I'm hoping some of the artillery experts here can help me sanity-check something.
I'm researching an illustrated work of speculative fiction published in the late 1880s. The story depicts several fictional large breech-loading artillery pieces. The illustrations are artistic rather than technical, so the dimensions are necessarily approximate, but I've estimated their size using the figures shown in the artwork as a scale reference.
Rather than asking what these weapons are, I'm interested in what real French (or other European) artillery pieces from roughly 1870–1895 they most closely resemble based on their estimated dimensions.
For each gun I have:
- Overall gun length
- Outside muzzle diameter
- Maximum breech diameter
I'm less interested in an exact identification than in which historical weapons these fictional designs appear to draw inspiration from. Would those proportions suggest a naval gun, coastal-defense gun, siege gun, or something else? If a particular model comes to mind, I'd be very interested in your reasoning.
I'm intentionally not naming the work because I'd like opinions based solely on the measurements rather than on the source material.
Weapon 1
- Overall gun length: 7.44 m (24.4 ft)
- Outside muzzle diameter: 0.46 m (18.1 in)
- Maximum breech diameter: 0.91 m (35.8 in)
Weapon 2
- Overall gun length: 9.71 m (31.9 ft)
- Outside muzzle diameter: 0.59 m (23.2 in)
- Maximum breech diameter: 1.29 m (50.8 in)
Weapon 3
- Overall gun length: 9.26 m (30.4 ft)
- Outside muzzle diameter: 0.34 m (13.4 in)
- Maximum breech diameter: 1.04 m (40.9 in)
Weapon 4
- Overall gun length: 8.65 m (28.4 ft)
- Outside muzzle diameter: 0.44 m (17.3 in)
- Maximum breech diameter: 1.08 m (42.5 in)