Spy Glass Battery or Spyglass Battery was originally a high angle

artillery battery In military organizations, an artillery battery is a unit or multiple systems of artillery, mortar systems, rocket artillery, multiple rocket launchers, surface-to-surface missiles, ballistic missiles, cruise missiles, etc., so grouped to f ...

in the

British Overseas Territory The British Overseas Territories (BOTs) or alternatively referred to as the United Kingdom Overseas Territories (UKOTs) are the fourteen dependent territory, territories with a constitutional and historical link with the United Kingdom that, ...

Gibraltar Gibraltar ( , ) is a British Overseas Territories, British Overseas Territory and British overseas cities, city located at the southern tip of the Iberian Peninsula, on the Bay of Gibraltar, near the exit of the Mediterranean Sea into the A ...

. The battery is mounted high on the rock to give extra range and protection. The battery was still in use during the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

as a listening post and site for a

Bofors Gun AB Bofors ( , , ) is a former Swedish arms manufacturer which today is part of the British arms manufacturer BAE Systems. The name has been associated with the iron industry and artillery manufacturing for more than 350 years. History Locate ...

Description

The six

RML 10-inch 18-ton gun The RML 10-inch guns Mk I – Mk II were large rifled muzzle-loading guns designed for British battleships and monitors in the 1860s to 1880s. They were also fitted to the and flat-iron gunboats. They were also used for fixed coastal defences ...

s here were seen as the culmination of the idea of "retired batteries". Originally most of Gibraltar's guns were on the coast but Major General Sir John Jones realised that setting them higher up the

Rock Rock most often refers to: * Rock (geology), a naturally occurring solid aggregate of minerals or mineraloids * Rock music, a genre of popular music Rock or Rocks may also refer to: Places United Kingdom * Rock, Caerphilly, a location in Wale ...

gave them more range and made them more difficult to hit. The six guns here and at the other ridge batteries were as high as guns could be placed. This battery however was different in that this was a high angle battery. There was a growing realisation that the thickness of the armour carried by battleships at the end of the nineteenth century meant that they were almost impossible to penetrate with even the largest gun. A new gun was devised this was the Mark 6 RML gun and it was intended to fire high in the air such that it would hit the decks and not the armoured sides of the battleship. These batteries would have been unusual with the guns and crews hidden from view because they were so far below the surface that only specially placed observers could see the horizon. This meant that the crews were very well protected from incoming fire. These high angle guns were the antithesis of the famous gun carriage created by

George Koehler George Frederick Koehler (14 January 1758 – 29 December 1800) was a British army officer, artist and engineer. He is known for creating a gun that recoiled allowing it to fire down the side of a mountain without sending the gun carriage flying ...

which were designed to fire at a depressed angle down the side of the rock of Gibraltar and made a major contribution to the

Great Siege of Gibraltar The Great Siege of Gibraltar was an unsuccessful attempt by Enlightenment in Spain, Spain and Kingdom of France, France to capture Gibraltar from the Kingdom of Great Britain, British during the American Revolutionary War. It was the largest ba ...

. Here the guns fired up. The advantage of height that the Spyglass battery enabled the guns here to have increased range. The battery here has the date of 1898 on its signage today. The guns have unusual cloud cover caused by the

Levant The Levant ( ) is the subregion that borders the Eastern Mediterranean, Eastern Mediterranean sea to the west, and forms the core of West Asia and the political term, Middle East, ''Middle East''. In its narrowest sense, which is in use toda ...

wind which forms clouds as warm air meets the cool rock of Gibraltar.

Second World War

During the

, there was a Bofors anti-aircraft gun here. Leslie Cole who was a

War Artist A war artist is an artist either commissioned by a government or publication, or self-motivated, to document first-hand experience of war in any form of illustrative or depictive record.Imperial War Museum (IWM)header phrase, "war shapes lives" ...

recorded the listening equipment that was being used from this battery.Listening-post at Spyglass, Gibraltar
Leslie Cole, Imperial War Museum, accessed 27 June 2013 Listening posts were the best early warning of approaching aircraft before the invention of

radar Radar is a system that uses radio waves to determine the distance ('' ranging''), direction ( azimuth and elevation angles), and radial velocity of objects relative to the site. It is a radiodetermination method used to detect and track ...

. The parabolic shapes directed the smallest of noises to a microphone which would give an early warning. In Britain 30 foot concrete dishes were constructed to carry out the same task. Today the remains of the battery (like

Breakneck Battery Breakneck Battery is an artillery battery in the British Overseas Territories, British Overseas Territory of Gibraltar. It is located on Ministry of Defence (United Kingdom), Ministry of Defence property at the Upper Rock Nature Reserve, north o ...

) are still under the control of the United Kingdom's Ministry of Defence. The site can be visited only with special permission and there are no routine guided tours.

Gallery

File:Magazine Entrance Spy Glass Battery.jpg, Magazine Entrance File:Spy Glass Battery Gibraltar.jpg, The battery in 2013 File:Spyglass high-angle battery Gibraltar.jpg, Spyglass high-angle battery File:Spy Glass Battery Upper.jpg, Plaque at entrance

References

{{Fortifications of Gibraltar Artillery battery fortifications in Gibraltar