Q&A · 30:38-30:56

Could a revolving naval-gun chamber seal safely?

An audience question exposes the pressure-sealing problem hidden inside nineteenth-century revolving-chamber proposals.

Question

How would a revolving-chamber naval gun seal its breech?

Short answer

Designers considered several sealing arrangements, but the large-gun solution remained complicated and largely theoretical.

Notes

The rotating concept needed each chamber to align with the barrel and contain naval-gun pressure before firing. Designers proposed several ways to accomplish that seal, although none appears here as a mature, proven solution. The mechanism looked elegant on paper. Scaling it to a large gun made the sealing and alignment problems extremely complicated.