I finished the USMRR Rifle car. As I mentioned in a previous post, these lightly armored cars carried infantry to support the ironclad cars. They are slightly modified box cars with wood ties for armor and slots for infantry to fire weapons. Here are some shots of one along with the ironclad car on my layout.
Wonderful. How useful was an artillery piece that could only point one way? Are there any records of this type of artillery car in action?
ReplyDeleteHi Scott: I assume the ironclad car was designed to clear the other side's trains from the track. (No truth to the rumour that they were also used at the head of 1st class passenger trains in the days before the invention of time table and train order dispatching...)
DeleteThe best description of these vehicle's construction and employment is in Al Koenig's dissertation, "Ironclads on the Rail: Armor Returns to the Battlefield, 1861-65." They were used in action a few times, mostly on the B&O from Harpers Ferry west. One was destroyed in an engagement by CSA artillery fire. The limited field of fire is an issue. That is one reason these type of vehicles were not very widespread in use.
DeleteThere is a photo of a rail gun with cannon protruding from the sides, but not much other information is know about it. Most field guns, including the 6 pounder in this vehicle, were too large and had too much recoil to fire from the sides of the car. Guns firing from the side had to very very light. Perhaps either a mountain howitzer type, an old naval 6 pounder or an naval insurance gun. A 12 pound mountain howitzer weighed about 210 pounds.
The designer of these cars envisioned them as mobile fortresses deployed to protect bridges etc. You can't effectively destroy track if there is a cannon firing on you.
ReplyDeleteThe first time they were employed, the guns proved unwieldy as they were mounted from the roof of the car with ropes. So they dismounted the gun and fired off a log from outside the car. They then installed the guns back in the cars on "standard field carriages." It is described in Koenig's dissertation a bit more.
The gun on a field carriage in this vehicle has a field of fire about 30 degrees off each side. If they pulled backed, the 6 pounder had a range of a mile, they could sometimes engage targets to the sides.
One other point worth mentioning, the descriptions of these cars are not all in agreement. So this is not an exact model. It is the best I could determine from the sources we had available.
Thank you!
ReplyDeleteThere is mention of rail ironclads having its gun mounted on a 'turntable' type of setup. That gave them a way to fire either forward, to port or starboard (I'll use naval terms because as I read all accounts, navy/marine gun crews were used in these almost exclusively). It's stated that the car with the turntable gun was built by Baldwin & Co. in Philadelphia. (c)1861.
ReplyDeleteThe whole information that you provide is really useful and great and also the collection and facts are absolutely great to see!
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