Could Cannon Balls From The Early 19th Century Sink Warships?

[nemowork]

I have to learn to type faster, everybody else got in with what i was trying to say and in a more detailed way

http://www.hms.org.uk/nelsonsnavysurgeon2.htm

By far the greatest cause of death or mutilation in a firefight between the ships of the period were flying splinters. Naval surgeons found that close fought actions produced less casualties than actions conducted between opposing ships at a distance. In close fought actions, the velocity of cannon balls was so great that that in penetrating the side of a ship a clean aperture was produced, with few splinters. But a spent ball, travelling from a distance usually produced a jagged aperture with numerous deadly splinters by which more men were killed or wounded than by the ball itself.
A curious phenomenon was also noted by naval surgeons of the time called “wind of ball”. This injury occurred when a cannon ball, in flight, passed close to any part of the body. It was considered most serious when passing close to the stomach, leaving no obvious marks, but often causing almost instantaneous death. Remarkably, it was also noted that “wind of ball” was never fatal when the ball passed close to the head.

I've seen it mentioned that on going into a close engagement a gun crew might load a light powder charge so that a low velocity shot would cause large amounts of splinters, dont know if this is true .

Another one is the behaviour of different types of wood used for the ships timbers, for example Elm and Cedar were believed at the time to be the least likely to splinter, Teak as used in Indian built ships was less likely to splinter than Oak but a teak splinter wound was more likely to fester and kill you.

[DPM_Sheep]

[WDW]Megaraptor;4272308

From what I have read and heard in college lectures, often cannon balls would not punch straight through the hull. Instead, the impact would cause massive splintering on the other side of the wood. And yes, these would be huge sharp splinters the size of a forearm that would cut through any soft thing in their way. The Royal Navy painted its decks red so people wouldn't notice the blood as much, and put down sand before battles so people wouldn't slip in it.

My bold. That's an urban legend. While it's true about the sand, Bulwarks were painted bright colours to create contrast with the horizon. They were just as commonly painted, yellow ochre, pale green and powder blue as they were dark red.

Also, there's not much point painting the bulwarks to hide blood if your crew usually spends its mornings holystoning the decks to a nice snowy white.

[[WDW]Megaraptor]

Mythbusters did a "pirate" special where they tried to simulate this. They used a real cannon (6 pound) on a replica wood hull at a 30ft range. They couldn't get any significant splinters to impact in a pig carcass.

On one hand it was a great attempt at a simulation. On the other hand it was using the smallest cannon you would see on a ship minus a swivel gun, the wood was not "seasoned" in salt water (not sure if there would be any difference though), and their was no attempt to try different fps tests as claims of carronade vs cannon had existed for hundreds of years.

What sort of warship would use a 6 pound cannon? Ships of the line in the Napoleonic period mounted 32 pounder and 24 pounder guns as primary armament. There's a big difference between the two.

[Smok]

6 pounders were used on small ships. Remember that fleet consisted not only ships of the line and frigates. There were also hundreds of sloops, cutters etc.
For example sloop of war HMS Speedy (1782) had 4 pounders and brig HMS Chatcham had 3 pounders (1788).

[big_les]

True, although they have apparently found French cannonballs in the wreck so who knows?

Who knows? We do. There was ONE French cannonball found within the wreck - clearly not enough to sink it.

Thank you, exactly what i meant.

Wooden ships fairly obviously sink left to their own devices, otherwise the ships carpenters

Fair enough, I realised that you were replying to the wood comment - I just didn't want people thinking that the French sank her!

I actually completely agree - the way the research has been presented (by the media I think) is almost ridiculous - the question isn't 'could cannon balls sink ships', it's 'how many did it take'.

Considering the experiments that have been done already (e.g. the Royal Armouries experiment with a replica gun from the Mary Rose herself), I'm amazed that anyone is surprised that a cannon ball of 300 years later could penetrate that thickness of wood. I'd have been far more surprised if it hadn't.

[nemowork]

6 pounders were used on small ships. Remember that fleet consisted not only ships of the line and frigates. There were also hundreds of sloops, cutters etc.
For example sloop of war HMS Speedy (1782) had 4 pounders and brig HMS Chatcham had 3 pounders (1788).

Plus it was a 'Pirate special' to quote and they were mainly in small boats with light weapons.

I think in the test they used fresh pine planking as well rather than aged and seasoned hardwood which will effect the splintering. Oak was a popular building material for hard wear and longevity but its splintering effects were highly lethal.

Pine doesnt splinter but its too light and wears out fast. The only war ship i can think of that used pine (or at least fir) is HMS Pallas which was famously light, manouverable and combat effective and is mostly remembered for this

The Admiralty imported oak from Germany and it was known as “Stettin
Oak”, but ships built of it lasted only a quarter as long as true British oak.
Teak was a suitable alternative until it was found that splinter wounds from
teak always festered with dire results. In 1806, the Frigate H.M.S Pallas, built
of fir instead of oak, taking full advantage of the extra speed and
manoeuvrability that came with the lighter wood, fought a superior force to a
standstill. When she tried to board the French three-decker Minerve, a surge
threw them together. The difference was seen between the light fir timbers of
the Pallas and stout Adriatic oak of the Minerve, which took no injury from
the collision. The Pallas lost her foretopmast, fore and topsail yards, all her
forward rigging, and all the forward ship-furniture, including her cathead and
bower anchor. The Pallas retired in ignominy wondering just how much her
construction had lost in prize money.

[spiraleddie]

Just for clarity, the article is presented by a science website (media) but the findings were printed in archaelogical journals and were an academic attempt to answer some unknowns, experimental archaeology i believe it is called. Evoking the "media skewing things" argument is not really valid in this case as i think the experiment was done in a scientific manner and no specific agenda was forwarded.

the question " could cannonballs sink ships?" was forwarded as there was some doubt that the thickness of the timber could be breached by a cannonball, a simple question that when answered adds to the knowledge pool of the field, a hypotesis was put forward and tested, pure and simple.
Keep in mind they were working with replicas and scale miniatures.

i find it interesting that people feel the need to argue about the validity of the article even though they agree with the findings, i think it says more about the arguers than the article.

[Clown123]

Plus it was a 'Pirate special' to quote and they were mainly in small boats with light weapons.

I think in the test they used fresh pine planking as well rather than aged and seasoned hardwood which will effect the splintering. Oak was a popular building material for hard wear and longevity but its splintering effects were highly lethal.

Pine doesnt splinter but its too light and wears out fast. The only war ship i can think of that used pine (or at least fir) is HMS Pallas which was famously light, manouverable and combat effective and is mostly remembered for this

Agree with nemo. The MB test used pine instead of seasoned hardwood. Their test unfortunately mislead people. The splinter wounds were documented quite intensively in RN records. It's hardly a "myth".

[Clown123]

Battle at Sea: From Man-of-war to Submarine, by John Keegan, gives readible, great insight in battle during the age of sail.

Especially the chapter on the Battle of Trafalgar is relevant to Spiraleddie's post. With amazing (though a bit nerdy) details like "a single man-of-war had just as much firepower in guns as Napoleon's entire army at Waterloo" and "Trafalgar was the first battle in which the opposite fleet was actually destroyed, in stead of merely deterred". Not actual quotes, but you get the point.

Beg to differ.

Please check Battle of the Nile.

[Johnny_H]

Just in case anyone's interested, when I was down for Tallships there is a fella who I know who re-enacts a ships surgeon of the 18th & 19th centuries. He has a full surgical kit and had a mini-surgery set up in addition a replicated ship splinter. I'll upload these to this thread if anyone wants to see them.

[JCR]

Just in case anyone's interested, when I was down for Tallships there is a fella who I know who re-enacts a ships surgeon of the 18th & 19th centuries. He has a full surgical kit and had a mini-surgery set up in addition a replicated ship splinter. I'll upload these to this thread if anyone wants to see them.

Does he also reenact being a parttime spy, going on botanical expeditions and being high on Laudanum??

[Johnny_H]

Not that I'm aware of, but he does give one hell of a lecture about the "Perils of the Scurvey" lol.

[SineJustitia]

Beg to differ.

Please check Battle of the Nile.

Do feel free to.

I forwarded your post to mr. Keegan.

[Blue387]

This discussion reminds me of a clip I found on YouTube:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XfsuIaTU92Y