For you all love the screw gun …

The mule train for the screw gun battery is finished, with the components loaded and organised in order of march: axel tree, wheels, carriage, breach, chase (barrel), and ammunition.

I have followed the same principle I established for the Royal Navy Gatling gun battery [link], that is to model one weapon in transit to represent the battery of two guns on the move.

The converted infantry driver figures turned out alright after all, I think.

By way of celebration, let’s have some Kipling – the refrain from Screw-Guns:

For you all love the screw-guns the screw-guns they all love you!

So when we call round with a few guns, o’ course you will know what to do – hoo! hoo!

Jest send in your Chief an’ surrender it’s worse if you fights or you runs:

You can go where you please, you can skid up the trees, but you don’t get away from the guns!

The loaded mules with their drivers.

Season’s greetings

I have finally got the mules finished, and begun to think about the accompanying figures.

My first attempt is to model these from the Afghanistan/Sudan plastic set, with the addition of Empress Miniatures’ Oliver pattern water bottles, and a little ProCreate for webbing. The lack of walking poses may mean I need to rethink this. Wait to see.

I hope to have these finished before the end of the year, so that I can switch my effort to the late medieval period.

Meanwhile, I wish my ten followers and many more visitors a peaceful and relaxing time over the next few days.

The mules patiently await their drivers.

Screw gun battery mules: all six

I have been working on these on-and-off throughout the week, and now they are complete.

Six mules carrying the gun chase, breach, carriage, wheels, axel tree, elevation mechanism, and ammunition. Next I have to work on the gun crew figures which will accompany these.

The disassembled gun and ammunition distributed across six mules.

Screw gun battery: mule equipment

I had completely forgotten that some time ago I found a digital archive copy of a HMSO manual for the 2.5 inch screw gun.

Handbook for the 2.5-inch RML Steel (Jointed) Gun 1888 includes detailed drawings of the harness arrangements for carrying the gun components and ammunition on mules and camels.

These drawings will provide guidance for my modelling effort, but I now realise that I will have to change the ammunition boxes on the deployed models.

Plenty of detail here to guide my modelling effort. These drawings show the elevating gear carried with the wheels, so I will give that some thought. The ammunition boxes were made of leather, so I will have to make a couple for my deployed battery, too.

Screw gun battery mules

The Empress Miniatures’ Jazz Age Imperialism mountain battery has arrived, and it looks the part.

The gun components are moulded contiguously with the mules, which means there are some models that I will not be able to use. Nevertheless this set is an excellent start for this project.

According to Goodrich’s Report of the British Naval and Military Operations in Egypt, 1882, the RML 2.5 inch 7 pounder screw gun was dismantled, with leather caps and aprons attached to the barrel sections for protection, and carried by individual mules as follows:
– muzzle section
– breech section
– carriage
– axle, coupling block, trunnion guard, elevating gear
– wheels
– ammunition boxes

It seems unlikely that much changed between 1882 and 1884.

Top to bottom: Some of the mules from Empress Miniatures’ Jazz Age Imperialism mountain battery, and two spares from their water cart; pages from Goodrich’s Report of the British Naval and Military Operations in Egypt, 1882 illustrating how the dismantled screw gun was carried by six mules.

A bit of blog admin, adding depth, and a screw gun battery

I turned my hand to tidying up some code (I had broken the British Empire army units page), adding a short interview with the legendary Spike Milligan to the Preservation page, and providing a bit more depth where appropriate.

To the latter end, I have added some links to external pages with more information about the people who feature on the Characters page.

I am planning to model a screw gun loaded on to mules. I have two spare mules from the Empress Miniatures’ water wagon (ZWB79), which seem to be the same basic scuplts used for their Jazz Age Imperialism mountain gun battery (JAZ13). So the latter may provide the basis for this, with any surplus mules sure to be utilised.

That’s it for the moment while I make progress with my Wars of the Roses project.

Empress Miniatures’ Jazz Age Imperialism mountain battery looks like a promising place to begin for my mule-bourne screw gun battery.

Detailing and basing the screw guns

While the Berkshires and the 19th Hussars languish, I’ve been making steady progress with the screw gun battery and the vignette of Private Thomas Edwards and a pair of ammunition mules, of which more in my next post.

I discovered that the recoil of the diminutive screw gun was mitigated by a rope attached to each wheel, run to the hook on the shoe plate at the rear of the carriage. I had to add this detail, obviously, but it was quite tricky to do because the models are so small.

I added check ropes using fine gauge wire rope. Once these were painted I based the carriages and added fine sand, since this would be tricky to do once the figures are in place. Once dry I added the barrels and the crew figures. Sandy paste next.

Screw gun battery basing test

Even though I have been busy with work and around the house I have managed to make decent progress with the screw gun battery.

The principal decision was the size of the bases. The crew with the fellow about to ram home the shot required a longer base, 90mm in fact. The second crew, with the converted figure holding the sponge/ramrod, will fit on a base 60mm square. I considered basing both guns on 60mm square bases, with the fellow ramming the shot home based separately. I also considered basing the guns on different sized bases.

After some consideration I decided to base both guns on 60mm x 90mm bases; the uniformity strikes a more appropriate appearance, I think.

Testing the basing arrangement for the Royal Artillery RML 2.5 inch battery. I’m not sure if the infantry sergeant (extreme right) will make the final arrangement. (The gun barrel muzzles need retouching and varnishing – the barrels have just come off the pins used to hold them while painting.)

RML 2.5 inch 7 pounder screw gun battery

While contemplating the challenge of painting various kinds of grey stallions for the 19th Hussars, I decided to begin work on my screw gun battery.

I have read that these handy artillery pieces were transported on three sturdier camels (which meant that the barrel could be carried without disassembly by one animal, the carriage and wheels by two more). Once deployed they could fire explosive shells, shrapnel rounds, or case shot.

I plan a battery of two pieces, with three crew figures each, and a battery commander. I have made some minor modifications to two of the crew figures so that each group will look different enough.

These guns are so small that I have decided to paint them prior to assembly.

A future modelling project is a screw gun in transit, for which I have the components – I just need the time.

Minor modiciations using hands and arms from the Perry Miniatures’ plastic Sudan/Afghanistan British infantry set, and the crew and guns ready for priming. That’s Private Thomas Edwards on the end, soon to join a pair of Naval Brigade ammunition mules.