Lieste

While making no comment on gunnery practice, I note only that the recoil velocity of a gun firing single shot with maximum charge is *initially* less than 14ft per second (42lb gun of 65cwt, at 1463 fps, with a recoil augmented by windage losses and powder by around 40% - calculations according to the French "Aide Memoire d'Artillerie Navale"). This is immediately moderated by 'picking up' the carriage by a few ft/s (a reason that light carriages and heavy guns were preferred for naval use - the same momentum causes lower gun motion, and less stress on the carriage). Smaller bore guns are more heavily built, sometimes considerably so (6lb 8.5ft recoils at around 6 ft/s under the same loading condition). Friction, both of the trucks and of the tackle running out can stop a heavily built light gun before it is fully brought inboard, and takes out some of the 'oomph' from even the lighter built large calibre guns. The breeching is more to assist with the final limitation of recoil length, and to aid firing to windward (when the deck is 'downhill') than a 'first recourse' for recoil moderation... (0.1 is a quoted value for friction forces for 'outhauling' and is likely to be slightly higher when running tackle. With the exception of carronades, which are a little 'fiercer' and have a short recoil length on their slides. With the later pattern carronades of longer bore (7.5 cal) type, the recoil is likely to initially be 20fps. with a heavier carriage (but only a small part of that acting in recoil), and a shorter travel, albeit with a sliding rather than rolling friction. The length of recoil is limited, and is less than that needed for almost all carriage guns. Double breeching was called for in gunnery manuals, for carronades (the breeching and a preventer), and carronades were still noted as disabling themselves by breaking carriages or breechings rather more often than guns. Reduced charges for medium guns were more about keeping recoils 'acceptable' than the strength of the gun metal, as were prohibitions or restrictions on using double shot.

More, the English 8" carronades (not shell guns) fired a 7.92/7.925" shot of 68lb nominal weight, or a 56 lb hollow shot (boulet creux in the French style). (A 56lb shot could be referred, but I don't know how common this lighter shot was this early, it taking considerably more processes to accurately form a hollow shot). The (later) shell guns fired only the hollow shot or one of several designs of shell/bombe/shrapnel, while the coastal guns fired both hollow and solid shot, but ranged further with the heavier ball. The 64lb gun was a RML rather than a smoothbore either as a new construction or a conversion of an 8" shell gun, by reaming out and fitting a steel liner of 6.25" internal diameter into which the rifling was engraved. This bore is the same as the 32lb carronade, for a significantly higher sectional density.

There are two ways a mast is adjusted, position and rake. A 4" position shift may have limited impact on the trim of the vessel, but it could make the difference between griping or of missing stays or tacking well if right on the margins of 'good' balance. If you move more than 1 mast by these small amounts, then the effect of couple and moment can be enhanced between the masts, and between the masts and the hull. A 4" change in the rake of the mast between keelson and partners (over say 24') could result in a change in the position of the truck of the mast by nearly 30" in middling ships. (A steeper rake, but less movement per degree of rake for smaller vessels). Raking the foremast forward increases it's lever, as does raking the mizzen aft. IMO a rake has a greater impact than a shift, but the resulting moment changes more with sail pattern than with less raked, but shifted masting. Shifts at the partners are also seen, both as shifts of the mast and the rake of the rig.

Don't forget the widespread use of false flags (e.g French/Dutch used as a means of delaying, confusing or avoiding interception and attack. or to bypass blockades of ports etc). This was a near universal done sparingly both by warships trying to close on an easy sailing 'prey' and by a slower, weaker merchant trying to avoid trouble. Though not performed at *every* meeting on the seas, and it had some limited utility as vessels had distinctive hull form and rigging details which would betray their true origin (though not *necessarily* current use), when closely observed by a knowledgable officer or crew, but the benefit of starting a pursuit at gun shot, rather than from 4 miles or more is obvious, as is the possibility to slip through a blockade on papers and a flag of convenience .

Looking again at the discussion of the elevation screw, I think too attention is being placed on the screw itself, which is a strong forged piece. The original fitting was into a screw thread cut into the cast iron of the gun/carronade. This relatively soft/brittle material would degrade and/or fail particularly if the gun was abused (double charges, from loading mishap, or double shot, even with the appropriate reduced charges), the use of a quoin could either delay this failure (IMO less likely, as the space is cramped), or keep the gun in action after the thread stripped/casting broke away (IMO more likely as the elevation screw would be missing post failure, freeing up space for the quoin to adjust for elevation by being inserted/withdrawn). A later change was a larger casting, drilled and a brass fitting inserted to take the 'female' screw thread. The 'Quoin patch' was seen on many intermediate date jointed carronades, but not all of the earliest ones, nor all of the latest ones, and was the location for the foundry data for carronades so fitted.

When not set, the upper (topsail and t'gallant) yards are lowered to just above the head of the mast cap of the section below. This relatively frequent movement is aided by the 'fancy rollers'. The lower yards are kept clear of the working deck with the courses merely clewed up or furled when not set. If you are not lowering them frequently, then simple rope loops are simpler, cheaper, lighter and sufficient to 'back-up' the other elements of rigging (the rigging could be adjusted to allow a damaged yard to be exchanged or repaired on deck, and then swayed back up if needed, but normal operation didn't adjust the height of these particular parts of the sparring).

Taking one measurement off Boudriot 74 Gun. Fore yard & Lower Studding boom half width: 1:72 95.5mm OA, 36mm Extension of Studding Boom beyond yard end , 59mm Length of Studding boom. So the boom is roughly the same as the yard's semi-length, and when fitted but stowed, the butt end is seen 'at' the sling for the yard. (Note both the Yard Arm and the Arm of the Studding boom are extended beyond where the canvas is flown, and the Studding sail is carried in all the way to the edge of the course, but falls short by a similar amount from it's own boom end).

According to Boudriot among others, the French carriage was breeched through the cheeks about midway back, the gun was only secured by a preventer. The British used a Breeching afixed to the Cascable, using either a spliced loop, or a thimble above the neck. According to your source the early thimble was a separate part resting on the top of the neck, and the later thimble was cast into the gun (or indeed carronade). This cast thimble was easier to use with a wide traverse angle without placing undue imbalanced stress on the breeching, especially compared to the c#nt splice.

For working pumps in action. IMO Working pumps on exposed weather decks is very probably costly when enemies have a definite preference for musquetry and grenades, and grape or case firing espignoles, perriers and obusiers/carronades. Taking men from the gun crew according to their station bill for 'pumping and fire fighting' is normal, with upper deck likely to be called on for fire-fighting most often, using pressurised hoses, while those on lower and middle deck (where present) are more likely to be called on to reduce or control flooding - with water rising in the well by six feet or more despite pumping in some cases recorded. As the 'fighting' crews are assigned to and stationed on their respective decks, it makes sense to work middle and lower deck bilge pumps using crews on their 'proper' places, rather than permitting crew to leave their assigned deck under fire (too much risk that they will abandon the guns and lose the ship if the companionways are not well guarded). When operating out of action, the same assignment to stations on the two decks allows more men to be assigned from a wider section of men 'in their proper stations' again. If you *only* worked lower deck pumps, you would lose *all* of your most powerful guns (as the work crews from this need would exhaust the single deck), while retaining full effect of a middling sort of gun... but with a split set of pumps you can continue to fight both decks with near full effectiveness (if fighting to one side only).

As with most other contexts of firing practice I believe that the standard is 3 shots *in* five minutes, from loaded and pointed to an unloaded state. (i.e. discharge to discharge) That is a rate of fire sustained of around 2.5 minutes between rounds, which gives the number of shots alluded to in the Vade Mecum for the first 20-25 minutes, before heating forces the rate of fire to drop to one in 5 minutes for the next hour. (roughly - 10 rounds in the first period, 20 rounds in the first 90 minutes). Musketry also starts the infantry platoon exercises with a loaded musket, and standards require 3 shots in the minute, rather than a rate of fire of 3 rounds per minute sustained or from an empty gun. Pistol shot, according to the footnote by Admiral Lord Rodney in "Essay on Naval Tactics" by John Clerk is 400yds, so 'half pistol shot' is 200 yds - though falling on board indicates that manoeuvring took out that range from time to time. Different conditions of the gun will result in different point blank (levelled) ranges - barely sufficient to reach to 200yds with carronades or double shot from guns, but ample to range past that with single shot and standard or distance charges. The line of metal range (1 degree elevation for guns, 3 degrees for carronades) is going to be throwing shot rather high this close, suited to firing single shot to 600-700 yds. Working between these ranges is awkward for pointing consistently, especially if ranges are changing rapidly during a manoeuvring battle. Carronades pointed by their metal have a tendency to range high/long rather than falling short for most close engagement, with much of their firing taking place in rigging unless aimed very low on the target hull, below the water. Dispart sights had been added to carronades in RN use from 1780, but their use and practice seems to not always have been actively trained by the paucity of information on carronade sights in action before Broke and others popularised gunlocks and dispart sights on their long guns as well.

For the inhaul tackle, for bringing a gun inboard without firing (either because it is unloaded, or because it has suffered a misfired/been doused).

With the much higher recoil energy of a 32lb gun, I seriously doubt the correctness of a mocked up carriage and gun with '24 lb' trunnions and carriage to be representative of her wartime fit. Also the proportion of the carriage look wrong, the fore axeltree is too narrow - contemporary diagrams of carriages show a different config for fore and hind axletrees, with the cutout for the cheeks in the fore-tree being closer together, but the width overall is extremely close if not identical and there is a noticeably wide "set" of the trucks 'out' from the cheeks. If nothing else, they shouldn't be the same carriage to allow for the additional breadth of the breechring and to allow normal room for working of the handspikes to deal with the higher weight on the quoin from the same 1/20th preponderance of a heavier gun. You can 'stick' a gun, real or reproduction onto a mocked up carriage, but that doesn't make it a properly sized mock up or a safe and usable combination. "very few of Victory's original guns remain, most being 'reproductions' of wood and fibreglass".

According to "Aide Memoire d'Artillerie Navale", the momentum of recoil is somewhat higher than the momentum of the shot. I'm (in the current version of the calculation - subject to error correction if I find that I have implemented the windage correction improperly) seeing a velocity for the C18th/C19th 32lb gun of 87% of the 'zero windage' case for half way between high and low guage, with recoil at zero windage 37% higher than the momentum of shot and wad. With the windage present, the total recoil is lower, but is 47% higher than the momentum of shot and wad. That said, with gun weights for the later era's naval artillery from 170 (32lb) to 380 (longest 6lb) per lb of shot&wad - plus a carriage which is *at least* 25% of the gun's weight, there isn't going to be a lot of rapid movement of any gun - with some of the heaviest ones nearly brought to a standstill by an 0.1 coefficient of friction at the point the muzzle reaches the pre-firing trunnion position. Particularly with lee-side guns, and more modest velocity and higher windages the use of breechings to *limit* recoil may be entirely optional with the longer, more heavily built pieces firing relatively light shot. On the windward, with relatively shorter guns firing heavier shot, with double shot etc (the 32lb 9.5ft gun is 'shorter' than a 6lb 8.5ft gun by nearly 10 calibres, and the metal is thicker in proportion 44/32 to 34/32 for the 6lb too), the use of breechings may be mandatory... This isn't a one size fits all proposition IMO.

The area of the hold immediately inboard of the inner planking near the waterline was provided with a 'carpenter's walk' to give access to the carpenter and his assistants to stop up shot holes. Not sure whether the Victory's hold is low enough that access on the Orlop alone is needed, but the presence of a carpenter's walk on Frigates is definitely confirmed... and it appears from context and image that this is a carpenter's walk in Victory's hold today, though it may be a later modification: https://andyandjudi.com/2017/07/10/hms-victory-portsmouth-historic-naval-dockyard/37portsmouth-hms-victory-lower-hold-keel-ballast-and-stores/

Is that for 24lb? To fit around the 5.82" trunnion (assumed same as bore, as this is normally what is quoted). The 32lb should thus be suited to house a 6.41" trunnion. (12lb 4.62") The thickness of cheeks is also described as one bore.

The 24lb Vasa cannon (a light piece, half the weight of the gun of the period, or of Napoleonic era pieces) was tested at 360m/s using powder 'suitable in quantity and quality' for artillery of the early C17th) For late age of sail period gunnery and the 32lb gun of 55cwt: Distant charge gives approximately 1489 fps or 454m/s (according to available numbers for dimensions, plus the estimated internal ballistics from "Aide Memoire d'Artillerie Navale"), this is sufficient to drive the ordnance alone backwards at 3.83m/s (using the augmented recoil according to AMAN), which is immediately moderated by an impulsive transfer to the carriage to 3m/s, with 4.46kJ absorbed from the original 20.68 kJ, leaving 16.22 kJ to be absorbed by friction and breeching. I neglected side tackle, but can consider what they might provide in a follow up calculation, but did allow for the 0.1 mu at the trucks, which might already factor in some part of that requirement - and assumed that the muzzle after recoil would be brought to the position of the trunnion when run out. With the friction alone recoil at the 'stop' still had 5kJ to absorb into the breeching, with a 'free recoil' length of 15.7 ft if not restrained. (or 3.5 times the recoil distance selected). Reduced charges give lower recoil with single shots, but double shot with the middling charge is significantly sharper. ~1000 fps for top shot, and ~800 for the second (though admittedly this should be considered a much more tentative estimate) with this giving a 4.43 m/s initial recoil of the bare gun, 3.47m/s after taking up the carriage - with 6kJ nearly being lost from an initial 27.66kJ - recoil energy remaining at the selected recoil distance increases to 6.68kJ and free recoil to 20ft. Smaller bore guns are much heavier, for their shot and the longer, heavier small bore guns (e.g. the 8.5ft 6lb will only free recoil around 3 ft with the same assumptions, compared to 4.3ft for the lighter, shorter 6ft gun). Carronades are significantly sharper than guns in recoil, despite their lower performance.

I am going to offer an alternative risk, that of the gun in loading condition has a casualty from the heated bore setting off the powder charge, during loading or after the shot is rammed. The worm and sponge are supposed to pull and extinguish any embers from the wad or cartridge, but they can't do much against the heating of the gun over time. The Vade Mecum suggests that the first 20 rounds can be fired in just under an hour, but the prolonged engagement cannot safely exceed 5 minutes between rounds (12 rounds per hour). In the run out position, the gun recoils, losing some energy to a coefficient of friction of ~ 0.1 between trucks and deck/axles - In the loading position and with a single breeching, the slack is already taken up, so the entire ~15kN of recoil energy (55cwt 32lb) is delivered immediately and impulsively to the breeching rope/side *before* any movement happens - this could risk the eyebolt pulling, or a rope failing, especially if any damage has been done to it (by age and neglect) or by injury within the action. A second preventer breeching would reduce the risk of a damaging recoil from the loading position (halves the expected average loading - but in practice may only act as a backup once the one which is carrying the bulk of the initial load fails - but after some momentum is taken out of the recoil. Even without this risk, shot damage to the side could easily pull a breeching ring or cut a breeching rope - a second rigged might just permit the gun to continue in action until such time as it can be repaired, or further damage causes a dismounting of the piece. Both firing rapidly and often, and taking damage from enemy shot are expected on going into fleet action, so either or both of these could be the reason. Carronades and shell guns are especially called out as 'never to be fired double' unless a preventer breeching rope was mounted, so this makes me think that recoil sharpness is the factor - Carronades recoil at very nearly the 'full' gun of their own calibre's energy already, and are checked in a shorter distance,and slide, elevation screw and breeching casualties seem to have been common enough for this warning against doubling the shot to be repeated.

You have side tackle mounted to the frames forward and aft of the port, in conjuction with handspikes (the pieces of wood seen in your photo), the crew would haul and shift one side of the carriage closer to the block on the frame, with the breastpiece of the carriage riding on the portsill. The range of traverse is limited (by the width of the port, the breadth of the muzzle and the thickness of the hull at the port). It should be at least a couple of points fore and aft for most properly sized ports, though the work of traversing is much harder than of pointing for range or merely running the gun out, so 'tracking' a moving target is impractical especially if your own vessel is manoeuvring. Firing as she bears is most practical for rapidly changing conditions, but fine pointing could be attempted if the fire was 'deliberate' as in a chase, and if the relative motion was slight, also seen in the chase. (Note 'guncrews' were specified for a pair of guns on larboard and starboard - both could be manned using the designated crew, or the crew could be doubled to ease fatigue over a long engagement if fighting only one side. Various ship-board tasks were assigned to specific members of each gun-crew (boarders, firefighters, pump-men, sail handlers etc), so at various evolutions the gun crews would be reduced as these work crews were formed and then be released if their task was completed. This, rather than the need for 'as many men' is the main reason that fighting both sides was impractical - much of the gun crew would spend at least part of each engagement actively tasked elsewhere once the manoeuvring close in began and damage began to accrue.

The Robbins formulae are a little simplistic**, don't account (except by a 'guessed' parameter) for windage and were reputed to overestimate both the effect of changing charges and increasing barrel length more than matched with observed values. Plus when I attempted to replicate worked examples I didn't get the same results, so something appears to have been confused in the setting/printing of the method. I didn't follow up on getting agreement as contemporary discussion indicated they had limited accuracy off the narrow band of parameters they were tuned to suit. The 'form' used in either Aide Memoire d'Artillerie Navale or Ingalls' text which reproduces the work of Abel and Nobel give a more generally usable form (though both assume a later period more powerful black powder, not necessarily appropriate for earlier guns, and neglect discussion of an appropriate correction for old/damaged powder or weaker mixtures). The French document provides a useful estimate for both shot velocity lost to windage, and also an adjustment to recoil from these windage losses. This adjustment is usefully computationally derived, so the variation in shot performance with defect in size and weight across the full range of the permitted shot gauge for any selected weapon is possible. **To be fair to him he was one of the first to be looking at ballistics from a solidly empirical manner, with experimental results described and explained by a series of Axioms. He didn't have any prior catalogue of experimental results and limited equipment and funding to explore this over a wide range of scales, something which government ordnance boards did have available during the middle part of the C19th, although by then black powder was a 'comparison' powder to the newer smokeless powders being introduced, as were smoothbore roundshot in comparison to rifled elongated shot and shell. Black powder and roundshot tend to get the briefer discussion in the later papers, but they are reported as baselines, and useful information can be found from them (Bashforth is another with useful data, using his Chronograph - mostly for rifled ammunition, but there is some round shot from smoothbores as a baseline for comparison).

While a 32lb carronade is only using 1/4 of the powder charge of the 'distant' charge of the 32lb gun, it is also considerably lighter. A consequence of this is that recoil velocity is higher than for the gun, and the recoil distance available/required is less. Recoil energy for the 17.25cwt carronade is a *bit* lower than the maximum for the gun, but is similar to that of the 'middling' charge of the 55cwt gun. All this combines to give a much 'sharper' check on the breeching, elevation screw and carriage than the large guns. Compared to the small calibre guns, which have much more metal per pound of shot/powder this 'same calibre' difference is even more marked. A 32lb carronade will have around 4 times the recoil energy of a 9lb gun, and will be absorbing it over a shorter distance. (While a carronade is 'pushing' material limits (and later got a brass bushing in the breech to avoid failure of the threads), and it wasn't generally permitted to double shot them for regular use to save the breechings, fittings on the hull framing, and the carriage, the guns had a lot more leeway for using double shot with it's higher recoil - similar recoil is seen with a double shot and half charges, and distant charge and single shot, and middling charge and double shot is only around a third more.

The maximum range would be found at ~35-42 degrees depending on initial velocity and shot density. However, even with the beds and quoin removed, the carriage won't permit more than ~16 degrees (and this is in practice limited, by portsills to ~9-11 degrees). Earlier guns and their carriages were limited more (the Vasa cannon was capable of being elevated to 3.5 degrees according to notes from the recent test programme), and with some the quoin and beds present later carriages have a lower useful (and controllable) range of elevation as well (probably more than 5 degrees, but I'd have to do some additional calculations to get a figure for this for an example gun to confirm it). But-en-blank/line of metal - i.e. the line of direct pointing will give different ranges according to the (fixed) shape of the gun, the powder charge and windage, and the number and weight of shot. A single shotted 32lb gun pointing at a nominal 2/3 degree might reach 425yds to the muzzle height, and 540 to the water, from a lower battery, with the middling charge, 370yds to muzzle hgt, 485 to the water, with the small charge, 285yds to muzzle hgt, 395yds to the water. Double shot is harder to estimate, but a reasonable guess for the small charge would set the faster shot reaching to 140 yds to muzzle hgt (95 yds for the slow shot) and 245 yds for the fast shot (185 yds slow) to the water. It would be normal to engage at close ranges with reduced charges or even using double shot, and only to drive shot with large charges for distant work Carronades, firing a large shot, with lower velocity, but at a 'steeper' line of metal have similar distances of direct pointing to that of the long gun with distant charge, but have similar velocity, trajectory and penetration performance to the 'top' shot of a reduced charge double shot. This 'high' trajectory tends to make untrained carronade gunners fire rather high over closer distances, and to fall shorter than a similarly pointed gun much sooner at longer distances, but the absolute range of guns and carronades is not as dissimilar as many writers declaim (16 degrees from a carronade of 32lb would reach to 2390 yds, while the distant charge of the 9.5ft gun would require 8 degrees to drive a shot to the same range.