Object data
iron, bronze and brass
length 51.5 cm × diameter 22.6 cm × weight 122 kg
Alderson (possibly)
23-cm Steel Shell
United Kingdom, 1867
Inscriptions
- inscription, near the top: 21
- inscription, centre: 8 92 DIA
Provenance
...; transferred from the Ministerie van Marine (Department of the Navy), The Hague, to the museum, 1883
Object number: NG-MC-1292
Copyright: Public domain
Entry
A pointed 23-cm shell.
The shell is 51.5 cm long and has a 226 mm calibre. It is made out of two pieces that are screwed onto each other: this way, the shell could be opened for the charge to be inserted. The shell has studs for a rifled barrel with six grooves, the bottom is convex. Near the top there are three shallow indentations for the ammunition crane.
This shell is an Alderson shell, in the Netherlands also known as the ‘steel shell’, which was bought by the Dutch Navy to the United Kingdom with 23-cm Armstrong ordnance in 1867. They were used for muzzle-loading rifled ordnance. This type of shell was already outdated in 1870 and good results with the Palliser shells led to their replacement by the latter.
Literature
C. Orde Brown, Ammunition: A Descriptive Treatise on the Different Projectiles, Charges, Fuzes, Rockets etc. at Present in Use for Land and Sea Service and on Other War Stores Manufactured in the Royal Laboratory, 2 vols., London (1870), vol. 1, p. 66; J.H. Haakman, Handboek over de zee-artillerie voor konstabels en matrozen-kanonniers, 4 vols., Nieuwediep, 1871-72, vol. 2, pp. 117-18, vol. 3, p. 130; J.M. Obreen et al., handwritten inventory list for items 944 to 1431, 1884, manuscript in HNA 476 RMA, inv. no. 1089, no. 1292; Atlas Artillerie Materieel Koninklijke Nederlandsche Marine, Amsterdam 1891, pl. XIX, figs. 3-4
Citation
J. van der Vliet, 2016, 'possibly Alderson, 23-cm Steel Shell, United Kingdom, 1867', in J. van der Vliet and A. Lemmers (eds.), Navy Models in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: hdl.handle.net/10934/RM0001.COLLECT.245104
(accessed 6 January 2025 07:15:40).