E is for Eaton...and Munby!

I Photographed this on Adrian's stall at Sandown park about a year ago and it's been sitting in Picasa ever since. Eaton & Munby were another New Forest maker like Forest Toys, exploiting the local material of choice...

Gun turret with mechanism firing large dowels about the place until you "...put someone's eye out with that thing"! Elevation/loading is provided/facilitated by the fitting of a domestic door hinge!

Box was really too tatty to photograph and lacked a label, but this is almost certainly the target, utilising a loose tounge-and-groove to hold it together until you get the range, after which you dismantle it piece by piece...presumably a war-time 'austerity toy' (are we at war with bankers? We're not doing a very good job of killing them!), but possibly an earlier inter-war period toy?

Although all navies had grey ships, I think I detect a slightly Germanic feel to the lines of this? It's got a bit of a straight-backed and stern Teutonic appearance!