Rijksmuseum

Object data

wood, brass, iron and rope

model: height 28 cm × width 96 cm × depth 95 cm
packaging capsule: calibre 16 mm × height 100 cm × width 99.5 cm
depth 34.5 cm

Conservation

Ab Hoving, October 2004: missing parts reconstructed; revarnished

Provenance

...; transferred from the Ministerie van Marine (Department of the Navy), The Hague, to the museum, 1883

Object number: NG-MC-1186

Entry

Model of a rifled muzzle-loading gun on a pivot and slide on part of the deck of a ship.

The brass barrel is 34 cm long and has a 16 mm calibre. It has a first and second reinforcement, a base ring but no reinforcement rings. The bore is rifled with six grooves. The breech ring has a brace on the button. The gun has a percussion lock N° 1 (NG-MC-1050), the base patch projects beyond the base ring, where a tangent sight can be mounted. The upper carriage of the slide has two cheeks, two axletrees without trucks, an inclined transom and a braking mechanism. The elevation is achieved by means of a screw on the hind axletree. The braking mechanism, attached to the fore axletree, is a jamming device embracing the ledges of the slide; it is operated by means of a screw. The carriage has four small trucks on the short sides of the cheeks, which run on the ledges of the slide only when the hind trucks are jacked down with a lever, allowing for the carriage to run freely on the slide. The slide consists of the outer ledges, a lower middle ledge, a transom and two cross-beams. These cross-beams move on the circular tracks on deck. The slide has an eye forward and one aft, which are used on the pivot bolts on deck. The base of the model represents part of an open gun deck. On the planking, hammock netting is placed. There is one gun port on either side, consisting of three sections which can be lowered outboard once the hammock netting has been removed. The gun can thus fire on either broadside. In front and behind the gun a hatch is indicated.

In 1862, it was decided that the screw steamer Watergeus was to be armed with five long rifled 30-pounder muzzle-loaders, a type that did not exist yet at the time. De Fremery, Head of Artillery of the Navy, designed the guns in March 1863, and in 1864, bronze guns of this type were commissioned from the firm of J.J. Maritz in The Hague, and steel guns of the same type from Krupp in Essen, Germany. In the end, Watergeus was armed with six of these guns,¹ of which four were placed on ordinary carriages in the sides, and two on pivots and slides. Both Krupp’s steel guns and Maritz’s bronze guns, of which dozens were ordered, performed to satisfaction. The model was commissioned by De Fremery.

Scale (according to archives) 1:10.

Literature

J.H. Haakman, Handboek over de zee-artillerie voor konstabels en matrozen-kanonniers, 4 vols., Nieuwediep, 1871-72, vol. 2, pp. 14 ff., table p. 20; J.M. Obreen et al., handwritten inventory list for items 944 to 1431, 1884, manuscript in HNA 476 RMA, inv. no. 1089, no. 1186; A.J. Vermeulen, De schepen van de Koninklijke Marine en die der gouvernementsmarine 1814-1962, The Hague 1962, p. 64; J.M. Dirkzwager, ‘Z.M. schroefstoomschip “Watergeus”’, Spiegel Historiael 26 (1991), no. 7/8, pp. 353-54; W.G.M.H. Canisius, ‘De ontwikkeling van scheepsgeschut bij de Nederlandse marine in 1780-1880’, Erfgoed van Industrie en Techniek 2 (1993), no. 2, pp. 43-62, no. 3, pp. 80-87, pp. 82-83; A.J. Hoving, Message in a Model: Stories from the Navy Model Room of the Rijksmuseum, Florence, OR 2013, pp. 216-19

Citation

J. van der Vliet, 2016, 'Rijkswerf Amsterdam, Model of a 16-cm Gun on a Pivot and Slide on Part of a Gun Deck, Amsterdam, 1863', in J. van der Vliet and A. Lemmers (eds.), Navy Models in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: hdl.handle.net/10934/RM0001.COLLECT.244999

(accessed 24 November 2024 09:59:03).