Breakneck Battery Breakneck Battery is an artillery battery in the British Overseas Territory of Gibraltar . It is located on Ministry of Defence property at the Upper Rock Nature Reserve , north of Lord Airey ' s Battery . It is one of a dozen batteries in Gibraltar that had 9 . 2 - inch ( 233 . 7 mm ) guns installed around the turn of the twentieth century . The emplacement features a 9 . 2 - inch Mark X breech - loading gun on a Mark V mounting . The battery was refurbished by a visiting regiment in 2012 , and is one of three surviving 9 . 2 - inch gun emplacements at the Upper Ridge of the Rock of Gibraltar . By the late twentieth century , the 9 . 2 - inch guns in Gibraltar , Bermuda ( also known affectionately as " the Rock " , and the former site of a Royal Naval Dockyard , and once considered " the Gibraltar of the West " ) , Portugal , South Africa , and Australia were the remaining examples of an emplacement that at one point had been mounted at strategic locations across the British Empire . Early history . Breakneck Battery is in Gibraltar , the British Overseas Territory at the southern end of the Iberian Peninsula . The artillery battery is located at the Upper Ridge of the Upper Rock Nature Reserve , on Ministry of Defence property . It is positioned north of Lord Airey ' s Battery on a site once known as Mount Misery , which was renamed in 1901 . The name " Breakneck " was inspired by the nearby Breakneck Stairs which descend part way down the sheer cliff on which the battery stands , overlooking the Mediterranean Sea . The decision to mount 9 . 2 - inch breech - loading guns on the emplacements in Gibraltar can be traced back to the explosion of one of the 38 - ton , muzzle - loading guns on . After that explosion on 2 January 1879 , a Committee on Ordnance was founded to analyze the United Kingdom ' s artillery and the direction that it would take . The committee was directed to address " the question of breech - loading guns and such other questions as may be brought before it . " Following research and deliberations , the committee settled on rifled breech - loading guns , an improvement over the customary rifled muzzle - loading weapons . Although the 9 . 2 - inch breech - loading weapon was initially employed as a naval gun , it eventually was used for coastal defence as well . It was effective in dealing with hostile warships and their associated long - range attacks . The 9 . 2 - inch gun retained its importance in British coastal defence for more than half a century . The mounting of 9 . 2 - inch guns on Gibraltar ' s batteries commenced in the 1890s . By 1914 , Gibraltar boasted a total of fourteen of the 9 . 2 - inch weapons on twelve batteries . Breakneck Battery had a 9 . 2 inch Mark X breech - loading gun installed on a Mark V mounting . The World War II photograph obtained of the battery " ( pictured at right ) " by Lieutenant G W Dallison in 1942 is now part of the War Office Second World War Official Collection of photographs . A shell store and bombproof shelter for the crew are located beneath the gun position , excavated from the solid rock . The gun itself originally had a steel shield in front of it to protect the crew from counter - battery fire but during the Second World War this was extended to form a steel enclosure open at the back , to provide some protection from shrapnel and bomb splinters . Recent history . Gibraltar ' s surviving 9 . 2 - inch guns were described in a 1981 issue of " After The Battle " magazine : Breakneck Battery is one of three surviving 9 . 2 - inch gun emplacements at the Upper Ridge of the Rock , the others being O ' Hara ' s Battery and Lord Airey ' s Battery . Of the three Upper Ridge emplacements , O ' Hara ' s Battery is in the best condition . Breakneck was the first of the batteries to be decommissioned , in 1953 . The two other batteries mentioned , Levant Battery and Spur Battery , both had their guns removed in the late twentieth century . The former was decommissioned in the 1970s and had its gun removed ; the barrel now rests in a scrap yard . Other than three Mk . X variants still surviving in the " Gibraltar of the West " , Bermuda ( two at St . David ' s Battery ; one at Fort Victoria ) , by 1981 , the year that the gun at the latter emplacement , Spur Battery , was dismantled for transfer to England in Project Vitello , Gibraltar ' s 9 . 2 - inch guns represented three of the 25 remaining examples of a weapon that had at one time been mounted at strategic locations across the British Empire and its allies . For years , the Upper Ridge batteries were an excluded area in Gibraltar , where entry by the public was considered a criminal offence . While Breakneck Battery is still closed to the public , O ' Hara ' s Battery and Lord Airey ' s Battery were opened in May 2010 . Members of the 4th Battalion , The Royal Regiment of Scotland ( 4 SCOTS ) , also known as The Highlanders , arrived in Gibraltar in early April 2012 to cover the responsibilities of the Royal Gibraltar Regiment , which was in the United Kingdom . In addition to training and guard duties , the soldiers participated in community projects , including refurbishing of the coastal artillery gun at Breakneck Battery . Upon the return of the Royal Gibraltar Regiment , the Highlanders left for their base in Sennelager , Germany .