Credit: ©The Royal Society
    Image number: RS.14049

    Whitworth projectiles

    Date
    1858
    Creator - Organisation
    Day & Son, Lithographers
    Object type
    Library reference
    RCNR67791
    Material
    Technique
    Dimensions
    height (print): 213mm
    width (print): 183mm
    Subject
    Content object
    weapon
       > gun
    Description
    Shaped ammunition for specific purposes. Figure D shows a plan and elevation of a tubular hexagonal artillery shot. Figure E shows a flat-headed Whitworth hexagonal shot.

    Plate 2 from the book Miscellaneous papers on mechanical subjects by Joseph Whitworth (Longmans, London, 1858), illustrating the paper on ‘Rifled fire-arms’, pp. 71-84.

    In the accompanying text, the author states that: ‘This system thus admits of the employment of projectiles of different densities and shapes, suitable for special purposes. If for example, it be required to fire through plates of iron, a flat-fronted projectile of steel of the form in figure E, will be employed…For firing through elastic materials, tubular projectiles, as shown in fig. D are used…the tubular projectiles also penetrate deeper into masonry than those with any other shape I am acquainted with.’

    Inscribed below: ‘Day & Son, Lithrs. To the Queen.’

    Sir Joseph Whitworth (1803–1887), British mechanical engineer and machine tool manufacturer, was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1857.
    Associated place
    <The World>
       > Europe
          > United Kingdom
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