Fort Knox (3rd System, 1844-1869)

AMP: sci-fi art, regular art, pictures, photos, comics, music, etc.

Moderator: Beowulf

Post Reply
User avatar
Simplicius
Jedi Council Member
Posts: 2031
Joined: 2006-01-27 06:07pm

Fort Knox (3rd System, 1844-1869)

Post by Simplicius »

In response to the Duchess's Fort Casey thread, I grabbed a few shots of Maine's Fort Knox while I was waiting for an assignment to start. You'll see how it was the very end of twilight, and so it was too dark to do a full tour of the grounds and interior (besides which, there was a haunted house inside that night.)

Image

The gun mounts of D Battery, located on the terreplein, north side.

Image
Image
Image

The 15-inch Rodman on its cradle at A Battery on the riverbank southward. That's a hot shot furnace in the background. How big is 15 inches?

Image

That big. Hard to read, but the muzzle is inscribed with the gun's tube weight - 48,554 pounds (22,070 kilograms).

Image
Image

The half of A Battery between the Rodman and the fort. Three 15-inch guns were mounted between A and B Batteries; the remainder were 10-inchers. You can see in the second picture that the battery is enfiladed with rifle slits and gun ports.

Image

This is the view of the citadel from the first tier of the riverbank. Two stone embankments are built up, one from water level to the height of A and B batteries, and another (after a small terrace, where I was standing) from there to ground level at the citadel. They would not be easy to scale unless one was outfitted as a climber instead of as a soldier.

Image

Continuing around the front of the fort brings one to B Battery, whose 15-incher is missing its cradle. B's guns cover the only easy approach from the water at the fort proper - the wharves where stones were brought in during construction and where any resupply by river would have landed.

Fort Knox retains a number of guns: the two 15-inchers, a 10-inch Rodman in one of the citadel casemates, four 24-pdr flanking howitzers, and another 10-inch Rodman converted to an 8-inch rifle in the parking lot.

Image

This is one of the gun ports flanked by two rifle slits which enfiladed B Battery.

Image

To leave the battery, one passes through this doorway in the hillside...

Image

...and walks down a moist and ill-lit (at night) corridor to climb a flight of stone stairs and emerge in front of the fort above the second stone embankment.

Image

Walking back around to the visitor entrance, one gets this view of the citadel.

Image
Image
Image

Finally, some photographs of the old Waldo-Hancock Bridge (completed 1931, ret. 2006) next to the Penobscot Narrows Bridge that replaced it in '06.
User avatar
FSTargetDrone
Emperor's Hand
Posts: 7878
Joined: 2004-04-10 06:10pm
Location: Drone HQ, Pennsylvania, USA

Re: Fort Knox (3rd System, 1844-1869)

Post by FSTargetDrone »

Great stuff. Most interesting.
Simplicius wrote:Continuing around the front of the fort brings one to B Battery, whose 15-incher is missing its cradle.
Is that weapon resting freely on what remains of the base, or are those some welds I see there? It's too bad a reproduction cradle or something can't be installed. That is an impressively large piece, but it looks funky with the barrel out of alignment and its muzzle scraped up against the wall.
Image
Post Reply