Gun Battery
The site of the watchtowers had gun batteries of all sorts. This site gu.arded Cape May and it required guns capable of throwing a projectile more than ten miles. This would guard the harbor in case of invasion by ship. In other words it could hurl a shell from Delaware across the water to New Jersey. As near as I can estimate this took a 16 inch artillery shell.
And of course, this required a very large gun. So we had an opportunity to look at the gun and shell up close. It’s a very large canon. And it shoots a big shell. And the armor it will pierce is quite thick. How thick? As much as David’s forearm thick.
Are you impressed? I am. And to think this all started from a Chinese invention for fireworks and progressed to mass destruction from miles away with truly massive armament. And all of this is antiquated and way out of fashion. I do not believe such a shell or gun would ever be of use nowadays.
It appears that the principle of groves in a rifle barrel to create spin to improve accuracy is applied to large canon as well. Ignore the trash. This is a big gun!
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