Interesting video. I was surprised with how insignificant the cannon recoil is. Cannon is a working copy I believe.
I don't think its firing anything like a full charge,
way back in the 90s, there was a cival war reinactment group that had a cannon, and they liked to do alot of cannon shoots. Doing public displays for "education" was the only way they could actually find a place to fire said cannon.
Moral of that story is, they only used 1 pound charges in tinfoil to make a boom. And that field gun had about the same amount of recoil as that mystery gun..
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Such minimal recoil, or even no recoil at all, is quite typical in reenactment shootings (and indeed in less realistic, i.e. typical feature films as well) — the quite obvious result of a weak charge coupled with the lack of a projectile (third dynamic principle). There is simply no bullet resistance to the gases of the ignited gunpowder charge. Incidentally, this is why light barrels relative to their calibre (or more precisely — the mass of their projectile) had such violent recoil, and this even with a small powder charge. To put it another way, if the ratio of the weight of the cannon and the projectile were reversed, then the (unfixed) cannon would fly backwards and the projectile would stay in place, or almost
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There is a video on Youtube of a replica cannon from the Wasa being fired. This was made by the Swedish armamants company, Bofors. The recoil is substantial, and the damage the ball causes to a solid oak target is very impressive.
Ratty
Ratty
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This is a very good example. The recoil of this Swedish 24-pounder demi-cannon is indeed quite violent, as it is actually a light gun of the type in vogue at the time, in the same category as the drakes on Sovereign of the Seas 1637 and many other ships in all fleets, and quite adequate for the boarding tactics of the day (somewhat simplifying — one artillery salvo and hurrray!). By the time gunnery tactics were adopted (in the First Anglo-Dutch War 1652–1654), such light guns had already had to be replaced by normal heavy guns capable of withstanding the stresses of prolonged firing (especially in terms of overheating, double shotted firing, possible mishandling, etc., all of which could cause the gun to burst, the lighter the easier), not to mention the hull structure itself.
Anyway, below is a paper by Fred Hocker discussing the effects of this experiment (taken from the public domain).
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The recoil increases as the gun gets hot. 5-10 rounds in, the gun will actually jump back, and field pieces will come off the ground. I think this is because the powder burns more efficiently and completely once the tube's hot. I've seen after firing just blanks at Civil War reenactments; and even Pride of Baltimore's 6pdr pop-guns got quite vicious after a few rounds at Yorktown in '81. That's why you NEVER use water-proof fuse to fire guns and always swab between rounds.
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Thanks for posting this Waldemar;
A very interesting read.
Ratty
A very interesting read.
Ratty
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It was precisely such projectiles, with double the weight, that were ‘banned’ for lightweight guns sporting a thin barrel wall, such as this light demi-cannon from Wasa 1628. Add to this a large powder charge and you have a ready recipe for a so-called catastrophic event. This is also one of the reasons why they eventually reverted to heavy guns after the switch to artillery tactics in the middle of the 17 century.
By the way, the bar shot was not used in the Swedish fleet of the time, in a way its equivalent was the spike shot obviously with a single ball weight, or so. Later, the bar shot was indeed introduced, but it was not two balls, but rather two short cylinders (and still considerably rounded, i.e. similar to an ellipse seen from the side) connected by a rod, so as not to excessively increase the overall weight of the projectile.
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ive always liked bar shot for some reason. I never understood why fortifications used heated round shot instead of bar shot wrapped in something that liked to burn well...
It was precisely such projectiles, with double the weight, that were ‘banned’ for lightweight guns sporting a thin barrel wall, such as this light demi-cannon from Wasa 1628. Add to this a large powder charge and you have a ready recipe for a so-called catastrophic event. This is also one of the reasons why they eventually reverted to heavy guns after the switch to artillery tactics in the middle of the 17 century.
By the way, the bar shot was not used in the Swedish fleet of the time, in a way its equivalent was the spike shot obviously with a single ball weight, or so. Later, the bar shot was indeed introduced, but it was not two balls, but rather two short cylinders (and still considerably rounded, i.e. similar to an ellipse seen from the side) connected by a rod, so as not to excessively increase the overall weight of the projectile.
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But we have to remember, the hull section that was fired upon, in these two videos would best represent the Hayling Hoy kit, or cutter Alert. Not a warship
I guess heating the ball was an incomparably simpler and cheaper way of getting a potentially much better effect against a wooden structure, like a ship. All it took was for the ball to get stuck in the hull and it was not at all easy for the crew to cool down such a red-hot incendiary, if found at all. In contrast, the inherently light specialised incendiary projectiles, quite expensive and requiring specialised knowledge to produce, and dedicated guns to use them as well (like cannon-periers or howitzers), could simply bounce off the ship's side and fall harmlessly into the water. This is admittedly a bit of a simplification, but it probably illustrates the problems related to this issue quite well.
I don't recall the source, but I do remember reading that at UK's naval victory at the Battle of Jutland in 1916, only one projectile out of a thousand hit its target. Still that was enough to keep the German navy stuck in port throughout the war (again, as memory serves). The images from Master and Commander don't tell the real story of naval cannon accuracy more than two centuries ago.
define hit versus effective hit? there is no way to discerne the difference in these categories.
Do you mean a hit that simply hits the opposing ship, and simply blows a section of deck railing out, or blowing off the figure head. Or do you mean one that takes out the mast?
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It is fair to say that, in the 16th and 17th centuries, effective artillery fire at sea was limited to the range of musket shot, or point blank if you prefer, say up to 150–175 metres, precisely because of poor accuracy. Shooting further than that was actually a waste of ammunition and made such overzealous artillerymen a laughing stock. Later, things diversified somewhat, but still the more determined commanders, in order to achieve decisive results, were forced to shorten the range as much as possible.
I spent a week on a static training ship from Nelson's era - HMS Foudroyant - in 1962. She was actually HMS Trincomalee when in service with Nelson, but was renamed when the original Foudroyant was scrapped. I leaned over the bulwark to watch the water boat coming alongside to fill the ship's tanks. The water boat (like a small tug) had a huge spherical rope fender (to avoid damage to the old ship?). I was more than a little shocked when the spherical fender buried itself in the ship's planking a few feet above the waterline!! The ship was apparently built in India, of Indian teak, in about 1758.
I heard no more about it, but those were the days before elfin-safety of course.
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Is that the same Trincomalee that is in Hartlepool? When you go below it is (was) full of large guns. Shame that they’re fibreglass.
Being on the gun deck, full of guns, makes you realise just how crowded the space must have been in action, and how a single shot penetrating the hull would be deadly thanks to the flying splinters.
J
the ship in hartlepool is supposedly the trincomalee built in india in 1817... so fun.