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32-pounder 56 Cwt
The 32-pounder 56 cwt cannon was an artillery piece designed and used by the British Armed Forces in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. It was by far the most common 32-pounder used by the Royal Navy in the Napoleonic Wars, with 1,961 guns being recorded as in use and 1,733 being in storage at the end of March 1857. The cannon was a smoothbore muzzle-loading gun, being , and firing projectiles of . Sir Thomas Blomefield designed the cannon in the late 1780s and early 1790s as part of his system of gun construction. It was the heaviest cannon used by ships of the Royal Navy from the 1790s to the late 1830s, and it was used on the lower decks of ships of the line A ship of the line was a type of naval warship constructed during the Age of Sail from the 17th century to the mid-19th century. The ship of the line was designed for the naval tactic known as the line of battle, which involved the two column ... such as HMS ''Victory''. References {{reflist Cannon Nava ...
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Thomas Blomefield
General Sir Thomas Blomefield, 1st Baronet (16 June 1744 – 24 August 1822) of Attleborough, Norfolk, was colonel-commandant royal artillery, to whose untiring labours as Inspector of Artillery and Superintendent of the Royal Foundries that the progress of the British artillery during the Napoleonic Wars was largely due. Life He was the son of Reverend Thomas Blomefield and Mary Matthews. When he was 11 years old his father sent Thomas to sea on HMS ''Cambridge'' under Sir Peircy Brett, who was a close friend of the Rev. Blomefield. Thomas's naval career was short lived; in February 1758 he enrolled as a cadet at the Royal Military Academy, Woolwich. He was a talented student, and passed out as a lieutenant-fireworker eleven months later at age 15. He commanded a bomb ketch at the bombardment of Le Havre and joined Admiral Edward Hawke's fleet at Quiberon. Blomefield saw combat in the West Indies and Florida and served as personal aide-de-camp to General Conway, who was ...
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Smoothbore
A smoothbore weapon is one that has a barrel without rifling. Smoothbores range from handheld firearms to powerful tank guns and large artillery mortars. Some examples of smoothbore weapons are muskets, blunderbusses, and flintlock pistols. The opposite of smoothbore is rifling. History Early firearms had smoothly bored barrels that fired projectiles without significant spin. To minimize inaccuracy-inducing tumbling during flight, their projectiles required an aerodynamically uniform shape, such as a sphere. However, surface imperfections on the projectile and/or the barrel will cause even a sphere to rotate randomly during flight, and the Magnus effect will curve it off the intended trajectory when spinning on any axis not parallel to the direction of travel. Rifling the bore surface with spiral grooves or polygonal valleys imparts a stabilizing gyroscopic spin to a projectile that prevents tumbling in flight. Not only does this more than counter Magnus-induced drift, ...
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Muzzleloader
A muzzleloader is any firearm in which the user loads the bullet, projectile and the propellant charge into the Muzzle (firearms), muzzle end of the gun (i.e., from the forward, open end of the gun's barrel). This is distinct from the modern designs of Breechloader, breech-loading firearms, in which user loads the ammunition into the Chamber (firearms), breech end of the gun barrel, barrel. The term "muzzleloader" applies to both rifled and smoothbore type muzzleloaders, and may also refer to the marksman who specializes in the shooting of such firearms. The firing methods, paraphernalia and mechanism further divide both categories as do caliber (from cannons to small-caliber palm guns). Modern muzzleloading firearms range from reproductions of sidelock, flintlock and percussion cap, percussion long guns, to in-line rifles that use modern inventions such as a closed breech, sealed percussion cap, primer and fast rifling to allow for considerable accuracy at long ranges. Modern Mo ...
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Ship Of The Line
A ship of the line was a type of naval warship constructed during the Age of Sail from the 17th century to the mid-19th century. The ship of the line was designed for the naval tactics in the Age of Sail, naval tactic known as the line of battle, which involved the two columns of opposing warships manoeuvering to volley fire with the naval cannon, cannons along their Broadside (naval), broadsides. In conflicts where opposing ships were both able to fire from their broadsides, the faction with more cannons firingand therefore more firepowertypically had an advantage. From the end of the 1840s, the introduction of steam engine, steam power brought less dependence on the wind in battle and led to the construction of propeller, screw-driven wooden-hulled ships of the line; a number of purely sail-powered ships were converted to this propulsion mechanism. However, the rise of the ironclad warship, ironclad frigate, starting in 1859, made steam-assisted ships of the line obsolete. The ...
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HMS Victory
HMS ''Victory'' is a 104-gun first-rate wooden sailing ship of the line. With years of service as of , she is the world's List of oldest surviving ships, oldest naval vessel still in Ship commissioning, commission. She was ordered for the Royal Navy in 1758, during the Seven Years' War and laid down in 1759. That year saw British victories at Battle of Quebec (1759), Quebec, Battle of Minden, Minden, Battle of Lagos (1759), Lagos and Battle of Quiberon Bay, Quiberon Bay and these may have influenced the choice of name when it was selected in October the following year. In particular, the action in Quiberon Bay had a profound effect on the course of the war; severely weakening the French Navy and shifting its focus away from the sea. There was therefore no urgency to complete the ship and the signing of the Treaty of Paris (1763), Treaty of Paris in February 1763 meant that when ''Victory'' was finally float out, floated out in 1765, she was placed in ordinary. Her construction ...
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Cannon
A cannon is a large-caliber gun classified as a type of artillery, which usually launches a projectile using explosive chemical propellant. Gunpowder ("black powder") was the primary propellant before the invention of smokeless powder during the late 19th century. Cannons vary in gauge (firearms), gauge, effective range, mobility (military), mobility, rate of fire, elevation (ballistics), angle of fire and firepower; different forms of cannon combine and balance these attributes in varying degrees, depending on their intended use on the battlefield. A cannon is a type of heavy artillery weapon. The word ''cannon'' is derived from several languages, in which the original definition can usually be translated as ''tube'', ''cane'', or ''reed''. The earliest known depiction of cannons may have appeared in Science and technology of the Song dynasty#Gunpowder warfare, Song dynasty China as early as the 12th century; however, solid archaeological and documentary evidence of cannons do ...
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Naval Guns Of The United Kingdom
A navy, naval force, military maritime fleet, war navy, or maritime force is the branch of a nation's armed forces principally designated for naval and amphibious warfare; namely, lake-borne, riverine, littoral, or ocean-borne combat operations and related functions. It includes anything conducted by surface ships, amphibious ships, submarines, and seaborne aviation, as well as ancillary support, communications, training, and other fields. The strategic offensive role of a navy is projection of force into areas beyond a country's shores (for example, to protect sea-lanes, deter or confront piracy, ferry troops, or attack other navies, ports, or shore installations). The strategic defensive purpose of a navy is to frustrate seaborne projection-of-force by enemies. The strategic task of a navy also may incorporate nuclear deterrence by use of submarine-launched ballistic missiles. Naval operations can be broadly divided between riverine and littoral applications (brown-water nav ...
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