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The disappearing gun of the South Battery, at North Head in Devonport, New Zealand.

Diagrams of typical Buffington-Crozier disappearing gun carriage model 1896 which was used extensively in US coastal emplacements. Shown in up position for firing.

A disappearing gun is a type of (mainly coastal) artillery, which can be retracted (or recoils after firing) into a protected housing or bunker. It is now mostly historical. The advantages of the system were concealment and cover from enemy fire, especially during the reloading stage. The gun usually moved into the protective housing by force of the shot's recoil, and was raised again by releasing energy stored in a hinged counterweight or by the use of compressed air.^[1]

Designed in the 1860s (by Captain A. Moncrieff of the Edinburgh Militia), the systems involved soon got even more elaborate, with hydro-pneumatic recoil-control appearing in the 1880s. Disappearing 'carriages' tended to be extremely ponderous and complicated, with surviving records indicating a rate of fire of 1 per 1 to 2 minutes on a 8-inch (20 cm) gun, far slower than less complicated guns. Their size and complexity also made them very expensive.^[1]

A series of Royal Navy/New Zealand Division of the Royal Navy trials carried out in New Zealand (where numerous disappearing guns had been bought and installed during the Russian Scares), revealed the virtual impossibility of a warship obtaining direct hits against a fixed shoreline target, except by chance.^[1] No further production of disappearing carriages was therefore undertaken. Though effective against ships, they were still quite vulnerable to air strikes, and after World War I, batteries of disappearing guns were usually casemated or covered with camouflage for protection instead.^[2]

By 1912 the guns were declared obsolete in the British Army, with only some other countries, particularly the United States, still producing them up to World War I^[1] and using them through World War II.

• Coastal artillery
• Seacoast Defense (US)
• Specific installations
  • Battery Chamberlin, home of one of the few remaining disappearing guns in the US
  • Fort Queenscliff, Australia, coastal defence fortification with a recovered gun
  • North Head, New Zealand, one remaining gun barrel with partial carriage
  • Fort Casey, Washington, USA with one of the few remaining disappearing guns in the US

1. ^ ^{a b c d} Disappearing Guns (from the Royal New Zealand Artillery Old Comrades Association)
2. ^ Fort Winfield Scott: Battery Lowell Chamberlin. California State Military Museum. Retrieved on 2007-03-30.