A 15th century cannon as found on the Mary Rose. Scale 1 : 1. Construction, description and research.

[tartane]

A 15th century cannon as found on the Mary Rose.  Scale 1 : 1. Construction, description and research.

1

As some of you will know, I have built a model of the city of Zutphen, where I live, as the city looked like in 1485. It took me five years to build on it and, together with two other people, I also did the long-term research. The construction took 6500 hours and the result is a large model on a scale of 1:500 which also gave us a lot of the history of the city.

This model will be given a permanent place in a heavy artillery tower from 1457. A tower with a wall thickness of 4 meters, the Burgundy Tower.  The interior of the tower is currently being modified to accommodate the model. In this way, a new museum is being created around the model.

There have been a number of gun emplacements in the tower. One of those  will now house a full-size replica of a 15th century cannon.

This also required a lot of research. Good examples were found in museums in the Netherlands and especially in England. We also looked at the various cannons of the Mary Rose. Obviously, there was no standardization in such artillery. Each cannon was different, but all according to the same principle. I started building that cannon and made drawings in advance.

From accounts of the city around about 1450 we know that they were ordered and also what they looked like. They were referred to there as “ Slang” (snake), the name that the replica will also be given. Afterwards, especially after 1500, these cannons were referred to as culverein. But we are not going to use that name because of the specific name in the Zutphen archives.

 

First, the drawing of the cannon in its entirety. The black lines all around are the exact dimensions of the existing gun emplacement from 1457. Within that, I had to stick to the dimensions. The embrasure is round with a diameter of 20 cm. So the barrel had to be able to pass through that. As a result, the caliber of the barrel was also roughly fixed. It looks like one of the cannons of the Mary Rose, but smaller.

It should be clear that the cannon may have looked different, but the working method, the caliber, the construction of the gun carriage and the use of stone balls are certain. It is mainly intended to give visitors an idea about a cannon from the 15th century.

A photo of the niche in which such a cannon stood. In the background the loophole with a short slit above it.

 

A photo of such a cannon in the National Military Museum in the Netherlands.

 

Constant

 

[tartane]

 

Something went wrong, these words belong to the former message

 

A photo of the niche in which such a cannon stood. In the background the loophole with a short slit above it.

A photo of such a cannon in the National Military Museum in the Netherlands.

Constant

 

[Louie da fly]

I've put quite a bit of study into guns of this period, and you're certainly on the right track. You might be interested in this gun  from the Genoese ship La Lomellina which sank in 1516 (which I believe was probably built in 1503).

And this picture which I believe shows the Lomellina's predecessor, which sank in 1503, as it is flying the flag of the Lomellini family, and which has some interesting cannons.

 

Steven

 

[tartane]

 

2

 

The barrel was originally manufactured from long, flat hammered iron bars girded by hoops, the normal way to make gun barrels at the time.

The rather small embrasure with a diameter of 200 mm had to be able to allow the barrel with the forged rings to pass through. Existing barrels show that these rings were often only 20 mm thick. I applied this here and so the tube couldn't be much thicker than 110 mm.

This results in the internal diameter of the barrel, the caliber. I ended up with 70 mm, after comparing it with existing barrels.

All those measurements are approximate, and the barrel had to be made according them.

I made the barrel from two PVC sewer pipes, which had the required diameters, namely 115 mm and 75 mm (with an internal size of 68 mm)

Pushed together, the outer circumference and the inner diameter provided the required dimensions.

 

The two PVC pipes with spacers around the inner tube.

 

The two tubes pushed together

 

A total of 38 rings of MDF had to be cut out in thicknesses of 8 and 12 mm. I did that manually with the fret- saw. At least three rings glued together now formed a ring.

Those rings were slid around the tube in the right places and secured with superglue. The course between the rings was now much too slippery. We agreed that the barrel would have the appearance of an excavated barrel and would therefore be heavily rusted and rusted in here and there. So the slipperiness had to disappear.

 

Around the tube, between the rings, there was first double-sided tape. Very tight thin rope was wound over it, without gaps in between, on the left of the photo. I needed about 145 meter. Then a thin layer of liquid MDF was smeared on top of it, on the right side of the photo. After which it became a rough surface after drying. That surface was filed and trimmed again until a lumpy surface was created, which was then painted in a rust color.

The MDF rings were also smeared with liquid MDF at the same time as the gaps. In this way, it became a unity.

 

 

[Louie da fly]

That's looking very good. Quite convincing - I look forward to seeing the barrel once this process is complete

Steven

[tartane]

3

 

After all surfaces were treated, the barrel looked like the photo. The length is 120 cm.

The painting was done with two shades of brown and black to get a weathered rusty surface. The inside of the barrel still needs to be made matt black.

The mouth of the barrel is a bit rounder, as the examples often show.

The breech has to be slid into the back.

The breech during the assembly of the parts. Which was entirely according to the method of the barrel.

The breech ready to be painted.

 

In the Dutch language, a breech was called a "snelleke". It resembled a beer mug in appearance and the medieval name of a beer mug was "snelleke". In reality, this barrel would have weighed 95 kg but now only 40 kg.

This is the situation on this day. It will take somewhat longer before I can show you more

 

Constant

 

[Roger Pellett]

An interesting project, well done!
 

Since this will be on public display just hope that kids don’t sneak in and try to shoot this thing!😀😀  But then Dutch kids are probably better behaved then American ones.

 

Roger

[druxey]

Nicely textured and colored!

[tartane]

I do not know if Dutch kids better behave then American kids, but that is the risk one has to take who build a Cannon.

Constant

[tartane]

 

4

 

The Burgundian Tower in Zutphen, the final residence for the cannon. It was built in 1457 because of the threat of war by the Burgundian Empire. The building has the floor plan of a horseshoe with a maximum wall thickness of four meters. In that wall there are three gun emplacements on the ground floor and five on the first floor. Below were heavier cannons.

This cannon will be placed on the first floor in one of the gun emplacements. Not all gun emplacements had cannons. In the event of a threat, the cannons could easily be moved inside the building.

This also must have happened to the cannons on ships. The many gun ports on Willem Barentz's ship will not all have been equipped with cannons. If you have 14 openings and there are 16 people on that ship, it's already clear

 

 

A gun gate of the first floor.

The gun emplacement for the cannon I am building.

The floor plan of the floor, with the five configurations. This cannon will soon be placed in place A. After the renovation, that place will be accessible by stairs, the others will not. The museum is scheduled to be completed by July 13 of this year.

plattegrond.tif

plattegrond.tif

[Ferrus Manus]

On 5/14/2024 at 1:19 PM, tartane said:

I do not know if Dutch kids better behave then American kids,

As an American myself, I can confidently say that everyone behaves better than American kids. 

[tartane]

 

5

 

The gun carriage is made in a carpenter’s workshop.  The medieval Dutch name was "lade" (drawer). It is carved out of an oak tree trunk. The barrel is then placed in a semi-circular floor in which the spaces for the rings are also saved. That way, the barrel couldn't move on a shot, the rings stopped it. As can be seen on many old depictions and also on the recovered cannons of the Mary Rose, the barrel was tied to the carriage with rope. In this way, the gun could be taken apart and transported on a campaign. The wheels could also be removed.

Behind the breech the wedges. In this way, the breech could be clamped into the back of the barrel.

 

The carpenter warned me that the carriage would be very heavy. I did the math and indeed it would weigh about 650 kilos. Too heavy to carry him up the stairs in the tower to the place where he will stand. We decided that he would cut the carriage in the lenget into two parts. That sounds crazy, but I can imagine that this was also done in the 15th century to facilitate transport. The two parts are then attached to each other by large bolts fitted with wedges.

 

Behind the wedges a white ball, that's the cannonball. I carved it out of a slab of aerated concrete. In reality, it was natural granite or something like that. The ball still has to be provided with the correct color. In granite, the bullet would weigh about 500 grams, so a pound.

Constant

[tartane]

 

The cannonballs are ready. I made them out of aerated concrete. The photo shows how the process went. A block was sawn out and touched up with a box cutter. The bullet had to fit exactly in a mold that has the diameter of the barrel. Then I filled the holes in the concrete with a filler and they were painted in the right color.

Next to the cannon there will be a wooden tray with six cannonballs in it. To prevent anyone from taking them, they are screwed into the bottom of the box from the bottom. Attached to the barge is a chain that will soon be attached to the cannon so that no one can take the barge in its entirety.

In reality, such a granite bullet would weigh about 500 grams.

The carpenter is still working on the wooden carriage. We are waiting for a few parts that a local blacksmith is making.

 

 

 

[tartane]

 

7

 

In the contractor's workshop, a lot of hard work has been done to finish the carriage. The cannon is now almost ready. Some of the parts are now in the workshop and another part is at my home. In the coming days, everything will be brought to the tower and assembled there.

 

 

 

 

[tartane]

8

 

Indispensable tools for a 15th century cannon.

Rope to attach the barrel to the carriage.

A hammer to strike and loosen the two wedges for the breech

A long stick with a wick

De breech.

The parts will soon be attached to the cannon with chains to prevent enthusiastic visitors from working with them!

[tartane]

9

 

After the photo shoot at the contractor’s workshop. The cannon is now dismantled again and in parts it goes to the medieval tower where it will be constructed on its final place. This will probably happen tomorrow.

I'm very happy with the result!

 

[druxey]

Well done, gentlemen!

[PvG Aussie]

An amasing achievement. Excellent work! 

Edited July 8 by PvG Aussie

[tartane]

10

 

 

The cannon is now in its final place in the medieval Burgundy tower.

With these pictures I close this topic.

Thank you so much for all the thumbs-up!

 

Sincerely,

Constant

 

 

[wefalck]

Well-done, that looks almost like the 'real' thing.

 

I didn't read again from the start and apologies, if you discussed this, but wondered, whether these 'chamber-pieces' were really fired from wheeled carriages. I thought they were only used for tranportation. It would be rather difficult to control the considerable recoil without any tackles and such. I though the guns would be placed flat onto the ground to profit from the friction and perhaps wedged down. Any insights on this?

[tartane]

 

11

 

The cannon I built is derived from the cannons found on the Mary Rose and from examples of such cannons that have been preserved throughout Europe. Several museums have these examples. Since no cannon from that time looked exactly the same, I could afford to build a cannon that fit within the available space in the medieval gun tower in Zutphen. There are several bills in the 15^e century that deal with the purchase of those cannons.

The much larger cannons, one of which was also ordered in Zutphen in 1457, were not on wheels but lay on the ground.

I did a lot of research on that to understand what kind of cannon was purchased here in 1457. We knew the weights of the barrel and the snelleke. Since 1457, everyone believed that this cannon had been in the tower, but the enormous weight and the diameter of the available embrasures did not match. After a lot of calculations and research into such existing cannons in Ghent, Edinburgh and Dresden, I came to the conclusion that the cannon must have looked like the photo of a model of it that I made myself. Several experts in the field have examined my calculations and came to the same conclusion.

 

 

The cannon in Ghent (Belgium)

 

That was the reason that the municipality of Zutphen asked me to make a replica of a cannon that could have been in the tower. After research, using as examples the cannons that still exist and have been excavated, I made the cannon that is now in the tower.

In the gun niches you can see traces of construction that indicate that they were fixed during the firing. Look at the first episode that I wrote in this topic. The niches opened onto a very heavy floor, on huge beams, which has now disappeared, over which it is clear that the cannons were driven over in order to be able to fire in the right position in other niches. There would not have been a cannon in every niche. The same thing happened on ships at that time. A small ship like that of Willem Barentz in 1596 had 14 gun ports. There were 16 people on board, so it is clear that there was not a cannon behind every gun port. Possibly there were no more than two.

So it's very likely that the cannon I built was on wheels. Because the barrels of these guns were often tied with ropes, it was possible to disassemble them and use them elsewhere in a campaign. In addition, the bottom of the embrasure is about 40 cm above the floor.

Anyone who takes the trouble to search the internet for 15th and 16th century iron cannons will find images of such a cannon.

Constant

 

[tartane]

There was a question about the recoil of the cannon when it was fired. In the side walls of the shooting niches, no traces of iron anchors to secure the cannons have been found. That seems a bit strange given the recoil and reversing of the guns. I found a video about firing a replica of a cannon from the Mary Rose. The cannon used is heavier in caliber than the replica I made and the recoil must have been greater there. It is clear to see on that video that the backlash was not that intense at all. I think that with the replica in the Bourgonjetoren in Zutphen, that recoil could easily be absorbed by placing sandbags behind the wheels and the vertical beam 

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G3bR9qN6HYY

 

Constant

[wefalck]

It seems that a lot of of the combustion gases just blow out, rather than propelling the round. This would greatly reduce the recoil and make it 'softer' in comparison to a modern gun.

[Louie da fly]

That's the problem with the breech-box method. And pretty hard on the gun itself having all those combustion gases escaping between the barrel and the breech-box.

 

That video was fantastic to watch. I've put it in my favourites.

 

Steven