This is a list of disappearing gun installations. These are artillery installed behind fortification walls with mechanisms that lift the gun for firing and then retract it to protection. These were installed, especially in coastal defenses, from the 1860s until as late as 1923, and were in service as late as the beginning of World War II.
Guns in retractable turrets within the Maginot Line and the Atlantic Wall that are sometimes termed "disappearing guns", are not included.
On land
Australia
Ben Buckler Gun Battery, Bondi, New South Wales
Flagstaff Hill Fort, Wollongong, New South Wales
Fort Queenscliff, Port Phillip, Victoria, with a recovered gun from South Channel Fort
Fort Nepean, Port Phillip, Victoria
Fort Scratchley, Newcastle, New South Wales
Henry Head Battery, Sydney, New South Wales
Steel Point Battery, Vaucluse, Sydney, New South Wales
Signal Hill Battery, Watsons Bay, Sydney, New South Wales
South Channel Fort, Port Phillip, Victoria
Bermuda
Scaur Hill Fort, 64 pounder Rifled Muzzle Loaders on Moncrieff disappearing mounts
Canada
Cape Spear, Newfoundland 10" ex-US Buffington-Crozier-mounted guns installed in WWII; the tubes remain, but the mounts were scrapped.
Fort Rodd Hill, British Columbia
New Zealand (Armstrong Disappearing Guns)
Fort Ballance, (Miramar, Wellington), one barrel of a BL 8-inch gun recovered
Fort Jervois (Lyttelton), one mostly intact BL 6-inch Mk V and one working-order BL 8-inch gun
North Head (North Shore, Auckland), one remaining gun barrel with mostly intact carriage
Taiaroa Head (Dunedin) one restored BL 6-inch Mk V
Philippines
Fort Mills, Corregidor Island, Manila Bay, Luzon
Fort Frank and Fort Hughes, Carabao and Caballo Islands, Manila Bay, Luzon
Fort Wint, Grande Island, Subic Bay, Luzon
South Africa
9.2 inch disappearing gun in Fort Wynyard, Cape Town. Visible in Google Earth at coordinates 33° 54.136'S 18° 24.807'E.
Thailand
Phraya Chulachomklao Fort, Bangkok, seven Armstrong BL 6 inch guns on hydropneumatic disappearing carriages, all in working condition
United Kingdom
Flat Holm, Bristol Channel, Wales
Fort Cumberland, Portsmouth, England
Crownhill Fort, Plymouth, England
Pendennis Castle, Falmouth
United States
Battery Chamberlin, Presidio of San Francisco. One of the few Buffington-Crozier disappearing carriages still operating.
Batteries Mendell and Alexander at Fort Barry defended San Francisco Bay
Delaware River defense of Philadelphia, had three 12-inch disappearing guns by about 1901, and also three 10-inch guns added to the battery by 1903.
Battery Potter, Fort Hancock, Sandy Hook, New Jersey. This is the only remaining steam hydraulic (gun lift) battery.
Fort Casey, Washington Home of two Buffington-Crozier mounted guns moved from Fort Wint (Subic Bay, Philippines.)
Fort Stevens, Oregon, the only military installation in the continental United States to receive hostile fire during World War II
Battery Cooper at Fort Pickens near Pensacola, Florida contains one 6-inch M1905 gun on a disappearing carriage.
See Harbor Defense Command (1925 renaming of organizations dating from circa 1895) for a list of US forts 1890-1945, most with disappearing guns
HMS Temeraire,
Russian battleship Ekaterina II
Gunboat HMS Staunch and 21 copies, plus six near-copies (see List of gunboat and gunvessel classes of the Royal Navy). Known as the "flatiron" gunboats, these vessels had a single large gun kept behind hinged shields, rather than a complex disappearing mount.
List of disappearing gun installations Wikipedia (Text) CC BY-SA
