Update:
I kicked this to the top of the site because I want it to get more views. Tom has collected some wonderful photos of an iconic old military facility. I especially like the shots of the interior masonry. His use of HDR (high dynamic range) technique produces fascinating images.
Ft Pickens is the site of a US National Park located at the mouth of Pensacola Bay into the Gulf of Mexico. Historically it has been the site of military defences to protect said bay from foreign intervention. Other than altercations between Union and Confederate forces during the Civil War, I’m not aware of any military confrontations between US and hostile foreign forces since the original fort was established in 1830. At least in one instance, WWII, I’m fairly sure that was because of the deterrence of the fort. Especially in the 1st couple of years of WWII, the Gulf was lousy with German submarines, and absent the fort there would have been little to deter the Germans from coming into the bay and shelling the deep water port facilities.
Fort Pickens was active as a military base from 1830 to its closing in 1947 and it has abandoned facilities and gun emplacements from all along that time frame. This is just a few pictures and doesn’t begin to encompass the buildings, emplacements and facilities there.
Photos:
Light at the End of the Tunnel: This is one portion of one wing from the 1st facilities constructed, in 1830, completed just 8 years after Florida was ceded to the US by Spain. It was constructed of brick using slave labor.
This is a spotting tower used to spot and correct the shell fire from the two 6” shield guns featured in later picts.
Another location in another wing of the 1830 fortress.
One of the 6”. These guns were 6” shield guns in use from before to through WWII. These guns threw a shell weighing probably around 90 pounds to a distance of around 17,000 yards. There’s a picture of the interior of the shield further down.
Here’s a “disappearing” gun from the WWI era. Seems to me that would be an effective defense strategy since, any adversary unless at an extreme range, would have a flat trajectory to its shell fire.
This is the 2nd shield gun at that emplacement. This picture doesn’t reveal differences from the 1st but I just like the photo as a photo.
A 3rd shot of another location from in the 1830 building
One wing of the 1830 building. It connects to the remainder of the building on the left but not the right side due to a “little” hurricane some time in the past.
View from behind one of the shield guns showing the interior. These turrets were fully powered, as they would be on a ship. You’ll notice that the breech block has been removed. Spoil sports! They never let us have any fun, pot shots at fishing boats 10 miles out would be great sport.
You can see that the breech design is of the interrupted screw type (no jokes please). This design is prevalent with American canon types of the time as opposed to the falling block favored by many other nations. Since, the US Army at least seems to use the falling block.