Spur Battery Spur Battery is an artillery battery in the British Overseas Territory of Gibraltar . It is located in the Upper Battery area of the southern end of the Upper Rock Nature Reserve , just southwest of O ' Hara ' s Battery . A 9 . 2 - inch Mark X breech - loading gun was mounted on the emplacement in 1902 , with improvements made to the battery after World War I . In 1981 the 9 . 2 - inch gun at Spur Battery was dismantled and transferred to the Imperial War Museum in Duxford , England , for preservation . The operation was known as Project Vitello . Early history . Spur Battery is in Gibraltar , the British Overseas Territory at the southern end of the Iberian Peninsula . The artillery battery is located near the southern end of the Upper Rock Nature Reserve , in the Upper Battery area , which also includes O ' Hara ' s Battery and Lord Airey ' s Battery . It is positioned at the southern terminus of Spur Battery Road , just southwest of O ' Hara ' s Battery , at an elevation of 1 , 130 ft above sea level . Its name was based on its location on St . George ' s Spur . The mounting of 9 . 2 - inch guns on Gibraltar ' s artillery batteries began in the 1890s . By 1914 , Gibraltar boasted fourteen of those guns on twelve batteries . The 9 . 2 - inch Mark X breech - loading gun at Spur Battery was installed in 1902 . It was used in World War I on 31 December 1915 , when German submarines were positioned off the coast of Gibraltar . Three rounds were fired from the gun , with another ten rounds fired from other 9 . 2 - inch guns of the South Fire Command . The outcome was recorded in a journal as : " Result of action . One target disappeared , and a large explosion took place at another . " The gun barrel at Spur Battery was upgraded after World War I . In addition , its mount was changed from a Mark V to a Mark VII in 1935 . This entailed increasing the armour and modernising the control system , and resulted in improvement of loading , elevation , and traverse . The specifications of the weapon included a combined weight for the gun and its mounting of 204 tons , with the weight of the barrel 28 tons . Each shell weighed 380 lbs ; individual charges were 109 lbs . The 9 . 2 - inch gun had a muzzle velocity of 2 , 700 ft / sec and fired 2 – 3 rounds / minute . The range of the gun was 29 , 600 yds . This easily covered both the Strait of Gibraltar and the Bay of Gibraltar , the distances across those bodies of water measuring 25 , 500 yds and 9 , 000 yds , respectively . Recent history . In the 1970s , the Royal Gibraltar Regiment fired the coastal defence gun at Spur Battery for the last time . The 9 . 2 - inch gun fired 29 rounds at a towed target that day , and made its mark several times . The other guns of the Upper Battery area also fired for the last time then . In 1981 , the gun at Spur Battery on the Upper Rock Nature Reserve was dismantled and transported to the Imperial War Museum at Duxford , England for preservation . The operation was entitled Project Vitello , and it was undertaken in two phases . The first phase was referred to as Project Vitello 1 and entailed the dismantling of the gun at Spur Battery and its transfer to the Gibraltar dockyard . This was performed in early 1981 . The second phase , Project Vitello 2 , started in August 1981 , when the 9 . 2 - inch gun arrived in Portsmouth . The transfer to Duxford was accomplished in eleven loads . The construction necessary at the museum began in September 1981 and was completed in early 1982 . The Royal Engineers were responsible for completing both phases of Project Vitello . The gun was replaced with Exocet guided missile systems . Following removal of its 9 . 2 - inch gun , Spur Battery sustained vandalism . The magazine and other chambers of the lower level have been emptied of equipment or sealed off . Not only the gun was removed , but also the gun mount enclosure . Subsequently , the cartridge storage areas are now exposed and have undergone corrosion .