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Post by the light works on Nov 12, 2012 5:36:19 GMT
those of us in the US finally saw official mention of what they were doing when they shot someone's house with a cannon.
I think overall things went rather will in that segment, though I would be inclined to note that
A: stone cannonballs are likely to be cheaper to make than cast iron ones in that time period. particularly if you are not too picky about them being perfectly spherical.
B: nobody said they tried to get the same muzzle velocity out of their stone cannonballs, which means that...
C: they were in a situation where they could either have greater muzzle velocity from the same size shot (and possibly more damage than an iron cannonball) or close to the same damage with 1/3 the gunpowder - which also wasn't exactly cheap.
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Post by the light works on Nov 12, 2012 5:38:20 GMT
and for the record, if I was the homeowner, "dude, I'm sorry I shot your house with a cannon" would have become my all time favorite mythbuster quote.
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Post by subductionzone on Nov 12, 2012 7:16:09 GMT
those of us in the US finally saw official mention of what they were doing when they shot someone's house with a cannon. I think overall things went rather will in that segment, though I would be inclined to note that A: stone cannonballs are likely to be cheaper to make than cast iron ones in that time period. particularly if you are not too picky about them being perfectly spherical. B: nobody said they tried to get the same muzzle velocity out of their stone cannonballs, which means that... C: they were in a situation where they could either have greater muzzle velocity from the same size shot (and possibly more damage than an iron cannonball) or close to the same damage with 1/3 the gunpowder - which also wasn't exactly cheap. I miss the original site for this topic. Didn't they say that this would never air or some other such claim? And yes, there was no need to match speed. The main consideration would be the amount of powder used in the cannon. Plus they made a mistatement when they called the sandstone the softest sample. It was actually the hardest since sandstone is almost pure quartz which has a hardness of 7 on the Mohs scale. Granite is mostly feldspar, hardness 6 and some quartz, 7 again. And the limestone is softest with a hardness of only 3 for the calcite that it is made up of. The correct term to use would have been friable. Sandstone was the most friable, or most likely to break up into its constituent parts that they used. Sorry to get pedantic, but when dealing with rocks the word "hardness" has a very specific meaning.
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Post by Cybermortis on Nov 12, 2012 15:13:27 GMT
They stated that they would not air the footage of the accident, not that they would not air the rest of the footage from the myth.
Nope, stone was more expensive because it required highly skilled stonemasons, good quality stone and could take a day to produce a single usable shot. With cast iron all you needed was a mould, forge and of course iron to melt and you could produce a hundred shot in a day.
The amount of powder used in cannons was based on the weight of the shot. With early cannon the amount of powder needed to propel iron shot, with its greater weight, was probably enough to burst the gun. And even if this didn't happen iron shot would show a much lower range than stone, a rather major consideration during sieges where keeping your siege engines as far from the walls as possible was considered a rather good idea.
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Post by the light works on Nov 12, 2012 16:01:31 GMT
"The correct term to use would have been friable. Sandstone was the most friable, or most likely to break up into its constituent parts that they used. "
I think this is a case of speaking for their audience - who is not likely to understand the difference between friability ans hardness.
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Post by the light works on Nov 12, 2012 16:03:16 GMT
They stated that they would not air the footage of the accident, not that they would not air the rest of the footage from the myth. Nope, stone was more expensive because it required highly skilled stonemasons, good quality stone and could take a day to produce a single usable shot. With cast iron all you needed was a mould, forge and of course iron to melt and you could produce a hundred shot in a day. The amount of powder used in cannons was based on the weight of the shot. With early cannon the amount of powder needed to propel iron shot, with its greater weight, was probably enough to burst the gun. And even if this didn't happen iron shot would show a much lower range than stone, a rather major consideration during sieges where keeping your siege engines as far from the walls as possible was considered a rather good idea. it's the "and, of course, iron to melt" part I was thinking of. with some wadding to use as a sabot, any rock you could fit down the barrel could be a projectile.
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Post by Cybermortis on Nov 12, 2012 21:07:15 GMT
Not if you;
Wanted to avoid damaging the barrel.
Wanted accurate and consistent shots at range - In order to breach a castle wall you need to hit the same section multiple times. Irregular shaped shot was erratic, even rust build up on iron shot could make the difference between hitting a ship at 200 yards and missing it entirely.
If stone shot was used against castle walls, it probably had little to do with being cheaper or more effective, and everything to do with the size of the gun. Siege guns were usually a lot larger than field guns in every sense*. I suspect that the amount of powder you'd need to move cast iron shot out of the barrel of guns this size would be close to the amount of powder needed to burst the gun.
In fact from what I recall a lot of siege guns were constructed on site, because they were so large as to be immobile. This would also explain the use of stone - even if they had enough iron to make shot for a gun this large, the forges in an army camp would most likely be incapable of making shot this size. Stone would be a natural fall-back, especially when you have a lot of men standing around doing nothing who could make it for you....
(*There was a large gun built for the Siege of Constantinople which was capable of throwing a 600lb stone ball a considerable distance. This was last used circa 1810 against a squadron of British warships, where a single hit nearly sank one of the line ships outright.)
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Post by blazerrose on Nov 12, 2012 22:56:50 GMT
I thought the owner of Old Moses was quite brave letting the MB's fire that beauty.
I also thought the opening was nicely done, getting the apology done, and not hiding behind what happened. I had also understood from Adam's statement after meeting the homeowner this episode would not air, and a lot of comments were posted and tweeted encouraging him to not just air it, but use it as a teachable moment.
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Post by blazerrose on Nov 12, 2012 22:57:55 GMT
and for the record, if I was the homeowner, "dude, I'm sorry I shot your house with a cannon" would have become my all time favorite mythbuster quote. I'd want the cannonball autographed with one of the silver blueprint pens and then I'd give it a place of honor on my mantle.
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Post by Cybermortis on Nov 12, 2012 23:49:05 GMT
I thought the owner of Old Moses was quite brave letting the MB's fire that beauty. I also thought the opening was nicely done, getting the apology done, and not hiding behind what happened. I had also understood from Adam's statement after meeting the homeowner this episode would not air, and a lot of comments were posted and tweeted encouraging him to not just air it, but use it as a teachable moment. The original comment was about not taking advantage of the accident to 'advertise' the show, since it was a very serious situation. I'd guess that they decided to continue filming, and allow some of the footage of the shot in question to be aired, only after getting permission from those who were affected by it and on the understanding that they didn't try and laugh it off or use it as advertisement for the episode (which as far as I'm aware they didn't).
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Post by breesfan on Nov 13, 2012 2:53:53 GMT
I thought it was interesting but Tory had a nice beard. ;D
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Post by blazerrose on Nov 13, 2012 3:13:46 GMT
The original comment was about not taking advantage of the accident to 'advertise' the show, since it was a very serious situation. I'd guess that they decided to continue filming, and allow some of the footage of the shot in question to be aired, only after getting permission from those who were affected by it and on the understanding that they didn't try and laugh it off or use it as advertisement for the episode (which as far as I'm aware they didn't). That's true. I don't remember seeing any ads for this week's episode on Disco or Science Channel, and the promo on the Disco site was about the Cadaver Buster.
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Post by blindleader on Nov 13, 2012 8:40:02 GMT
[quote author=subductionzone Plus they made a mistatement when they called the sandstone the softest sample. It was actually the hardest since sandstone is almost pure quartz which has a hardness of 7 on the Mohs scale. [snip] Sorry to get pedantic, but when dealing with rocks the word "hardness" has a very specific meaning.[/quote] This not being a science show, I"m sure they were using the lay person's concept of hardness, i.e. the ability of the ball to stay in one piece under impact. This is the property of interest to the canoneer, whatever the correct technical name for it is. Just looking at the samples they used, they were correct in ranking sandstone as "softest" and granite as "hardest". This was borne out by the results of the test Not in the fifteenth century, I'm afraid. Cast iron was not really available to Europeans in the fifteenth century. It was a brand new exotic material and remained expensive well into the sixteenth century. Even the canons of the fifteenth century were not cast iron. The reason the tube of a gun is called a barrel is because the early European guns were constructed of wrought iron staves and hoops, just like a wooden barrel. Spherical stone projectiles were the standard for siege engines in the middle ages and continued well into the age of gun powder. Check out Mons Meg: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mons_Meg
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Post by OziRiS on Nov 13, 2012 12:37:59 GMT
I thought this show was one of few for a long time where I couldn't put my finger on anything "obvious" that was done wrong or wasn't concidered. All the things you all are mentioning now, while still perfectly valid points, don't really make a difference as to the testing or outcome. That's a step up from a lot of recent episodes IMHO.
As for the way they handled the whole cannonball shot through someone's house thing, I think it was done very tastefully. I especially liked the part where you saw Tory's cannon overshoot the target barrels and then they just stopped cold and cut to Kari, Tory and Grant explaining that this was where it all went wrong and didn't show any more of the situation. Very respectful.
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Post by the light works on Nov 13, 2012 15:34:45 GMT
one has to wonder why the maker of Mons Meg chose to name it after his wife... just for amusement value, of course.
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Post by Lokifan on Nov 13, 2012 15:50:02 GMT
You've never been married, have you? ;D ;D ;D
*ducking and running for cover as the anti-sexist projectiles are obviously in flight*
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Post by the light works on Nov 13, 2012 15:53:54 GMT
on the contrary, I AM married... which leads to my curiosity about WHICH reason it was.
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Post by Cybermortis on Nov 13, 2012 16:38:28 GMT
Not in the fifteenth century, I'm afraid. Cast iron was not really available to Europeans in the fifteenth century. It was a brand new exotic material and remained expensive well into the sixteenth century. Even the canons of the fifteenth century were not cast iron. The reason the tube of a gun is called a barrel is because the early European guns were constructed of wrought iron staves and hoops, just like a wooden barrel. Spherical stone projectiles were the standard for siege engines in the middle ages and continued well into the age of gun powder. Check out Mons Meg: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mons_MegCannons were not (usually) made from cast iron because Bronze guns were stronger and didn't burst without warning. In fact Bronze was the metal of choice for cannons until the mid to late 1700's, when better iron working allowed stronger iron guns. Bronze guns were also status symbols, to show off the power and wealth of the nation. This was because bronze was four times the cost of iron. Iron shot was being used on ships by 1588, and was certainly available earlier than this. However it seems that it wasn't used because the lower strength powders available in earlier periods were not really capable of giving iron-shot usable muzzle velocities unless you used more powder than was wise. (As I noted, the amount of powder used was based on the weight of the shot). We also know that field guns had been using metal shot (usually lead rather than iron) since the mid to late 1400's - they were using such shot during the war of the roses. These, and most later field guns, were of small calibre - usually firing a one pound shot. Such guns would not have proved very effective against castle walls regardless of what type of shot they were using, and chances are an attacker would run out of powder before breaching the walls with such guns. So they had to use much larger guns against castle walls, but such guns were effectively impossible to move overland so were either built on site or assembled there - which is/was traditional for siege engines of all types anyway. Note; Many of the 'castles', at least in England, were fortified houses not true castles and therefore field guns were effective against them. Other castles were badly in need of repair, and likewise vulnerable to smaller cannon.
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Post by Antigone68104 on Nov 14, 2012 16:54:20 GMT
I also thought the opening was nicely done, getting the apology done, and not hiding behind what happened. One thing I've always liked about MythBusters is that they're honest -- if they screw up, they admit it. This was a freak accident, not an error on their part, but it's still good to see them owning up to their responsibility.
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Post by the light works on Nov 14, 2012 16:58:58 GMT
actually, it looked to me like they aimed the cannon higher than they should have.
not a case of negligance, just an error.
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