RML 16 inch 80 ton gun

Ordnance RML 16-inch 80-ton gun
Port/forward turret on HMS Inflexible
Type	Naval gun
Place of origin	United Kingdom
Service history
In service	1880–1902
Used by	Royal Navy
Wars	Bombardment of Alexandria (1882)
Production history
Designer	Royal Gun Factory
Designed	1874
Manufacturer	Royal Arsenal
Unit cost	£10,000
No. built	8
Variants	Mk I
Specifications
Barrel length	288 inches (7.3 m) (bore)
Shell	1,684 pounds (763.8 kg) Palliser, common, Shrapnel
Calibre	16-inch (406.4 mm)
Muzzle velocity	1,590 feet per second (480 m/s)
Maximum firing range	8,000 yards (7,300 m)

RML 16-inch 80-ton guns were large rifled muzzle-loading guns intended to give the largest British battleships parity with the large guns being mounted by Italian and French ships in the Mediterranean Sea in the 1870s.

The gun was constructed of a toughened mild steel inner "A" tube surrounded by multiple wrought-iron coils, breech-piece and jacket. Rifling was of the "polygroove plain section" type, with 33 grooves increasing from 0 to 1 turn in 50 calibres (i.e. 1 turn in 800 inches) at the muzzle.

After a long design and experimentation period beginning in 1873, HMS Inflexible with four guns became the only ship to mount them, in 1880. By that time such muzzle-loading guns were already obsolescent and were being superseded by a new generation of rifled breechloading guns.

Two more guns were mounted for coastal defence in the Admiralty Pier Turret at Dover.

This was a second-generation RML gun, equipped with polygroove rifling and firing only studless ammunition and using automatic gas-checks for rotation.

The only two remaining example are in the ruins of the Admiralty Pier Turret, Dover, Kent, UK.