Introduction from Brian Lavery's The Arming and Fitting of English Ships of War 1600 - 1815

Formal rules for the proportions of guns developed quite late in their history. In the 17th century, contracts specified weights and lengths, but left the rest up to the skill and discretion of the ironfounder. Presumably practice and experience produced some informal rules, but it is not always easy to find out what they were, for gunfounders, like other craftsmen of the age, did not reveal their trade secrets except to their apprentices. Books in gunnery give us some clues, but these were written for and by the users, rather than the makers of guns. Information on the proportions of guns is scant, and not always to be trusted.

In 1670, after the defeats of the Second Dutch War, there was an attempt to draw up a new establishment of gun sizes, but it is not clear how far this actually specified the different parts of the guns, and how successful it was in imposing uniformity. The system was regulated much more closely in the early 18th century, by Albert Borgard. He was a Dane who became Chief Firemaster of the Royal Arsenal in 1712, and the first Colonel Commandant of the Royal Artillery in 1722. It is not apparent how far his 'Table for surveying iron cannon in their several parts' was intended to be used for other guns besides the 6 pounder shown, but it seems likely they had general application.

Borgard's rules, drawn up in 1716, were succeeded in 1725 by those of John Armstrong, Surveyor General. Armstrong has little experience of cannon design when he took up his office, and it took several years of experimentation to get the formula right. Most of our information on Armstrong's rules comes from printed sources, but they were in use for the greatest part of the 18th century. One work, published in 1819, claimed that they were 'still retained by us', but it is certain that they had been superseded by 1793 at the latest.

Note by MSD: Bloomfield guns, those cast with a ring in the cascabel to take a breech rope, became the standard pattern and served as the main English naval weapon of the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars (source: Lavery, as above).

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