Slashdot Mirror
Superguns Helped Defeat the Spanish Armada
Hugh Pickens writes "With the discovery last year of the first wreck of an Elizabethan fighting ship off Alderney in the Channel Islands, thought to date from around 1592, marine archaeologists are revising their ideas on how the English defeated the Spanish Armada. Replicas of two cannon recovered from the Alderney wreck were recreated in a modern foundry, and tests carried out showed that the Elizabethans were throwing shot at almost the speed of sound. Elizabeth's 'supergun,' although relatively small, could hit a target a mile away. At a ship-to-ship fighting distance of about 100 yards, the ball would have sufficient punch to penetrate the oak planks of a galleon, travel across the deck, and emerge out the other side. Tests on cannon recovered from the Alderney wreck also suggest that the ship carried guns of uniform size, firing standard ammunition. 'Elizabeth's navy created the first ever set of uniform cannon, capable of firing the same size shot in a deadly barrage,' says marine archaeologist Mensun Bound from Oxford University, adding that that navy had worked out that a lot of small guns, all the same, all firing at once, were more effective than a few big guns. '[Elizabeth's] navy made a giant leap forward in the way men fought at sea, years ahead of England's enemies, and which was still being used to devastating effect by Nelson 200 years later.'"
Speaking of a Brit I am always humbled at my nations level of mastery of naval tactics, from the early 'near supersonic' artillery mentioned in this article, to the modern... "Just ram the fuckers with a submarine" approach that we employ today... *wipes tear*
Two cannons were shown on the programme being lifted from the sea bed to join a 3rd that had been lifted earlier.
They wanted 3 cannons to make sure that a matching pair was not a fluke. A matching triple is much less likly. It was also interesting to to note that all the cannon balls lifted were of the same size.
I don't see anything special about those guns. We Dutch had the same guns on our trade- and war ships in that time. They can shoot a cannonball to a distance of about a kilometer I'm told, so I'm not surprised that they can pulverize a wooden ship at 100 m distance.
-- Cheers!
It's both fascinating and sad how technology and warfare has been intertwined from the very dawn of man. A lot of "geeks" from way back, Greek philosophers, Leonardo da Vinci, etc. were sponsored by the rich and powerful of their respectable eras in exchange for using their minds to create better warfare technology.
For good or for evil, it seems that's the way it has always been, and likely always will be. We possibly wouldn't be having this discussion if it weren't for DARPA...
.: Max Romantschuk
Elizabeth big balls
Olden ships
Farting cannons gracefully
The pistol they used in the test at the Royal Armoury was not particularly modern -- it was a GI-standard Colt 1911A1 firing milspec .45ACP ball ammo.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_Armada
What amuses me is the selective memory Brits have on their naval affairs...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Cartagena_de_Indias
That's what I'd call a defeat.
Actually, the funny thing is: only because our history textbooks are still fascinated with conquerors, ignore civillian progress almost entirely, and kings which built up the economy instead of going to war are presented as weak kings. So yeah, you only get to hear about the stuff used in war.
But if you look as far back as the dawn of civilization, the advances which made those armies and empires possible in the first place were almost invariably civillian technology. E.g., you wouldn't have had those empires rising and falling in Mesopotamia without irrigation and timekeeping and a bunch of other things. I'm hard pressed to see how irrigation might have been developed for warfare.
Or if you look at ancient Egypt, their greatest advances were made before the Hyskos invasion, while Egypt was still shielded by the desert from any noteworthy warfare. Their only concerns were minor border fights against raiders and nubian tribes, and they didn't waste much of their GDP on the army or even on fortifying their cities. In fact, none of their cities had a wall at all. And yet in this age they developed construction, medicine, etc, to an extent far beyond their warring neighbours.
Romans, if you look at them, were actually a remarkably peaceful civilization. With some few exceptions, like the last war against Carthage, Rome almost never started a war of aggression. They just defended what was theirs and honoured their alliances to the letter. But when attacked, they hit back _hard_. Among other things because they hadn't ruined their economy and manpower with pointless wars before that. The vast majority of their conquests were actually done in counter-attacks.
But anyway, while everyone drools about the Roman legions, few people give thought to the economy that could afford them in the first place. There were advances in engineering, administration, construction, etc. There was stuff like the aqueducts that allowed Rome to have that monstruous manpower to throw at an enemy. Most of that stuff was civillian tech. Nobody built an aqueduct as an offensive thing.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
Dude, I don't know about you but Slashdot didn't stop me doing that...
*blushing furiously at being caught typing nonsense in Slashdot*
Then again judging from your UID you might be a little younger than I am? ;)
Yeah. Any tips, dude? How do I charm and seduce the mysterious species known as "females"?
---
"Why do they have to travel in packs? And how are you supposed to get one alone long enough to ask them?"
I believe the theory about the advanced and standardised britisch canons is not so new. At least I read a (not so good written) historical novel named "Der Meister des Siebten Siegels" ("The Master of the seventh Seal") about a fictiv (?) Adam Dreyling, developed a new technology to cast canons in higher quality, escaped to england and armed the english fleet. At least now it seems to be proven.
Nelson was nobody's fool, he used that tactic because it favoured his technology.
The brits had shorter guns that when fired would roll back into the ship ready to be reloaded. The spanish had guns that had to be loaded by climbing over the side of the ship. This new information that the british guns were powerfull enough make two holes with one shot makes the technological gap even wider and thus more effective.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
is not uzbekistan!
I never heard of ramming being used by Nelson. Also, given the layout of ships at the time it would have been all but impossible to ram and shoot an enemy vessel.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
No, it's an example of the power of consistency, which is best obtained by sourcing from a single supplier. I highly doubt these warships had cannons from a variety of manufacturers made to detailed open specifications. More likely, navy smiths made all the cannons themselves, with the same tools and same people each time. In a modern context, it'd mean the navy standardising on one technology from one supplier - ie, Microsoft. Nice try though.
The British had for almost a 500 years a fairly simple approach to warfare. It's called "shoot the enemy a lot". I'd bet that it comes from their own ancient fascination with the long bow, where, really, you had to just put as many arrows in the air as possible to win and they did win that way at Agincourt.
From that they always worked on the rate and power of their fire, whereas other nations had a more mixed set of priorities. It wasn't just about getting more hits - they also recognized the intimidating effect having a lot of stuff coming your way meant.
But even after their machine gun, you saw British military theorists like Lidell Hart advocating for what the Germans would adapt into their own blitzkreig, and the USA into its Shock and Awe. And, even their commandos and SAS, upon which all the special forces of the world are based, are also really about, "shoot the enemy a lot"...
Bottom line is, if you mess with the British, they are going to shoot you a lot. So its really easier just have them as an ally and keep them working on their bad food and good music and television.
This is my sig.
"Replicas of two cannon recovered from the Alderney wreck were recreated in a modern foundry,"
So they made a working replica of a replica? I think "recreated" should just be "created".
Better known as 318230.
Interesting. If you had actually bothered to read to the end of the paragraph, you'd see I did address that issue: they conquered almost all that territory in counter-attacks, after being the ones attacked. Or were you that much in a hurry to jump to a snarky uninformed wisecrack? Learn to read, lemming.
And "indirectly" is the whole point. It's stuff that didn't result by being paid for by a warlord, but civillian tech which then incidentally also benefitted an overlord. I.e., far from being a case where everything was invented because of wars and army, it's mostly the other way around.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
I bet an offensive aqueduct is like a silo virus in Command and Conquer. It works when you use it in Rome: Teh Vijeo Gam but it's really complete nonsense.
Virtue finds and chooses the mean.
Aristotle, Ethica Nichomachea
The British sure made a bloody mess of Ireland.
The gaul wars were a mixed bag and Caesar was going to be investigated by the Senate for it, when he decided to attack Rome instead.
But even there, it all started when the Helvetii attacked some gallic tribes which were allies and clients of Rome. The next two major interventions there followed the same pattern: someone attacks the allies of Rome, Rome smacks back hard.
It has nothing to do with crying "the Gaul have weapons of mass destruction", and everything to do with your allies being actually attacked first. Big difference.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
Otherwise we will have what we have now, dropping from the sky aircraft, hanging PCs, global economical crisis. When the foundation is not right, nothing is right. What Barak is waiting for?
Some historians believe that this notable discrepancy may well have been behind the famous rant from King Philip II, where he threw his throne at a courtier while screaming "I'll kill those fucking Dutch!"...
With the recent EU rulings I'm guessing something very similar's happening in Seattle right now...
So it was the wave motion cannon, right?
Regards, Ian
there was a display in d.c. some time ago of russian war booty: hitler's desk, swastika-etched globe, military banners (direct descendants of medieval heraldy)...and nazi & russian small arms: the german guns were beautifully machined, but each took a unique ammo; the russian were stamped-steel, but all took the same round, a major logistical advantage...
Actually on many Frigates and Cutters (smaller fast sailing ships) a small number of guns were often placed in the foredecks as the ships were used for pursing merchant vessels. The idea behind this was to fire chainshot into the sails of a fleeing merchantman.
Ramming was a common tactic from the dawn of naval warfare, many of the first combat ships were dedicated rammers as were the first Ironclads used in the US civil war. Even in Nelsons days it was still common. You forget just how hard it is to actually sink a ship made out of wood, especially when your only weapons are iron balls. Ramming was also a good way for small ships to destroy big ships, sailing ships cant manoeuvre quickly so a small frigate on a ramming course towards a ship of the line would take five minutes to execute but it takes five minutes for a single course change order to be executed on a large sailing ship.
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
the north sea made the brits the 1st global superpower...
which obsoleted all warships before it when it appeared in 1906. If anything this older ship they should follows the same idea, lots of powerful guns all the same size. What is known as a uniform main battery. The article on wikipedia is pretty good when it comes to why such a feature is important.
What it comes down to is range. Having the bulk of your guns available at range is what used to win naval battles. The same could be said this day and age about your missiles. Who can shoot the furthest should win.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Dreadnought_(1906)
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
according to a colonial officer reenactor, w.r. is a shooting term meaning the ability to concentrate fire...thus the 2nd amendment has nothing to do with fucking lawyers writing fucking regulations;-)
FWIW, ball ammo is made to knock down an opponent rather than pierce armor. A pistol is not a replacement for a rifle (the WWI era equivalent of a musket). The longer barrel of a rifle also means a higher muzzle velocity. Compare that Colt 1911A1 pistol with a Nosin-Nagant or Mauser rifle available around the same time as the Colt for e.g.
Iron barrels tend to explode randomly if you overload them with powder. This is why the bronze gun was developed. The thermoelastic performance of bronze is such that the gun can take a much higher charge and will gently stretch instead of shattering like iron does.
By the way, the Turks developed this in the 16th Century.
The Spanish Armada was defeated in 1588, so maybe everybody else had caught up by the mid 17th century?
Elizabeth wasn't exactly unique in trying to standardize artillery. Land based artillery was organised into classes of guns that used uniform calibres and ammo as early as the 15th and early 16th century in France and Germany. The article is also misleading. There is no way Elizabethan gunners could have hit anything consistently with a smoothbore black powder gun and roundshot at a range of one mile. There is a difference between being able to throw a cannon ball a mile with a 16th century smoothbore gun and being able to score pinpoint hits on targets at that range, especially if you are firing from the deck of a ship. They same guy who was testing the gun in that BBC video did a similar Armada gunnery experiment on a Discovery (or was it a History channel?) program with a replica of a 16th century bronze culverin. Basically they couldn't hit the broad side of a barn even at shorter ranges. Of course that probably had as much to do with the inexperience of the modern day gunners as the gun it self. Nevertheless, the conclusion they reached in that program was that long range gunnery was a general failure against the Armada. What worked turned to be going in nice and close, 100 yards sounds about right, load as much powder as your piece could take and make up for lack of accuracy with massive broadsides. Another point to remember about the Armada is that it was defeated as much by the weather, the currents, the over-ambitiousness of the plan and Medina Sidonia's total lack of initiative and rigid adherence to orders as it was by any inherent technological, tactical or strategic superiority of the British. By the evening of the 19 of July 1588 Mendina Sedonia had the British fleet trapped at anchor in Plymouth and he knew it. He could have attacked the fleet at anchor and even landed a major portion of the 18.000 troops he had with him to establish a beachhead before going on to ferry over the remaining 30.000 troops of the army of the Netherlands. That many Spanish troops loose in Southern Britain would have been a major headache. He chose to ignore this opportunity much to the annoyance of his subordinates.
Only to idiots, are orders laws.
-- Henning von Tresckow
Mrr, all this talk of naval warfare sort of makes me want to play EVE.
Except that EVE is pretty terrible at doing any kind of tactical combat (the best description I've read is that EVE is basically paper-rock-scissors in space).
"pew pew pew"
Well, certainly everything is possible, and it did happen at least once off the top of my head. But I think that _most_ of the time they didn't actually need to fake anything, and it would have been hard to fake it anyway.
For example the Daci had raided into Roman lands across the Danube since the times of Caesar (i.e., for more than 150 years) by the time Trajan had enough and finally conquered them. It's easy to fake one attack, but it's hard to fake 150 years of your settlers being attacked and your settlements sacked.
For example at the other end, did they really need to fake, say, the attacks of the Picti in Britannia? Britain ended up needing 3 legions and IIRC a whopping 20% of the auxilia in the Empire just to keep the picts from raiding south. Not only were these a financial burden, but it was a source of civil wars too, as whoever commanded 3 legions and that many auxiliary regiments soon got the idea that he can march with them upon Rome.
I.e., if that was done to fake a need to push the border farther north of Hadrian's wall, it would have been the most piss-poor and expensive fake in history. The area between Hadrian's Wall and the Antonine Wall just wasn't worth the cost of such a "faking". So, no, I don't believe that was faked.
For example, going back in time a bit, to the time of the Gallic Wars, the Helvetii had attacked the Romans and their allies before. (And indeed used that pre-existing history as a bargaining chip to try to get Caesar to back off.) Do we need some elaborate conspiracy theory there? I'll apply Occam's Razor and say there probably was a genuine attack there.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
I assume you don't live in the inner city.
Slow down, cowboy! It has been 4 hours since you last posted. You must wait another few hours.
But "splitting" the enemy line-of-battle WAS a novel technique. Not quite ramming, but passing between and firing into weakly shielded stern & bows at point-blank range.
more like turned their backs on knowledge...sorta like dubya's sad legacy in science:-(
hopefully bho will quickly reverse that:-)
Then we just put the battleships in space, you dolt! Strap a star drive to the Missouri to counter some other ship of the era, and launch the puppy.
The USAF and USN are currently working on a technology to allow space-bourne Battleships and Carriers to transform into giant man shaped fighting machines as well.
Now, if you want to decry a weaponized space, how do you think we are going to deal with extra-terrestial enemies? Oh, I know, you'll want to sing them to death with your love songs.
Now, get off my lawn you damned dirty ape.
Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly and applying the wrong fix.
While their domestic inventions were great after Julius it became a mostly military dictatorship where whoever had the support of the army could usurp the Imperial crown.
"I only speak the truth"
Karma: null(Mostly affected by an unassigned variable)
It's not that clear cut, I'm affraid. While certainly some roads were built for military purposes, you can find a lot more roads around the world built for trade. Because regardless of whether you're a pacifist or an aggressor, you need money and trade brings in the money.
E.g., probably the most famous "road" (or route) in history is the "Silk Road". There was a lot of effort involved in maintaining and policing that route, not because of troop movements, but because it was a major trade route.
Oh, you meant in Rome? Well, they had roads like Via Salaria, literally "salt road". Because that's what they traded along it.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
It's more than that. The British had developed gun making tech to the point that their guns had more uniform bores and had tighter tolerances twist bore and shot, so they could fire more shot with less powder and less danger of blowing up; their guns were lighter for their caliber than the French and Spanish, hence ships carried larger guns. These were carronades, short barreled, and shot best from close distances. I believe one British ship, firing down the stern of a French ship as each gun came to bear, killed or wounded one third of the French crew in just the one pass, at either the Battle of the Nile or Trafalgar.
The British also trained far more than The British and Spanish and could reload about 3:2 times as fast. The shorter length helped reload inside as noted.
Infuriate left and right
You are wrong. The only "ramming" occurring in sailing ships was to come close for boarding. Oared galleys rammed but also tried just sweeping close by to break oars, the early ironclad steamships rammed wooden sailing ships, but sailing ships did not. They had no ramming forefoot to do any damage.
Infuriate left and right
Wow, fail, obviously it's all solved by giving the whole job to only one of them.
And cannons made by Microsoft? "This cannon has performed an illegal operation and will explode. If the problem persists, please contact the cannon vendor."
Unrelatedly, how do you avoid the 1939 invasion of Poland with "dialogue and communication", mostly if you've "built piece instead of guns"?
"Dear Mr. Hitler,
Please don't invade us, if you would be so kind. Peace is so much better than war! However if you chose to proceed with the annexation of our nation, please be advised that we will oppose absolutely no resistance."
Now THAT would have convinced him. Convinced him to put you on top of his list of countries to annex.
You just got troll'd!
Am I the only one who sees an awesome motion picture in this? Possibly starring Liam Neeson as the English ship captain and Jude Law as his brilliant munitions engineer? Antonio Banderas can be the Spanish Admiral, and Kate winslet can be the love interest. I get 5% of the gate for casting.
So, if the English hadn't built guns but had instead listened to the "voices of the people", the Spanish Armada would have sunk all on its own?
Of course, Queen Elizabeth could have given peace a chance and married King Phillip of Spain, forced the English to convert back to Catholicism and imported the Inquisition. If she had done that Phillip probably wouldn't have attempted to invade England.
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
In the days when radio was the fanciest electronics on a ship, battleship were hard to harm. But once you put all those antennas topside, even puny gunfire can render a battleship useless even if not sunk. Look at one of the many battles off Guadalcanal where battleships were peppered by 5" and 8" inferior shells and put out of action due to being blind and having so many topside crew killed and wounded.
Battleships haven't been useful for ground support for a long time. Their maximum range is 22 miles, and armore piercing shells only carry about 50 pounds of explosive; all the rest of the 2700 pound shell is metal to hold it together during firing and to pierce battleship armor. Even so-called high capacity shells only have 150 pounds of explosive. Compare that to bombs or rockets which have much higher percentages of explosive, or to local artillery which is, well, local. Don't try to bring the saboted long range GPS-guided shells into the discussion; by definition, they are even smaller and have even less explosive.
For all that puny ground support they offer nowadays, they still need a crew of 1600. Battleships were great in the WW II Pacific island invasions and in the few European invasions, but the European invaders soon moved inland where the battleships couldn't reach.
Battleships were glorious in their day, but a waste of money in any modern navy, and have been since missiles became common after 1950 or so. One missile blast to the upper works and the battleship is blind and impotent.
Infuriate left and right
You can debate forever who "won" Jutland. The Germans sank more and killed more, but the actual long term effect of the battle was that the German fleet stayed bottled up whilst the British maintained control of the seas (except for a slight U-boat problem....). Its my view that the only way the Germans could claim victory is if they had crushingly defeated the British, which they didn't Bypassing safety mechanisms indeed seems to have been a major contributor, but the British made some early tactical errors and failed to exploit what their ships had been designed for - taking on the enemy at long range; instead, their battlecruisers closed the range where the heavier armour of the German vessels and better damage control won out in a slugging match.
Donte Alistair Anderson Roberts - hi son!
Karma: Chameleon
Spoken like a true Masshole.
Except for ending slavery, the Nazis, communism, & securing American independence, war has never solved anything.
Ottoman Admiral (Kaptani Derya Ali Pasa) was son in law Padisah Selim II.
He was ignore all Corsair Traditions and refuse all comments from Ottoman Corsair's Commander Uluc Ali (which becomes Kaptani derya Kilic Ali Pasha (ottoman grand admiral) after battle of Lepanto)
Most wars lose because of commanders stupity and ignorance. Effects of wepon technology about results much lover than we think.
[My english is better than most other people's Turkish, so please point out mistakes politely. Thank you.]
This book describes Nelson's tactics in full gory detail. No ramming. His aim was to bring the broadside of his ships-of-the-line against the bow or stern of the enemy ships. It exposed them to fire as they approached, but put them in a short-range position where all of his guns on one side (52 cannons?) could be brought to bear, with the enemy unable to fight back effectively. The book I mentioned relishes in describing the tactic of "raking", where cannon balls from broadsides are sent from one end of the enemy ship out the other end, destroying everything in it's path: splintering wood and shattering humans. The decks of the French and Spanish ships were flooded with blood, with some crews almost completely wiped out. The shots that were "making two holes" were actually problematic at times, specifically when an enemy ship had a British ship along both sides - at that point the British gunners would have to reduce the amount of gunpowder lest their shots passed right through the enemy ship and into a friend.
Don't forget the ideological advantage. The Spanish, being good Catholics, followed the Aristotlean view that an object followed a straight horizontal path until it returned to its natural place; the ground in the case of a projectile. The English, meanwhile, actually paid attention to Galileo's (and others) work on ballistics, and realized that you achieved the greatest distance by firing upward, not straight at your target.
So it looks like the only advantage the Spanish had was that their galleons were too big to fail... uh-oh.
Find environmentally and socially responsible products on http://buy-right.net
Except that EVE is pretty terrible at doing any kind of tactical combat (the best description I've read is that EVE is basically paper-rock-scissors in space).
Mwah, it's not all that bad, and there's quite a lot of room for smart tactical decision making as well as for massive cock-ups. Especially in really small scale fights invidual pilot skill can allow a smaller vessel to prevail against several larger ones.
Besides, it's not just rock-paper-scissors, more like rock with the right gun beats scissors, unless scissors happens to go fast enough, etc. etc.
People replying to my sig annoy me. That's why I change it all the time.
Have you ever heard of the "sport" of pumpkin chucking? Many of those cannons can shoot pumpkins 3/4 of a mile at near supersonic speed. The problem is, the pumpkins keep disintegrating.
So, some of these guys have started shooting BBs, (Bowling Balls). Well over a mile, using only a few thousand dollars worth of standard plumbing supplies and compressed air. One of these cannons even sports the name "second ammendment".
Now just imagine what you could do with a real budget....
It may look like chaos to us, but they were able to impressively navigate the mess with no accidents whatsoever! I can just imagine all the pile up accidents that would occur within seconds should this ever take place in a modern western country's roadways
You are right in spirit and intention, but wrong in details.
* Pistols are sub-sonic .45 ACP rounds are subsonic.
--- In fact, most of modern military handgun rounds are supersonic. Some of the
* fire bullets that are mostly made of lead
--- In fact, today revolvers remain the only handguns with lead rounds made for them, and even those are not in the majority. Most have at least partial copper/brass jacket. Rounds made for military are almost exclusively fully jacketed (FMJ). If you meant that the cores are made of lead, then it is no different for long guns. Few cores are made of steel. Steel cores contribute to premature barrel wear.
* They have a ton of stopping power
--- In fact, they don't. They are notoriously poor stoppers. That is why police carry shotguns in the trunks of their cars in the US. One blast of 00 buckshot is devastatingly more incapacitating compared to almost any commonly used handgun round. The only way you can reliably stop an attacker with a handgun round short of hitting the central nervous system is to cause sufficient disruption in blood circulation to the brain. Due to their small diameter, it is not easy to achieve with one shot with a handgun.
* almost no penetration
--- Depends on what you are penetrating. For a human being, a FMJ 9mm has a tendency to overpenetrate. Not only can that result in injuries to bystanders, but it lowers the effectiveness of the round on the attacker. Hence the development of the hollow point rounds.
* the bullets, even milspec, are rounded at the front. It's designed to mushroom like that
--- It is primarily, not even, in the milspec. Rounded FMJ rounds penetrate more reliably than mushrooming (hollow point) rounds. This requirement for a rounded FMJ stems from the Hague Convention and the fact that reliable penetration is more important to the military who often face purpose-built or improvised obstructions in the path of their projectiles.
Other than that, I agree with you.
BTW, it's a pity DL lists do not work in /.
End anonymous moderation and posting on
Yar. Consistency means you have to carry less ammo, and you have to spend fewer seconds rooting around for the ammo you have. It's simpler logistically, making supply easier and supply chains simpler.
Iron barrels tend to explode randomly if you overload them with powder. This is why the bronze gun was developed.
Bronze cannon were actually developed first. The advantage of iron cannon is that they are cheaper and easier to make. Overcoming the structural limitations of iron for use with cannon was actually one of the big technological advances the British made, and was what allowed them to expand their navy so quickly during that period without reducing the number of cannon each ship carried.
A random google search turned up a very relevant link: "The Alderney Elizabethan Wreck: Bronze to Iron"
This Space Intentionally Left Blank
I recall reading that raids had been made on the Spanish areas in which their barrels were built. By destroying their sources of fit lumber the ability to build proper barrels for maritime use was compromised. Sailors in the Spanish navy ate worse food than usual, their alcohol and water supplies were shaky at best as the barrels tended to leak on the slightest excuse. But best of all their black powder was damp and performed poorly due to the bad barrels.
Another confounding problem was the lack of familiarity with currents and conditions in and near the English channel as well as the Spanish ships lack of manuverability when compared to English vessels.
I can't believe that the Spanish had not figured that out
Whaling is a much older business than cannon-fighting. While almost any country that whaled from boats threw their harpoons down onto the whales (like Japanese) all the ship based whalers already knew that throwing a harpoon up into the air would carry it a longer distance. The same goes for archery. Chinese and the English archers were firing their arrows into the air in massed volleys for years before the Spanish Armada. I can't understand why the Spanish would not have figured out that the same rule worked for Cannons.
Also note that Galileo's compass already simplified most of the math.
http://slashdot.org/submission/1062723/Cheap-mobile-data-plan?art_pos=2
To imply that battleships are immune to modern weapons is misleading. The thick armor on battleships was designed to resist regular (for their day) armor piercing rounds. In WW2, shaped charge technology was developed. Although a shaped charge was never used against a battleship (to my knowledge) I wonder how successful battleship armor would be against modern shaped charges. And then there are nuclear bombs... Face it, all that armor is not that useful.
jesus. no wonder she never married..
I wrote my first program at the age of six, and I still can't work out how this website works.
You fail to mention the advantage of having fewer sizes of shot gives logistically. You don't have to worry about having the proper size of cannon ball when most of the cannons have the same size bore. Imagine the consternation that would result if a quartermaster supplied a ship with cannon balls that were slightly too large.
That ship was HMS Victory commanded by Nelson. Nelson blew a large chunk of Bucentauro's stern and killed large number of the crew in just two passes. But carronades aren't the guns which the article discusses actually, even though those kind of cannons were effective at close range. Carronades were generally used for killing/maiming/wounding enemy crew so were loaded with musket bullets. One can imagine carronades as shotguns (vs rifles) in our time.
Trolls are like broken clocks. They show the truth two times a day. The rest of the day they talk nonsense.
To expand your point, the last navy battle where ships rammed each other was at the Battle of Vis island in 1866 (the article has some minor innacuracies though). Ramming was still popular then because the ships armour was generally too thick for cannons to penetrate effectively so ramming was used to good effect. Italian flagship Re d'Italia was sunk because it was rammed by Austrian ship commanded by Vilhelm von Tegethoff.
The wreck was found and positively identified only few years ago at 115m of depth. Curiously, it was identified by the battering ram because of the poor visibility.
Trolls are like broken clocks. They show the truth two times a day. The rest of the day they talk nonsense.
The idea of bring your broadside into the bow/stern of the enemy is called "Crossing the T", and is/was the standard tactic from, as you say, Nelson's era up until the end of "Gun ships" - aka the classic multiple cannon (actually rifles) of ships into the 1960s
-- 73 de KG2V For the Children - RKBA! "You are what you do when it counts" - the Masso
Yo envié a mis naves a pelear contra los hombres, no contra los elementos
That means:
I sent my navy to fight against men, not the elements (weather/sea conditions)
Or as it has been said "Amateurs study tactics, professionals study logistics"
-- 73 de KG2V For the Children - RKBA! "You are what you do when it counts" - the Masso
It was standard for ship to ship fights, but for fleet battles they would form into lines and trade broadsides as the opposing lines passed in parallel but opposite directions. Nelson's big idea was to allow the enemy line to cross your T while he sailed directly at their line. Nelsons ships absorbed multiple long to medium distance volleys without responding but were able to fire at extreme short distance, many times to both right and left if his ship survived to cut the enemie's line.
The purpose of language is communication, If the idea is clear the grammar ain't important
"To Rule the Waves: How the British Navy Shaped the Modern World" (ISBN# 0060534257)
I also remember seeing a History Channel thingy about how the English got Prussian cannon technology from a turncoat engineer. I don't remeber if it was around the time of the Spanish Armada or later in the time of Nelson, but it did happen, and did strengthen British cannon power significantly.
I can't seem to find any mention of it on the web though.
Man is the animal that laughs.
And occasionally whores for Karma.
The British had developed gun making tech to the point that their guns had more uniform bores and had tighter tolerances twist bore and shot,
Twist bore?
You're clueless about this, aren't you? IE, you're speaking out of your ass.
Rifling - what you call 'twist bore' was experimental at the time when these cannons were in use. Rifling was invented in 1498, and wasn't actually used (to any degree) before 1540. It was not commonplace until the mid-19th century.
The very word, "cannon" denotes a smooth bore. "Guns" have rifling. They can be used interchangeably, mostly, but in terms of naval artillery, a rifled bore is a gun, not a cannon.
Furthermore, shot flies wildly out of a rifled barrel, with maybe 30% of the shot flying (significantly) wide. It is also uncommon for a rifled gun to have choke: rifled barrels are designed for ball and conical projectiles, and a choked barrel 'squeezes' shot so as to encourage a tighter shot pattern grouping on the target - and to encourage accuracy at a longer distance.
The rest of what you mention about naval guns and cannon,
~/ssh slashdot.org ssh: connect to host slashdot.org port 22: too many beers
Yes, sorry, carronades were not invented until, I think, the late 1700s, as a result of better metallurgy allowing less metal with the same strength and better casting to get a more precise bore.
Infuriate left and right
I would be interested to see how many ships utilized elevated cannons in order to, upon flanking the enemy ship, shoot downward upon the enemy's deck (and hull) in order to inflict water-taking damage upon the enemy ship.
That would seem to me to be a very sound tactic, because a man is a very small target to hit, and a sunk ship, no matter how many surviving crew members it had, would still be sunk. Likewise, a sinking ship would take more crew members away from the duty of fighting in order to simply keep the ship afloat.
At least in this case (where the second hole is below the water line), two holes would be greatly desirable. Due to the ballistic coefficient of a projectile in water, it would be almost impossible to sink a ship by hitting it first under the water line (as the projectile would bleed entirely too much potential energy, too quickly, to penetrate).
~/ssh slashdot.org ssh: connect to host slashdot.org port 22: too many beers
"twixt" you maroon.
All the rest of your post is based on a faulty assumption on my typo.
Infuriate left and right
"Elizabeth's] navy made a giant leap forward in the way men fought at sea, years ahead of England's enemies,"
Didn't help 'em much during the American Revolution, did it now...
You can't actually knock someone down with a bullet unless it's also powerful enough to knock down the guy firing it. In which case it would go straight through anyway (which most non HP bullets tend to do).
---- Watch out for snakes!
I was always under the impression that Germany pretty much canceled all strategic bombing development as soon as Udet showed up the Luftwaffe. They didn't see the need for strategic bombing as the German doctrine was that if you threw all the aircraft into tactical support for the Wermacht, the army would wind up just taking over the country.
Like, I know they had one bomber that they canceled in the early 1930s, and then there's always some talk about I think the Condor being used as a strategic bomber, but that's really cause there's just some slim pickings for German heavy aircraft. Heck, if the Germans had just bigger transports, they pull it out at Stalingrad - they weren't THAT far from making that airlift work.
This is my sig.
Nonsense. It wasn't a faulty assumption on my part. It was a gross miscommunication on your part: a "twist bore" inexplicably refers to rifling.
What world do you come from where I'm an idiot because your typo of the contracted form of an archaic 14th century word made sense - albeit factually flawed sense - in the context of the typo?
~/ssh slashdot.org ssh: connect to host slashdot.org port 22: too many beers
There was quite a bounty for capturing ships. And in fact, some of Nelson's ships at Trafalgar had been captured from the enemy (IIRC correctly - it's a couple of years since I read that book). Unfortunately many of the captured ships were lost on the rocks in the storm after the battle as they were too heavily damaged to control or there wasn't sufficient crew left to manage them
They did have elevated cannons and cannonades, but the impression I got was they were more about immobilising the ship (damaging sails and rigging), and killing or maiming the crew prior to boarding.
Not exactly. No ships were rammed at Trafalgar, nor was it even attempted. What Nelson did was bring up his fleet in two columns (letting the enemy cross his T) and take it right through the enemy's line so that he ended up with ships down wind of the enemy, blocking any chance at retreat. As he went through, his ships sent rolling broadsides down the length of the enemy ships, causing considerable damage. As the Victory (his flagship) went through right behind the Bucentaire, the French flagship it sent its first broadside right up the enemy's stern. The Victory's guns were charged with triple-shot and canister on top. This ran the length of the ship dismasting it completely, dismounting almost half its guns and causing over 100 casualties. The Bucentaire fought on for well over an hour, but there was no question that the fight was decided by that one, devastating broadside.
Good, inexpensive web hosting
Indeed, and at Trafalgar with the light winds, they were exposed to long range fire for a long time. In fact some of the other ships tried to race Victory in to the battle in order to protect it. Nelson's tactic there was to create two lines to cross the Spanish/French fleets, dividing them in two places and using his ships-of-the-line to rake the Spanish/French ships with their massive and overwhelming broadsides.
So they believed that if you fired in the air, the ball would keep on going forever? Gimme a fucking break. Archers knew how to maximize range thousands of years ago. Including in Aristotle's time.
rj
The British never used carronades as their main battery, although I think a few American frigates did. As you say, they were a short range weapon. They also shot hollow shells, filled with musket balls, so that they hit with the impact of solid shot then shattered, with the effect of canister. Kind of a low-tech version of fragging the enemy.
Good, inexpensive web hosting
Wrong. Admiral Nelson commanded the fleet, but his flagship was commanded by Captain Hardy, an ancestor, I might add, of Oliver Norvell Hardy.
Good, inexpensive web hosting
AIUI, the standard British tactic at the time was to fire on the down-roll, so that the shot went into the enemy's hull, killing the crew and dismounting the cannon. The French, OTOH, fired on the Up-roll to cut up the enemy's rigging and make it easier for them to escape if the fight went against them.
Good, inexpensive web hosting
I do know of one case of ramming during WW II, but it was accidental and during a night action: a Japanese cruiser somehow managed to ram a PT boat, the 109 to be specific.
Good, inexpensive web hosting
Mods: this isn't a troll. Don't agree with != Downrate.
Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, watch it -- I'm huge!
Play the Empire: Total War demo instead.
http://store.steampowered.com/app/10620/
I remember once cruising L.A. in the K-Car version of the Chrysler New Yorker or Imperial or whatever the heck they call it. I had driven a rental K-Car before, and this was essentially take your K-Car and pad it with some extra weight and sound insulation. I think it had the turbo 4-cyl motor so it had more oomph -- don't remember about turbo lag though.
So anyway, I make it from LAX to East Los Angeles on the Pomona Freeway before I realize in piloting my Geezer Galleon that I had my left blinker on the whole time. You see, it did not make any clicking sound, and if geezers drive these things, I now understand why the left blinker is always on.
Atlanta, however, is the one place where people seem to think NASCAR is real life.
This may be the best kept military secret ever. It took until now to uncover the technology they developed and no one ever got credit for it.
If a cruise missile hits a battleship, all it needs is a little touch up paint. Plus being able to station a ship in plain sight of hostile shore tends to settle the natives.
In the TV programme, they showed documents that indicated that a ship was taking supplies to an English general who was engaged in a campaign to deny the Spanish access to deep water harbours in Northern France. The ship that sank near Alderney in the channel islands matches the description of the ship that failed to arrive. The recovered guns also had "F W" engraved on them indicating a link to Francis Walsingham, the man often described as Queen Elizabeth's "spymaster". There was no "Royal Navy" at the time but there are records.
Other artefacts recovered from the wreck are also useful in confirming the date. The musket recovered from the wreck was also a very significant find.
The TV program also mentioned that the muzzle velocity of the cannon, although impressive for its day, was known not to be a record at the time. One of the archaeologists mentioned that some of the cannon from the Mary Rose, Henry VIII's flagship, were larger and had a greater muzzle velocity.
The recovered guns were cast as a single piece (and for the replica they added appropriate impurities to get the same grade of iron that would have been available in Elizabethan times). Earlier guns had been made from strips of metal bound together with hoops.
The point emphasized a lot in the TV programme was that the ship had a uniform main armament and the need to raise two more cannon to see if they matched the one already recovered was to validate that hypothesis. With a uniform armament, there was no rooting around in the shot locker with a set of callipers looking for shot of the right size, the shot were all the same size. They also emphasized the tactic of firing a barrage from a set of smaller guns rather than individual shot from larger single guns. That is much easier if you do not have to worry about which shot and which powder charge go with which gun.
It was suggested that this allowed a change to the tactics of naval warfare. Up to that time the usual approach had been to come alongside the enemy and essentially fight a land battle on board ship. The uniform armament of moderate sized reasonably powerful guns apparently made it possible to stand off and fight ship to ship rather than hand to hand.
No, actually it was. Baha!
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
You can't actually knock someone down with a bullet unless it's also powerful enough to knock down the guy firing it. In which case it would go straight through anyway (which most non HP bullets tend to do).
What passes for an education these days? Don't you think the difference in weight between the projectile and firearm would make a difference? [Hint: it does] http://kwk.us/recoil.html
http://marriedmansexlife.com/
"Pass through" is one way to put it. It wasn't just some peacefully marching down the road. It also involved quite a bit of good, ol' fashioned attacking, plundering and looting. The Helvetii had made the arrangements for peaceful passing through the territory of their immediate neighbours, but the Allobroges and pretty much everyone else were already fair game.
At any rate, it seems to me that the ones in the way of that migration weren't exactly happy about it.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
I think Enoch Root may have had something to do with it.
Think of how stupid the average person is, and realize half of them are stupider than that.
Actually, we drove around southern France (Tarn, Languedoc) last year and the highway patrol had just obtained some huge grant for radar guns. Consequently, there were police everywhere, and they were giving tickets to people for driving 2 or 3 km/h over the limit. Everyone was quite well-behaved.
Give a man a fish and you have fed him for today. Teach a man to fish, and he'll say "WHERE'S MY FISH, YOU IDIOT?"
I stand corrected... and a little shaken... >.>
Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, watch it -- I'm huge!
IIRC, the British also had better ships. Not larger or sturdier, but better designed for combat in other ways: faster, and more maneuverable. The Spanish had a larger *number* of ships... well, *before* the battle they did, anyway. Afterward, not so much.
Cut that out, or I will ship you to Norilsk in a box.
What, are you serious? Like diplomacy would have stopped the Spanish Armada? Puh-leez! That's a screamer. The most ignorant people out there are the ones who have never studied history. :(
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
The earliest Roman and Greek Triremes were built with brass around the bow specifically designed for ramming.
Boarding was the preferred tactic as a fighting or trading ship represented a huge investment and a captured ship was worth a lot more then modern warships (in adjusted Pounds), but when left with no other choice captains sometimes rammed vessels in order to stop them. Ramming was by no means a "standard" tactic in middle age/Napoleonic navies but it was a used tactic never the less. Ramming is still used by navies when the situation is dire but we haven't had a naval engagement like that in 60 years (the Japanese were particularly fond of Ramming/beaching in WWII).
I suggest you check up on your history, the main beam at the bow of the ship was often armoured with brass or iron so it could withstand crushing smaller vessels. In addition to this the whole idea of a fire ship, which was used up to and including in the Napoleonic wars was to set a ship on fire and ram it into another vessel (especially effective against vessels in port.)
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
http://www.thefreedictionary.com/decimate
I say "ramming did not occur in sailing ships" and you tell me about triremes and the Japanese in WW II.
How useful.
Ramming to sink another ship requires something which will puncture the other ship's hull. Sailing ships did not have such. I suggest that if you think they armored the bow, you first explain, please, how that would do much damage to a ship's underwater hull, and second, provide an example.
Fireships as you describe were fireships, not rammers. The hope was that a drifting fireship would tangle rigging, get stuck, and the fire would spread. The damage was done by the fire, not any physical ramming. However, most of the damage was done by the enemy fleet scattering in panic.
As for quoting WW II "60 years" ago and singling out the Japanese, try a bit further back and use all anti-submarine forces of whatever nation -- US, Britain, Japan. They all rammed submarines when necessary.
One destroyer actually slid on top of the U-boat whose crew tried to board the destroyer to fight with pistols, knives, and whatever else was handy. The destroyer sent out the call to repel boarders. That doesn't make boarding a standard WW II tactic.
Also forget any attempt to confuse beaching with ramming. Are you suggesting that the beach was somehow sunk when rammed by a beaching ship?
I suggest you practice your reading comprehension skills and go back and read some of that history your memory has garbled.
Infuriate left and right
Good observations Einstein.
You do understand the amount of kinetic energy that will be projected by a large wooden object if thrust even at a slow speed into another. Ramming wooden vessel a was meant to break the main beam of the ship where it was weakest with the main beam of another ship where it was strongest, if sucessful a ramming attack would cause flooding and capsizing even if it did not break a ship in two. This is basic physics (year 8 level, what happens if I smash one thing with another) do I need to draw this for you in crayon. Google was as per usual able to provide an example, quote from here
In the battle of Trafalgar, as a last ditch effort after the British ship Bellerophon was far too damaged to continue fighting they rammed a French ship of similar size.
Also from Wikipedia
Shock horror, I was right. I guess my history is not that bad after all. The rest of you posts were poor misquotings to attempt to cover your own failings at history.
What I said was the principal behind a fireship was to set it on fire and ram it at an enemy vessel. What I hoped you would draw out of this was the objective of this was to set the enemy vessel on fire. My critical assumption was that you had some knowledge about navies and/or historical naval warfare, so I guess mea culpa.
Once again you attempt to misquote me only shows your own ignorance. Boarding was the preferred tactic in Napoleonic days (pre ironclads). Before we had standardised designs, explosive shells and mass production when it was actually easier to board and take over a ship then to sink it. Here's the relevant bit from my post with the important words highlighted.
The bold part should indicate that I was talking about a time before the mentioned objects, IE before "modern warships".
Please quote where I did this. Beaching and Ramming are different but are also in the same category of naval tactics, look in the index under S for Suicide tactics. I thought that commonality would be easy to understand but forgive me as I over estimated your mental capacity.
My history is sound, given how badly you misquoted my post I think I am safe in ignoring your amateurish attempt at grammar Nazism (whilst I admit my grammar is not perfect, my reading comprehension is sound unlike your own).
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
You continue to talk about galley practices which are not in dispute, then mention one isolated sailing ship incident as if that made a common sailing ship practice. It does not. That is why I mentioned the isolated WW II boarding incident, to illustrate how useless isolated incidents are.
No one is disputing boarding as a common sailing ship tactic. The dispute is over ramming as a common sailing ship tactic.
You say ramming was meant to break "the main beam", whatever that is, by physical force. You also say fireships rammed other ships. They did not. They were set adrift and most commonly worked by tangling in other ships rigging and passing on the fire, not by breaking "main beams". Mere contact does not constitute ramming. Ramming as a weapon requires holing the rammed ship below the water line, which requires a forefoot extending forward of the above water structure. Galleys had such structures. The short lived trend in the late 1800s saw steel steam warships built with such structures. Sailing ships had no such structure. Smashing into another ship without a forefoot will so more damaged to the rammer's bow than the other ships sides.
Sailing ships had incredibly thick tough sides and weak bows and sterns. That is why raking the stern with cannon fire was so effective. They were also slow. They simply could not do much damage to each other by ramming with a broad bow which had little structural strength for such maneuvers.
You said "the Japanese were particularly fond of Ramming/beaching in WWII", which either implies they are the same, or you just throw in random facts which have no bearing on anything else. Now adding suicide tactics has nothing to do with the dispute over ramming by sailing ships.
Ships do not have "main beams". This is not a mere language problem. There is no such structural member, period. The closest to that is the keel, the lowest point in a ship, also centered, and hardly likely to be important in sinking by ramming -- if a rammer can break the keel, it has already broken so much of the underwater hull that the ship will aready be sinking quite quickly.
Infuriate left and right
At times in history it was a common tactic, More specifically I refer to bronze age naval warfare (Greek and Roman) and early Ironclads (between the Post Napoleon and Pre-Dreadnought times). The first British built Ironclads were specifically designed for Ramming.
I'm in Thailand at the moment and my English often suffers here, the "main beam" is not the correct term but I'd hoped you'd figure out that it was the length of wood which ran down the middle of a ship forming the keel, this is the first piece of wood laid down in the construction of a sailing ship. it is often the thickest and strongest part of the vessel as it is also the most vulnerable, if this piece breaks the entire ship will break with it. After doing some research I think this particular part is simply called the keel. It's been a while since I looked into this subject.
Fireships needed to make contact with another vessel to be effective, even by your own omission. They are deliberately driven towards another vessel, this is ramming regardless of how you want to argue about the definition.
This was to add context to the discussion, but you seem to have gotten hung up over the details at the cost of the larger argument.
This is flat out wrong There is considerably less wood horizontally then there is vertically across a ship. Broadsides were the preferred tactics when using cannons. You forget that the preferred outcome of combat between two sailing vessels was not to sink it but to capture it primarily for the Ships Prize or Prize money. When a sail warship fired at the bow or stern from ahead or behind of another ship their objective was often to damage or destroy the sails, this is why chain shot was used. Cannons were used primarily to kill crew, secondary to damage sails and masts before being used to sink ships. It's incredibly difficult to sink a wooden vessel with a blunt cannonball. Hitting the side of the ship was preferred as it would do more damage, a cannon blast at point blank range had a greater chance of penetrating both sides of the ship and whatever or whoever was in between as well as allowing more cannons to hit the target. During combat few people would be in the bow or stern, the stern on most British sailing ships was used as storage anyway.
Yes, yes, finally. I admit that my English does suffer when I travel in SE
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
You continue to discuss things which are not in dispute and bring new things into play which were not and are not in dispute. Can you not stick to the subjct of ramming being a common sailing ship tactic?
Ramming is not mere contact. Ramming is hard contact iuntended to do physical damage by ramming alone. Fireships did not ram.
Ramming also did not sink by breaking the keel, it sank ships by holing them below the water line. It would be almost impossible for any sailing ship to break another's keel.
Address the basic issue or switch the argument to the size of weather balloons used on ships which did not ram. I do not care.
Infuriate left and right