Ordnance

ordnance

noun

1. mounted guns; artillery.

"the gun was a brand new piece of ordnance"

synonyms: guns, cannon, artillery, weapons, arms, munitions, military

2. a branch of government service dealing especially with military stores and materials.

"the ordnance corps"

The three volume series 'Great Industries of Great Britain', by Cassel, Petter, Galpin & Co., London (c1879) published under 'Iron and Steel' three papers by William Dundas Scott-Moncrieff (1846-1924) on Big Guns.

Big Guns: Their History - An historical overview from the 14th century, as improvements in the construction of 'big guns' followed the development of the metal trades.

Big Guns: The Materials - Although Great Britain had become possessed of a national arsenal, it was many years before anything approaching to a perfect system was introduced as a substitute for castings of iron and brass. Even now, though iron is employed so universally for the every-day purposes of life, there is a great amount of ignorance of the principles upon which it ought to be manufactured.

Big Guns: Manufacture - The conditions which are essential to the safety and efficiency of a big gun having already been explained, it only remains to give a description of how these are practically carried out in the great industry which has its head-quarters at Woolwich.

The text and illustrations published here have been extracted from ‘RECORD OF THE INTERNATIONAL EXHIBITION, 1862’, published by William Mackenzie, Glasgow Edinburgh and London. The author of the following articles is Robert Mallet, Esq., C.E., F.R.S.