Fort Rinella is home to the world's largest muzzle-loading gun in history. The Armstrong 100-ton 17.72 inch Rifled Muzzle Loading gun fired a 1-ton explosive shell propelled by a gun powder charge weighing a quarter of a ton, with a range of 3 miles and the capability to pierce 21 inches of wrought iron ship armour.

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The 100-ton gun was so huge and heavy that it could not be traversed and loaded manually like other artillery. Instead, its inventor, Sir William George Armstrong of Newcastle had devised a steam-driven hydraulic set-up to achieve this involving hydraulically powered ammunition lifts, rammers and traversing system by which the gun could be swiftly loaded, trained onto target and fired in a mere 6 minutes!

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Fort Rinella was built by the British and after that, the Italian navy had obtained eight Armstrong 100-ton guns to arm a new breed of battleships - the Duilo Class. It was built along with Fort Cambridge on the Sliema side of the Grand Harbour  between 1878 to 1886. Another two 100-ton gun batteries were built in Gibraltar for the same purpose. From the four 100-ton guns only that at Fort Rinella and that at Napier of Magdala Battery in Gibraltar remain.

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Fort Rinella has undergone extensive restoration over the years. It offers the best possible window into the life of the Victorian garrison with a state of the art museum gallery dedicated to the history of the British Victorian Army - the Soldiers of the Queen exhibition. The fort retains all its original features - bent-entry, dry-ditch, caponiers, defensible barracks, engine room, loading chambers and magazines, lift-shafts and of course the Armstrong 100-ton gun! And now there is also a fully working Guthrie-bridge - the only one of its type in the world!