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Fort Rinella is a Victorian fortification on the island of Malta. It is also referred to as the Rinella Battery in some maps and publications. Queen Victoria (shown here on the morning of her Ascension to the Throne, 20 June 1837) gave her name to the historic era The Victorian era of the United Kingdom marked the height of the British industrial revolution and the apex of the British Empire. ...
Table of Fortification, from the 1728 Cyclopaedia. ...
Remains of a battery of English cannon from Youghal, County Cork. ...
History
It was built by the British between 1878 and 1886 and stands above the shore east of the mouth of Grand Harbour, between Fort Ricassoli and Fort St Roca. 1878 (MDCCCLXXVIII) was a common year starting on Tuesday (see link for calendar). ...
Year 1886 (MDCCCLXXXVI) was a common year starting on Friday (link will display the full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar (or a common year starting on Sunday of the 12-day slower Julian calendar). ...
Grand Harbour is an excellent natural harbour on the island of Malta. ...
Ricasoli Fort is a large fortification on the island of Malta. ...
Fort St Rocco also known as Fort St Roca on some maps is a fortification on the island of Malta. ...
The fort was built to contain a single Armstrong 17.72 inch rifled muzzle loading 102 ton gun, which is still in place. Block quote Sir William George Armstrong William George Armstrong, 1st Baron Armstrong (November 26, 1810 – December 27, 1900) was an English industrialist, the effective founder of the Armstrong Whitworth manufacturing empire. ...
A US soldier drops a shell into the muzzle of an M224 60-mm mortar. ...
A gun is a common name given to an object that fires high-velocity projectiles. ...
The fort was originally one of pair, the paired Cambridge Battery fort near Tigne west of Grand Harbour no longer exists. A model of Tigné Point Tigné Point is an area in Sliema, Malta, currently being thoroughly developed. ...
Grand Harbour is an excellent natural harbour on the island of Malta. ...
A similar pair of guns were installed when Victoria Battery (1879) and Napier of Magdala Battery (1883) were built to defend Gibraltar. These were built without the self defence capabilities of Rinella.
 The 100 Ton Armstrong Gun The fort is modest in size since it was designed to operate and protect the single large gun, with its associated gun crew, magazines, bunkers, support machinery and the modest detachment of troops stationed within the fort to defend the installation. Image File history File links Picture of the Armstrong Gun in Fort Rinella. ...
Image File history File links Picture of the Armstrong Gun in Fort Rinella. ...
Magazine is the name for a item or place within which ammunition is stored. ...
A troop is a military unit. ...
The fort was designed to engage enemy warships at ranges up to 7000 yards. The low profile of the fort and the deeply buried machinery rooms and magazines were intended to survive counterfire from capital warships. USS Port Royal (CG-73), a Ticonderoga class cruiser. ...
The term counter-battery fire refers to the concept of detecting the source of artillery (shells or rockets) landing on friendly forces and firing back at them with artillery, suppressing or destroying them in order to protect the friendly forces and reduce enemy artillery strength. ...
The capital ships of a navy are its important warships; the ones with the heaviest firepower and armor. ...
USS Port Royal (CG-73), a Ticonderoga class cruiser. ...
In contrast the secondary armament of the fort is minimal, with no fixed secondary guns, simply ditches, caponiers, a counter-scarp gallery and firing points intended mostly for small arms fire and grenades. A ditch with water can be used for drainage and irrigation. ...
A Firing point is a prepared position from which troops may use their firearms with minimal exposure to return fire. ...
Small arms captured in Fallujah, Iraq by the US Marine Corps in 2004 The term small arms generally describes any number of smaller infantry weapons, such as firearms that an individual soldier can carry. ...
The massive gun is far too heavy to be laid by hand, and the fort therefore contained a steam powered hydraulic system that traversed, elevated and depressed the gun, operated a pair of hydraulic powered loading and washing systems, and powered the shell lifts that moved the 2000 pound shells and 450 pound blackpowder charges from the magazines into the loading chambers. Gun laying is the process of aiming an artillery piece. ...
Stationary steam engines are fixed steam engines used for pumping or driving mills and factories, and for power generation. ...
Excavator. ...
Various terms are used for passenger rail lines and equipment. ...
A shell is a projectile, which, as opposed to a bullet, contains an explosive or other filling, though modern usage includes large solid projectiles previously termed shot (AP, APCR, APCNR, APDS, APFSDS and Proof shot). ...
Black powder is a type of gunpowder invented in the 9th Century and practically the only propellant and explosive known until the middle of the 19th Century. ...
In the image above, one of the pair of iron casemates that protected the hydraulic loading and cleaning mechanism can be seen behind the gun. A Casemate is a heavy duty structure originally a valuted chamber in a fortress. ...
The gun was intended to operate at a rate of fire of a single shell every four minutes. The firing cycle was for the gun to be traversed and depressed until it aligned with one of loading casemates, with the barrel pushing aside an iron plate that normally closed the aperture in the casemate. The gun was then flushed with water to cool it, clean any debris and deposit from the barrel, and douse any remaining embers from the previous cartridge. The ramming mechanism then inserted and tamped a silk cartridge containing the propellant charge, which was followed by one of the range of shells the gun was adapted to fire. The loaded gun was then traversed and elevated using the hydraulic system, and fired by an electrical firing mechanism. The gun then slewed to the other casemate to repeat the loading process, while the first casemate was recharged from the deeper magazine. This article does not adequately cite its references or sources. ...
A propellant is a material that is used to move an object by applying a motive force. ...
The two separate loading casemates, each fed by an independent magazine, and the provision of man powered backup pumps for the hydraulic system, such that a team of 40 men could maintain the hydraulic pressure to operate the gun, would have allowed the fort to continue firing even if substantially damaged.
Though as originally built the inner faces of the emplacement were revetted with masonry, review of the forts defences after its completion identified this as a weakness, and the stone revetting was removed from most of the emplacement and replaced with plain earthworks, presumably to better absorb the energy of incoming shellfire. The revetting was retained around the loading casemates, as can also be seen in the image above. Generally speaking, an emplacement is something that houses or holds an object. ...
In civil engineering, earthworks are engineering works created through the moving of massive quantities of soil or unformed stone. ...
The 100 ton guns were in active service for only 20 years, with all being withdrawn from active service by 1906, without ever firing a shot in anger.
After the Armstrong gun was retired from service Fort Rinella was used as a sighting point for the guns of Ricasoli Fort, and unfortunately at some point the now obsolete steam engine and hydraulic system were removed from Fort Rinella.
Present day Since 1991 the fort has been undergoing restoration and is open to the public as a Museum, though the steam engine and hydraulics machinery have not yet been replaced. Once a year, it is fired using only black powder to keep the gun active and also to attract more visitors which can see this monstrous gun firing. The Louvre Museum in Paris, one of the largest and most famous museums in the world. ...
External links Coordinates: 35°53′40″N, 14°31′57″E Map of Earth showing lines of latitude (horizontally) and longitude (vertically), Eckert VI projection; large version (pdf, 1. ...
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