The Ordnance Society

Another twelve super articles, extracts and books have been uploaded.  These include two more Research Guides from Alistair Graham Kerr, a number of late 19th century USA items from Ed Dittus and a couple of early Treatise on Ammunition, also from Ed.

Another six items have been added and made available for download.  These are the first from several large batches of files that OS member Ed Dittus has supplied, which include Treatises on Ammunition and other rare documents.  These will be uploaded over the next few weeks.

The layout of this new page has been updated so that there are direct links to the document(s) required, which are also in pdf format.  A large quantity of new documents will be added in the next few days.

Details of the postponed Naval Dockyards Society Conference entitled “Where Empires Collide: Dockyards and Naval Bases in and around the Indian Ocean” now to be held 31st October 2020 at Greenwich, are on the Ordnance Related Events page.

The call for papers for their 25th Annual Conference on 27th March 2021 is also on the same page.

A growing number of Ordnance Society members are sending items for the new ‘Ordnance Downloads’ page and three more have now been uploaded.  There is another excellent item from Alistair Graham Kerr on Ammunition, a copy of a WW1 booklet on ammunition for 13-pr, 18-pr and 4.5-in Q.F. guns; and a rare, fully illustrated ‘sales’ book for a WW1 11-inch Trench Howitzer from Armstrong Whitworth Ltd.  The latter is from Ed Dittus who has also sent a vast collection of books, pamphlets and extracts on many types of ordnance.  These are being sorted for uploading to the OS website downloads page over the next week or two.

The listing of all the Newsletter Contents, by issue, has finally been completed (thanks to Alastair Fyfe); and an alphabetical list of articles is being developed which will be available soon.  This is part of an ongoing project to improve and tidy up the Publications page.

A remote board meeting was held yesterday using the ‘GoToMeeting’ video-conferencing software with seven board members linking up. We have had previous small trials before with one or two people joining the meeting remotely, but this was the first full-blown remote meeting. There were one or two minor transient technical glitches but overall it worked very well. We shall certainly use the facility again; minutes will be included as usual in the next Newsletter.