Gun positions and their associated tackle

[DaveBaxt]

It is my intention to show my model with the guns run out.According to Brian Laveries book the 'The Arming and Fitting of English ships of War 1600 to 1815) the breeching rope should be 51/2" in circumference and the tackle 2" for an 18lb gun in the late 1700s ( 38 gun frigate) He also shows diagrams with both breaching rope and both tackles attached and all 3 are slack. I am assuming this would be for show purposes only. I see many modellers prefer this situation but leave the setup without the training tackle. I am assuming the training tackle would only be used during battle  and once  the cannon is stowed away, would be removed. Livery also shows this when the cannon is stowed with the cannon barrel up against the side of the ship just above the gun port and both breaching rope and tackle would be taught.I am therefore wondering what people's thoughts are on the above and what are the merits of which way to show of their models with or without training tackle and size of ropes etc. I calculate this to be 0.7mm diameter for the breeching and 0.2 mm diameter for the other tackle.This seems a bit on  the small size for the breeching at a scale of 1/64 I apologise in advance as I am sure this has been discussed many times before

Edited March 23 by DaveBaxt

[AJohnson]

Hi Dave, I’m also doing gun carriage rigging on my Trial and found this thread very helpful.

 I am going to show one half of my build with cannons stowed and one ready for firing with crew. 

Edited September 21 by AJohnson

[DaveBaxt]

48 minutes ago, AJohnson said:

Hi Dave, I’m also door gun carriage rigging on my Trial and found this thread very helpful.

 I am going to show one half of my build with cannons stowed and one ready for firing with crew. 

Cheers For the excellent link. I have had a quick look and think it's just what I need. I liked the bit about swinging the cannon and would need careful positioning of the eyebolts . This is different to what I initially thought and what is depicted in AOTS Diana.I will give it another study later as I need to go out but thanks again for your quick response. I can always rely on you to help me out. I also need to get some confirmation of the size of ropes as I am thinking of ordering some from ' Ropes of Scale' Think I am right and the size depicted in both Lees and Lavery are similar, but given as circumference rather than diameter but just need confirmation. I need to have another look at your build again and see which we you have decided to show off your cannon.Best regards Dave

 

[allanyed]

The breech rope is sometimes too short on the models we see.  There is scarce information on this but Caruana gives a little.   For a 9 foot 18 pounder for example the breech rope was gun was 27 feet long (5 inches at 1:64).  This is also consistent with the figure of 3 X length of bore that Dr. Phil wrote in AJohnson's topic above.  Interestingly, the breech rope, while made of the best available hemp would stretch as much as 15% after only a short period.  The gun tackle was 6 times the length of the bore and from 2" to 3" circumference depending on the caliber.  The chart below for breech rope may be helpful.  It is from Adrian Caruana's, The History of English Sea Ordnance Volume II page 385

Allan

Edited March 23 by allanyed

[DaveBaxt]

Thank you again Allan your input is always welcome . The chart is of great help and which makes the breeching fope slightly larger than Lavery but the same sizes as quoted in Lees book for 5th and 6th rated ships. I just wonder at 1/64 scale would the difference of 1/2" make any difference but then again may as well get it spot on.

        I have two Cannon for the 18Lb one which was supplied by Caldercraft and the other Bloomfield supplied by Vanguard models. The Bloomfield being the smaller bore. Unfortunately measuring the bore would probably not be very accurate, so where could I find the Calibar of the gun to work out the circumference/ diameter of the rope. 

[allanyed]

17 hours ago, DaveBaxt said:

I just wonder at 1/64 scale would the difference of 1/2" make any difference but then again may as well get it spot on.

Dave,

I doubt anyone will notice, but as a rule, many builders feel it is better to err by being a little too small rather than too large.  1/2" is about 0.2mm and the human eye can see the difference of about 0.1mm (if next to each other)

 

17 hours ago, DaveBaxt said:

Unfortunately measuring the bore would probably not be very accurate, so where could I find the Calibar of the gun to work out the circumference/ diameter of the rope. 

Diameter/Caliber - I believe the Artois class carried 18 pounders and 9 pounders so the bore diameters would be about 5.25" and 4.25"  The chart on the following site might be a little help for diameter of the shot.  It shows shot diameter and bore diameter.  https://www.arc.id.au/Cannonballs.html

Length of the bore - For argument sake maybe go from the touch hole to the muzzle.  At 1:64 it will be really close.  What I did not find is whether the length of the breech rope is from the bulkhead ring to bulkhead ring or does that include the loop of rope through those two rings and the ends that are seized.  

 

There is also the following chart, but I forget where it came from or the era.  It might be from Simmons' Vade Mecum which came out in 1812.  There is a second chart below that I put together a while back but it only gives barrel lengths at various scales.   If you do not have Excel I can send as a PDF.

  Length chart.xlsx

 

 

Edited March 24 by allanyed

[DaveBaxt]

Thank you Allan for those charts and information. Your diameters of breeching rope for the 18lb and 9lb Cannnon also tie in with lees book 'The Masting and rigging of English ships of war' So good to know I am on the right track Its a tricky one regarding the length of the breeching  rope as to whether or not just its just from ring ro ring or the total length. I have also read somewhere, (probably Laverys book) that the breeching rope is normally 3 x the length of the carriage and if there is any difference to  your attached chart would be interesting and if this is the total length of rope or not. I also wonder as I am using Bloomfield cannon and does not need to be wrapped around the cascable would this also make a difference.  According to Laverys book, all cannon are tested and would not be allowed to recoil enough, so that the cannon could touch the hatch coamings unaided but does not allow for stretching over time . Perhaps they would need to be adjusted from time to time.( My thoughts) All interesting stuff  !                      Allan thank you again for your help. Best regards Dave

Edited March 24 by DaveBaxt

[DaveBaxt]

Allan thank you again for the above fore mentioned  rope sizes. I am currently combining a list of different size ropes which I will need in the near future and require them to be ordered, thanks to you I am almost there. When ordering Breeching rope for Cannonade the dificulty is whe using bore of caliber . I am not sure if when firing the Cannonade whether of not the recoil would be less or more as the canonade is lighter but the shiot is heavier. I would like to know your thoughts or any one elses thoughts for that matter . Also Allan if I could ask you another favour, perhaps you know of another chart listing the size of breeching ropes. I am assuming the tackle would be similar to a normal 32lb cannon but I could be wrong.

         i must thank you again Allan for your time and patience.Best regards Dave

[allanyed]

Hi Dave,

If you referring to the Carronade from Caron and other private foundries I just  read a good bit of the chapter in Volume 2 of The History of English Sea Ordnance on these guns and can find no charts discussing the breeching rope sizes.  Sorry😕    There are a number of drawings that might be useful though.  The problem is that most of the drawings, while contemporary, the caliber is not given so the size of the gun and the bore are unknown.  A few do show the bore and the rope but I have no idea how accurate they are.    The bore to rope diameter ratio is from about  4.4  to 2  in diameter  to 3 to 1.   The length appears to be sufficient to allow the slide come inboard such that the muzzle is about a foot inboard of the bulkhead.

 

As to recoil, there were a lot of broken carriages in the early days and the slides were fiddled with, first to make them with less friction (defeating the purpose) and then going back to more friction, but not enough to cause wreckage on the recoil.  The carriage itself of course did not move, just the barrel on the slide.

 

There is an interesting section that describes non-recoil carriages which to me is a misnomer as the slides were inclined and the gun and slide rose up and inboard when fired.

 

Wish I had more info for you.

 

Allan

[Thukydides]

See below for an excerpt from ADM 160/150. The dating on this is hard as there are not dates on every page, but seems to be around 1794. I forgot to copy the headings over but they are the same as the next picture I will show.

There is also this table which occurs right after a table of carronade sizes:

The problem is that the size of the ropes doesn't seem to necessarily vary with the size of the gun. For example in a table in the same document a 28 gun ship is listed as having 24 9-pdrs and 6 4pdrs, but it is listed as only having one size of breaching rope. They are also listed in another table in the same document as carrying 4 24-pdr carronades, but the only breeching rope size listed is the same as for the 24 gun ships which carried 18-pdr carronades.

 

To confuse matters more the 44 gun ship appears to have exactly the number of the smallest size of breeching rope for the 6 6pdr guns it would have carried, but none of this size is used on any of the other ships that carried them other than the cutters.

 

I am wondering if possibly they tried to carry as few sizes of breeching ropes as possible and so they just used oversized ones on their smaller guns in some cases to simplify the supply chain for the ship.

Edited March 25 by Thukydides

[allanyed]

Great stuff Daniel!  Can you share the source of these pages?  Thank you

Allan

[Thukydides]

16 minutes ago, allanyed said:

Great stuff Daniel!  Can you share the source of these pages?  Thank you

Allan

They are from ADM 160/150 (https://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/details/r/C2980865), a book of lists of proportions for ordnance, I have photos of most of the book. It has all sorts of lists regarding powder etc.. Most of it seems to be dated 1794, though there are a few loose pages dated 1781 and a few from early 1800s. I am working on transcribing some of it, but there is a lot to go through and so my work has focused on stuff that I immediately want answers to.

 

One thought I did have, if I have the time is to look at the charge sizes for carronades vs guns. The size of the charge is what would determine the force since they were firing essentially the same size of cannon ball. That might give some indication of the relative size of the breeching rope.

Edited March 25 by Thukydides

[allanyed]

Caruana also gives charge sizes for carronades IF I remember correctly.  I'll do some digging and post if it is there.

Allan

 

[DaveBaxt]

This is turning out to be a very indepth and interesting discussion and although I am having  difficulty understanding the tables( probably due to the writing and mpoor eye sight) I however thank you greatly for posting them and for your time and patience in helping me.Due to yet not being able to determine the exact dimenions of the breeching ropes for cannonades and, interestingly I see on Allans supplied 'Instruction of gunnery'  table it states on the bottom of the table ' That the length of the cable is left to the the discression of the gunner. It will be interesting where this discussion leads and I have some time before I will need to make the choice but have orderd up rope for 32lb guns and compair this with the 18lb guns and see what the differnce looks like at a scale of 1:64. 

           Thank you all for the input on this thread and I am looking forwaed to see how far it goes and if it is ever actually resolved or infact what other people have done with their cannonade breeching ropes.

 

 

[DaveBaxt]

14 hours ago, Thukydides said:

They are from ADM 160/150 (https://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/details/r/C2980865), a book of lists of proportions for ordnance, I have photos of most of the book. It has all sorts of lists regarding powder etc.. Most of it seems to be dated 1794, though there are a few loose pages dated 1781 and a few from early 1800s. I am working on transcribing some of it, but there is a lot to go through and so my work has focused on stuff that I immediately want answers to.

 

One thought I did have, if I have the time is to look at the charge sizes for carronades vs guns. The size of the charge is what would determine the force since they were firing essentially the same size of cannon ball. That might give some indication of the relative size of the breeching rope.

     

           Thank you for your thoughts which are much appreciated. I take my hat off to you sir for your thirst for knowledge and look forward to hearing if you come up with anything that might give a better indications . Best regards Dave

Edited March 26 by DaveBaxt

[Thukydides]

2 hours ago, DaveBaxt said:

although I am having  difficulty understanding the tables( probably due to the writing and mpoor eye sight)

For your purposes both tables say a 38 gun frigate carries 42 5.5 in cir breeching and 15 4.5 in cir. The second table states they have a length of 30 and 23 ft respectively. Obviously they would have needed spares, but it would be odd if the carronades were not included in this. I will take a closer look through all the tables and report back if I find any further details.

[allanyed]

 

17 hours ago, Thukydides said:

The size of the charge is what would determine the force since they were firing essentially the same size of cannon ball.

This is indeed an interesting thread.  There are several charts of ranging shot from carronades in The History of English Sea Ordnance, Volume 2, including two that show the weight of the charge.   The first includes only 68 pounders and the tests had various powder charges from 4 to 6 pounds.  The ranges included shots at elevations from point blank to 2 degrees with each size powder charge.   I was fascinated that each of the charts show at least the first graze and one shows three graze yardages as well as final distance.  There is a note in one chart from the Lefroy Memorandum Book No. 20 in the R.A. Library about the tests taken in 1798 at Woolwich in which their data shows distance only to the first graze.    They defined one charge as including the powder at 1/12 the weight of the shot plus the shot and the wad.   I suspect the 1/12 the shot weight is what you were looking for.   

 

Allan

[DaveBaxt]

Would a lighter gun and possibly carriage not move further back for the same size weight of shot and the the same amount of charge. Just wonder why they had a few problems when first used. The length of ropes do seem a bit shorter than for the same calibre ordI inary cannon but could be wrong. Thukydides  thank you for the rope sizes much appreciated . It was my plan to use the 5.5" for the cannonade guns as ell as for the 18lbs as give in Allan's suppled data and see how it looks . Best regards Dave

Edited March 26 by DaveBaxt

[Thukydides]

23 hours ago, DaveBaxt said:

Would a lighter gun and possibly carriage not move further back for the same size weight of shot and the the same amount of charge. Just wonder why they had a few problems when first used.

Yes it would move back faster, but the force on it would be the same. If you remember your high school physics F=ma, so a lighter piece with the same force acting on it would accelerate back faster. I wonder if part of their problem was the recoil length. As the carronade was shorter it didn’t have as far back to go before running out of rope so to speak.

 

I found the following piece of paper which shows charge sizes. Now it has no date so not sure exactly when it is from, but you can see that a 32-pdr carronade (which was what 38 gun ships were rated to equip) is equivalent to the charge for a 12-pdr long gun (inbetween the 18 and 9-pdrs carried by 38 gun ships).

 

EDIT: Since I know @allanyed is going to ask  this comes from ADM 160/150 as well.

Edited March 27 by Thukydides

[DaveBaxt]

Thank you Thukydides for another table /list . I think thats what I was trying to say that the carriages would move further back and causes problems for them when first fitted.Perhaps thats why there design of the carriages were different too. Am correct in thinking the different amounts of powder were for Proof (testing) In battle ( service) Saluting someone of another vessel perhaps but could not work out what sealing is?

Thank you again for sharing your valued research , you definitely like to get an understanding of what really might be going on all that time ago. Thanks for your likes on my Diana log too.

[Thukydides]

27 minutes ago, DaveBaxt said:

Thank you Thukydides for another table /list . I think thats what I was trying to say that the carriages would move further back and causes problems for them when first fitted.Perhaps thats why there design of the carriages were different too. Am correct in thinking the different amounts of powder were for Proof (testing) In battle ( service) Saluting someone of another vessel perhaps but could not work out what sealing is?

Thank you again for sharing your valued research , you definitely like to get an understanding of what really might be going on all that time ago. Thanks for your likes on my Diana log too.

Yes you pretty much have it:

• Proofing - making sure the gun was structurally sound
• Saluting - for signaling or showing honor to the admiral etc, there was no shot used in this case, not sure if they included the wadding still
• Service - firing cannon balls
• Scaling - cleaning out the residue from inside the gun

[Thukydides]

So further to this discussion I am pretty sure the carronade breechings are not included in the above list of breechings. I was in the process of transcribing the list (see below).

		100	90	74	64	50	44	38	36	32	28	24	20	18 Sloop
Iron Ordnance with ship carriages complete	32pdr	30	20	20
	24	28			26	22
	18		30	20	26		20	28	26
	12	42	40			22	22			26
	9			10	12			10	10		24	22	20
	6					6	6			6	4	2		18
	4
	3
	½			12	12	12	12	12	12	12	12	12	12	12
Breechings	7in	60	56	56
	6½	42			52	44
	5½	63	105	42	39	33	73	42	39	39
	4½			27	18	9	9	15	15	9	42	36	30	27
	3½

I found when I compared it to the establishment list for armament from the same document that the number of breechings pretty much exactly matches 2x the number of 32pdrs (7in) and 24pdrs (6.5in) and 1.5x all other calibres (18&12pdr 5.5in, 9&6pdr 4.5in). This suggests that they were not taking carronades into account in this list and so we are back to square 1.

 

I am going to take a closer look at the second list as it differs a little in the number of breechings and see what I can find.

Edited April 12 by Thukydides

[Thukydides]

Another update, I found another list that I had not previously noticed in the document specifically listing the stores for carronades. Unfortunately the part which lists the breechings appears to be incomplete as it only list the stores for 100 and 90 gun ships. However extrapolating from their carronade armament earlier in the same list we can at least get the sizes for tackles and breechings for 32, 24 and 18pdr carronades.

 

The list is from 179? (I can’t make out the last number at the moment, my current guess is 1798)

 

32pdr - 7 in breeching

24pdr - 6 1/2 in breeching

18pdr - 5 1/2 in breeching

 

Edit: I just noticed that no sizes are given smaller than 5 1/2 in breeching so we could possibly infer that they were used for 12pdr carronades.

 

See below:

Edited April 14 by Thukydides

[Thukydides]

A further updated to this:

 

I found a really interesting list of blocks used for carronades at the bottom of a table. This table is from 1796 and it shows the number and nature of the blocks for the tackle. Of particular interest is the fact that it appears that 18 and 12 pdr carronades only had one block for their tackle:

For Carronades

Blocks for each Tackle	{	For 32pr	8 inch	Double	1
		Ditto	Ditto	Single	1
		24 Ditto	6 ½	Ditto	2
		18 & 12	5	Ditto	1

 

EDIT:

 

See below for a table summarizing all the info I have found in ADM 160/150 on breechings, blocks and gun tackles per gun. This is a combination of lists from 1794, 1796 and 1798. 

	Breeching Size (in)	Gun Tackle Size (in)	Blocks (Single)		Blocks (Double)
			Size (in)	Number	Size (in)	Number
Guns
32 pdr	7	3	10	2	10	2
24 pdr	6½	3	10	2	10	2
18 pdr	5½	2½	8	2	8	2
12 pdr	5½	2½	8	2	8	2
9 pdr	4½	2	6½	4
6 pdr	4½	2	6½	4
4 pdr	3½	1½	5	4
Carronades
32 pdr	7	2½	8	2	8	2
24 pdr	6½	2	6½	4
18 pdr	5½	1½	5	2
12 pdr	5½	1½	5	2

Edited April 16 by Thukydides

[cotrecerf]

Hello Thukydides,

 

thanks for your metriculous work; the sizes given for the breechings in your summarizing table are given in inches of circumference, aren't they?

 

greetings

 

Joachim

[Thukydides]

41 minutes ago, cotrecerf said:

Hello Thukydides,

 

thanks for your metriculous work; the sizes given for the breechings in your summarizing table are given in inches of circumference, aren't they?

 

greetings

 

Joachim

Yes the sizes for both the tackle and the breechings are the circumference in inches. There is some info on the length of the breechings and tackles in some of the tables, but I have not gotten round to trying to reconcile them yet.

[Gregory]

Allan may be surprised it shows doubles for 12 pounders and up.😁

[Thukydides]

51 minutes ago, Gregory said:

Allan may be surprised it shows doubles for 12 pounders and up.😁

That and only one block for the smaller carronades are certainly two of the more interesting things I have found in this document.

[allanyed]

15 hours ago, Gregory said:

Allan may be surprised it shows doubles for 12 pounders and up

Hi Gregory

Yes I am, but as with so many things very few are cast in stone on these ships of old.   This is the first document I have seen that specifies other than singles on smaller than 32 pounders so heretofore I had relied on Caruana.  The dates are very late in the 18th century so I wonder if this was a time of change for the types of blocks.  So many choices.   If Caruana missed this one too at least I am in good company.   Appreciate your point. 😀

Allan

[Thukydides]

2 hours ago, allanyed said:

Hi Gregory

Yes I am, but as with so many things very few are cast in stone on these ships of old.   This is the first document I have seen that specifies other than singles on smaller than 32 pounders so heretofore I had relied on Caruana.  The dates are very late in the 18th century so I wonder if this was a time of change for the types of blocks.  So many choices.   If Caruana missed this one too at least I am in good company.   Appreciate your point. 😀

Allan

Caruana does reference ADM 160/150, but it is a fairly large document with many tables that cover the pages. I have had it since late December and I only just noticed these details. The blocks for the guns are hidden in these tables and you have to do a bit of analysis to get the sizes based on seeing what guns and what blocks / breechings / tackles a given rate was assigned. There is no place that lists this size of block for this size of gun.

 

So you could be right that it represents a change at this point or I could also easily believe that in the many documents he was reading he missed this detail.

Edited April 17 by Thukydides