Paris, Army Museum. And now let's stop with a story about what you can see in Europe from the bus window and see what you can see there if you live at least a little there. Well, let's say, in the same Paris, if you arrive there in the afternoon of 13, and leave in the afternoon of 15 of July. Why are these days so important? So after 14, it’s Bastille Day, when a military parade is held in Paris and everything works. Macron ordered. “A holiday is a holiday, and an economy is an economy!” So shops, cafes, and all museums work. And for free, which is certainly very important for a tourist. True, the Museum of the Middle Ages (Cluny Museum) for some reason still demanded money for entry, but it’s cheap there, so this expense can be completely neglected, and not every regular visitor to the VO site, if he, of course, ends up in Paris , go there - a place for an amateur. But it’s simply impossible to miss the “Army Museum”.
Today we have a story about artillery from the exposition of the Army Museum in Paris. Therefore, we start with a photograph of the entrance to the hall, where its samples are located. Looking at the open vents of the cannons exhibited in it, you involuntarily begin to respect everyone: those who created them, those who shot them, and those ... who shot them!
Getting to it is easy. You take the subway (line No.7), although you may have to make several transfers, you leave at the Latur-Mobur station (it was one of the Napoleonic military leaders), and here it is right in front of you. You can go to the "Military School", but go there longer.
Now I’ll go in there ...
The museum is located in the huge building of the House of Disabled. It was named so because King Louis XIV in 1670 built it to accommodate disabled soldiers and veterans, where they lived on full state support, however, they worked there in the workshops, doing what was feasible for themselves. Therefore, the Disabled House had everything: dormitories for sleeping, and dining rooms, and kitchens, and spacious workshops, and even fields for games. There is also a soldier’s church and the tomb of Napoleon herself. So he is buried, one might say, if not quite among his soldiers, then in any case quite close to their place of residence.
And this is not a museum exhibit at all, but the Griffon armored car of the army forces called to Paris to ensure law and order during the holiday. A year ago it was adopted, which, incidentally, was written in our military unit, and already today they were in large numbers at the Army Museum and in other places. It’s clear that just in case.
Well, in the air above the museum and the square in front of it, this helicopter was barraging throughout the parade.
The exposition of artillery guns - and today we will tell about them specifically - begins right at the entrance and continues inside the museum’s square courtyard, where the gun barrels and the guns themselves are located around its perimeter.
Such a mortar is standing there in the corner of the courtyard. And it is remarkable just because of the absence of any frills, that is, it is functional in a modern way. Well, and the firing range from it was changed with the help of many charges laid down in it according to a special table.
Peksan's naval bomb weapon. However, this is already the 19th century, when people began to realize that all these curls and coats of arms on gun trunks were completely useless!
This is a tool. View from above. There are no decorative excesses on it anymore.
The gun trunks displayed here in the courtyard do not at all look like that. The royal lily is reproduced in many on their trunks, which does not affect their quality in any way, but it makes it clear to everyone who these tools belong to and that this is nothing more than “the last argument of the kings”.A few words, so, for "common development." The Museum was founded in the 1905 year, when the collections of the Artillery Museum and the Military History Museum were combined into one. Today, the Museum de la Arme has one of the world's richest collections of military installations in
stories. It contains about 500 000 units
weapons, armor, artillery, jewelry, emblems, paintings and photographs, which allows you to get acquainted with French military history from the Middle Ages to the end of World War II. Each year, two temporary exhibitions are held in it, and there is also a wide cultural program for concerts, lectures, film cycles and other events.
Since gun barrels in the XVI - XVIII centuries. cast from bronze, many of them look like real works of foundry art.
Coats of arms and emblems, mottos, faces of animals, “rosettes” and “curls” - the imagination of foundry craftsmen who tried to give their guns a unique look, knew no bounds. Then it was believed that the tools should not only be functional, but also beautiful. And how much extra bronze went to all these curls even can not be calculated.
Even the purely functional details of the gun barrel were sometimes given a completely fantastic look. Here is wingrad ...
And these are dolphins cast in the shape of crowned eagles!
Now we go inside and see here such a bombard of terrible appearance, consisting of two parts - the barrel and the charging chamber docked to it. Question: and as soon as such weapons were made? Since casting large trunks of bronze had not yet been mastered, and they could not cast iron, the tools were forged! This is generally surprising, if you think about it in much the same way as the Egyptians made stone blocks for their pyramids, only here for some reason no one calls for help from stellar aliens and immigrants from Hyperborea. Although it would be worth it, because this operation was the most difficult. At first, iron longitudinal strips were forged tightly adjacent to each other. Then they were joined together on a wooden cylindrical billet using blacksmithing. That is, this heavy pipe was heated in the furnace. Then it was put on a wooden blank, which, of course, burned and forged. And so many times, until a pipe came out of these very constrained bands. But in order to keep them stronger and the gas pressure would not burst them, another row was put on this pipe. Now from the iron rings. Which, in a heated state, were pulled onto the pipe and so cooled, compressing it during cooling.
The rows of rings worn on the trunk are clearly visible.
For example, the Belgian Rocket Greta bombard, manufactured using this technology in Ghent at the end of the 14th – beginning of the 15th centuries, had an inner layer of 32 longitudinal iron strips, and an outer one consisting of 41 welded ring of variable thickness, fitted close to one another . The caliber of this bombardment was about 600 mm, weight, according to various sources, from 11 to 16 tons (for some reason we have conflicting data), the length of the bore is about 3 meters, and the total is more than 4 meters. The weight of its stone core is determined precisely: 320 kg. The most interesting thing is that initially the charging chambers on such bombers were screwed in, for which holes for levers were provided for them. And quite often several chambers were made towards one bombard, obviously in order to increase its rate of fire. But ... First, you can imagine what it was like to do for this thread or some kind of bayonet mount. And secondly, in fact, this did not increase the rate of fire. The metal from the shot was heated, expanded, and it was already impossible to unscrew the chamber. It was necessary to wait for the bombard to cool or to water it abundantly.
Therefore, very soon both the scorers and the mortars simply began to cast from bronze like bells!
For example, the mortar bombard of the Order of Malta from the island of Rhodes (1480-1500), (“Museum of the Army”, Paris). It was commissioned by Pierre d'Aubusson and was used during the siege of Rhodes to defend the nearby approaches to the walls (100 - 200 m). One of the largest bombard surviving to this day. Could shoot granite cores weighing 260 kg. The weight of the bombard itself is 3325 kg.
In the center of the 200, a kilogram wrought iron bombard (around 1450 of the year) is also made of metal bars joined by hot forging and fastened with metal hoops. Could shoot six-kilogram stone cores. The total length is 82 cm. On it, as you can see, as well as on the mortar on the left, there are already pins that were not originally on the gun trunks. Right breech-loading falconet, one of the first breech-loading guns. There were also several charging chambers for him. But they were inserted into the barrel, and not screwed into it, but fixed in it with the help of a wedge. So the rate of fire of such a gun was quite high. True, it was not very convenient to service the falconet due to a gas breakthrough in the area of the joint of the barrel and the chamber. However, such guns were a find for the ships of that time, which were small in size: in order to load them, it was not necessary to roll them out of the cannon port onto the deck.
All these weapons look very utilitarian. The masters who made them did not have time for embellishment. But as soon as the guns learned to cast from copper, bronze or cast iron, the situation immediately changed. Now the trunks began to decorate, and every master tried to surpass the beauty of the trunks of his guns of another.
For example, the gun’s barrel, completely covered with exquisite floral patterns.
At this gun, the barrel is not only covered with twisted flutes, but also a snake is cast on it, which, apparently, is associated with its name.
Snake close-up.
A popular motive was the mouth of a monster, from which came out either the muzzle of the trunk, or the very cut of the muzzle.
Accordingly, on the opposite side of the barrel, the trunk could have such an ending in the form of an animal muzzle. She also played the role of Wingrad, which was done through a hole for pulling the rope.
It is interesting that the museum exposition has a lot of gun barrel mock-ups, cast in bronze on a reduced scale and showing samples of cannon casting.
This material is called "artillery excesses" and this is due not only to the pretentiousness of cannon casting. The fact is that, having learned to cast trunks from bronze, the masters of the past thereby “untied their hands” and were given the opportunity to create the most unusual guns not only in shape but also in their design. Many of the samples of such unusual tools are shown in the Museum of the Army on mock-ups made of wood and metal, and very beautiful and accurate, made on a fairly large scale, allowing them to be well examined.
For example, a Turkish multi-barrel cannon. She has one main trunk and eight trunks located on its circumference of a smaller caliber. Why such a system is completely incomprehensible, however, it exists, and in metal.
And, apparently, this was not a whim of the master, but a peculiar trend, since such a multi-barrel bicaliber mortar was also made.
Ship gun with three channels in one triangular barrel.
An infantry gun on five channels at once.
The twelve-barrel "organ of death."
By the way, the fact that multi-barrel guns were very popular in the Middle Ages is evidenced by their numerous miniature images. The Siege of Reims by the Army of Edward III (1359). Thumbnail from The Chronicles of Froissart (National Library of France, Paris)
And here there is one trunk at the weapon, but this gun had to shoot with lentil shells. And not in the form of a disk, but in a completely modern form, being pointed in front. It’s just that in flight they didn’t rotate, so the accuracy of firing from such a gun could hardly be discussed.
Last we look at this: hand-held mortar grenade launchers. The wooden “arc” at the back is such a ... butt with a tip on the end. Rather, emphasis, since the recoil from a shot even with an 700 gram grenade was extremely high and it was simply impossible to shoot without emphasis. In particular with a flat fire. And so, the tail stuck a point into the ground and ... it was possible to shoot, and all the returns like a modern mortar went into the ground!
Today we say goodbye to the Army Museum in Paris. But in the following materials we will continue the story about this unique museum.
To be continued ...
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