From Breechloaders to Monster Guns: Sir William Armstrong and the Invention of Modern Artillery, 1854-1880

Abstract

Before dawn on Sunday, November 5, 1854, 50,000 Russian soldiers moved out of Sevastopol and quietly arranged their artillery to bombard the British and French positions in the hills around the city. It had rained throughout Saturday, and the British, believing that the thick mud and heavy fog made a Russian offensive unlikely, had no artillery on hand to defend Inkerman, one of their main positions. When the Russians attacked, Lord Raglan, the commander of the British army, ordered that two 18-pounder guns be brought up from the siege train below. There were no draft horses available, however, and it took 150 soldiers and eight supervising officers three hours to haul the 2-ton guns a mile and a half up the muddy hillside.' Once in place the guns relieved the pressure from the Russian artillery, and, when French reinforcements arrived in the early afternoon, the attack was finally beaten back. Yet the losses were large, in part because the great bulk and weight of cast-iron guns made it impossible to maneuver them quickly over the rough terrain of the southern Crimean peninsula.2 The Crimean War, and the losses at Inkerman in