The obusier de vaisseau was a light piece of naval artillery with a large calibre mounted on French warships of the Age of Sail. Designed to fire explosive shells at a low velocity, they were an answer to the carronade in the close combat and anti-personnel role. However, their intended ammunition proved too dangerous for the crew, and the French navy phased them out at the beginning of the Empire in favour of the carronade.
Accounts by British warships of the armament of captured French ships tend to describe them as carronades. However, when the description includes the remark that the weapon was brass, this suggests that it was an obusier.
Several of the guns were recovered from the wreck of the Golymin in the road of Brest, and are now on display at the Musée national de la Marine in Paris and in Brest.[1]
Jean Boudriot et Hubert Berti, L'Artillerie de mer: marine française 1650-1850, Paris, éditions Ancre, 1992 ( ISBN2-903179-12-3) (notice BNF no FRBNF355550752). (in French)
Jean Peter, L'artillerie et les fonderies de la marine sous Louis XIV, Paris, Economica, 1995, 213 p. ( ISBN2-7178-2885-0). (in French)
The Paixhans gun was the first naval gun designed to fire explosive shells. It was developed by the French general Henri-Joseph Paixhans in 1822–1823. The design furthered the evolution of naval artillery into the modern age. Its use presaged the end of wood as the preferred material in naval warships, and the rise of the ironclad.
The Troupes de la Marine was a military body founded by Cardinal Richelieu in 1622 under the denomination of Compagnies Ordinaires de la Mer, were originally intended to form the garrisons of the ships of the King. It was in 1674 that Jean-Baptiste Colbert decided to make permanent colonial troops and give them the name of Compagnies Franches de la Marine.
Count Toussaint-Guillaume Picquet de la Motte, also known as La Motte-Picquet was a French Navy officer and admiral. Over a career spanning 50 years, he served under Louis XV and Louis XVI and took part in 34 campaigns. He fought in the Seven Years' War and in the Naval battles of the American Revolutionary War, earning the ranks of Commandeur in the Order of Saint Louis in 1780, and of Grand Cross in 1784. He died during the French Revolution.
Sans Pareil ("Peerless") was a ship of the line project presented to Louis XV between 1757 and 1760. No actual ship of this type bore the name in the French Navy, though Royal Louis was built on the scheme.
Soleil Royal was a French 104-gun ship of the line, flagship of Admiral Tourville.
Bretagne was a large 110-gun three-decker French ship of the line, built at Brest, which became famous as the flagship of the Brest Fleet during the American War of Independence. She was funded by a don des vaisseaux grant by the Estates of Brittany. She was active in the European theatres of the Anglo-French War and of the French Revolutionary Wars, notably taking an important role in the Glorious First of June. Later, she took part in the Croisière du Grand Hiver and was broken up.
The Musée national de la Marine is a maritime museum located in the Palais de Chaillot, Trocadéro, in the 16th arrondissement of Paris. It has annexes at Brest, Port-Louis, Rochefort, and Toulon. The permanent collection originates in a collection that dates back to Louis XV of France.
The Océan-class ships of the line were a series of 118-gun three-decker ships of the line of the French Navy, designed by engineer Jacques-Noël Sané. Fifteen were completed from 1788 on, with the last one entering service in 1854; a sixteenth was never completed, and four more were never laid down.
Royal Louis was a 110-gun ship of the line of the French Royal Navy. She was designed and built at Brest Dockyard by Léon-Michel Guignace.
Auguste-Louis de Rossel de Cercy was a French Navy officer and painter of the 18th century. He especially painted naval scenes.
HMS Magpie was a Royal Navy Cuckoo-class schooner that William Rowe of Newcastle built and launched on 17 May 1806. Like all her class, she was armed with four 12-pounder carronades and had a crew of 20. She had been in British service for less than a year when she grounded on the coast of France, which led to her capture. She then served in the French navy until 1828, including a few years as a prison ship.
The 36-pounder long gun was the largest piece of artillery mounted on French warships of the Age of Sail. They were also used for Coastal defense and fortification. They largely exceeded the heaviest guns fielded by the Army, which were 24-pounder long guns. The nominal weight of shot was 36 French livres, 17.6 kg (38.8 lb).
Pandour was a French a 14-gun gun-brig launched in 1780 as a cutter. The Royal Navy captured her in December 1795 and took her into service as Pandora, but she foundered in June 1797.
The Golymin was a 74-gun ship of the line of the French Navy. Built in Lorient in 1804, she was launched in 1809. Wrecked on Mengam Rock in the roads of Brest on 23 March 1814, she is the source of the Obusier de vaisseau currently on display in the Musée national de la Marine in Paris and in Brest.
The Trianon model collection is a set of high-quality ship models ordered by Napoléon for documentary purposes.
The Loire-class flûte was a French Navy class of two 20-gun flûtes that Louis, Antoine, and Marhurin Crucy, Basse Indre, built to a design by François-Louis Etesse, and under a contract dated 5 November 1802.
Robuste was an 74-gun ship of the line of the French Navy, built by Antoine Groignard.
HMS Eclipse was a French Navy Vésuve-class brick-canonnier or chaloupe-canonnière, (gunbrig) launched at Saint-Malo in 1793 as Volage. She was renamed Venteux in 1795 (possibly also Vérité on 30 May 1795, although this might have been a second ship of the same name. The British Royal Navy captured her in 1803 and took her into service as HMS Eagle, but then renamed her HMS Eclipse in 1804. She had a completely unremarkable career before the Navy sold her in 1807.
The Vésuve class was a class of seven 4-gun gunbrigs (bricks-canonniers).
Brillant was a 64-gun ship of the line of the French Navy. She was first classified as a Second-rank ship, and later reclassified as a Third-rank. She was built between 1689 and 1690 at Le Havre, under supervision by engineer Étienne Salicon. She served until 1719, and took part in the Nine Years' War (1688–1697) and the War of Spanish Succession (1702–1714).
This page is based on this Wikipedia article Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
