C. S. Forester's "The Gun" -- 1:17 scale model

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An offshoot of the "Passion Cannon" was to make a model based on Forester's 1935 short novel of the Napoleonic Peninsular campaign, The Gun.

"The very last unit in the Spanish column -- if we except the dying --was a bigger, heavier and more imposing gun than the iron six-pounders that led the artillery column. Thirteen feet long it was, and two feet in diameter at the breech, and a foot at the muzzle. It was an eighteen-pounder bronze gun, of that handsome alloy which is still known as "gunmetal."



"In four days the work was completed--a perfect new carriage was made for the gun. Perhaps it was not quite so prepossessing in appearance as the old one had been at its best, but it was a wonderful piece of work. The cheeks, on which the trunnions were to rest, were of four-inch oak, and the notches themselves were faced with beech. The axle was of oak too, six inches in diameter. The spokes of the wheels were of the finest ash that could be found; those wheels were the wonder of a district which had never seen other than plain solid discs cut from trees."



"Far and wide El Bilbanito sent his men in search of draft animals. They were hard to get nowadays."



The asses and the one mule and the six oxen they collected at last served their purpose in getting the gun under way."



"Two wheels on an axle served as a limber to which to attach the trail, and for some miles the gun moved nobly along the high road."



The barrel and felloe-rings were made from yellow poplar, carriage of white oak, axle of Chinese red oak, hubs of Japanese maple, and tripartite oxcart wheels and limber pole assembly of basswood.

This series of models is the first I've attempted since the 1950's, and the first serious attempt at scratch building. They were all started two years ago, and the figurines on this model were added last year. I could not obtain a suitable mule, and I have no idea how a single animal, as the author describes, would fit properly between draft pairs, so have simply omitted that animal; the length of the overall display was quite long enough, anyway!

You may guess that I have a weakness for old cannons

Regards, John

Thanks. I enjoyed looking at these.

Nice. I seem to remember seeing a film of that, or at least, some film set in that period which involved dragging an inordinately large cannon around.

Cool.