Age of Sail Gunnery - The Lethality of Splinters (ft.Vasa)
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- Опубліковано 2 лис 2021
- Today we take a look at one of the key mechanics of age of sail naval warfare, the generation of splinters and how they affected people, with the help of Dr Fred Hocker and the Vasa Museum.
More details on the testing:
• Breaching walls and si...
Paper on full scale testing:
kurage.files.wordpress.com/20...
Videos of the cannon being fired:
• Bofors Test Center - V...
• Firing the Vasa Cannon...
• Firing the Vasa Cannon...
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Pinned post for Q&A :)
What was the quality of the Spanish Navy from the 1860s to 80s?
Just looking at how powerful the guns were how often did navy's train on the guns and fighting tactics? Did it change and become more/less from the Vasa onwards to WW2?
Given their general design preferences and tendencies to experiment and tweak as well as their strategic requirements, if the French had been prescient and rich enough to build a few carriers in the 1930s, what do you think they might have looked like?
Two questions:
1st - what if the Aquila carrier was finish in time for the Italian surrender and went to the Allied cause. Could they use the new flattop for their operations or keep it alongside the remaining Italian navy ships?
2nd - what if one of the Doolittle Raid bombers found the Kaga in drydock and damaged it. What could change in the remaining of the Pacific war?
Question: What fantasy or science fiction makes the most 'realistic' incorporation of its fantasy or scifi elements into how the navies are represented in design, tactics, and/or strategy?
Many moons ago now I had the miss fortune to get on the end of a 105mm artillery round or two.. I dug a piece of shell casing out of a door that had stopped me being mangled. It was about 6 inches long by an inch and made to fragment. The edges were razor sharp and ever since I have thanked my lucky stars it was not an AP or HESH round.. Amazes me how the sailors of old could go up against an 80 gunner of the line. Great work by the way. Always fascinating and you certainly know your stuff sir.
We shall always curse whoever came up with and whoever perfected the Artillery shell... They made war a great deal bloodier. I personally blame one Henry Shrapnel as he was the one to invent a reliable spherical fragmentation shell, thus making him the father of modern Artillery.
@@adamdubin1276 Except this is one of those technologies that was going to come eventually regardless. Shrapnel as you said made the first "reliable" fragmentation shell but others were also working on it. So does it really do any good to curse someone for being the first to figure it out?
Did you keep the fragment?
@@adamdubin1276 HAUBITZEN ua-cam.com/video/jv77Yo_FbBU/v-deo.html
What was your job and where did this happen?
Drach out here busting Mythbusters
Also RIP Grant
Yeah, I saw the MythBusters episode on this topic and I thought he was complete nonsense. They didn't really reconstruct an analog of an actual 18th century ships oh so they did not get the right results.
I've never agreed with that result. the "hull" they built was too thin, and moreover they were using a field gun, not a naval gun. And as Drach points out, a 6pdr isn't exactly equal to an 18, 24, or 32.
@@sawyerawr5783 to be honest as entertaining as Mythbusters was they were plain wrong most of the time I remember when they "busted" Archimedes mirror yet I've seen multiple universities successfully carry it out including several Italian ones.
@@jonsouth1545 there was also the episode about suction being caused by ships sinking. As they didn't use a large enough ship they were unable to replicate the suction effect and because of this they concluded that the "myth" was busted. To be fair, its kinda hard to acquire a ship that has a displacement in the thousands and then sink it. However, it was still a mistake on their part to conclude that it was busted when they could've read up or examined other pieces of evidence such as the accounts from the survivors of the HMS Hood.
To think Drach was able to destroy one of Discovery channel's most popular show with facts and logics
. . and with the Vasa's help.
My issue with Myth Busters is the way they "scale down" their tests.
Dimensional scaling is not enough.
When dealing with fluids, Reynolds number is paramount. When dealing with solids, microscopic, macroscopic and composite structure matters.
This is exactly what Drach showed with 6 pounder vs. merchant hull and 24 pounder vs. ship of the line
I remember The mythbusters mock up moved quite a bit .A large solid hull would not move .
The fact that the target was made of unseasoned timber probably would have affected the results as well.
@@tylerhayslett9073 exactly. That's the microscopic inequity.
@@Fred_Bender exactly. That's the macroscopic inequity
I agree. Mythbusters did a lot of good research but there were also a number of times where the scale of the test just wasn’t adequate. Look at the testing they did on being sucked down by a sinking ship. That this effect exists when large warships sink is very well documented yet their very small scale test labeled the “myth” as busted. Sorry no the “myth” isn’t busted the test was invalid.
40:20 "The best defense against heavy artillery is a lightly built ship." This reminded me of the Battle of Leyte Gulf, where the Japanese battleships were firing armor-piercing ammunition against escort carriers and destroyers.
No destroyer would stand up to such an opponent. Clearly you must have meant firing the appropriate shell against cruisers.
TAFFY 3 taking notes: "...best defense....lightly built ship..." 😁
This jumped out at me as well, and the surprising similarity between that case of age-of-sale "armour" and defense vs Leyte Gulf (or World of Warships...)
That's exactly where my mind went. Plus ca change, plus c'est le meme chose...
I remember reading that one US ship had a problem of having so many 15/16 inch holes in it from through and through AP shells that the flooding was significant.
I got a splinter from Chinese Baltic birch substitute while running a CNC beam saw. Within 24 hours, my finger knuckle was like a huge grape and painful. The amount of stuff in this abscess was incredible as was the pain. I can only imagine what this horror was like and in a period of no antibiotics
Chinese baltic?
@@mortenfrosthansen84 yes… It’s a pre finished Baltic birch product from China. When I used to cut drawer parts from it on a beam saw, I kept noticing the putrid odor of old rubber inner tubes. A friend of mine who repairs machines began laughing. I asked him what’s so funny. He told me that it’s not birch. There are only two paper thin birch veneers on top and bottom. The rest of the layers are from old rubber trees the Chinese were cutting down to make this stuff. I was working for Tharp cabinets at the time and we made some of the cheapest most horrid cabinets. These drawers were an up charge option over our melamine drawers. This material is horrible. It warps and splinters like crazy. The glue delaminates with ease. The drawer bottoms frequently popped out of the bottom when the groove area failed and broke off.
@@devmeistersuperprecision4155 ahaa.. I imagined it had a explanation.
But wouldn't it then just be chinese wood?
Or baltic, and then just worked on in China.
IKEA also has all their furniture made by chinese, but people still se it as swedish.
But I guess it's a work thing, how to call it.
There seem to be a trend of calling all chinese build quality, for Tofu Dreg or just Dreg.
Kinda how made in Hong Kong was in the 80's and 90's. And russian in the 50's, 60's, 70's, 80's 90's, 00's, 10's and still is.
You know it's gonna fall apart sooner than later
@@devmeistersuperprecision4155 I work in the disposal business, so I see these cabinets regularly.
You can tell the cheap stuff apart, by how it almost flakes or chunks off, after just morning dew settling in the summer.
That is when it lies in a pile of rubble, from f.ex renovation of buildings and the interior is stripped. I then come and scoop it up with my crane truck.
There good moonlighting options, since people sometimes pay a lot just to get rid of trash
@@mortenfrosthansen84 I agree. But true Baltic birch is a very high end product. So referring to the drawers as Baltic birch and up charging for them is misleading. Same with our dovetailed drawer joints. We cut these using a machine that effectively left two offset rounded pin tail boards. Not a tail and pin board. But it’s cheap and fast.
What you need to know about Tharp and the Chinese and the Russians is that their more than capable of doing high end work, they just elect not to when it suits the bottom line.
The AK47 is one of Russia’s best known exports. Between 1951 and 1954 the receivers were milled from solid stock. But then they cut corners again and went with the sloppier stamped plate receivers.
Biden slapped Russia with embargoes over the Ukraine war. OK, our main supplier for high end Baltic birch was out of Finland and Russia. The finish product comes in as 5x5 sheets and the Russian product comes in as true 4x8 sheets which had massively lower waste ratios. This is from the Komchuk Plywood Factory. It killed us. We saw a 300 percent increase in costs and huge increases in lead times.
Meanwhile, the Ukrainians are shooting up Russian tanks like crazy. The Russians had to ramp up tank production. So while the US is not allowed to sell technology to the Russians, the German subsidiary firms are.
A large CNC machine tool builder in New York, Niles, began a huge order for the latest in CNC milling machines. These were then sent to the parent company in Germany who then sent them to a subsidiary dealer who in turn sold them under warranty to the Russians for building tanks for use in the Ukraine. All while we’re getting are A-SS handed us by Baltic birch supply chain problems. BTW This was not Tharp who used the real stuff!
The compressive feeling of being on deck of an Iowa class battleship is quite amazing. The closest that I could get to the forward turrets, on USS Missouri, was approximately the large antenna near the anchor chains. The thick windows on the bridge had to be lowered so as to not blow them out. This created some fun when the loose papers get sucked out of the bridge and go fluttering across the waves. One of our Executive Officers, I won't name him, got very jumpy and ducked when on the open area above the bridge. The big guns hit you with a big whoomp feeling. The smaller 5" guns were much more annoying as they have a sharp krang that hits you in the groin. To me, it was a glorious experience and best captured with a fast motor drive on the camera. To those at the end of the round's trajectory weren't as enthused. Below decks, there was virtually no affect other than a dull whump sound of the guns. Inside the turrets, it's very quiet with the sounds being mostly crew talking and the mechanical sounds of the loaders and breeches. So sad that people can't experience that sensation anymore. PH1 (SW) ret.
I remember being a few steps to the side of an uncle firing a max power 44 Magnum round in a revolver as a kid. With ear protection on, you didn't really **hear** the blast as much as you **felt** the concussion from it hit your body, compress your chest, and knock some of the wind out of your lungs. It is a very unique feeling but not altogether uncomfortable once you know what to expect; when the Dirty Harry gun came out, my cousin used to get as close as safely possible to his father so that my cousin could feel the concussion that much more.
When that's what the blast of a 44 Magnum round feels like to a 12 year old, I can only imagine what the blast of a big battleship gun would feel like.
@@jayschafer1760 the feel of an 84mm Carl Gustaf recoilless support weapon is pretty intense and addictive too.
Swedish army safety regulations restrict the allowed full propellant rounds to twelve per 24h and firing team.
And that's with protective ear plugs *and* Peltor cups for anyone within 25m.
It's essentially a shoulder fired 84mm field artillery piece with a venturi nozzle at the breech to eliminate recoil transfer to the weapon itself.
The tradeoff is the 75m long and 90° wide backblast cone.
@@SonsOfLorgar also good for the sinuses? I hated being the number two as result? U never knew when the number one was going to fire…..
I wonder what the Gustav railway cannon felt like to the loaders when it fired
I remember reading the accounts of a sailor who served on the heavy cruiser USS Boston (CA-69/CAG-1) during the Vietnam War. At that time the Boston was equipped with three different types of naval rifles, the main battery 8”/55, secondary 5”/38 and 3”/50 anti-aircraft guns. He claimed that the most painful to hear were the 3”/50s, in that the audible “crack” when they fired was just brutal on your ears.
Took a nautical archeology class from Dr. Hocker in the late 90s at Texas A&M - it's good to see he's still at it! Thanks for the age of sail content Drach!
Gig em. 08.
Gig'em 2021!
Gig 'em 1991! Hope I gave you a good grade, C Parker!
@@fredhocker2010 Your explanations were wonderfull, thanks!
Gigem
This is really cool.
Drac: So this obscure effect described, that we can't really know nowadays..
Dr Freddy: Oh no, we tested that.
@@Splatterpunk_OldNewYork I'll double that LOL. :)
Did you get hit by splinters? Then you didnt test it, do it again
Drach: „three problems with mythbuster experiment“
Proceeds to demolish said experiment, while being an absolute gentleman about it.
I think he was careful to limit his commentary. It was appropriately sized pirate shot versus appropriate pirate targets. That is not the same as military shot versus military targets. So interwebs, don't conflate the two.
And I must point out that Adam and Jamie would totally accept those criticisms and commentary on the experiment, as scientific process was exactly the point of what they were doing. And THEN blowing the hell out of it after they were done, because explosions.
@@dantreadwell7421 indeed!
I think he probably considered the limitations of a show with limited time and financial budgeting could effectively do in the writing of this video, and was more than fair in pointing out that, just because in this situation there wasn't any significant splintering, that the conclusion from the show probably underplays the aspect of this in full-sized vessel combat.
@@Yawyna124 Very true, and totally agree.
Oh, yes. I can see why sailors wanted that last stitch through the nose. The perfect horror would be waking up at twenty feet, bathed in pearlescent light with a cannon ball at your feet. Fascinating conversation with Dr. Hocker that goes into very satisfying depth about the phenomenon of splinter formation and effect.
Would be a great study for high frame rate slow motion photography/filmography.
Set up a typical gunnery crew behind a period correct wooden ship bulkhead.
Its even better to wake up thusly also with a stitch in your nose.
@@lostpony4885 Ah, well, no. Being awake, trussed in canvas and on your way to the bottom is not and never will be "better."
@@alitlweird It would be super expensive. We don't have that many large trees anymore
@@RhodokTribesman you don’t need to build an entire ship. Just a mock-up of what a typical gunnery crew would have had
to be fair about the smoke filling up the ship...in a battle, if you're (un)lucky, you'll have extra vents holes punched through the sides over time
To be FAIAHH!
Depending on the wind though those holes could bring smoke in.
Anyone who has ever experienced an artillery attack in a wooded area knows how deadly those "splinters" (some of them literally as large as logs) can be.
And the standard modern munitions are airburst fused for maximum fragmentation of both the shell and anything between it and the target.
I, and presumably a lot of people, initially thought of the sort of splinter that you get in your finger. I was shortly disabused of that notion when reading more detailed accounts.
The WW2 experience near Germany where artillery shells hit the forest trees and the foxholes below were showered wth debris and splinters.
If i not mistaken (please correct me if i am wrong), the British navy love to use wood willow tree from America continent because it's more resilient against canon impact than European wood. I think from BBC Histroy or something 15 years ago.
@@earlyriser8998 There's still forests in Germany, France, and probably a few other countries around, where sawmills have to be careful with the really old trees. Or you're simply not allowed to cut them down for timber, because there's just too much shrapnel in them, which is gonna mess up first the harvester and then the saws.
I just watched the footage of the test firings. As of now, the first thing I'm going to do if I win the lottery is pay the Vasa museum whatever it costs to get another round of test firings, and pack the Slo-Mo Guys off to Stockholm.
That makes two of us!
One of those shots I noticed was taken with a 1000 fps camera and still things were happening in mere frames. Getting that proper slo-mo footage of the cannon going off would be quite a job.
@@rashkavar It's all a question of having the right hardware. The Slo Mo Guys routinely film at 100,000+ fps.
We had up to 100 000 fps available, and tested various speeds in the initial proof trials. We did most of our actual filming at 4000 or 5000 fps, as it provided enough detail with good resolution (the higher speeds make for pretty grainy footage). These films are still too large for internet publication (most of them are several GB), so the versions you see here have been edited back to coarser frame rates to get the file size down.
Dafydd, if you can come up with about 500 000 USD, I will see what I can do. But we already have 54 rounds of slo-mo footage in the can...
Good job! Have been enjoying this series, even if it is embarrassing to see myself on video.
It was an absolute pleasure to visit the museum and learnso much from you 😀
Sir, you are a living national treasure ... just which nation is the only moot point! R (Australia)
Thank you for an absolutely fascinating interview! 👌I watched the videos of the canon firing & seeing that huge jet of flame coming from the vent, I wonder whether that extra foot of ceiling height on the main decks (mentioned in an earlier video) might be part of the shipbuilder's 'experiment' with large artillery pieces?
It struck me that higher ceilings would be advantageous in allowing hot air & smoke to rise naturally & accumulate _above_ the heads of the men in that extra space (then begin to escape through the various hatches in the deck). Obviously the whole deck would fill up with repeat firings, but it might make the space slightly more tolerable for longer.... as tolerable as an active gun deck could be anyway!
@@medea27 I had not really considered this possibility, but it is an interesting thought. Dutch-built ships of the period tended to have relatively high headroom in the decks, so Vasa is not too odd in that respect, but it had not occurred to me that it might have something to do with the ergonomics of the ordnance, other than providing more maneuvring room for the loading equipment (4-meter long rammers and sponges). I will have to look into this! Glad you enjoyed the video, I think Drach has done a good job of presenting our ship.
Holy smoke, an opportunity to compliment you directly! Thank you for making this video so interesting. I couldn't get enough of it.
Something that isn't talked about nearly enough, is the effects of double and triple shotting the guns. That is loading multiple cannonballs into a single gun in order to increase the amount of metal being thrown at the target, as well as reducing the velocity of each individual round, so as to reduce the risk of over-penetration, and more effectively transferring kinetic energy into the target, especially in close range battles. There are accounts of this being used to great effect, even shredding entire decks, at Trafalgar.
Agreed
You're more likely to blow the breech into splinters than put extra balls on target. Even changing to cylindrical shells from spherical balls was enough to blow out the breech on a lot of the guns from that era. (which is terrifying on a muzzle-loaded anything)
I'd be interested to see these accounts because that sounds ... dangerous and more likely to blow up your gun. I have not heard any actual accounts of this happening; only people claiming such.
@@dsan94 It *was* done, (with a half charge of propellant when it was on purpose) and it *did* blow up a lot of guns & gun crews.
From the days of early siege guns, on up to the crews on WW2 battleships making sure that *didn't* happen, double projectile shots have *always* "just happened" when the charge and the projectile aren't a unified package. (This is why we use cartridge style ammo for everything we can, from pistols on up to 155mm howitzers, and take precautions on anything larger)
P.S. Modern safety precautions are written in the blood of prior generations of gun crews.
@@muninroband yet it still happens that a cartridge has no powder and on a semi- or automatic weapon if you don't watch out for it you can still end up with a 2nd projectile in the barrel. sometimes that is just far enough to chamber the new round, sometimes it's just barely not falling out and anything in between. still leads to blown barrels
"It's better to be a lightly build ship that the shot will pass cleanly through"
USS Johnston: THIS IS THE WAY
Pretty much
Japan: We have you 4(0) to one!
USS Johnston: I like those odds
Yep Japanese failed to realize how small it was and load HE instead.
With wooden ships their little cannon could not penetrate the enemy wood much and ball traveling all the way thur and especially at the down angles involved you were always at risk of sinking or them hitting a magazine. There were reasons small ships avoided if at all possible fights with the big boys. But yes while you were sailing away as fast as you could you were less likely to die from balls going thur the ship.
"no armor is best armor" -Phly Daily
@@RedRocket4000 Also why pirates of the age of sail generally had relatively short runs of 1-2 years. When you're a privateer, you only face angst from ships and settlements of the navies you attack, and by and large what you'll be dealing with are relatively bloodless encounters from merchants who are more willing to surrender some cargo and not die compared to dying for their inventory. Not so with pirates.
Having seen a piece of broken baseball bat puncture a player's lung, and in other cases the big end knocking the catcher or umpire off his feet, and given that ships of the line created splinters that big, sharp on all sides and moving much faster, I'm inclined to side with Drach.
Obviously not true.
@@garymitchell5899 If you mean that the splinters were obviously not sharp on all side, then I am inclined to agree
Even if they weren't, a kid in my sister's class in high school died of blunt force trauma from a softball to the chest. Doesn't have to be sharp to kill you.
@@willythemailboy2 w... what?
@@nerztobias3863 yup, not even in organized sports, just the normal Phys Ed class. Someone hit a line drive that hit him in the chest and stopped his heart. Dead before the ambulance arrived.
The U.S.S. Niagara museum in Erie, Pennsylvania, has an excellent display showing the results of shipboard guns against wooden hulls. A recreated section of O.H. Perry's first flagship at the Battle of Lake Erie, U.S.S. Lawrence, was tested with naval artillery correct for the War of 1812 period. The display includes representations of crews at their guns. Suffice to say, you would not want to be on the receiving end of those wood splinters. The larger ones would easily rip limbs from the body, smaller ones would instantly disembowel a man. A horrible way to die.
A brief portion of the video created by the museum can be seen here on UA-cam. Search "USS Niagara Live Fire Demonstration."
The UA-cam video - ua-cam.com/video/yGM6AlwjGS0/v-deo.html
@@davidbooth508 - Thanks!
That is an excellent test, and one that we used as a reference for designing our tests.
I was part of the crew (re)building the Niagara. Those timbers are heavy and could either save you or kill you. In the original ship they were greener than optimum since it was built in a hurry. In the short run they may have been stronger but they were also heavier and harder to work.
@@davidbooth508 Thanks for posting this.
The splinter protection part of that Mythbusters episode may have been inaccurate, but I tell you what: the eyepatch preserving night vision experiment is spot on. I still cover my right eye when I go to the bathroom at night so that I don't fall over the cat on the way back to my bed.
Why would you want to ruin your depth perception especially in a middle of a fight
closing one eye is still taught in the US military to protect vision in night when a flare is used
I just dont turn on the light :D
@@TchaikovskyFDR there's a lot of people with permanently only one usable eye and they're doing pretty well :)
@@TchaikovskyFDR Your assessment of my cat's martial abilities is unintentional but also rather accurate.
Yes, a splinter in the age of sail meant a big, jagged hunk of wood flying around in an enclosed space, not a tiny sliver in your finger. A splinter in the age of steel means a chunk of metal that will go through an inch or two of steel. Misleading semantics.
It's relative, a splinter of a big thing can be very big.
Splinters are relative. They’re essentially just sharp portions of a certain material.
Then in splinter in the age of Krupp cemented armor and rolled homogeneous armor meant red hot razor sharp spliters that can weight pounds flying around at the speed of sound inside a sealed metal box.
When I first read of "shell splinters" in Remarque's _All Quiet On The Western Front_ at age 13, they didn't sound too murderous... I thought the blast was the main threat for those who happened to be too close. Learned a thing or two by the end.
The first time I heard "splinters" realistically being shown and what they can do was while reviewing damage from a tornado. Long, sharp chunks of what used to be a telephone pole had been driven through walls. Anything alive in the path of those wouldn't still be after impact.
The Mythbusters experiment is better described as a BB gun being used to simulate impact damage of a .50 BMG as far as caliber, impact damage and of course splinter damage.
Should have a Busting Mythbusters show after watching this. Sure, there are practical limits and value of entertainment, but like Dr Hocker implied, "its having a real side wall of oak vs a sheet of plywood nailed to a piece of wood that makes all the difference". I mean, live oak hardwood 18" or more thick hit by a 24 pounder cannon with 30 meter muzzle flash, no thanks.
@Drew Smith don't get me wrong but I love mythbusters on their ability to inspire thought and ingenuity to test certain myths. But seriously though on some they fell so flat even I as a child could see the issue. IE the Hathcock "myth" with the shot down through the scope, seeing them using a modern scope unlike what would have been used at the time made even the adolescenct me question it. Seems kind of hit or miss on how well they "research" myths
Yes that episode of mythbusters was one of their worst fails.
@Drew Smith mythbusters aren’t crap, far from it, it’s just that it’s an entertainment show like almost everything on tv and not scientific. The show is good, but nobody should take it as scientific evidence
@@legoeasycompany Fairs fair, they did have at least one "re-testing the myths" episode, and the scope one was re-tested with a period scope and period munitions. Forgot the result though.
I remember thinking exactly that after seeing the Mythbusters episode - that both the gun they used was too small and the wood was both too thin and should have been good solid oak rather than pine.
mythbusters was a stupid, unwatchable show.
Their 'ship' was modeled after a replica of one of the ships that fought on the Great Lakes. It also carried 6lbers in it's day so it was a fair comparison at that scale. To do a test like Vasa museum did takes a lot more resources, funding, and planning then Discovery would have ever coughed up.
Problem is people took that as a universal example and many things don't scale properly. For example a 'hotwheel' car is pretty resilient smashed into a wall at 30mph or more. But if you scaled that same thing up to a real sized car not only would the wheels fall off due to their attachment method but if flung into a wall at 30mph it would be significantly crushed.
The same goes for their test of "can a sinking ship suck you under with it", the boat they used wasn't even on the scale of a destroyer or small frigate, much less something like a cruiser or battleship.
If I may offer some input in reference to the target in the show being a replica of a War of 1812 on the Great Lakes Ship; such a vessel of that era is not a fair comparison to either sea-going warships or merchant vessels of the same era. Most of the notable vessels on the lakes during the War of 1812 were purpose built for fighting on what was at the time the frontier; they were quickly built of unseasoned timber and saw combat soon after construction. Many of them were also armed merchant vessels that operated effectively as armed transports also constructed quickly and cheaply from unseasoned timber. The construction of these vessels was slightly lighter than ocean-going vessels of the time due to the lack of what would at the time be considered proper shipyards.
The armed merchant vessels in particular were more shallow draft in design with lower bulwarks and less freeboard in general than their ocean-going counterparts used by pirates. There is simply less material there to cause splinter damage, and what is there is not in a place that it would be worth shooting at; you'd be better off coming in close and sweeping the decks with grapeshot and/or musket fire.
@@Random3716 insightful
As a Swede I really enjoyed the really detailed Vasa and Swedish navy coverage.
The Vasa is on my bucket list
The reveal that there is actually a footage of the test was like Christmas morning😀😀. Perfect time to watch master and commander again
I only recently got into naval history, but Master and Commander is one of my favorite movies of all time. It always seemed so realistic, and I'm glad to find out it is!
@@MrDmitriRavenoff Hornblower isnt bad either.
@@MrDmitriRavenoff Other than it being a American Frigate in the books, cleaver how they had the Americans sell the French one of their Super Frigates for the movie.
We were aboard a boat anchored at the edge of the channel in 1976 to watch the parade of tall ships. The USS Constitution led the parade & was about 500’ away when she started firing salutes. The sound impact was astonishing & was like a heavy punch to your whole body that almost knocked you over. A whole broadside would be terrifying.
Thanks much for posting this. Fascinating.
Now imagine what a really big ship of the line - 120 BIG cannons would have sounded.
USS Constitution was a frigate. She wouldn’t have been deemed capable enough to be ‘in-line’ at say, Trafalgar.
Even the smallest of the battleships there - the ‘74s - would have torn her apart in minutes…
@@robertcottam8824can't even imagine the feeling of being at the end of the line and hearing the ships at the front starting to fire.
All that noise and you have to just wait for it to reach you
@@bfure1
Neither can I ..
That touch hole in the back makes much more sense for a siege cannon, the delay doesnt matter there, same with the jet of flames since theres enough room usually in the back. The advantage it gives you though is that its much more accessible for gunners to prime it and to fire it since you dont have to reach on top of the gun, which would also be much higher when mounted on a field carriage, which then could expose the gunners to enemy fire. Also since there is so much room over the pan to the edge of the exterior of the barrel, i could imagine its very easy to put some makeshift covers on top of the barrel that could cover the pan, yet still allow you to fire it making it usable during rain, even heavier rain.
I can imagine that it makes for a more stable structure as well since you dont puncture the structure at its tinniest part But no structural engineer of course so duno ^^.
Ah a good hint at the result of them making a uniform gun for duel use. And the land use won that part of the design. This was more early cannon making as you don't see that rear approach in later examples we actually have.
The touchole on the cascabel is really a pain, I can tell you from our trials. It is difficult to get loose priming powder down it, so you pretty much would have to use a quill to make it practical. The distance to a normal vent location is not far, just a few centimeters, so no real convenience advantage. This arrangement was only seen for a short period and abandoned, no doubt because it did not work very well. Good point about the use on siege guns!
@Fred Hocker
Did they have igniter cord back then? Could this work as an alternative?
@@blorblor5438 Unfortunately not. The alternative was a quill, originally a goose quill filled with gunpowder, which you could insert in the touch hole.
Dearest Drach,
my list of superlatives is exhausted. i've run through them all. So i tried superduperlatives. No luck there either. The only thing i have left is
GOOD STUFF MAYNARD!
🙏💜🖖
Same here... After several hundreds of excellent videos... Bravo et tous nos remerciements et félicitations 👍👏👌🍾🏆
May I suggest "superdrachtives"? #drachtastic
I've read the National Geographic articles on Vasa and Kronan, and while the guns and other armament are interesting, the most interesting things were all the other gear that the officers and crew had with them when the ships sailed. For example, the surgeon's kit, which included a metal skullcap and a wooden mallet for 'anesthesia.'
I was just thinking about something regarding the gear. Did anyone wear armor on board ships during attacks in the age of sail? Could the shrapnel damage have been mitigated if they did? Like a flak jacket. Or would the protection be negligible?
The mallet might seem like a primitive tool because they are but in the day before anaesthesia blunt impacts truly were the only way to put a patient to sleep and awake patients have the habit of moving.
@@crappycomputer77t1 In the earliest part of the period of cannon armed ships you would have soldiers on the upper deck with cuirass and helmet. A cuirass of say the period of the Spanish Armada would prevent practically any of the splinters dr. Hocker mentioned from tearing you up. Though if you are hit by a 10+kg bit of the ship travelling at 200m/s it really doesn't matter if the cuirass kept it off your skin.
As far as I know there is no mention in the period of cannon armed sailing ships of armor with the role flak jackets fulfills.
@@gamarus0kragh and yet no. Because the cuirass and helmet only covers the upper torso and upper head while legs, hips, arms and face would be mostly unprotected...
@@SonsOfLorgar Absolutely. Though a flak jacket would leave similar areas unprotected.
One time cannoneer here, I sat absolutely enthralled. Most excellent video. Special mention to Dr. Hocker, I hung on his every word. Thank you.
Drach - that was over the top in terms of quality. As we'd say here in the States - that was an out of the park grand slam of a video.
For those who are in the States, or might be visiting, the Erie Maritime Museum in Erie Pennsylvania has a very nice display showing a cutaway of the side of a wooden ship with actual splintering. They actually shot at the thing with period correct artillery
The video of it is on you tube.
@@peterfiske6728 I did not know that. I’ll look for it. Thank you!!!
That's a good educator, there. "Thank you very much..." "But wait, there's more!", and goes on to talk about fascinating things they found out for another near ten minutes.
I once interviewed someone like that who was high up in their field and the company. I expected to ask a few questions, get a few sentences in reply to each and that would be it but he kept saying "don't you want to know about ...". Top guy, much respect. He eventually got fired for screwing one of the secretaries so perhaps all of his oral skills were sublime.
I love drach breaking down history myths and misunderstandings. One of my favorite types of videos.
Then Yoy need to think very hard about what turns you on
@@Mike-tv9rk sir if you have an issue with presenting how real the horror of war is by dispelling myths and incorrect science then it is you who should rethink their taste. This is a historical channel the people here are interested in facts and there is not a single thing wrong with being interested in history.
I wasn't aware. Grant's passing hit me like a cannon. Such a likeable guy.
What happened?
@@Boxttell11 en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grant_Imahara Not sure, he seemed betrayed by biology. But I'm no doctor.
@@Boxttell11 Grant* Imahara passed away last year from a brain aneurysm
@@EthanDyTioco thats really sad
@@theplanetrepairman9945 that is quite sad
“A jet of flame 10 meters long”
That broadside must have looked absolutely insane
I was once the trainer on a 3" gun mount aboard the USCGC Resolute. The breach is about 1.5 feet from your left ear in that position. Even with ear protection I lost some hearing as a result. It still enjoyed it though.
Many years ago I saw an object in an antique weapons store in New Orleans that I have never seen the like of since. It consisted of several parts. There was an iron disc about a quarter inch thick, and approximately five inches in diameter. The disc had a rod sticking up from the center about seven or eight inches long. Placed upon that rod were several rows of curious-looking metal pieces. Each one was an iron ball about an inch in diameter with an iron stem two or three inches long. Each stem ended in an iron ring. The rings were placed over the rod coming out of the disc. Each ball was placed next to another until a row was completed around the disc. Then another level was placed atop the one beneath until that level was complete. These levels were stacked up until the end of the rod had been reached. These were stacked up perhaps a dozen or more levels. No one at the shop knew what this object was. My theory is that this was an anti-sail artillery round. If this had been fired from a cannon at a sailing ship the air pressure of the moving projectile would have quickly separated the disc and rod from the many stemmed-balls. They in turn, being asymmetrical would fly wildly, spreading out in a cloud of metal. This would have shredded sails, and shattered any masts, spars, and yardarms they hit. Has anyone ever seen or heard of a round like this?
sounds like a canister/grape shot to me, basically a big buckshot round that could clear decks pretty quickly, especially if you crossed the T
I always thought that was an odd 'myth' to bust, simply because it's not really a 'myth' - it was a well-documented injury suffered by many many people and examined, treated and documented extensively by medical experts. It's not even far-fetched. There might (as there often is with relatively primitive medicine) be some confusion about the exact anatomy, the appropriate medical response, or of the precise damage done, but what is clear is that it caused serious injury or death regularly and in large numbers.
Master and Commander does a great job of showing what splinters do to a crew. Edit*
Ive fired a 155 Howitzer and been in an M1A1 behind another M1A1 as it fired the 120mm smooth bore, as this man says, the sound and pressure wave is indescribable. The power and intensity is breathtaking.
My dad was a WW2 combat veteran. The only time I ever saw him hit the deck was when a strong gust of wind ripped through the treetops and tore loose the dead branches, with some force. Exploding artillery shells in the trees is a bad, bad thing.
Went to this museum when I was in Stockholm and it was great. Such a fantastic centerpiece.
Former tanker here. Firing your own gun there is almost no pressure difference inside the tank. However, should the tank next to you fire, five or ten meters away, the pressure inside your tank is just like he described.
In world war 2, tank battles were facing a similar predicament.
Late war German tanks were using thick but brittle steel plates for their tanks.
Allied guns were often not strong enough to penetrete the armour but still the crew inside were killed by metal splinters.
What an informative video! I've been fan of the Age of Sail since my high school years when I read "A Short History of the United States Navy." That book was published by the thousands over the course of several decades. It was originally written about 1910 to be the naval history textbook for the U.S. Naval Academy. It had a few updated revisions, the last being sometime in the late 1920s or early 1930s. The authors took ship log accounts of battles and any other sources extant to compile maps of ship-to-ship encounters to accompany the written text, so it is easier to imagine the actual ship movements from before the first shot until the winner draws away to make her own repairs before taking over the ship that struck her colors. Searching on the title will find any number of copies for sale at reasonable prices, most in very good condition or better. It's like having an expert like the gentleman from the Vasa museum, or Drach himself, at your fingertips, covering the successes and failures of both sides in a number of encounters. The sections from the Barbary Coast war, the Revolutionary War, the War of 1812, and the US Civil War piqued my imagination so much that over the years I have owned and/or given away four different revisions, the most recent one to my great-grandson.
Kalmar Läns muséum with its exhibitions about Kronan is well worth a visit. Over 20 000 objects have been recovered from the shipwreck, some of them quite unique. Walking on the reconstructed gun deck was also quite intriguing. I need to go there again some day.
Nice I would love to see that. Thanks
Drach’s ability to regularly fascinate me is insane
Really fascinating discussion with an expert who's not only informed, but has done practical testing on a 1:1 scale.
The literature of the time warns of the very real dangers of splinters, with Dr Hocker's excellent work I'm even more convinced how dangerous they are, let alone the main projectile and the blast wave.
Very interesting vid, thanks for it. Especially the cannon info like the gigantic muzzle blast effect, and the 24 pounder going through 94 cm of wood. Certainly wood splinters WERE the greatest danger in battle to sailors in the Age of Sail and cannon, as the surgeons have often stated... and they would know. Although, disease would often be the biggest killer of all.
Regarding that TV show, they have been found to be incorrect about several tests they made over the years. One that comes to mind is when they built a John Bedini Generator (technically an Alternator), and did not add some necessary permanent magnets to the rotor, and it was "debunked" as not working... as electrical power is generated by magnets or electromagnets moving past wire coils. Not saying it would have met the inventor's claims for power output, but it was not given an honest chance to.
But they were right about using pigs: I remember going to visit one of my customers, a surgeon and researcher at Letterman Army Hospital in San Fransisco, and him being busy in the basement shooting live pigs with an M16 rifle. The military often did that to study the damage and to practice battle surgery techniques, as the internal organs of pigs are similar to humans.
Thank you very much for this post, easily one of most interesting to me of all of your offerings. I view your postings most every day and am a fan. I add this account in support of the "splinter" aspect of the video:
There is an account in the Citation of the award of a Medal of Honor to a Civil War Union Naval Officer for having fought his action while impaired by a three-foot "splinter" imbeded in his forearm throughout the action. I don't recall the name but I saw the Medal, the Citation and his Whitney Navy revolver many years ago in the collection of a serious historian and collector.
I believe the word you were looking for was "impaled" not impaired by a three-foot splinter. I saw a white oak hit by a bolt of lightning. After the storm passed by my coworkers and I went to see the carnage. There were splinters as big around as a broom handle and they were up to seven feet long. Some of the longer ones were stuck in the ground a foot or more when we pulled them out. The tree literally exploded about ten feet from the ground. There were splinters sticking in the ground and even in other trees at a radius of thirty feet from the tree hit by the lightning. Splinters can cause serious bodily damage, I would not want to be in a ship cannonballs are ripping through blasting splinters and shrapnel everywhere.
Fort Nelson used to have a part of the display showing cannon versus proper wooden hull.
Not much into playing with matchsticks or wondering about how much damage one would do to my eyes but to see Vasa again, ( however briefly ) is always worth it. I was awestruck when I first saw her and I still am.
I don't know what's more fabulous, this video or Dr. Hocker's pocket watch chain that's affixed to his vest. Great video!
What a great presentation! I found it fascinating as I was a Gunners mate in the US Navy. Thank you for another great one.
I found this to be incisive, sharp and to the point. So much so, I just ordered the largest set of tweezers I could get. Thanks, Drach.
:)
We visited the Vasa Museum briefly while in Sweden and it was factenating on several levels. We'd go back just to see the Vasa again. Dr. Hocker is very interesting and I''ll look to those links.
Delightful interview, and surprising insights.
Good job that you linked all the supplementary material.
The condition and age of the timber, whether or not it had been weakened or fractured by previous shots, firing angle, range, type and amount of charge and shot, etc. would also have to make a difference to the size and spread of splinters. Fascinating to see how these things DIDN'T work, too.
I surprised that there are no notes and measurements taken to consider those factors. Perhaps, those consideration should be taken to account in some of the naval battles during the Age of Sail.
In particular the variation in effective thickness depending on the ship's roll must've been a significant factor.
You'd think they would have noticed and wrote about it...although I suppose it'd be impossible to time fire to the enemy ship's roll since you have to time to your own's already...so it'd be more of a curiosity than practical information.
I'm definitely surprised that evidently no one at the time conducted this sort of test to reach the same conclusions about wood thickness governing splinters. Especially since we know they did various similar ones with small arms and land artillery at least as far back as the 19th century.
Can't wait to read the report!
also the effect of Water upon the Wood would also be a factor, though I'd be personally unsure how that'd be affected
@@Voron_Aggrav Depending on the maintenance of the ship (sometimes non-existent, other times very conscientious) the timbers should be in reasonable condition, and as you will have seen on the video, very solid indeed.
@@paulwallis7586 was more refering to the fact that wood tends to soak in water, probably becoming denser due to that
Thank you for bringing this subject up and bringing Dr. Hocker's work to a wider audience.
I love your channel. I originally found it during my historic events searching, I've always loved watching videos about historic events.
But recently I've bought ultimate admiral age of sail and dreadnoughts and this channel has really hit the spot even more so now so thank you for all of your videos!
Hugely interesting video - it never ceases to amaze me how these cannon were cast with such detail.
Beautiful.
Great to hear Drach geeting all warm when he finally finds someone able to feed him all that nerdy detail he craves so much. Awesome interview with Dr. Hocker!
Well, don't forget Dutch ships in that period were built with oak of high quality. The crew used their matresses (beds) to cover the ships hull from inside. That minimized the effect of splinters. The same knowledge was used by Dutch soldiers in Korean war. Americans built pillboxes with wooden doors on the hill tops, but the Dutch removed those wooden doors, and used blankets, for the same reason.
Test firing a 24 pounder gun? Who says nautical archeology is boring? I'm glad there are people like Dr. Hocker out there who are willing to test the questions instead of just theorizing.
I liked Dr. Hocker's comment about the muzzle flash. I worked at a historic site where I fired a 1 pounder swivel gun on a regular basis The few times I fired it at dusk or after dark, there was a 5 foot tongue of flame from the muzzle.
Drach, you really have outdone yourself here. Very well done and informative. The audio quality was above average as well. Great work!
What always confused me about the Mythbusters test was that splintering and injuries/deaths from splintering on wooden warships was NOT a myth. There are a ton of references to these injuries from a wide variety of reliable sources. When their test did not result in the type of splintering they expected, they should have immediately consulted a naval ballistics expert on why. Or at least considered the parameters of their test. What they did was akin to shooting a high-powered rifle bullet through 1/4" plywood. Thanks for the time you spent in pursuing this issue.
I found this to be an utterly fascinating video, addressing several issues which I had given some thought to!
I appreciate the thoroughness with which you resesrch a subject, you really do provide viewers with accurate information.
Brilliant video. The quality and volume of your output Drach is amazing and worthy of admiration and gratitude of we viewers. I rarely watch one of your videos without out learning something new. Thank you.
Dr Hocker has a wealth of knowledge in naval warfare of this period, excellent video, very informative.
Dr Hocker is a truly magnificent speaker& an absolute mine of information.
I'm looking forward to visiting the Vasa Museum next year
My brother almost died from a single splinter in his hand that he got while working. That night, he woke up from pain in his arm, and he noticed his veins were black up to his elbow. He went to the hospital to find out he had a blood infection. The doctor said that if he didn't wake up from the pain, he would've died. The infection was that fast! I think most of the deaths by splinters in the age of sailing was caused by the infections it caused. Metal splinters don't seem to infect as much.
Agreed. I experienced something similar. A small wound on one finger got infected, and red trails started growing up my arm a day later. Apparently the infection was moving through my lymphatic system. A good helping of antibiotics got it in check. I was told that if left untreated, it would have reached the heart in a day to so, and probably resulted in high fever and death. We really are quite fragile.
I do love the attention to detail and agree, myth busters fouled up the experiment. I'm thinking about HMS Monmouth in a twelve hour battle at point blank range, and her paucity of casualties. Or Revenge fighting for days.
History seems to show a remarkable resilience of humans, sitting crammed together, in a storm of shot, and exiting the battle unscathed.
But I suppose if there a lot of people packed in a small space, you might get a 'sponge' effect as well where the amount of bodies simply soaks up the damage into a relatively smaller area
Fantastic video as always. I was lucky enough to be part of a group that supported the flagship Niagara in Erie, Pennsylvania. We supported the live fire of cannons against mock ups of ship sides. Those mock ups are on display in the muesueme in Erie today. The flagship Niagara was part of the naval battles on Lake Erie during the war of 1812. If you're ever in Erie, PA the muesueme is worth a visit. Just check to make sure the Niagara is in port before you go. It makes several port calls during the summer.
I lived near there for a while and really liked that museum. Years ago I posted a link to that video on the Mythbusters forum at Discovery channel and we had a good discussion about their handling of the myth. Not sure if the actual Mythbusters ever saw it. I posted a link to a video of the event above for Drach and others to watch.
@@benjaminlecrone9122 it is a fantastic place to visit. It is supported by great volunteers. Nice thing about Erie is its right in the middle between Pittsburgh, Cleveland, and Buffalo. Each of the cities have ships on display. Myth Busters was a great show but in my opinion it's just entertainment.
In the mid 90's, I was part of the sailing crew on Niagara. During one of the off sailing season periods, either 95 or 96, they had those live fires, and there is a short video of it on You Tube - ua-cam.com/video/XfsuIaTU92Y/v-deo.html.
That was an excellent and very accurate test series.
Fantastic experimental archaeology! Thanks for sharing.
I think this is one of my favorite videos by you Drac, ships of this Era are my favorites.
Nice conversation with a lot of really well explained reasons that the Age of Sail sailor feared splinters as much or more than the shot that caused them
I had never heard of that episode; for such a series known for (supposedly) good research, to make such a foul up is amazing.
I was skeptical of that test when the Mythbusters did it for all the reasons mentioned. Especially when I heard so many stories of ships with scuppers dripping blood after battles. I'm glad that the Vasa people did it right.
Great video, Drac! It's clearly just as important to look at what a gun is hitting as it is to look at the gun itself, very thorough examination that you've presented.
I used to read a lot of old sailing ship naval histories and biographies. They often mentioned the danger in close battles of wood splinters. Especially close in heavy cannonaids. They talked about steps taken to slow and contain the splinters. Including by using heavy netting
One thing I've never seen covered when people try to recreate the effects of cannon fire on naval ships is the water content of the wood. Wooden ships were constructed using freshly cut "wet" wood, which can be easily 50% water (by weight). Wet wood was necessary as the planking needed to be bent to form. Then, once the ship was completed, where was said ship kept? In water. So, it's reasonably safe to assume that the wood of a wooden ship of the line would be pretty soggy at all times - not for nothing does "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner" include the line "water, water everywhere, and all the boards did shrink", when talking about being becalmed in a tropical environment.
So, being that wet wood behaves differently to dry wood (bending Vs. breaking), why does every supposedly accurate test ignore the fact that the wood they use is too dry to be accurate?
This was super interesting. Kinda want to copy/model those decorative florets on the Vasa's canons and 3d print/cast them onto my custom painting frames. This is such a treasure of art history as well as engineering and military culture.
You can tell the doc has spent a lot of time living in Scandinavia. Even when he is excited and doing cannon sound-effects, he barely smiles. :)
Perfect timing for me, just took my kids there dueing the weekend. Great video as usual and extremely fascinating!
Excellent, good work on a tricky subject. Loved it.
When the MythBusters episode came out and they had their results, I went on the Discovery/MB forum and brought up those same arguments, (Small caliber cannon, green wood, etc.)
Their reply was roughly: "It was a Pirates of the Caribbean episode, so they were focused on a specific time period, and area, and the typical ships, pirates and their victims would have. Thus 6 pound guns were the typical armament of the location and era.) So they declared splinters were not hazardous.
Yep failed to fire the round into a Timber the supports of the ship. The saying is "Shiver my timbers" for a reason. They discovered rounds just hitting the hull not as big a problem although almost certainly they were not using the right wood.
Marvellous stuff again from Drachinfel and the marvellous Dr Hocker, the Vasa Museum is definitely somewhere I’ve pencilled in for a visit.
Solid discussion. Thank you, Doctor Hocker & Drach.
I can't remember where this came from but some time ago I was told that the majority of naval deaths in war during the age of sail was down infections largely caused by wooden splinters. When you consider how powerful naval cannons were along with how much wooden splinters would be flying around during a battle back then along with the poor amount of training you would expect of 'ships doctors' during this age that makes a lot of sense. A bullet wound is quite obvious. Splinters can be nearly invisible and can easily by masked from notice by the victim by other wounds in the general vicinity.
And if the splinter was wet with sea water you add more life forms wishing to end your vital signs 😁
Majority of deaths in naval service were from disease, combat-related deaths were a minority. It was not until the 20th century that combat deaths exceeded disease in military service.
A day off from work and over 45 min video about naval dakka from Drach himself. A pretty good combination to get you in rather good mood.
About 20 years ago I lost control of a bicycle going down a hill and hit a telephone pole, that pole gave me a 6 inch long splinter of wood through my shin and out the back of my calf.
Definitely the most painful injury I've ever had, even with modern medicine and painkillers. I can't imagine how these sailors felt.
I love the information the curator gave!
All around great video!
No one has to tell me about the lethality of splinters. I have an ancestor who during the American Civil War was impailed in the leg by a split-rail fence that was hit by a cannonball. The infection was so bad that he required a field amputation just above the knee. He died 14 days after the initial injury, leaving behind a pregnant wife, who gave birth to my 2nd-great grandmother.
This story persisted in my family folklore, and eventually led to my interest in genealogy and the successful claim of an unclaimed imminent domain payment from the state of Ohio, as the widow received a pension and a land grant. That land was never settled or developed, and eventually became part of the Piqua nuclear plant in Ohio.
RIP Grant.
We had a day of mourning here at work and built little contraptions all day long with spare parts and motors.
That was a most interesting discussion and the explanation of the distances with blast pressure when one of these monster guns fire.
How cool is Dr Hocker? 'Such a privilege to listen to you guys. Thanks for the video!
Great and informative episode, albeit not one that was very conducive to my usual Wednesday routine of enjoying your video over breakfast.
Absolutely fascinating this was a great video.
Speaking of Splinters, when I was working in Wild Land Fire, we often saw Lightning Struck Trees shattered into 8 to 10 foot 2 by 4's blown 50 yards thru the heavy forest. The pine sap explodes in a firebalk that gets us called out to walk thru the woods sniffing for smoke.