Cannon balls

kronckew · 18th April 2013, 07:04 PM

we tend to forget the details over the centuries. back then stone cannon balls were still fashionable - literally. stone was cheap & plentiful as was labour. it was forgiving as it didn't jam in the bore (it'd break before the gun would). it was lighter and took less precious powder to propel. OK against troops, walls required heavier and non-shattering ammo tho for quick results.

in those days the powder was in general pretty poor, the formulae varied to the gunners whim as well as the purity and availability of the components, which were usually mixed dry & not corned in a powder mill. dry mix tends to have the components settle with transport vibration, and the mix would vary throughout the barrel. all in all giving a very variable result.

windage was not as much a problem as we are led to believe, having fairly quickly figured out that too tight a bore fit caused explosions killing the very expensively trained gunners (some of whom were not worth the powder it took to blow them up.

note origin of this expression). too loose a bore produced a whooshy bang but little result down the field. a bright spark figured out that sticking local green grass wadding down the bore on top of the powder before the ball helped seal the bore. wanting perfection he also would top the grass with a layer of soft malleable river clay. sadly as they had to wait for it to dry, it seriously impeded the rate of fire, especially on larger siege gonnes. they eventually scrapped the clay.

naval cannon would of course add a layer of wadding over the projectile to keep it or them from rolling out of a depressed muzzle, which was very embarassing for the gun captain when it happened. if it happened to land artillery with an advancing enemy, the targets would frequently show him the error of his ways. survival of the fittest again resulted in leaps in technology.

thus finally later entered the pre-made round. silk bags of pre-measured and graded corned powder allowed rapid reloading and charge adjustment. the final load would be a silk bag of powder attached to a sabotted ball, the sabot made of wood, attached to the ball by two tinned sheet iron straps. the ball was inside the silk, so could not dribble out a downward leaning muzzle. the sabot/silk bags sealed the bore.

result!.

just as they finally figured that out someone went and re-invented the breech loader with percussion primed brass cartridge cases and ogival streamlined exploding projectiles with copper sealing bands to engage the new-fangled rifling, and the art of gunnery changed forever. for one thing, the projectile can now never dribble out the front end of the gun.

and then we forgot.

i watch the american tv series 'mythbusters' on satellite tv here and shudder when they make a cannon, either compressed air or chemical explosive driven. they are forever just ramming a ball (golf,pool or tennis) down the muzzle, ignoring the windage and wondering why they never get a good result (tennis balls work best as they, being hollow, can deform with pressure more easily to seal better with their fuzzy outer jacket).

rather than adding a sabot or wadding or both they usually* decide that the fix is to add more power - more charge, higher air pressure, or more modern propellants, such as dynamite (which alfred nobel early on found exploded too quickly to be a good propellant, exploding the gun before the projectile could move - the dynamite gun was an abysmal failure). bigger is not always better.

*-the cute ginger headed girl one has been known to use a sabot so i know she knows what they are. they don't remember often enough tho.

p.s. - i like things that go boom. sadly now restricted here in the UK to cheap imported chinese fireworks of minimal bangs during holiday seasons. back home in alabama i got to shoot and blow up stuff much more effectively. i recall with fondness our first howitzer made from 3"-ish pipe that just took a pool ball. we'd drop an illicitly obtained cherry bomb or ash-can firework with lit fuse down the bore, quickly followed by the pool ball (no wadding - we had to be quick). worked a treat. me and the participating culprits lived on a small lake, the balls easily made the other side a couple of hundred yards away. we bombarded the construction site building the new and hated high school on them other side. having one brain cell between us, we used it to make a good descision to only do it after the workers left for the day. the brain cell was insufficient to figure out that when we ran out of pool balls, and our supplier's dad couldn't find them when he wanted to play pool that weekend, we'd be in deep doo-doo. no more cannon. we made rockets instead. and that is another story best left for later.

fernando · 18th April 2013, 09:45 PM

Stone ball cannons had the chamber narrower than the bore.
Apparently this artillery system disappeared during the 17th century.

Andi · 13th September 2013, 09:00 PM

wrong thread - Sorry

http://www.vikingsword.com/vb/showthread.php?p=160459&posted=1#post160459

Please delete this post

M ELEY · 14th September 2013, 06:59 AM

I must have missed this one from awhile back. Fascinating information on the construction of those early naval cannon balls. Who would have thought? Archeaology is so important to the world of weapons collecting, as it sheds light on many of the unknown lost facts. I'm currently reading a spectacular book on shipwrecks off the Scottish coast and the underwater archeaological work being done on them. Among other interesting tidbits- many of the Spanish and Portuguese guns of the 16th century had extremely crooked bores, resulting in them being prone to explode in battle. The problems had been hinted at in old texts, but it took one of these wrecks to supply direct proof. Another interesting find was an English war ship whose bow was wrapped in tarred horse hide; an experimental method to deter the dreaded terido marine worm (It didn't stop the little buggers!). Anyway, thanks to Andi for posting this great link.

adrian · 15th September 2013, 10:40 AM

Stone ball cannons had the chamber narrower than the bore.
Apparently this artillery system disappeared during the 17th century.

Interestingly this system, with a smaller diameter powder chamber, persisted well into the 19th century & was used with shell firing ordnance such as mortars, howitsers & some shell guns etc.

Regarding stone cannon balls, the Royal Armouries experimented with some stone shot from Mary Rose & demonstrated its ability to easily penetrate great thicknesses of timber representing the side of a ship, when recovered the shot was still mostly intact. So the use of lead covered iron shot is rather curious, I think that less wear to the bore than with iron alone was a definite benefit, many of the larger natures of ordnance on Mary Rose were bronze and iron shot would scour this badly, & I would surmise that the intent was to provide for a limited supply of heavier weight of shot than the stone shot.
Much later iron shot were of course used in bronze guns, but with a wood bottom strapped on (later rivetted on) to minimise bore damage.
Adrian

fernando · 15th September 2013, 05:05 PM

Glad to have you around, Adrain

Quote:

Originally Posted by adrian

Stone ball cannons had the chamber narrower than the bore.
Apparently this artillery system disappeared during the 17th century.

Interestingly this system, with a smaller diameter powder chamber, persisted well into the 19th century & was used with shell firing ordnance such as mortars, howitsers & some shell guns etc...

Perhaps my approach was not a fortunate one. I was correlating the system of stone ball artillery along with wider chamber diameter. I could refer to stone ball artillery period ending, but would not mention the longevity the chamber wider than bore alone.
There is this work covering an historical artillery exhibition in the Oporto Military Museum, where the author brings about this chamber system which, around here, is called encamarado (enchambered, in a free translation) or releixo (relax), applied in cannons used on board artillery or siege operations, seeking to obtain the ammunition (pelouro) shatering, in order to cause (more) casualties. In this exhibition a XV century gross bombard, possibly Portuguese, was present with a caliber of 85 stone arratles (circa 40 Kgs = 33,5 cms. diameter), loading 25 arratles black powder, with a (useful) reach of 400 to 500 metres, with a +5º elevation.
Concerning the bore damage caused by stone balls, the Portuguese had the option to melt and recast their cannons every hundred shots, so possible as they had established fundries in Goa, Cochim, Malaca and Macau (Rainer Daehnhardt).

fernando · 15th September 2013, 05:21 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by M ELEY

... Among other interesting tidbits- many of the Spanish and Portuguese guns of the 16th century had extremely crooked bores, resulting in them being prone to explode in battle ...

Oh Mark, let me be skeptical about that theory ... at least on what touches Portuguese artillery, the dame i can defend. From what i read and hear, the unanimous opinion is that their cannons were extremely advanced and a major ( if not the major) reason for their success.
There ought to be a context for that assumption

.

fernando · 16th September 2013, 06:11 PM

Stone balls pictured last week at the Navy Museum situated in Torre Del Oro, Seville, Spain.
Amazingly these things could often be rather assymetrical.
I have seen much worse, by the way.

.

M ELEY · 17th September 2013, 11:38 PM

Sorry, Fernando. I reread the article and it was a Spanish vessel, the El Gran Grifon, that wrecked off Stroms Hellier, Scotland, in 1588. The vast majority of the guns from that wreck (and, according to the article, the time period), the guns had been bored very poorly, with many that would have exploded if they had been used. They were bronze guns from Lisbon and were a small batch, apparently an experimental program to speed up production and cut costs. The chief gunfounder was an Italian named Bartolome de Somorriva, who came under serious criticism. In the years to come, the problem was addressed, but for this particular wrecked ship, the inspectors had looked the other way on her poor guns. Ironically, it was bad weather and a reef that claimed the ship, not a battle.

18th April 2013, 07:04 PM	#1
kronckew Member Join Date: Mar 2006 Location: Room 101, Glos. UK Posts: 4,227	we tend to forget the details over the centuries. back then stone cannon balls were still fashionable - literally. stone was cheap & plentiful as was labour. it was forgiving as it didn't jam in the bore (it'd break before the gun would). it was lighter and took less precious powder to propel. OK against troops, walls required heavier and non-shattering ammo tho for quick results. in those days the powder was in general pretty poor, the formulae varied to the gunners whim as well as the purity and availability of the components, which were usually mixed dry & not corned in a powder mill. dry mix tends to have the components settle with transport vibration, and the mix would vary throughout the barrel. all in all giving a very variable result. windage was not as much a problem as we are led to believe, having fairly quickly figured out that too tight a bore fit caused explosions killing the very expensively trained gunners (some of whom were not worth the powder it took to blow them up. note origin of this expression). too loose a bore produced a whooshy bang but little result down the field. a bright spark figured out that sticking local green grass wadding down the bore on top of the powder before the ball helped seal the bore. wanting perfection he also would top the grass with a layer of soft malleable river clay. sadly as they had to wait for it to dry, it seriously impeded the rate of fire, especially on larger siege gonnes. they eventually scrapped the clay. naval cannon would of course add a layer of wadding over the projectile to keep it or them from rolling out of a depressed muzzle, which was very embarassing for the gun captain when it happened. if it happened to land artillery with an advancing enemy, the targets would frequently show him the error of his ways. survival of the fittest again resulted in leaps in technology. thus finally later entered the pre-made round. silk bags of pre-measured and graded corned powder allowed rapid reloading and charge adjustment. the final load would be a silk bag of powder attached to a sabotted ball, the sabot made of wood, attached to the ball by two tinned sheet iron straps. the ball was inside the silk, so could not dribble out a downward leaning muzzle. the sabot/silk bags sealed the bore. result!. just as they finally figured that out someone went and re-invented the breech loader with percussion primed brass cartridge cases and ogival streamlined exploding projectiles with copper sealing bands to engage the new-fangled rifling, and the art of gunnery changed forever. for one thing, the projectile can now never dribble out the front end of the gun. and then we forgot. i watch the american tv series 'mythbusters' on satellite tv here and shudder when they make a cannon, either compressed air or chemical explosive driven. they are forever just ramming a ball (golf,pool or tennis) down the muzzle, ignoring the windage and wondering why they never get a good result (tennis balls work best as they, being hollow, can deform with pressure more easily to seal better with their fuzzy outer jacket). rather than adding a sabot or wadding or both they usually* decide that the fix is to add more power - more charge, higher air pressure, or more modern propellants, such as dynamite (which alfred nobel early on found exploded too quickly to be a good propellant, exploding the gun before the projectile could move - the dynamite gun was an abysmal failure). bigger is not always better. -the cute ginger headed girl one has been known to use a sabot so i know she knows what they are. they don't remember often enough tho. p.s. - i like things that go boom. sadly now restricted here in the UK to cheap imported chinese fireworks of minimal bangs during holiday seasons. back home in alabama i got to shoot and blow up stuff much more effectively. i recall with fondness our first howitzer made from 3"-ish pipe that just took a pool ball. we'd drop an illicitly obtained cherry bomb or ash-can firework with lit fuse down the bore, quickly followed by the pool ball (no wadding - we had to be quick). worked a treat. me and the participating culprits lived on a small lake, the balls easily made the other side a couple of hundred yards away. we bombarded the construction site building the new and hated high school on them other side. having one brain cell between us, we used it to make a good descision to only do it after the workers left for the day. the brain cell was insufficient to figure out that when we ran out of pool balls, and our supplier's dad couldn't find them when he wanted to play pool that weekend, we'd be in deep doo-doo. no more cannon. we made rockets instead. and that is another story best left for later. Last edited by kronckew; 18th April 2013 at 07:23 PM.*

18th April 2013, 09:45 PM	#2
fernando (deceased) Join Date: Dec 2004 Location: Portugal Posts: 9,694	Let's also not forget that ... Stone ball cannons had the chamber narrower than the bore. Apparently this artillery system disappeared during the 17th century.

13th September 2013, 09:00 PM	#3
Andi Member Join Date: Nov 2012 Location: Halstenbek, Germany Posts: 203	wrong thread - Sorry http://www.vikingsword.com/vb/showthread.php?p=160459&posted=1#post160459 Please delete this post Attached Images

16th September 2013, 06:11 PM	#8
fernando (deceased) Join Date: Dec 2004 Location: Portugal Posts: 9,694	Speaking of stone balls Stone balls pictured last week at the Navy Museum situated in Torre Del Oro, Seville, Spain. Amazingly these things could often be rather assymetrical. I have seen much worse, by the way. . Attached Images

14th September 2013, 06:59 AM	#4
M ELEY Member Join Date: Dec 2004 Location: NC, U.S.A. Posts: 2,166	I must have missed this one from awhile back. Fascinating information on the construction of those early naval cannon balls. Who would have thought? Archeaology is so important to the world of weapons collecting, as it sheds light on many of the unknown lost facts. I'm currently reading a spectacular book on shipwrecks off the Scottish coast and the underwater archeaological work being done on them. Among other interesting tidbits- many of the Spanish and Portuguese guns of the 16th century had extremely crooked bores, resulting in them being prone to explode in battle. The problems had been hinted at in old texts, but it took one of these wrecks to supply direct proof. Another interesting find was an English war ship whose bow was wrapped in tarred horse hide; an experimental method to deter the dreaded terido marine worm (It didn't stop the little buggers!). Anyway, thanks to Andi for posting this great link.

15th September 2013, 10:40 AM	#5
adrian Member Join Date: Mar 2012 Posts: 132	Stone ball cannons had the chamber narrower than the bore. Apparently this artillery system disappeared during the 17th century. Interestingly this system, with a smaller diameter powder chamber, persisted well into the 19th century & was used with shell firing ordnance such as mortars, howitsers & some shell guns etc. Regarding stone cannon balls, the Royal Armouries experimented with some stone shot from Mary Rose & demonstrated its ability to easily penetrate great thicknesses of timber representing the side of a ship, when recovered the shot was still mostly intact. So the use of lead covered iron shot is rather curious, I think that less wear to the bore than with iron alone was a definite benefit, many of the larger natures of ordnance on Mary Rose were bronze and iron shot would scour this badly, & I would surmise that the intent was to provide for a limited supply of heavier weight of shot than the stone shot. Much later iron shot were of course used in bronze guns, but with a wood bottom strapped on (later rivetted on) to minimise bore damage. Adrian

17th September 2013, 11:38 PM	#9
M ELEY Member Join Date: Dec 2004 Location: NC, U.S.A. Posts: 2,166	Sorry, Fernando. I reread the article and it was a Spanish vessel, the El Gran Grifon, that wrecked off Stroms Hellier, Scotland, in 1588. The vast majority of the guns from that wreck (and, according to the article, the time period), the guns had been bored very poorly, with many that would have exploded if they had been used. They were bronze guns from Lisbon and were a small batch, apparently an experimental program to speed up production and cut costs. The chief gunfounder was an Italian named Bartolome de Somorriva, who came under serious criticism. In the years to come, the problem was addressed, but for this particular wrecked ship, the inspectors had looked the other way on her poor guns. Ironically, it was bad weather and a reef that claimed the ship, not a battle.