A bit bigger than 12 gauge

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If you ever feel the need to launch armour piercing shells weighing 885kg and loaded with 18 kilos of TNT a little over 35 kilometres out to sea then I know where you can find exactly the device to do it.

885kg by the way is about the weight of the current Fiat 500 car.

Just down the coast from us at Azohía there is an abandoned, but well maintained, fortress that houses two rather fearsome looking cannons. The fortress was constructed between 1928 and 1936. The guns themselves were built by Vickers. Their barrels are 17 metres long with a calibre of 38cm. Not quite wide enough to launch that Fiat but pretty big nonetheless.

You're going to need 20 pals to help you fire each gun and you'll probably need to fill in some official paperwork, this being Spain, but it would make you the envy of anyone who thought they were pretty cool because they owned a pair of Purdeys.


Fabulous location too. Nice bit of the coast.

Comments

  1. AnonymousMarch 9, 2011 at 3:04 PM

    which way are they pointing? Friends in Malta and Italy are already preparing the the influx of North Africans, if Gadhafi loses power. Libya has been paid handsomely to keep those small boats from reaching Malta and the Italian islands in the med... over 50 million Africans want to live and work in Europe .. diaspora north and west. Chris went the wrong way!!

    ReplyDelete
  2. UnknownMarch 10, 2011 at 6:02 PM

    This is a really great place for a visit - I wrote an article for TIM - now online here
    http://issuu.com/spainrico/docs/spainrico_living_in_spain_anthology_final

    ReplyDelete

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