Panama mount
Type of gun mount
title: "Panama mount" type: doc version: 1 created: 2026-02-28 author: "Wikipedia contributors" status: active scope: public tags: ["coastal-artillery", "united-states-army-coast-artillery-corps"] description: "Type of gun mount" topic_path: "geography/united-states" source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panama_mount" license: "CC BY-SA 4.0" wikipedia_page_id: 0 wikipedia_revision_id: 0
::summary Type of gun mount ::
[[Image:Sagamore Hill Gun Crew.jpg|thumb|220px|[[Canon de 155 mm GPF|155 mm gun M1918]] with Panama Mount]]
The Panama Mount is a form of gun mount for fixed coastal artillery developed by the U.S. Army in Panama during the 1920s. Widely used during the buildup to and during World War II by the United States military, it was typically equipped with a 155 mm rifled gun.
The term Panama mount is often incorrectly used to describe other gun mounts with similar layouts and/or purpose.
Description
::figure[src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/9e/Panama_Mount.jpg" caption="The Panama mount featured a central concrete pier surrounded by a concrete-embedded steel ring"] ::
The Panama mount was constructed as needed to provide 180, 270, and 360 degrees of traverse, with its gun mounted on a central 10 ft diameter concrete pier surrounded by a full or partial approximately 36 ft concrete-embedded steel rail. Concrete beams connected the two for alignment and stability.
Originally the guns were traversed by pivoting their trailing arms around the steel ring with prybars. Later installations added a geared steel ring inside the rail.
The principle weapon employed was the Canon de 155mm GPF, the primary gun of the United States Army Coast Artillery Corps' tractor-drawn mobile units 1920-1945 (designated 155 mm gun M1917 (French-made) or M1918 (US-made) in U.S. service).
In World War II, Panama mounts were used to rearm six Harbor Defense Commands that had been disarmed in the 1920s; augment existing and new harbor defenses in the US and overseas; and for new defenses in Texas, Alaska, Newfoundland, Puerto Rico, and Australia.
Many surviving examples of these mounts can be found throughout former US coast defense sites including California, Florida, Alaska, and Panama.
File:155mm-Gun-Plans-1942.jpg|Typical plan for Panama mount File:155mm GPF Garden Island WA 1943 AWM 054026.jpeg|Panama mount in Western Australia showing center concrete pier and concrete beams File:Panama Mount Battery 22 Ft Miles.jpg|Panama mount at Battery 22, Former Fort Miles, now Cape Henlopen State Park, Delaware, with park's beach house in background File:Point Peron coastal defences, June 2019, Image 1.jpg|Restored Panama mount of the Peron Battery
References
- List of all US coastal forts and batteries at the Coast Defense Study Group, Inc. website
References
- Berhow, pp. 200-223
- Berhow, pp. 200-223
::callout[type=info title="Wikipedia Source"] This article was imported from Wikipedia and is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Content has been adapted to SurfDoc format. Original contributors can be found on the article history page. ::