How much Damage can this Napoleonic Cannon Do?
How much damage will an 18th century cannon do to our wooden targets? History Hit's Dan Snow tested out this replica naval cannon on a firing range and the results were shocking.
Trafalgar Day means only one thing. It’s time to fire a late-18th Century cannon.
In this video, historian Dan Snow travels to Wareham in Dorset, and steps into the shoes of a gunner in Nelson’s Navy below deck at the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805. There he is met by a team of weapons experts and a replica, late-18th Century cannon.
The History Hit team wanted to test the cannon’s accuracy and punch. Would it hit a target with round shot at 600 metres away, and what sort of damage would it do to a target as close as 60 metres? Watch this video and find out.
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This was a really fun video to shoot (no pun intended 😬). What other historic experiments would you like to see us do?
Awesome video. Could you throw us some detailed specs on that cannon, such as mussle volocity, maximum effective range, etc.? I think that would be really cool!
Tell me about the punishments of the Royal Navy!
@@georgemartin7717 Hey George, we're told the cannon is able to hit the 600m target with a few practice shots, but that's close to the edge of its effective range.
@@janettemasiello5560 Hey Janette, we actually used a blank round for that shot. The force was still powerful enough to blow the tripod apart though!
@Documentary Detective II Nice ideas!
should cannon shooting become an olympic sport?
Oh hell yes!!!
Bring back the royal navy gun run as an olympic team sport.
Now that is a sport I would watch.
Yes, but only if fired from the shoulder..😆
Nay... The rising Lefties will put a stop to that one, no doubt...
Actually the curator at the Vasa Museum in Stockholm made similar tests and they show that the noise on the enclosed gun decks were a good deal lower than expected because of the fact that the Shockwave and sound was restricted by the relatively small gun port openings
interesting!
I would suspect that the noise was pretty loud, but most of the shock wave would be felt by the other ship's company if they were getting lose. People are not reallt aware of how thick and stout those ships were. A typical 2nd rate ship would have a hull thickness of about 10" of oak plus ribs about 12" wide every 3 or so feet along the hull. All oak most likley. That's one of several reasons why the four American frigates of the Constitution class were so formidable: they could take hits and out-fight anything in a simlar weight class - or, if not, they could out-run something they couldn't out-fight, such as a First Rate Ship like the Victory.
@@OutnBacker Plus, the southern live oak that the Constitution and its sister ships' hulls were lined with is 30% denser than white oak. Thinner "armour", but lighter and at least as tough.
@@HistoryHit they also used an accurate hull side reproduction as the target instead of a braced flat wall of planks.
@@davepeters4955 Right. That allowed them to build the Conny class ships larger than any other frigates, and still be as fast or faster because they could carry larger sails. They did encounter the problem of scale, though: That is, even though a longer waterline yeilds greater speed, the hulls would "hog back" and flex too much, causing excessive leaking as they encountered heavy seas, so they were designed with - IIRC interstertials that ran diagonally from end to end, crossing in the center of the bottom like a long X. It was brilliant, and stiffened the hulls to be able to remian rigid under fulll press of sail and large rollers.
Those large, lethal splinters of wood were referred to as "shivers", which is where the expression "shiver me timbers" comes from.
Now I understand the why of this expression... Well it's a lot of shivers flying towards everyone and making really bad and nasty injuries
That makes a lot of sense actually
thanks for the knowledge... always heard that saying ..never knew what it meant
Fun fact: when they had the chance, usually advantage in position, beign close enough and plenty of ammunition, sailors used to load two cannon balls at once. They used to do this to slow down the cannon balls to not go through the target but bending the wood of the target ship to the inside, this produce much more splinters that can hurt the enemy crew keeping the enemy ship in the best condition possible to claim it for your own. English it not my first language, probably a bunch of mistakes in my comment.
I don't believe that double shotting was very common. The british navy of the time usually fought at distances of 20 to 40 yards - so if double shotting served any purpose it would be completely normal and done 100% of the time - which it clearly wasn't. If you wished to target rigging you might use two balls tied together (chain shot) to fly like a bolas.
Not an expert, but I understood that double- or triple-shotting was an emergency tactic only. The kind of thing reserved for an enemy who vastly outgunned you and whom you couldn't escape; more along the lines of, "It can't hurt to try this".
You did fine with the English. I understood you.
@@occamraiserlmao the British navy was lower than Spanish one and french had many ships too. That Britain had a ridiculous large army of corsairs doesn't mean they got the largest navy. Although your comment is right
@@yuribezmenovthegreat4705 utter bollocks
The first question asked was "what would it be like on an enclosed deck?" The answer is probably better than firing it in an open field. When firing from a ship, the guns were run out through the gun ports, meaning that their muzzles were outside the hull of the ship at the moment they were touched off. So the majority of the shockwave would be outside the ship, and the gun crews wouldn't have felt anywhere near as much of it.
Well that and the deck would have had people working to maintain and control the sails and it would be far to easy for a gun to break its moorings or for it to hit someone busy with some other job so they keep it separate.
@@olstar18 and lowers the center of gravity
@@brentfellers9632 Definitely not something to overlook with any kind of watercraft.
I was attached to the Royal Artillery. Similar answer was with the AS90 armoured gun, because the breach and gun crew was inside a tank hull and the barrel and muzzle was outside, when firing the noise and shockwave inside the gun was massively reduced. _Outside_ the gun however, you’d need ear protection within 100m of the firing line.
Seems obvious. Where would the crew be? They couldn't have coordinated anything
When I was in high school our science teacher was big on the Civil War. He put together a small group that did reenactments. We were asked to do a muster day at a recreated French and Indian war log fort. The first year didn't amount to much. The second year the local Historical Society met with us to set up a muster day. Near the end one of the old timers said, "maybe we should get the old cannon out of the hearse house." Well we went up to take a look at it. We were expecting at most one of those small signal cannons. Well you can imagine our shock when they opened the doors. We found a 12lb bronze cannon In excellent condition. All we had to do was hook it up behind his truck and pull it down to the fort. The teacher took the numbers off the it and did some research. He discovered that it had fought in 23 engagements with a NH battery during the Civil War.
In a history class me and a buddy made ourselves a little cannon out of a bailer driveshaft. It wasn't exactly historically accurate, since it was steel, 3" bore, and comparatively quite small for the bore diameter. We never trusted it enough to actually fire a solid metal projectile, but we fired a can of rocks wrapped in a towel to demonstrate in the soccer field at school. The next year's history class was forbidden from making any weapon replicas...
@Bill Hunter OMG thats awesome!An M1857 12pdr...boy you know I need one!
So did anyone fire the old cannon during the reenactment?
@@jacobshearer4690 No, depends on the size. Best material was bronze, ductile and reliable. It was expensive and for that reason only french and spanish navy used bronze cannons on mass. Early iron cast cannons had a habit to explode...
If you do that in very today , you are gonna get call as a Racist
Not only the splinters were causing carnage inside the decks. They also sometimes underloaded the guns to make sure the balls did not exit through the opposite side of the enemy ship's hull but instead bounced around inside the deck.
What advantage does that give if not giving your enemy extra ammunition?
@@MISHBASH bing bong head is gone
Seriously cool I didn't know that the real danger on ships was the splinters not the ball itself.
Sound terrible
Sounds like a giant bullet. Instead of bouncing around the body it's doing it to the ship. I can't imagine how much damage that caused
old cannons fascinated the hell out of me as a young kid. and now that i am an old man, i still think they are cool.
kzhead.info/sun/npxviMyRimp9fYE/bejne.html This canister shot would have been devastating as well.
of course they're cool ! they're a enormous part of the european history :)
That was a pop gun when compared to the 24 pounders used at Trafalgar. Also I suspect that it was not a full charge as the recoil was negligible. On warships the recoil would bring the whole gun back about 2m allowing the crews to get to the muzzzle to reload. The Vasa experiments were much more controlled and scientific.
You are right in every way. But it was still a fun experiment to see.
also the shipside where 4 or more time as thick
I noticed that the balls were not wadded, either.
That's probably why the target was a thin wall of cheap wooden planks instead of a replica of a ship of the line's hull. Would've bounced the ball.
As soon as they said it gell short at 600m i knew it was half charge
Generally not bad video and great idea, but the Vasa Cannon firing project used a accurate reconstruction of a ship's wall, thus getting more realistic, reliable results.
Yup. I saw that video and was very surprised. All of the descriptions presented by academia that I had seen or heard appeared to be wrong after that demonstration. Back to experimenting. 🙂
And the muzzle flame and recoil were clearly stronger.
@@petrijuhola4193 I don't know what charge the History Hit lot used, but there wasn't exactly much of a seal on the ball, not wadded as I might expect. We also didn't get any data on what the weight of the shot was.
they also used a full charge (actually 18th century guns had a GREATER charge and higher muzzle velocity than the vasa experiments) and a true capital cannon. The victory has long 32 lber guns on the lower gun decks and 8 lb carronades on the forecastle. Either the shot they have is loaded by someone who is inhumanely strong or it isn't a full 15kg. Still fun little test but not entirely historically correct. I'm personally very curious about how a 68 lb carronade would look when fired and what sort of damage it can do close up, or perhaps more terrifying, what a historical grapeshot from a 68 lb carronade would look like.
What's that video called
Ive been less than 50 yards from a cannon firing blanks and the shockwave really stuns you for a moment especially if youve never felt something like that before.
Years ago my wife and I were visiting Gettysburg and a group representing an Ohio regiment had set up a camp and was providing a show and tell. What amazed me was that there had been over 600 different versions of ordinance developed for cannons. Balls with built in variable fuses designed to explode containing all manner of shrapnel, gauges used by cannoneers to set angles for cannon barrels to explode at different distances and heights in order to achieve maximum troop casualties with a single shot and various munitions to suit any circumstances. Little wonder that the three day long encounter resulted in 65,000 casualties. A cannon was fired, we stood about fifty feet behind and to the right and the concussion from the blast was stunning. Being in a close naval battle with gunships of the era must have been hell.
grape shot also at shilho
Grape shot was ship against ship. It was several about 1 inch balls around a wood peg in a flat base with a canvas wrap enclosure. That and chain shot were used to tear up sails and stop an opposing ship. Canister shot for field use at 400 yards and closer was a can with a wood lid that was filled with several dozen musket balls. That was effective against enemy troops.
People with no experience in naval matters never seem to realize just how deadly and powerful a warship is. Salute from a Retired Navy Chief, USN.
At Waterloo one side lined up a total of 150 field guns. But people never realize that a line ship with 100 heavy guns is deadly?
@@2adamast You would be amazed how little many know about warships. They look at a modern cruiser or destroyer and have no idea just how powerful just one of those ships are. Until you see one in action the looks are deceiving.
In the hands of a well-trained crew, yes. In the hands of inexperienced amateurs like these, no.
I can't imagine why would someone think they're not - They could simply look up what an auto Otto Melara in 76mm (and up! - 127mm available, too) can do... And we're talking just about that single R2-D2 at the front! Oerlikon also offers an interesting variation in 35mm. Anyway, if I had something useful to add, I'd say that if there's people that don't realize the power of warships, then it's because they can only see one gun these days. They can't see the ton of other interesting things. Like the new Aster missiles. And I could go on. Rest assured Chief, those who need to know either do know or will know, and those who don't, well, let's hope they never have "look it up" in real life haha! Cheers!
What total drivel.
1.7-ton short 12-pounder Victory had 42 of them in total cool video now lets see the 32 pounders and a propper ships side with ballistic dummies
Here´s your rabbit hole: kzhead.info/sun/l6udZayEo2V9qn0/bejne.html It´s a 24-pounder, but still...
12pounders were not used to target enemy hull.. they were used as anti-personel guns.. They were too weak to penetrate Ship of the Line hull even at short distances... you needed at least 18pounder for that or bigger... 32pounders were the norm..
Well, first off all they need a properly reconstructed ships hull side as a target. Like done by the Vasa museum in Sweden for their tests. The target seen in this video is not representative of any seagoing ship of the 18th century, let alone a warship! The Vasa museum and the Bofors Test Center did this kind of test right and set the benchmark for how such tests needs to be done for any actual scientific use. What we see here is just lazy and of no use whatso ever tthan looking cool for an ignorant audience.
Victory had on each broadside (so these, plus the same again on t'other side). 1: 68pdr carronade of 5ft 36cwt (a pair of chase guns on the fo'c'sle) 1: 12pdr guns of 8.5ft 32cwt and 6: 12pdr guns of 7.5ft 29cwt (fo'c'sle and qtr deck). 15: 12pdr guns of 9ft 34 cwt (upper deck) 14: 24pdr guns of 9.5ft 50cwt (middle deck) 15: 32pdr guns of 9.5ft 56cwt (gun deck).
One reason the USS Constitution was called Iron Sides is because the builders came up with a way to stop cannon balls from penetrating the hull and causing the splinter carnage that was so damaging at the time, they built the hull with three kinds of wood, White Oak, Southern Live Oak both of which are quite dense and a softer oak in the middle.
Indeed. British forests couldn't produce timber of the same quality, so Constitution was both larger and tougher than British frigates, more akin to a small ship of the line. Only the heavier cannons of ships of the line could handle Constitution, but of course, Constitution avoided the larger British ships as much as possible.
Eric Moore Constitution was never hit with a 32 pound cannon ball, so we will never know how the hull would have coped against a ship of the line.
Please, stop this nonsense. There is literally ship logbook from engagement with guerriere that states multiple penetrations of constitutions hull. USS president got absolutely whacked by HMS Endymion equipped with 24pd long guns. Even 18pd longs could penetrat constitutions planking up to like 1,5km. Only place where they could get stuck, would be framing of the ship. The main reason why it looked like constitution withstood a lot of fire, was dogshit gunnery of guerriere. They missed most of their shots.
archeologists 1000 years from now: hmm....this is strange, it seems the cannonball was still in use in the 21st century, along with their much more advanced ballistic counterparts.
Someone did use a cannon strapped to the back of a pickup truck, in Syria(?) fired in anger.
tiny fact: The most effective barage you could shoot in a naval battle was when you would navigate your ship around the enemy and aim your broadside at the rear or front of the enemy ship. This way your cannon balls would not zip through the sides of the opponent, but they would fly straight through the entire length of the ship, destroying everything in their path from tip to end. This kind of placement of the shots can whipe entire decks of any living beeing or solid object and end an engagement with one barage.
Commonly referred to as "crossing the T" and "raking".
Not really a tiny fact - more like the primary aim of most frigate engagements in the Napoleonic era.
Also it is more effective when it is bounced off of the sea into the side, rather then a direct hit on the side.
It’s called “raking”. Nelson was very good at it. Ships of the Line were just that - line up crossing the bows of the enemy and raking. And then close. And do it fast.
@@lindaterrell5535 When HMS Victory crossed the stern of Bucentaure she gave her a triple shot raking, as in loading three cannon balls in one cannon, for every cannon. It was estimated that it killed and injured between 200-300 in one broadside. (about 1/4 of her crew)
No apparent wadding used so the gas would escape a bit around the ball, lessening both the punch and the recoil. Muzzle not elevated for the first firing so of course the ball would have bore into the ground before hitting the target at 600 M. The oak planking rather thin compared to an actual man-of-war hull. A fun vid, but I've live fired replica 18th century field and naval pieces - 4, 6, 9, and 12 pounders - and made more noise, recoil, and hit the target harder than this. I suspect that things herein were scaled back for "safety reasons"...
Second
Heck, a buddy and i made a cannon for a history project, and firing a 1 or 2 pound can of rocks at half the powder load he had tested it to, it had a more pronounced bang than this demonstration. There's clearly very little backpressure in this gun
Also talking about "shockwaves" despite gunpowder a low explosive that doesn't produce a shockwave
Yes! I was hoping someone else would comment: they significantly reduced and slowed the sound {'FFFLOOfT' rather then 'BLAANG-ANG!!'" The cannon ball they showed rolling in was small for the bore (loose). And they never elevated the cannon when going for distance.
When you were firing at the distant target, instead of giving up and moving the target closer, you should have simply moved the gun's quoin back a little to increase its elevation. That would have allowed you to hit the target easily. It is what 18th century gunners would have done; and, with experience, would have known to do for their first shot. It would have been very interesting to compare the damage done to the target timbers at the longer range compared to the very close range which you eventually used.
Well a gunner on the shore firing at a ship. Ship to ship combat was a little more complicated with the way the ships bobbed with the water.
@@olstar18 Yes, experienced gunners "fired on the roll." On ships whose frames were a little tired, and required a broadside be fired as a "rolling broadside," that meant the first gun fired, usually the ball would strike the water a little short of the target, maybe the second, then the guns after that would strike the hull until the last couple which would fly above the bulwarks. On ships which could bear a single broadside they would all fire so that the pan was ignited just before the gun was aimed at the hull, but still at the water just before the hull, because by the time the gun actually fired it would be aimed at the lowest visible part of the hull. Of course, after the first or second broadside, the guns usually fired at will, as soon as the gunner's mate in charge of the gun saw that it was passing the correct aiming point. This was all a matter of experience in the gunner. Really accurate firing was not done at long ranges, usually less than 600 feet, two football fields, most often a good bit less.
Yeah, love to hear the 'experts' tell the guys who have actual experience what they should have done.
@@DamnedSilly Nobody alive today has the experience of using those kind of guns in battle aboard wooden sailing ships. The best we can do is learn from the accounts in diaries of sailors from the period, and from officers' journals kept by the British Admiralty and U.S. Navy. Some people have actually studied such things, and have gleaned the knowledge I have presented here. Have YOU bothered to do such research? If so please let us know what you have learned.
@@DamnedSilly I love KZhead comments.
I love these historical re-enactments. I would have been terrifying to be in a battle. Imagine 50 cannons shooting at the same time.
WW1 veterans
Standing there in line formation and taking cannon fire. Thats the craziest thing ever.
Will anyone ever fire a cannon against something that's actually like a ship side instead of the garden fence replicas that are usually used? Now that would be interesting to see!
kzhead.info/sun/eNSHg5SCp6CLgZE/bejne.html There were some tests with replica cannons from the 17th century ship Vasa.
The middle gun deck of HMS Victory had oak planking between 4 and 6 inches thick. The target is made from 2.1 tons of 8” seasoned oak. Its as close to a representative a real ship of the period we could do.
@@SwallowForge Thanks for the reply, apologies, in the video it doesn't look anywhere near that thick, even now when I know that it is! Last time I had a guided tour of Victory they were talking about the gun decks having a laminate of oak and elm with an overall thickness of between 8 inches and a foot, which is what I was thinking of. I will have to take a trip across the harbour with a tape measure... :)
@@SwallowForge The real side would be thick oak planking exterior, mounted on paired oak framed 12+" thick, with alight gaps between the frame pairs, and the intermediate single frames. Inside the frames were a mix of oak timbers forming waterways, spirketting and clamps, and 'quickwork', as well as heavy oak frames and knees. Splinters would be thrown by the different components, but the thinner quickwork would do the job of containing and limiting the spread of large fragments from the frame and planking, while producing smaller splinters from it's relatively thin planks (which were also easier to tear off, to access the structural parts of the hull and the watertight exterior for repair - and to repair and replace). Netting could be hung on the inside of the gundecks to also catch some of the larger fragments). Vasa testing showed that the combination of frame spaces tended to restrict the spray of fragments to narrow vertical fans. Hits in the way of knees could produce much larger splinters, which although travelling much slower were more lethal than the smaller splinters thrown here, many of which would fail to penetrate woollen cloth (again from the Vasa instrumented testing). While fun to shoot at single oak planks loosely assembled, it has *very* little to do with the side of a ship.
@@SwallowForge no it’s nothing like the side of a ship of the line. You’ve only got one thickness and there’s no framing. The Vasa tests linked by @Thrifikionor above showed that thickness is critical to the amount of damage done. With thin walls the shot punches straight through with small splinters that are relatively harmless. If you hit a frame, however, a lot more energy is transmitted into the wood. This causes the massive splinters contemporary sources talk about. You need to watch the Vassa videos to see how to do this properly.
That was a long-9 12 pounder. Victory only had 48 short-8 12 pounders (22 per side + 2 fo'csle) the rest were short-8 24 pounders and 32 pounders (originally 42 pounders, but 32's at Trafalgar). Victory's guns, and all of the British Navy used flintlocks, not linstocks, for firing the guns by Trafalgar (started in 1745). That gun will become damaged if they continue like that - they should have used a heavy glove to cover (stop) the touch-hole after firing. The residual pressure in the gun pushes high temperature air and debris through the touch hole and erodes it rapidly. They blocked the hole to stop the superheated air as it hit the rear of the recoil.
There are still a few of those cannons aimed at sea like half a mile from where I live. I’ve never seen them being fired so this is really great to have an as an image. Our cannons were used to protect the town against Spanish and English marauders. Used at the entrance of the river Schelde, the Netherlands 🇳🇱
Los españoles no eran merodeadores, Los Países Bajos eran parte de España. Los merodeadores erais vosotros.
Cannon
@@19piolin82 los paises bajos eran parte de la familia habsburgo no de España si el rey decidia venderla o cederla a un pariente no necesitaba la aprobacion ni permiso de los nobles españoles mucho menos de la poblacion Cataluña si se considera parte de españa ya que ni el rey ni el presidente pueden decidir su independencia sin consultar a la poblacion ya que es el siglo 21 estas hablando de que los paises bajos pertenecian a españa bajo una legislacion del siglo 20
@@gymandpassion106 Holanda era parte de España. Y ojalá tuviéramos la legislación de hace 500 años.
@@19piolin82 si claro que lindo vivir en el pasado 🙄
"A captain cannot do very wrong if he lays his ship along side the enemy." Admiral Lord Nelson
something that is important to remember about the amount of cannons is both that they wouldn't fire all at once but also that if they did it would only be about three times louder than a single cannon because of how sound amplification works.
why only 3 times?
@@dovahkiin2 for the experienced volume to double you need ten times the amplification.
@@ebbezackariasson3736 yes but why
@@dovahkiin2 Because sound intensity is perceived logarithmically
We in 2021 :- "That's fascinating to see !!!!!! Look how it loads and fires !!!!" Sailors in the 18th century :- "Well same old , same old."
Thanks Dan, always a great education & discovery.
AHMAZING footage! First time I’ve seen a cannon fire from the front! Great work!
with 104 of these things firing on the hms victory, and the enemy firing back at you with splinters flying everywhere, it must of taken some serious balls to keep up the cannon firing throughout the entire battle! top work again guys :)
I've heard that most men pressed into service couldn't swim. So, the choice was simple: Keep firing the gun in an attempt to sink the ship firing at you, or lose your own ship and drown.
lol Yes, keeping canons firing in a protracted battle does take a lot of balls, and big balls too.
104 is the total - only 52 could bear on each side.
The forard gun crews were re manned three times on the Victory at Trafalgar !
Yep, and at the Battle of Trafalgar the HMS Victory as the lead ship was definitely firing every gun she had on both sides as she crossed the "T" of the French/Spanish fleet.
That's fascinating Dan. It shows what carnage would be inflicted on the poor souls on the receiving end of that. Thank you and Well done to all involved.
Serving on a warship during this period must have been absolutely TERRIFYING....PTSD must have been rife.
I *love* the concussion punch you feel in your chest when near a discharging cannon.
Master and Commander is one of my favorite movies. What brutality and gore being a navy warship crew member at that time in history!
I loved Master and Commander too. And for the most part, it appeared to have been historically accurate. One of the few things I questioned was the amazing marksmanship of the Acheron gunners. The first long distance salvo in the thick fog clobbered the Surprise's rigging. Her cannon must have been radar guided.
Crewmen were injured by those splinters. I remember reading of one battle where a commanding officer was blinded by them.
Impressive consistency in shot placement for a smooth bore.
cool video, I always like these videos that show us how devastating old tech really is
That view down the barrel as it fired was terrifying 😳
I imagine that was the last thing that thousands of people ever saw :(
Nice video. Considering the proportion of the hand and the shot at 4:30, I would guess a 120mm caliber, so a 12 lb gun. This was standard guns for light frigates, or for ship of the lines fore- and sterncastle. Imagine the impact of 18lb, 24lb or French 36lb. 600 meters seems a bit short, but probably the gun was not at full charge to avoid possible damage, and black powder efficiency varied a lot. Prime cone-shaped British black powder was measured 30% more effective than average French one.
I second this. Victory carried 32, 24 and 12 pounders on the lower, middle and upper decks respectively. Seems a bit long for a 12 pounder, so at first I thought it was a long nine. Still, the difference between 9 and 12 lb shot is less than 1/2 in.
You seem to know your way around the great guns. A glass of wine with you, sir.
Thanks. The second thing I was wondering when watching this video was what actual type of cannon this was meant to be. Bit disappointed there was not more background given in the video.
I realized, while I had some critiques, I forgot to mention I still loved the video, and wanted to say: good job getting it out in the field and doing something with it! I bet the transport and ammo cost were pretty extreme. Well-done, if if I might have made some picky criticisms :)
Ammo cost would not have been that much... I mean, dunno how much a steel ball costs, but a 1lb container of black powder equivalent costs about $50, and you could probably get all 3 shots from one of those containers.
@@reaganharder1480 you will need more than 1 pound of powder per shot. and using a cast iron ball, not steel. A 3 pounder would use 1 pound of powder, that's a much bigger gun. Where are you from? I don't think a pound costs that much where I am.
powder was about £200 for the day (1kg or £30 per shot) and about £75ish for the balls which we re use if we can find them.
Absolutely incredible fun this would be. Great video guys
Clearly not a full charge, they wouldn't put Dan Snow in that type of danger. If it blew apart, probably nobody nearby would survive it. This is always a possibility with large amounts of gunpowder and metal.
I would have liked to have known more about the target: how thick was the wood? Was it sound, or did you just pull it off of some old condemned barn? Did you try to replicate the side of an 18th century ship? How was it put together?
6 inch crane mats, the specification ordered said oak but it was the softest oak I've ever shot if it was.
This sort of legacy TV style stuff seems really weird on KZhead, when there's so much proper in depth accurate stuff to compare to.
Interesting, but not really a "test". You're shooting at a wooden board. A Ship-of-the-Line was made up of several planks and boards that were laid at 90 degrees to each other and were very thick. This is just shooting holes in a fence.
Incredible. How id love to just go back and spectate one of these wars
This is so cool!!! More please!!!
1:10 We in 2021 :- "You keep it this way and load and fire it." 18th century sailors :- "It's no sailing science !! Get on with it !!!!"
We have 2 similar sized cannons where I work. (i wont tell you where) but ours are originals from the early 1800s and still in working condition. but we would never attempt to fire them so its cool to see what they could really do!
Thanks! This was a real treat.
It would have been good to paint the back of the target orange so you could find the splinters easier and see how big the splinter zone was.
in a crowded ship the splinters would have been stopped by the men closest to the hole, the deck, the overhead, teh beams, the guns, etc. they wouldn't spray like in an open field
we found 18" long splinters 40m behind the target
When I was a kid in Halifax, Nova Scotia, we used to go up to the Citadel to watch American tourists as the noon gun was fired - a cannon about the same size as this. They would crowd around and then... BANG. We would bet on who would lose bladder control (five cents) and who would lose bowel control (ten cents). A double-double was worth twenty-five cents. We all wanted to see a 'grand slam' - total loss of bladder and bowel control plus heart attack, but we weren't lucky.
lol
Such a wonderful video. It's one thing to see a cannon fire a blank. A huge difference with a real projectile like a ball etc. the pressure difference is night and day as you can imagine. It actually shakes the ground. Something you have to experience live to grasp. If you have access to this gun, please make another!!
Before he was famous, Napoleon was trained as an artilleryman. At one siege (Toulon?) he was already a lieutenant general, but insisted on setting and. firing a canon himself. The. troops were wowed by his expertise, and started calling him ""the little corporal" because he was so good at what he did and didn't stand on his rank to get the job done -- he knew he was the best cannoneer on the scene, and decided to do the job himself. One of the demonstrations of his abilities as a leader technical mastery + charisma. . . .
Just a little note as I noticed, at 3:05 Your cannon ball didn't fall short, it had hit the deck and skipped off to the far right side. If you pause it just at the right frame in the time I posted you can see the cannon ball whizz by high above and to the right of the target. Not that it matters either way, a miss is a miss, just something I'd kinda spotted for a second and had to go back and rewatch to check if I saw it right.
The cannon ball fell short by some 300m and hit the ground at least 2m right of the correct line of flight. The range problem was a lack of elevation in the gun barrel. Assuming an initial velocity of 240m/s with an average of 180 m/s, for a 600m target, the elevation needed to be 5-5.5 degrees.
If you were on an enclosed gun deck the muzzle blast would mostly be outside the hull, significantly reducing felt shock and noise. There is of course the vent, but overall the effect would be diminished, rather than magnified.. (Constitution as originally fitted with 8ft guns was very unpleasant to work, and the longer replacement 9.5ft guns both preserved the ports and made conditions on the gundeck more pleasant). 'Pistol Shot' is recorded as 400 yds, by Admiral Lord Rodney in a footnote to John Clerk's Treatise on Naval Tactics where Mr Clerk this as being 'seldom achieved' throughout the C18th - in the face of French gunnery from leeward followed by wearing away, at ranges which could scarcely have been less than 800 yds, and up to 1200 yds from an analysis of the number of ships in the enemy line which could bear on the van of the English fleets, again, and again and again. The last few actions of the Revolutionary war and fleet actions in the Napoleonic war were abnormal - but still the 'close actions' were pistol shot - 400yds, rather than the much closer ranges asserted for the most part, from a conflation of duelling ranges with the 'carry' distance of a pistol elevated at like angle to the great guns. 400yds approximates the distance a pistol ball should fall to the platform when fired at 5 degrees by quadrant... and fairly close to the maximum range the ball will throw. Carronades will similarly throw to 1100-1200yds and guns to 1400-1800yds when so elevated. The line of metal range of guns is closer to 500-600yds (depending on nature (being roughly 1 degree of elevation)), and carronades pointed by line of metal will reach somewhat further than this (with several intermediate aimpoints on their sight notches) - the line of metal being ~3 degrees the range of metal is around 700 yds. Point blank had several meanings in the period, and the above 'by line of metal' was a common one - it was *the* French definition, and is frequently used within English gunnery treatises as well. The *official* point blank - where a gun, levelled by quadrant will project a shot which strikes the target distance at the height of the plstform is *never* used, even in official testing, and instead a bastard version in which a gun on a platform elevated at some distance above the surface which may also slope (if testing on land) has the distance to the *surface* measured. Which is neither fish nor fowl, nor good red meat.
This is so amazing!! Experience something like this would be a dream come true.
Clearing up some comments as one of the people firing on the film. If Dan was firing it was a blank charge hence the very low recoil. The live fire was any shots with the two in Leather firing (insurance reasons) we were on a half charge of 1kg. The reason for the miss at 600m was that we only had two cannon balls the right size (supply chain error with only a week between booking and filming) so the 600m shots were with a 90mm ball in a 125mm barrel. With 1kg powder and 120mm ball we hit a different target at 600m at 2.4º elevation.
In the battle between Monitor and Merrimack, the guns in Monitor's turret were capable of penetrating Merrimack's armor, but the man in charge was concerned for safety limiting the powder charges.
There was no Merrimack. It's old damaged hull was remade into the Virginia. The Coast Guard's Eagle is the renamed Horst Wessel and it's not a rebuild. Purely Northern oriented misinformation.
Was the thickness of the target representative of what the hull of a frigate or ship of the line would have been? Also, the recoil was much less than I would have expected.
And did they use a full charge of powder?
I should create a new Olympic Games. 1. Cannon Shooting Large 2 Cannon Shooting Small 3. Musket Speed Firing 4. Musket Shooting 60 metres 5. Musket Shooting 120 metres 6. Arquebus Shooting 50 metres 7. Arquebus Shooting 100 metres 8. Castle Wall Takedown - Siege Teams 9. Fuse Grenade Tossing 10. Blunderbuss Object Wrecking
Those bits of wood that shot out of the “exit wound” were called “shivers”, hence the expression, “shiver me timbers” . : )🏴☠
As commented below the Vasa gun experiments are really revealing and their target was a much more accurate target construction. In contrast to Dan Snow’s observations about splinters they were very clear that splintered wood was far less deadly than historically suggested. This was nevertheless an interesting experiment and I was surprised how little recoil there was, which I assume was because the projectile was a small calibre.
This danish documentary shows that it was mainly the splints that killed the sailors not cannonball it self kzhead.info/sun/htqMdLZ7hKeXpps/bejne.html
Light recoil because of light powder load
As shown by a re-examinationthe Myth Buster experiment, it depends on what the ball hits in the ship as to what splinters are produced and how deadly they can be. Also, I suspect that pieces of ship penetrating skin weren't sanitary. Thus, sailors may have been prone to infections caused by splinters.
target construction was limited by a week lead time and low budget. those crane mats went back to being crane mats after filming
One thing I love about cannons is you can track the cannonballs in flight. If you tried that with a WW2 battleship, shell going 2000 mph, you'd have to watch in 1 fps to see it XD
Not only were the shells going 2000 mph they also weighed about a ton!
Awesome stuff, thank you.
The way he describes the damage lmao 😂 I was expecting all the target to disappear
A couple of points: I believe the desired range was "Pistol Shot" or Half Pistol Shot" @ 30 and 15 yards respectively. If you do this again, please tell us what the cannon is - e.g. a long 18 pounder firing a 6 pound charge of FFg powder. Effective range? Random shot range? Metal? Cannon Weight? where/when cast? I thought the flintlock firing lock was in use then rather than powder and slowmatch . It would be both interesting and informative to gather a crew to service the gun according to the gun drill in Nelsons time. Swab the bore! Ram the 6-8 pound charge! Ram the wad! Load the ball! (try dismantling shot sometinm.) Ram the wad! powder the touch hole! Cock the lock annnnnd FIRE! Also, the target should be 24-30 inches thick as the ships hull would be. Remember Old Ironsides - "Hurrah!! Her sides are made of Iron!!!" Are there any fireable 24 pound carronades available? Those and the 32 pounders were the real shipsmashers. Thank you for an interesting video, and the work that went into it!
Admiral Lord Rodney describes pistol shot as being 400yds (and seldom reached) in footnotes to John Clerks' "An Essay on Naval Tactics" the first volume of which was available to the Admirals formulating the plan of attack in the first of the successful British fleet engagements following a century of ... indifferent fleet performance, but exemplary bravery in single ship action. The French would fight from leeward, disable the head of the Lasking British column, then wear away to receive any attempting to pursue on the opposite tack. Opening fire from 1200-1800yds, they repeatedly forced the British fleet to disengage from damage received, allowing them to continue their operational mission - to British strategic losses in the Mediterranean, Caribbean and the American Colonies. This 400yds is the range (roughly) that a pistol ball would fall to the platform height if fired from head height at 5 degrees above the horizon (which angle is also quoted when indicating the range of other ordnance). On this same basis a musket would throw to 700yds, a carronade from 900-1200 yds, guns from 1400-1900 yds, Clerk's essay is available on Google books as a free ebook, and is worth reading - it is also possible to order it print on demand if you prefer that, the book is readily searchable.
@@gracesprocket7340 Pistol shot is 400 yards?? I humbly submit hat seems an Exceedingly long range for a pistol especially at that time. (Handguns then were Not very efficient At all. My ballistics tables (from a Speer reloading manual) for drop from zero range and decrease in velocity from muzzle wouldn't support that range. I understand you to say that the pistol is held at a 5 degree up angle and is fired from head (say 5 1/2 foot) height. That's 66 inch drop to the platform (Where the person is standing.). I'm not arguing, I'm a) very surprised and b) just going on my experience with handguns. Again, a 400 yard range for pistol shot seems a Very Long range. I'll see if I can find the Clarks book. Thanks for your response!!
Brings back memories of reading Hornblower. Might be time to dust off the series and re-read them again. That cannon looks like a long gun, not a ship sidewall smasher like a carronade. Short range vs long range long guns kzhead.info/sun/lrCxeZGBip5pl6M/bejne.html
barrel is lined with a 125mm tank barrel (yes the rifling is still in there, no I didn't build it) firing a 14lb ball (120mm/6.25kg) 1kg powder with 4-7mm grain size. range with that 600m at 2.4º elevation with target 10m vertical elevation above firing platform.
As someone who has read most of the Aubrey Maturing series, I can say this guy cannons.
Excellent and fun video! Now, how well would a modern tank if it ‘d take a hit from a ball from that old naval gun? Cheers! :)
Depends on where it hit. If it was just the hull there would be a paint scrape about the size of a quarter.
"Thick oak planking" - shows a wall of pallet wood that a .22lr would pen
For me this raises the question "why didn't gunnery crews wear armour?". It was obsolete on the battlefield, but a helm and breastplate would be exactly the thing to stop jagged splinters from hitting your vitals, and you're not exactly in danger of falling overboard whilst on a gun deck.
Good point.
Pretty impressive to see and I can only imagine what the devastation there would be. The ships fighting so close together with multiple guns being fired and the injuries sustained and death. It would be horrible to say the least. No wonder sailors were known for their drinking.
That and boredom.
5:50 according to MythBusters and other accounts the splinters from the ship were not as deadly as people thought, out of all those splinters 15% would have done damage to people because they lose their velocity so quickly being very porous and lightweight
Bofors' test fires with a 17th century cannon proved that balls hitting the bulkhead of the ship wall (the thickest part) would create large chunks of wood splintering off, which would be deadly. It's actually thinner walls that splinters into too small fragments to be deadly, while thicker walls increase the risk of deadly splinters.
Mythbusters used a really weedy canon.
I wonder if thick canvas on the other side (inside) of the hull would block much of the splintering?
Nice experiment thank you.
I can't imagine The bravery or the fear of having dozens of cannons pointed at someone in point blank range
Great video! But the recoil was weaker than I imagined. Was it a ‘full’ XVIII century charge?
Didn't look like one, but the recoil should be relatively mild from a naval pattern gun - which are around twice the weight of a field gun which uses the same charges. Recoil velocity of around 10ft/s was considered acceptable for the heavy guns of the lower deck, with much above 13ft/s being 'violent'. Guns of smaller bore were (in English designs) heavier for their shot than the lower deck guns and although slightly longer, producing very slightly more velocity, this reduces their recoil speeds quite a bit. (Double shot recoils faster than single shot, although *each* shot is lower velocity and energy than the single ball with the same charge. Reduced charge used for double shot gives similar recoil energy as the distant charge used for a single ball, though the average velocity of the pair is less than 65%, with reduced range, reduced penetration and the two ball moving at different speeds and directions giving very reduced accuracy at longer distance. (Carronades 'catch' their slides with an initial velocity of ~20ft/s which is reduced to around 15ft/s by 'picking up' the sliding part of their carriage). Friction, both of the slides/trucks and axles, and the running out of the train tackles reduces the recoil velocity quite a bit before the last of it is taken up by the breechings. (Avg friction is around 0.1R)
Absolutely no discussion of the thickness of a ship's timbers. Target looks far too thin to me.
I visited HMS Victory in Portsmouth and from what I could see the hull was 2 feet thick at least. Certainly wider than the target shown in the video. The biggest danger to officers in battle seemed to be from snipers from the enemy ships firing down from the crows nests, known as fighting tops, which were built on the masts of each ship. This is how Nelson was killed in the Battle, he was too obvious and he was out on deck leading his men in battle. He had no other choice in those days of honour and valour at all costs in the field of battle. He had no choice and it cost him his life. Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori.
Awesome Dan Snow! Forgot which show I always used to watch that he was in on Dicovery or History channel.
This is why you don't want to anger your neighbour who collects old medieval stuff. You play loud music at a party one day and he rolls out an 18th century cannon.
Great. Some ballistics gel behind the target would have shown the damage on human flesh to drive the point home.
I like Dan and his Dad Both very enthusiastic especially Peter with his “Swingometer”!
0:47 "we warm up the ball to ensure optimal performance and accuracy." That's what I tell my girlfriend every time 😅
You missed such a small target at such a long distance, with a notoriously inaccurate cannon. It was likely to happen.
They had nowhere near the required elevation to hit at that range either.
Yes agreed , but you can see what was going to happen the barrel was at the same level as the ground in front of it , it had no elevation anyway.
At its set declination, the ball plowed into the ground around 250m I suspect. If it had skipped, that evidence would have been readily seen.
Debris traveling at supersonic speeds? Highly unlikely since even the projectile isn't moving that fast. If ships wanted to gain elevation during naval engagements, they just fired during the ships uproll. In dire situations they could unship the rear wheels, but then there would be no chance for recoil to put the gun back into battery for another shot.
With a service charge, the ball WILL be comfortably supersonic, in fact.
@@MinSredMash Sure, their muzzle velocity could approach 500m/s, but round projectiles aren't very aerodynamically efficient. After some travel time, and impacting into double-layered timber hull, I would be very surprised if the resultant splinters are broke the sound barrier.
@@spamhonx56 At short range it is possible, as indicated by the Wasa tests, using a lower muzzle velocity than was common in the 1700s
@@MinSredMash huh, must have something to do with the springy nature of wood. Fascinating.
Someone is watching “master and commander”
That's a really good work !
Fun fact, I once heard, a veteran of the battle of Gettysburg mentioned in his memoirs that the brass Napoleon cannons during that war made a ringing sound, along with the report of powder discharging when firing solid shot balls. So, the blanks fired now at reenactments and demonstrations lack that ringing sound that the 19th century veterans heard.
The historian must be a specialist in 19th c. Ladies fashions or some other highly-relevant field.
How could splinters be propelled at "supersonic speeds" if the cannonball itself is subsonic?
Agreed that it's unlikely but, theoretically, not entirely impossible. It's the old equal and opposite reaction. If a heavy object hits a light object the light object will have to move away at a much higher speed to produce an opposite reaction. However in order to do that the heavy object would have to expend all of it's energy (ie come to a complete stop) during the energy transfer. Also, because they are less dense and have a irregular rather than aerodynamic surface the wooden splinters shed speed a lot faster than the iron ball. Look at 4:55 and you can see how quickly the splinters are slowing compared to the ball which hardly seems to have slowed.
@@silverjohn6037 "Television documentary hyperbole".
Cannonballs from this period aren't subsonic
@@edwhufc7 cannonballs from the 18th century? If it was mid 19th and onwards, yes, they were already supersonic according to the manuals I read. Not earlier.
The rule of momentum makes lighter things hit by heavier things go faster, so the splinters from the impact can indeed travel faster than the cannon ball.
Wooow..... Thank you for showing the realistic boom ....of a cannon gun..... It's a treat to my eyes...... Thanks 🙏
Really cool but I wish the audio was much much better. That’s what I was hoping for.
The Vasa experiments are much, much better. They showed that the shock waves are mitigated by the muzzle being outside the hull and they cover the effect of hull thickness on splinter danger. The mock hull is not anything like a hull. The Vasa experiments used a well-informed mock hull and high speed cameras to measure the velocity of splinters. This is poor work.
I completely agree! The experiment in this video has very little historical research value. It also looks like they fire their gun with reduced powder charges instead of historically accurate loads which greatly affect the results in a negative way. If the replica gun is properly made and is inspected properly before doing the test there is no reason not to fire it with historically accurate powder loads.
I am just guessing here, but I suspect the Vasa experiment had a much larger budget to work with.
Two man crew and free priming from a horn . Sorry guys , you are an accident waiting to happen . Pennsylvania Historic and Museum Commission had a far better test using 24Lb. cannonade against replica ships side with cast rigging and cut out gun crew
Gunner: "Captain...we keep missing the targets!..." Captain: "Ok..I will ask the enemy to come closer..."
'With a little round hole in his forehead/And the back blown out of his head.' Rudyard Kipling - and that was about a rifle bullet. Fascinating video.
When ships fought with cannon, the ships were so close that they were bumping against each other. Fire on the downward roll to hit below the waterline, mid roll to hit through the decks and upward roll to destroy masts and rigging.
Cannon balls “graze” about 6” into the ground, then rise to about 6’. The bounces get shorter but travel for a for a considerable distance. We used Grass wadding, and never ever found The fired balls in our test firings with a 91/2 pounder. Any file of men in the way would be seriously injured at best. Even if the Ball was grazing. The body of a man makes no difference to the velocity of the ball, indeed body parts, earth and stones would injure men not hit by the ball
Hi Mo, really intrigued by this video and trying to find the location of the test firing for trying something similar for some sound recording. Were you involved in the filming of this one?
@@jerajerabinks No, we were in a deserted bit of County Durham, with a large hill as a backstop. I have no idea where the film was shot. Our cannon are all held under shotgun licences (read the law, smooth bore, barrel more than 24 inches long) by private individuals, who also had to have black powder licences to fire them. I built and fired a flintlock carbine with a 26 inch barrel under the same regulations . The firing was against a palisade made of old telegraph poles, which offered no resistance at all to our shot.
They went to all that trouble but only brought 3 cannon balls.
Our school walls were covered in graffiti cannons pointing at 80 degrees.
I like the smoke it creates. That gun can fire several kilometers without any sweat.
Several kilometres?, yet can not reach and hit target at 600 m!
High praise to Mr. Snow. No one better when he sticks to history.
This was pure amateur hour compared to the informative testing performed on an instrumented range by the team from Vasamuseet and Bofors. 3 shot and a single scaling charge, the long range shot poorly calibrated and sighted (a fourth test round observed and corrected - to obtain a hit on the far target (or alternatively a reduced charge to replicate line of metal impact conditions at a range at which accuracy was less critical.) The target was inadequate - a single row of thickstuff, but no framing or quickwork to constrain and generate their own fragments - no knees, floors, waterways or clamps, no spirketting. Compare to the Carronade demonstration vs 'Niagara' - the Vasa Cannon demonstration vs 'Vasa' - the demonstration of the Danish frigate's gun vs a part of her structure. Fun, lots of smoke and noise.... but there isn't even a measurement of muzzle velocity attempted, or a formal notation of the nature of the ordnance.
As a historian I agree with his politics. He understands where rampant, unfettered nationalism leads. I'm guessing you are referring to his stance on Brexit.
IIRC, Nelson's first shot at Trafalgar was from a caronade loaded with two 64-pound balls with a keg of musket shot poured on top for garnish, fired lengthwise through the transom of the French man-o'-war. The sheer violence of such a round is unimaginable.
Round shot gunnery should be an Olympic event.