which, unlike the smoothbore cannon and rifled muzzle loader which preceded it, has rifling in the barrel and is loaded from the breech at the rear of the gun. The spin imparted by the gun's rifling gives projectiles directional stability and increased range. Loading from the rear of the gun ...
From a design standpoint, the weapon was unique. Like all of Whitworth's designs, the weapon had a hexagon-ally rifled barrel. It was also a breechloader, an unusual feature for the time. The piece had exceptional range and accuracy, being capable of firing a 3-pound shell over 9,500 yards. [4]