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The 100-ton gun (also known as the Armstrong 100-ton gun) [6] was a british coastal defense gun and is the world's largest black powder cannon. It was a 17.72-inch (450 mm) rifled muzzle-loading (RML) gun made by Elswick Ordnance Company, the armaments division of the British manufacturing company Armstrong Whitworth, owned by William Armstrong.
Firing a naval cannon required a great amount of labour and manpower. The propellant was gunpowder, whose bulk had to be kept in the magazine, a special storage area below deck for safety. Powder boys, typically 10–14 years old, were enlisted to run powder from the magazine up to the gun decks of a vessel as required.
The cannon shot (c. 1680), by Willem van de Velde the Younger. The 16th century was an era of transition in naval warfare. Since ancient times, war at sea had been fought much like that on land: with melee weapons and bows and arrows, but on floating wooden platforms rather than battlefields.
The 16-inch/50 caliber Mark 7 guns of the forward turret of the battleship USS Wisconsin (BB-64) fire at enemy targets ashore on the Korean Peninsula on 30 January 1952 during the Korean War. Employees working with the automatic 16-inch powder stacking machine at Naval Ammunition Depot Hingham, Mass. during World War II.
The shot was carried on a specially designed iron barrow or two-man litter and, in the era of black-powder cannon charges contained in cloth bags, occasioned much fanfare and notice as it was conveyed to the cannon muzzle as the red-hot projectile would easily ignite any carelessly handled loose powder.
Gunpowder ("black powder") was the primary propellant before the invention of smokeless powder during the late 19th century. Cannons vary in gauge, effective range, mobility, rate of fire, angle of fire and firepower; different forms of cannon combine and balance these attributes in varying degrees, depending on their intended use on the ...
The guns of 9 1 ⁄ 2 feet 50 1 ⁄ 2 hundredweight and 9 feet 47 3 ⁄ 4 hundredweight were highly regarded as siege guns and widely used in that role in addition to their naval use. The guns of 22 and 20 hundredweight were mostly used in casemates and flank defenses as replacements for 24-pounder carronades.
A muzzle-loaded cannon: 1) projectile (shot), 2) powder charge, 3) vent The official weight of the shot was listed at 68 lbs but in reality this varied according to the material of the shot itself; cast iron shot weighed 67 lb (30 kg), wrought iron shot and steel shot weighed 72 lb (33 kg), and chilled steel weighed 68 lb 8 oz (31.1 kg). [ 11 ]