World’s Largest Cannon Sits Like A Tired Dinosaur On Top Of Malta’s Fort Rinella
Sitting like a tired dinosaur on top of Fort Rinella, limits of Kalkara, is the world’s largest cannon – a 100-ton Armstrong gun – originally built by the British in Malta to safeguard that part of the coast and to protect naval shipping in the area from the newest generation of Italian battleships of the time.
Luckily, it was never fired in anger, but an amusing legend about its first test still does the rounds much to the chagrin of military experts and local conservationists who have done a wonderful job restoring and up-keeping both the cannon and the fort.
The persistent legend says that when the gun was first fired, the 2000-pound shell fell just a few metres down into the nearby sea. If told, Queen Victoria cannot have been amused. Because a single shell cost, in those days, as much as the daily wage of 2,600 soldiers. In fact, so costly was it that the gun was only fired twice a year for practice.
The cannon and the fort that has housed it for so many decades are certainly worth a visit. When installed, the massive cannon was state-of-the-art, equipped with a steam powered hydraulic system that traversed, elevated and depressed the gun. Fort Rinella, sometimes also referred to as Rinella Battery, was built between 1878 and 1886, standing above the shore east of the mouth of Grand Harbour, between Fort Ricasoli and Fort St Rocco, in the same region of the island.
Fort, which is small, has been designed to operate and protect the playing field, and the team of gun-related, journals, support mechanisms, bunkers and troops were placed inside the fort to defend the facility.
The fortress was intended to keep warships of the enemy from a distance of 7,000 meters. Low profile of strong and deep in the engine room and sheets were supposed to enable it to survive a fire war Italian and Nazi capital.
The fort has no secondary armament; its fortifications, simply ditches, caponiers, a counter-scarp gallery and various firing points were mostly intended for small arms fire and grenade launching.
Today you can visit the museum and even attend, on the 5th of May of every year, the firing of the gun by volunteers. They use black powder only, of course, so you can’t really prove or disprove the legend.
Categories: Uncategorized Tags: Cannon, Dinosaur, Fort, Largest, Like, Malta's, Rinella, Sits, Tired, World's
Reviews on the World’s Lightest Digital Camera: Nikon D40x
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