The 100-ton 17.72-inch R. M. L. Armstrong gun at Rinella Battery, Malta : a brief account and description

Abstract

In the nineteenth century the magnificent fortifications built by the Knights of the Order of St. John of Jerusalem for the defence of Valletta and the Three Cities gradually became obsolete. As the range and destructive power of artillery, particularly of naval ordnance, improved so the defences of Malta had to be strengthened and eventually pushed further and further away from the harbour area in order to challenge the enemy before he could damage the vital dockyard and other base fa::ilities. It was a development that affected most of the then civilized world. The bastioned enceintes, fundamental to fortification since the sixteenth century, were dismantled and often demolished. Urban expansion became possible on a scale unimaginable earlier, when the growth of cities and towns was limited by the restraining circuits of walls and ditches, and by the need to leave vast areas beyond the defences free of structures to deny the enemy any cover and to give the defenders unobstructed fields of fire. [excerpt]