3-090-554 - LTL/Heritage Images

Moncrieff 7-ton gun carriage, 1870. Colonel Sir Alexander Moncrieff addressed the problem of raising and lowering guns, so that they might fire over the parapet and then descend under cover for loading. He conceived the idea of mounting guns on curved elevators, which would allow them to recoil backwards and downwards, the energy of recoil being used to raise a counterweight which would bring the gun up again to the firing position. From "Historia de la Guerra de Francia y Prusia" (History of the War between France and Prussia), Volume I, published in Barcelona, 1870.