Battery Dynamite

A view of the concrete walls and air compressor building of Battery Dynamite.

Lenny Rush

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Despite the army's objections, Congress appropriated $400,000 in 1888 to purchase "pneumatic dynamite guns". In non-technical terms, these were guns that shot payloads of dynamite really, really far. A 50 pound shell went as far as 3 miles and a 500 pound shell went 1 mile. The guns fired charges by means of compressed air, like a potato gun.

The army set up two experimental dynamite batteries of three guns each, one at Sandy Hook, New Jersey, and the other one here at Fort Scott. Test shots were fired into the Pacific in December 1895, but the army never adopted the weapons due to advances in conventional artillery, and also because the guns were woefully inaccurate. Suitable only for killing large numbers of fish, the guns were declared obsolete and scrapped by 1901, which of course begs the question, what was the point of all this?