The Ordnance Society

The 26th Annual Conference of the NDS will be held on 9th-11th June 2022 at the National Museum of the Royal Navy, Portsmouth.  Full details and the booking form are on the ORDNANCE EVENTS webpage.

The original date of 9th October for the Pottery Day has been pulled forward to the 21st September; but the price has been reduced from £80 to £60!

The provisional date for the Imber Visit of Sunday 21st August has now been confirmed as Saturday 20th August.

They are back – big time!

Our Visits Secretary Neil Grant has been working hard to produce the best list of visits and activities we’ve ever offered, for 2022.

Full details are on the VISITS page.

Lots of new info on the website so far this year!  The Newsletter Indices now include No. 136; our ‘banned’ Facebook page has now been removed and we have an Instagram page to replace it; there are some fascinating 19th C Fuze drawings added to the Ammunition Page of Ordnance Downloads; and finally, Nick Hall recently visited the Tyne & Wear Museum in Newcastle-upon-Tyne and returned with some excellent photos of Armstrong’s No. 1 Gun – the FIRST practical rifled breech-loading artillery gun.  Now in a new album on our Flickr pages.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

The Ordnance Society has got 2022 off to a great start.  The Journal, Volume 28 was posted last week and has already been delivered to many UK OS members.  It’s one of our best to date with wide-ranging in-depth articles and lots of colour photos.  The indices have been updated and enlarged to include an index by topic, again, thanks to Alastair Fyfe.  The new Journal will be added to the download list over the next few days.

A fascinating new sub-page has been added to PUBLICATIONS, called ANIMATIONS.  They consist of about 50 different, moving solid 3-D guns or torpedoes, that are gradually broken down into their constituent parts to show how the whole system works, in slow motion.  Riveting, as well as educational, these short episodes are not to be missed!  A lot of hard work by Rob Brassington.

Changes are being made to the layout of the website and if you haven’t received notification of the new location of Newsletters, please contact the Society: ordnance.society@btinternet.com

Printed Newsletters will be posted as normal to those who have requested the hard copy option.

The Ordnance Society has launched the first upgrade of its “WORLDWIDE SURVEY OF BRITISH ARTILLERY”.  The format is very similar to our NATIONAL ARTILLERY SURVEY, but with a different ‘page’ on the spreadsheet for each calibre/gun type.

There are now many more guns than the initial 9.2-inch gun in the first survey sheet, and these include 10-inch, 8-inch, 7.5-inch, 5.5-inch (Naval), 5.25-inch and 5-inch Naval.  A few empty pages for other large calibre guns still remain and these will be populated as soon as possible.  Smaller calibres will be added in the near future.

There are many British guns in overseas countries and the Ordnance Society welcomes Data Input Forms that are sent in.  They are also on the new WORLDWIDE SURVEY OF BRITISH ARTILLERY page.

The latest Agenda and notes for Ordnance Society members to join in the Members’ Talks and Presentations is on the ORDNANCE EVENTS page.

The Ordnance Society AGM will be held online via Microsoft Teams and e-mail invitations have now been sent out.  It MAY be possible to join/attend the AGM and the following session if you do not have a personal e-mail address, but you will need to contact Graham Whittington by 5th November on 07955 804729.