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Fortress

Rinella Battery

Malta · 19th century

Founded
1878
Location
Kalkara
Coordinates
35.89444°, 14.5325°
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Rinella Battery in Malta
Photo: Frank Vincentz · CC BY-SA 3.0 · Wikimedia Commons

Description

The Rinella Battery (Maltese: Batterija ta' Rinella) was a Victorian battery in Kalkara, Malta. It is commonly referred to as Fort Rinella (Maltese: Forti Rinella), although it was never classified as a fort while in use. It was armed with an Armstrong 100-ton gun, which survives; the only other surviving gun is at the Napier of Magdala Battery, Gibraltar.

The Rinella Battery was modestly sized, being designed to operate the single large gun. The fortifications were simple - ditches, caponiers, a counter-scarp gallery and firing points - and designed for infantry; there is no secondary armament. The battery's low profile and subterranean magazine and machinery spaces were protective measures against capital ship counterfire.

The gun was mounted en barbette on a wrought-iron sliding carriage, allowing the gun to be fired over the parapet without exposing the gun crew to enemy fire. Ammunition was fed from the magazine through elevators in each of the two loading casemate; there was one casement on each side of the gun. The expected range against warships was 7,000 yards. The firing cycle was as follows:

An elevator transported a 2,000-pound shell and 450-pound silk cartridges containing black powder propellant into the loading casemate's loading chamber.

The gun slewed to a loading casemate and aligned the muzzle with the casemate's water pipe nozzle. The water cooled the gun and cleaned the barrel. The gun was depressed to drain the water.

The gun traversed and depressed to align the muzzle with the casemate's loading port, with the barrel pushing aside port's iron plate cover. The ramming mechanism pushed the shell and propellant charges from the loading chamber into the barrel, and tamped them.

The gun traversed and elevated back into firing position. An electrical firing mechanism was attached, making the gun ready to fire.

Even with two loading casemates feeding the gun, the intended rate of fire was once every six minutes.

It was impractical to manhandle such a heavy gun. Gun laying, the washing system, rammer, and ammunition elevators were powered by hydraulic machinery. The power plant was a stationary steam engine. Hydraulic pressure could be maintained by a backup 40-man manual pump.

The emplacement was completed with inner revetments of stone or masonry.

Text adapted from “Fort Rinella” on Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0.

In the rankings

Rinella Battery ranks #4,069 of 9,040 worldwide in the atlas's castle fame ranking, and #16 of the 39 mapped in Malta. Founded 1878, it is older than 5% of the atlas's dated landmarks, one of 705 atlas entries founded in the 19th century. Its Wikipedia articles were opened 1,101 times in the last 60 days, more than 53% of the atlas. 35 more atlas landmarks stand within 25 km. See how Malta compares in the castle statistics.

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