32-pounder 56 cwt

32-pounder 56 cwt
32-pounder 56 cwt
	32-pounder 56 cwt guns (replicas) on HMS Victory's gundeck
Type	Naval gun Coast Defense gun
Place of origin	United Kingdom
Service history
In service	1790s-after 1865
Used by	United Kingdom
Wars	French Revolutionary wars, Napoleonic Wars, Crimean War
Production history
Designer	Thomas Blomefield
Designed	1790s
Produced	1790s-1830s
No. built	in excess of 3,694
Specifications
Mass	56 cwt
Length	9.5 feet (2.9 m)
Shell	Solid Shot
Shell weight	32 pounds (15 kg)

The 32-pounder 56 cwt cannon was an artillery piece designed and used by the British Armed Forces in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. It was by far the most common 32-pounder used by the Royal Navy in the Napoleonic Wars, with 1961 guns being recorded as in use and 1733 being in storage at the end of March 1857. The cannon was a smoothbore muzzle-loading gun, being 56 long cwt (2,800 kg), and firing projectiles of 32 lb (15 kg). Sir Thomas Blomefield designed the cannon in the late 1780s and early 1790s as part of his system of gun construction.[1] It was the heaviest cannon used by ships of the Royal Navy from the 1790s to the late 1830s, and it was used on the lower decks of ships of the line such as HMS Victory.

References

McConnell, David (1988). "British Smooth-Bore Artillery: A Technological Study to Support Identification, Acquisition, Restoration, Reproduction, and Interpretation of Artillery at National Historic Parks in Canada" (PDF). p. 62.

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[1] McConnell, David (1988). "British Smooth-Bore Artillery: A Technological Study to Support Identification, Acquisition, Restoration, Reproduction, and Interpretation of Artillery at National Historic Parks in Canada" (PDF). p. 62.