FIG. 97.—_Comparative Sizes of 35 and 81 ton Guns._
The 35–ton Fraser guns were at the time of their production humorously called in the newspapers “Woolwich infants”; but it was not long before they might in another sense be called infants in comparison with a still larger gun of 81 tons weight constructed at Woolwich shortly before iron-coiling and muzzle-loading were set aside. Fig. 97 shows the relative dimensions of the 35–ton and 81–ton guns: the latter was built up in the same way as the 9–inch gun described above, but the coils were necessarily longer and the chase was formed in three parts instead of two. The total length of this gun was 27 feet, and the bore was about 24 feet long and 14 in. in diameter, and the weight of the shot about 1000 lbs., with sufficient energy to penetrate at a considerable distance an iron plate 20 in. in thickness. It was for the manufacture of these very large guns that the great steam hammer, represented in Plate III., was erected at Woolwich.
The 81–ton gun was the largest muzzle-loader ever made in the national gun factory at the time when such huge weapons were in request; but in 1876 its dimensions were surpassed by those of a few 100–ton guns built at Elswick to the order of the Italian Government for mounting on their most formidable ironclads. These guns have a calibre of 17·72 inches, and are provided with a chamber of somewhat larger bore to receive the charge of powder. They are built up on the Armstrong shrinkage principle, and comprise as many as twenty different tubes, jackets, hoops, screws, etc., and are undoubtedly the most powerful muzzle-loading weapons ever constructed. It happened, just as these guns were completed, that the British Government, apprehensive at the time of a war with Russia, exercised its rights of purchasing two of them, one to be mounted at Gibraltar, the other at Malta.