Battery Decatur and Disappearing Guns

American coastal defenses were modernized from the 1890s to 1910 with the development of the Endicott System as military tactics shifted from masonry fortifications to more effective weapons based on rifled steel guns, improved breech-loading systems, better propellants, and reinforced concrete gun emplacements. Battery Decatur was a reinforced concrete emplacement completed in 1891 that mounted two 10-inch disappearing guns similar to the Fort Monroe rifled gun. Its lower rooms stored shot, shell, and powder, with cranes and hoists moving the heavy ammunition up to the gun platforms.

Fort Hunt, Virginia · United States