The Royal Navy Field Gun Trial an Annual Grueling Competition Steeped in Tradition

For those familiar with the Royal Navy, including the author who is a retired semi-skilled professional naval intelligence officer, it is known to be steeped in tradition. While admittedly a mere shadow of its two past zeniths, that being the end of World War I in 1918 and World War II in 1945, there are certain remaining traditions which still stir the souls of all sailors, and others throughout the world as well.

One tradition originated in 1907, which was unfortunately lost for a decade in 1999 due to shortsighted bureaucrats, was revived in 2009. It is the Royal Navy Field Gun Trial. It is a grueling, exciting, even freighting, literally finger shearing, bone breaking, race that annually commemorates a land action by the Royal Navy during the Second Boer War (Relief of Ladysmith, 1899 -1900), and certainly rivals, even exceeding, the running of the bulls at Pamplona.

Believe it or not it even has a toy soldier connection in that a relatively early set of W. Britains Ltd., toy soldiers, while not intentionally, still commemorates that original action. It is Set No.79, Royal Navy Landing Party with Limber and Gun, the first of three versions being issued in 1897, with the 3rd and last version being issued in 1952, and available up until 1966. As can be seen, the design of the toy replica gun even allows a similar disassembly paralleling the real guns used in the current competitions.

In the1990s there was also a British new toy soldier manufacturer of two partners, Mountford (David Love) -Tarrant (Peter Tarrant), who for a very short period produced a magnificent, accurate and complete 1:32 scale toy soldier replication of the event. I have been able to recover the files showing the figures, however unfortunately the images are very small, but do provide some idea of the scope and accuracy of the set. Particularly note the wheels and gun barrel compared with the simpler Britains first version (In all fairness Britains did increase the spokes from 8 to an accurate 12 in later versions). Saw some of the figures in The Guards Toy Soldier Centre (The Guards Museum) in London in 2006, but unfortunately priorities and resources intervened. 

While there is some historical confusion as to the exact configuration, and designation of the original guns, the author will defer to the official Royal Navy website which cites the gun as a “12 pounder field gun” (the correct nomenclature being, Ordnance, Quick Firing 12 pdr 12 cwt). The Britains set also incorporates a hand drawn limber very similar to the replica which is used in the current competition.

In order to alleviate some of the possible confusion, the four 12 pdrs in the Navy’s relief party were joined by two much larger Ordnance, Q.F. 4.7 inch Naval Guns (Mk I-IV) which had been removed from the Cape Town coastal defenses, and remounted on special improvised mobile carriages. These heavier pieces were drawn by teams of oxen. W. Britains also built several versions of this gun as Set No. 1264 4.7 in. Naval Gun (Mounted for Field Operations). For those who might be interested see; https://www.planetdiecast.com/index.php?&option=com_myblog&show=britain-47-inch-naval-gun-four-versionshtml&Itemid=157  .

The following are a series of images first showing the vintage gun and crew, a second current image of a restored gun posed in front of HMS Victory in Portsmouth Historical Dockyard, a third of one of the current competition crews manning their gun, and a fourth series of images showing the final version of the set of W. Britains toy soldiers.

For those readers who may be interested in a more extensive historical background of the competition the author recommends the following two web sites; https://www.royalnavy.mod.uk/our-organisation/bases-and-stations/training-establishments/hms-temeraire/rn-field-gun

https://www.navy.gov.au/customs-and-traditions/field-gun-run 

A relatively recent (2009) Daily Mail reporter's account of the competition and team training regimen can be found at; https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1179549/The-real-Top-Guns-Never-mind-health-safety--worlds-dangerous-sport--Royal-Navys-field-gun-race.html

Following are URLs of various past performances of the completion;

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kD4AFgxS9v8

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7AUFe0tfF1s

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AY1yf5MZA5o&feature=emb_rel_end