Firing a replica 18th century naval cannon - damage

[Louie da fly]

 

Seeing the splinters is pretty scary. No framing, though not sure how much that would change things - "Old Ironsides" was famous for framing so solid that balls were supposed to have bounced off the sides. But if the ball went through the space between two frames, it would presumably have the effect shown. Does anybody know the thickness of planking on a First Rate? Or even a fourth or fifth Rate? And can anybody estimate what weight ball that would be?

 

Steven

Edited October 23, 2021 by Louie da fly

[liteflight]

Good old Dan Snow!
 

The splinters were the main incapacitating factor, I believe.  They would happen whether the round shot hit on or between a frame, but it’s worth remembering that there wasn’t much “ between frames “ in a European line-of-battle ship

 

I visited HMS Trincomalee ( frigate) at Hartlepool and learned that yer matelot hated to serve in a teak- built ship as the splinters were certain, rather than likely, to cause sepsis.  Their Lords of the Admiralty, however liked the fact that teak is infused with insecticide and resists shipworm and rot.

 

conflicting interests!

 

But Trinco is still with us!

 

incidentally, I have manned a full-size ropewalk on the dock next to Trinco - a fascinating process, especially in the full, cable lengths.

 

andrew

[thibaultron]

The Wasa museum test fired a replica of one of her cannons, against a replica section of her hull. Basiclly a 25 pound cannon ball would go through Both sides of a ship. The only difference between the ball hitjng between frames or at a frame, was hitting a frame created vastly more splinters. Splinters kill and wounded more crew than the actual cannon ball.

[mtaylor]

There's a lot of videos out there on these firings.    All of them are eyeopening and I would hate to be on the receiving end of the gun.    I forget which group did it,  but they put dummies (mannequins not unwilling humans) on their test targets and amazing how much damage the splinters did.

[Malazan]

Imagine the HMS Victory giving you a full broadside at 25-35 meters, bad things are gonna happen😆

[JohnB40]

12 hours ago, liteflight said:

yer matelot hated to serve in a teak- built ship as the splinters were certain, rather than likely, to cause sepsis.

 

California's redwoods have a similar characteristic,even small splinters will cause inflammation within 24 hours.

Edited October 23, 2021 by JohnB40

[mgdawson]

17 hours ago, Louie da fly said:

And can anybody estimate what weight ball that would be?

From the 2 seconds at 4:30 showing the loader picking up the ball, it doesn't appear to be too heavy and comparing it to the gloved hand it could be around 4" or a bit bigger.

 

My chart of ball sizes has 9lb 4" diameter, 12lb 4.4", 18lb 5.04" & 24lb 5.55", I'm guessing it's possibly a 12 pounder.

 

 

[Louie da fly]

2 hours ago, mgdawson said:

I'm guessing it's possibly a 12 pounder.

 

I was thinking that, just by looking at the size of the gun itself. Too small to be an 18 pounder, but probably bigger than a 9-pounder. But I have to confess my abysmal iggerance on this subject.

 

Steven

[wefalck]

From the middle of the 19th century on many navies carried out systematic experiments with mock-ups of wooden and iron 'walls' and different types of guns and projectiles. I have an original French naval artillery yearbook that shows images of the effects and discusses them.

 

When in the mid 1850s rifling and ogival projectiles were introduced, this gave greater penetration power, but on the other hand, the projectiles went straight through wooden ships with causing less damage and less desired 'collateral' damage by splinters. Therefore, for a while ships carried both, old-style smoothbore muzzle-loaders and more modern rifled muzzle- and breech-loaders in order to have the right tools for the different jobs. The development of safe and reliable time-fuses in the 1860s for shells that could be fired from rifled guns solved that problem ...

Edited October 24, 2021 by wefalck

[thibaultron]

As an interesting, historical, note. During the battle between the USS Kearsarge and the CSS Alabama, off the French coast, one of the Alabama's explosive shells lodged in the Kearsarge's sternpost next to the rudder, but failed to explode. Had it done so the battle would have ended differently.