The Ordnance RML 2.5-inch mountain gun was a British rifled muzzle-loading mountain gun of the late 19th century designed to be broken down into four loads for carrying by man or mule. It was primarily used by the

Indian Army The Indian Army is the land-based branch and the largest component of the Indian Armed Forces. The President of India is the Supreme Commander of the Indian Army, and its professional head is the Chief of Army Staff (COAS), who is a four- ...

History

It was intended as a more powerful successor to the

RML 7-pounder Mountain Gun The Ordnance RML 7-pounder Mk IV "Steel Gun" was a British rifled muzzle-loading mountain gun. 7-pounder referred to the approximate weight of the shell it fired. History Development began in 1864 to replace the RBL 6-pounder gun of , which ...

.Hall, June 1971 Some writers refer to the 2.5-inch gun as a "7-pounder" because it also fired a shell of approximately 7 pounds, but its official nomenclature was 2.5-inch RML. In 1877 Colonel Frederick Le Mesurier of the Royal Artillery proposed a gun in 2 parts which would be screwed together. The

Elswick Ordnance Company The Elswick Ordnance Company (sometimes referred to as Elswick Ordnance Works, but usually as "EOC") was a British armaments manufacturing company of the late 19th and early 20th century History Originally created in 1859 to separate William A ...

made 12 Mk I guns based on his design and they were trialled in Afghanistan in 1879. Trials were successful and Mk II with some internal differences made by the Royal Gun Factory entered service. The gun was a rifled muzzle-loader. Gun and carriage were designed to be broken down into 4 parts (barrel, breech, 2 wheels) so they could be transported by pack animals (2 mules each: each mule with a left load and a right load, which must balance) or men. The barrel and breech were screwed together for action, hence the name "screw gun".

Second Boer War

The gun was used in the

Second Boer War The Second Boer War ( af, Tweede Vryheidsoorlog, , 11 October 189931 May 1902), also known as the Boer War, the Anglo–Boer War, or the South African War, was a conflict fought between the British Empire and the two Boer Republics (the South ...

(1899–1902) on its standard mountain gun carriage, and also with the Natal Field Battery at Elandslaagte and Diamond Fields Artillery at Kimberley on field carriages which had larger wheels and gave greater mobility. A major defect in the war was that the gun's cartridges still used

gunpowder Gunpowder, also commonly known as black powder to distinguish it from modern smokeless powder, is the earliest known chemical explosive. It consists of a mixture of sulfur, carbon (in the form of charcoal) and potassium nitrate (saltpeter). Th ...

as a propellant, although smokeless

cordite Cordite is a family of smokeless propellants developed and produced in the United Kingdom since 1889 to replace black powder as a military propellant. Like modern gunpowder, cordite is classified as a low explosive because of its slow burn ...

had been introduced in 1892. The gunpowder generated a white cloud on firing, and as the gun could only be aimed using direct line of sight, this made the gunners easy targets for Boer marksmen as the gun lacked a shield. It proved to be ineffectual and outclassed by Boer ordnance and was replaced by the

BL 10-pounder Mountain Gun The Ordnance BL 10 pounder mountain gun was developed as a BL successor to the RML 2.5 inch screw gun which was outclassed in the Second Boer War. History This breech-loading gun was an improvement on the muzzle-loading screw gun but still ...

from 1901.

World War I

Either 4 or 6 guns (sources appear imprecise) were returned to service from Southern African garrisons in 1916 and were employed by the Nyasaland-Rhodesian Field Force in the campaign in German East Africa. Writers who refer to "7-pounders" in World War I are in fact referring to this gun. Romania bought 36 of these guns in 1883–1884, being designated in the local military nomenclature as "63 mm Armstrong mountain guns model 1883". They were the first guns designed for mountain warfare in Romanian use. Despite being obsolete, they were still used during World War I, with updated shells, due to the lack of sufficient numbers of more modern mountain guns in Romanian Army service as well as the fact that during the 1916-1917 campaigns a large section of the front was in mountainous terrain. By the beginning of 1918, only 16 remained in service

Surviving examples

* Restored gun is displayed a
Firepower, the Royal Artillery Museum. Woolwich London
* Two guns are displayed a
Fort Charles, Port Royal, Jamaica
* Two RMLs on Field carriages and one on a Mountain carriage, at

Fort Klapperkop Military Museum A fortification is a military construction or building designed for the defense of territories in warfare, and is also used to establish rule in a region during peacetime. The term is derived from Latin ''fortis'' ("strong") and ''facere'' ...

, Pretoria, South Africa. * One gun at the

National Military Museum, Romania The King Ferdinand I National Military Museum ( ro, Muzeul Militar Național "Regele Ferdinand I"), located at 125-127 Mircea Vulcănescu St., Bucharest, Romania, was established on 18 December 1923 by King Ferdinand I. It has been at its present ...

Bucharest Bucharest ( , ; ro, București ) is the capital and largest city of Romania, as well as its cultural, industrial, and financial centre. It is located in the southeast of the country, on the banks of the Dâmbovița River, less than north of ...

* Two guns guarding Avram Iancu's tomb in

Țebea The Țebea is a left tributary of the river Crișul Alb in Romania Romania ( ; ro, România ) is a country located at the crossroads of Central, Eastern, and Southeastern Europe. It borders Bulgaria to the south, Ukraine to the north, ...

Romania Romania ( ; ro, România ) is a country located at the crossroads of Central, Eastern, and Southeastern Europe. It borders Bulgaria to the south, Ukraine to the north, Hungary to the west, Serbia to the southwest, Moldova to the east, and ...

* Two guns displayed outside

Peleș Castle Peleș Castle ( ro, Castelul Peleș ) is a Neo-Renaissance castle in the Carpathian Mountains, near Sinaia, in Prahova County, Romania, on an existing medieval route linking Transylvania and Wallachia, built between 1873 and 1914. Its inaugu ...

In literature

* It was actively described in

Rudyard Kipling Joseph Rudyard Kipling ( ; 30 December 1865 – 18 January 1936)''The Times'', (London) 18 January 1936, p. 12. was an English novelist, short-story writer, poet, and journalist. He was born in British India, which inspired much of his work. ...

's poem " Screw-Guns".

Notes and references

Bibliography

* General Sir Martin Farndale
"History of the Royal Regiment of Artillery. The Forgotten Fronts and the Home Base, 1914-18". London : The Royal Artillery Institution, 1988
* Major Darrell D Hall

* W. L. Ruffell, ttp://riv.co.nz/rnza/hist/gun/rifled10.htm The Screw Gun

External links

Handbook for 2.5-inch R.M.L. steel, jointed, gun mule and camel equipment, 1888
at State Library of Victoria {{DEFAULTSORT:RML 02.5-inch mountain gun Victorian-era weapons of the United Kingdom Mountain artillery Artillery of the United Kingdom 63 mm artillery