[4] The Charente became a navigable river after the Touvre joined it at L'Houmeau, a town quarter and the inland port of Angoulême.

The heavy cast iron naval guns could be moved overland, but this was a very costly affair.

[5] On the foundations of the paper mill, the marquis established a foundry for casting big cannon.

In 1752, he got a permit to cut down 4,800 arpents of forest over a period of nine years in the woods of Braconne north east of Ruelle.

After 16 years, the Marquis de Montalembert succeeded in getting recognition of his rights as lord of the foundry on 20 September 1772.

However, the government immediately forced him to rent it out to the state for 20,000 livres a year plus a sum for the previous expropriation.

[6] In 1774, the Marquis d'Artois (later king Charles X of France) bought the lordship over the foundries of Ruelle and Forge-Neuve for 300,000 livres.

In return he gave the count of Artois three forrests in the Champagne region, those of Vassy, Saint-Dizier, and Sainte-Menehould.

Up to 1866, the facilities at Ruelle were continuously updated and changed, just like major foreign heavy industries were.

At the time, several improvements in underlying technologies such as metallurgy and chemistry converged to create new possibilities.

It led to the construction of breech-loading rifled guns that could fire at a much greater muzzle velocity than the traditional smoothbore muzzleloaders.

The increased weight of the projectile and charge necessitated the use of steel hoops, which where shrunk onto the barrel.

These were centered on the 24 cm gun and showed images of its barrel before and after it was hooped, of its trunnion ring, and of its breech block and obturator.

[16] The lost 1870-1871 Franco-Prussian War led to big changes in the French armament industry.

The French government wanted to encourage private industry to make the required investments, e.g. in very big steam hammers.

It led to a new division of labour, in which only Compagnie des forges et aciéries de la marine et d'Homécourt at Saint-Chamond and Schneider et Cie at Le Creusot cast the all-steel barrels for guns of a caliber higher than 16 cm.

[19] For big steel naval guns, Ruelle became the sole assembly and finishing plant.

During the Interwar period, the Ruelle foundry was no longer able to produce the steel parts required for a gun of more than 100 mm caliber.

[24] During World War II, a big part of the archives of the foundry was destroyed during the occupation.

In 2000, DCN left the DGA (Délégation Générale pour l’Armement) and became an SCN (Service à Compétence Nationale).

[30] The Masurca system was actually put into service on board the two Suffren-class frigates, and the cruiser Colbert.

In 1974, the French government made a choice for air-launched anti-ship missiles, followed in 1978 by a decision for those launched from submarines.

It was based on the Martel vehicle and used guidance equipment from the Otomat missile which it had developed together with OTO Melara.

In both cases, the competing AM-39 Exocet and its submarine version SM 39 designed by stated owned Aérospatiale wun.

For this it makes the capsule that brings the missile from the submarine to a position about 30 m above sea level, where it is launched.

These were charcoal, coke, bituminous coal, casting sand, briques et pièces de four réfractaires, limestone (as castines), iron ore, and iron high in carbon but 'polluted' with other minerals (fontes du commerce).

[37] There was even some discussion about whether Ruelle should have its own blast furnaces, because commercial parties said that they could provide cast iron at a lower price.

[42] Inside were the molds, which were made from sand using a wooden model of the form of the desired gun.

For this it was brought to the ateliers de forerie (forer means 'to bore') At the time, there were two of those at Ruelle with a third being built.

[46] The big guns made at Ruelle were transported overland by horsepower to Angoulême, 7 kilometers away.