List of disappearing gun installations

This is a list of disappearing gun installations. These are artillery installed behind fortification walls with mechanisms that lift the gun for firing and then retract it to protection. These were installed, especially in coastal defenses, from the 1860s until as late as 1923, and were in service as late as the beginning of World War II.

Guns in retractable turrets within the Maginot Line and the Atlantic Wall that are sometimes termed "disappearing guns",^[1] are not included.

On land

• Australia
  • Ben Buckler Gun Battery, Bondi, New South Wales
  • Flagstaff Hill Fort, Wollongong, New South Wales
  • Fort Queenscliff, Port Phillip, Victoria, with a recovered gun from South Channel Fort
  • Fort Nepean, Port Phillip, Victoria
  • Fort Scratchley, Newcastle, New South Wales
  • Henry Head Battery, Sydney, New South Wales
  • Steel Point Battery, Vaucluse, Sydney, New South Wales
  • Signal Hill Battery, Watsons Bay, Sydney, New South Wales
  • South Channel Fort, Port Phillip, Victoria
    

    Armstrong BL 6-inch Mk V disappearing gun at Taiaroa Head, New Zealand
• Bermuda
  • Scaur Hill Fort, 64 pounder Rifled Muzzle Loaders on Moncrieff disappearing mounts
• Canada
  • Cape Spear, Newfoundland 10" Buffington-Crozier-mounted guns installed in WWII; the tubes remain, but the mounts were scrapped.
  • Fort Rodd Hill, British Columbia
• New Zealand (Armstrong Disappearing Guns)
  • Fort Ballance, (Miramar, Wellington), one barrel of a BL 8-inch gun recovered^[2]
  • Fort Jervois (Lyttelton), one mostly intact BL 6-inch Mk V and one working-order BL 8-inch gun
  • North Head (North Shore, Auckland), one remaining gun barrel with mostly intact carriage
  • Taiaroa Head (Dunedin) one restored BL 6-inch Mk V
• Philippines
  • Fort Mills, Corregidor Island, Manila Bay, Luzon^[3]
  • Fort Frank and Fort Hughes, Carabao and Caballo Islands, Manila Bay, Luzon ^[4]
  • Fort Wint, Grande Island, Subic Bay, Luzon
• South Africa
  • 9.2 inch disappearing gun in Fort Wynyard, Cape Town. Visible in Google Earth at coordinates 33° 54.136'S 18° 24.807'E.
• Thailand
  • Phraya Chulachomklao Fort, Bangkok, seven Armstrong BL 6 inch guns on hydropneumatic disappearing carriages, all in working condition^[5]
• United Kingdom
  • Flat Holm, Bristol Channel, Wales
  • Fort Cumberland, Portsmouth, England
  • Crownhill Fort, Plymouth, England
  • Pendennis Castle, Falmouth
• United States
  • Battery Chamberlin, Presidio of San Francisco. One of the few Buffington-Crozier disappearing carriages still operating.
  • Batteries Mendell and Alexander at Fort Barry defended San Francisco Bay^[6]
  • Delaware River defense of Philadelphia, had three 12-inch disappearing guns by about 1901,^[7] and also three 10-inch guns added to the battery by 1903.^[8]
  • Battery Potter, Fort Hancock, Sandy Hook, New Jersey. This is the only remaining steam hydraulic (gun lift) battery.
  • Fort Casey, Washington Home of two Buffington-Crozier mounted guns moved from Fort Wint (Subic Bay, Philippines.)
  • Fort Stevens, Oregon, the only military installation in the continental United States to receive hostile fire during World War II
  • Battery Cooper at Fort Pickens near Pensacola, Florida contains one 6-inch M1905 gun on a disappearing carriage.
  • See Harbor Defense Command (formed in 1925) for a list of US forts, some with disappearing guns

Afloat

• HMS Temeraire,
• Russian battleship Ekaterina II
• Gunboat HMS Staunch and 21 copies, plus six near-copies

References

1. Britannica's War on Land, including its page 62, for one source
2. "Rare gun barrel surfaces in Wellington". Radio New Zealand. Retrieved 1 April 2013.
3. American Seacoast Artillery in the Philippines (12-inch, 10-inch and 6-inch) (from the Coast Defense Study Group website. Accessed 2015-01-26.)
4. American Seacoast Artillery in the Philippines (14-inch and 12-inch) (from the Coast Defense Study Group website. Accessed 2015-01-26.)
5. D. Quarmby, Casemate (Fortress Study Group), 84, 2009, pp17-18
6. Chappell, Gordon. "Fort Barry". Historic California Posts. California State Military Museum. Retrieved 23 October 2015.
7. Report. United States Army Office of the Chief of Engineers. 1901. p. 21.
8. Congressional Edition. 4534. U.S. Government Printing Office. 1903. p. 1393.