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Post by the light works on Sept 1, 2014 22:01:10 GMT
1; Such scraps will not be uniform in shape, size or type of wood - and possibly even condition. So they would have to be sorted, that's at least a days worth of work. Compared to an hour or two to use wooden beams they already have in the shop or can buy in bulk and just cut them to the desired length. The other dimensions will be uniform, in turn making them easier to work with. 2; IF this was part of a kids special then yes, getting the kids to build the small scale walls and run those tests is a viable option. In fact that would be interesting for the kids, and you could also get the kids to dream up ideas for other possible wall designs and test those. However as I noted there is a limit to how long they would be allowed to work with the kids each day, which means that you want to remove anything that will eat into that time - hence making their own wooden 'bricks' from planks in the shop. (Heck, they could give the blocks to the kids or auction them off on Ebay for charity afterwards) The main problem with wall building is that kids show or not the 'full-sized' walls are going to take a while to put up. Best not to waste time early on, but keep things as simple as possible. 3; A slingshot might actually be a viable alternative to an air cannon. Small scale testing in this case might allow them to make an educated guess as to what type of 'siege' engine best duplicates the trajectory and power of a trebucket. A basic slingshot is something that that could put together in half an hour or so using surgical tubing and a couple of poles. It is also possible that they *might* be able to make a small trebuchet* to compare slingshots and air cannons against in that regard. (*It isn't that a trebucket is all that hard to make, rather that it would be a very major build with too much potential for things to go wrong - ie it breaks. A smaller one however does strike me as something MB could put together in shop fairly quickly and easily - said as someone who wouldn't have to do so. Even if they decided that they could either borrow or build a trebuchet for the full(ish) scale tests they would probably want a backup just in case. While you might think 'cannon' this would actually be limiting since they would be restricted to the quarry. It might, production wise, be better NOT to use a cannon as they would then have more options as to where they could do the tests. None of the alternatives are going to throw shot over a mile that could then skip over the ground.) the scraps will be 90% 2X4 or 2X6 dimensional lumber, which is pretty darned uniform - and anything longer than a foot could easily be chopped up in advance, with any odd scrap going to fill the rubble wall. a "mythtern" could easily be on-site to trim things as needed to fit the frames. with your idea of frames, I am thinking your test walls would be 4 feet by 8 feet and 2 feet thick that would be fairly quick to have a crew of kids (and by kids I mean teenagers) put together, and about the right scale to try to batter down with the slingshot. then, if that proves to be interesting, they can do the full scale the next season - assuming they plan their seasons that far in advance - using the masonry blocks and siege engine. (I'd recommend a stone throwing ballista rather than a trebuchet - as the ballista is a direct fire weapon and trebuchets lob their stones.) (much as I want a trebuchet) |
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Post by Cybermortis on Sept 1, 2014 23:08:48 GMT
You are talking about scraps for the wall filling, I'm talking about the wood used for the walls themselves. As for filling I'm guessing M5 produces enough scrap wood for a small wall.
They don't plan episodes in that way. Besides leaving a myth only half tested is not MB's style. If they are testing castle walls they will want to test the theory with stone walls - stone as I noted will behave differently to wood when hit. A wooden wall might give you some idea as to the strength of the basic design, but not enough to be conclusive - making the best result 'plausible'.
Again, Adam and Jamie do the builds themselves. They only call in help when they need additional manpower or very specialized skills. The crew at M5 work for M5, not Mythbusters, and while no doubt happy to help out from time to time do have other work to do. What you are suggesting is that they be relied on to do something that didn't need to be done in the first place.
Keep it simple. Cutting their own 'bricks' from lengths of timber is fast, simple, within their budget and does not require pulling people off other jobs for no good reason.
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Post by the light works on Sept 2, 2014 3:49:12 GMT
You are talking about scraps for the wall filling, I'm talking about the wood used for the walls themselves. As for filling I'm guessing M5 produces enough scrap wood for a small wall. They don't plan episodes in that way. Besides leaving a myth only half tested is not MB's style. If they are testing castle walls they will want to test the theory with stone walls - stone as I noted will behave differently to wood when hit. A wooden wall might give you some idea as to the strength of the basic design, but not enough to be conclusive - making the best result 'plausible'. Again, Adam and Jamie do the builds themselves. They only call in help when they need additional manpower or very specialized skills. The crew at M5 work for M5, not Mythbusters, and while no doubt happy to help out from time to time do have other work to do. What you are suggesting is that they be relied on to do something that didn't need to be done in the first place. Keep it simple. Cutting their own 'bricks' from lengths of timber is fast, simple, within their budget and does not require pulling people off other jobs for no good reason. we are talking about 224 2X4 studs per wall, more or less. that's in the neighborhood of $631 per wall - assuming 4X8 wall sections 24" thick. 7 cuts per board figure an average of 10 seconds per cut. 4.3 hours per wall to make the cuts. so assuming just two wall sections to test, that is $1,200.00 and a full day of work - just to cut their own bricks - and that assumes they do 12" long bricks. if they cut them more or less square, you are looking at 2-3 days. - that's not counting managing the piles. still feel it is fast and simple? |
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Post by silverdragon on Sept 2, 2014 6:21:27 GMT
May I bring a further siege weapon to the mix.
Battering Ram.
A Swung weight, like one huge tree trunk, we already know will produce known power to height its swung from.
Take a large trunk with four ropes "One at each corner" attached to a cradle, bring to the wall, raise, and swing....
Relatively safe..... and known power... easy to re-load.
Can be altered by adding weights on top of the trunk as well.
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Post by the light works on Sept 2, 2014 14:42:57 GMT
May I bring a further siege weapon to the mix. Battering Ram. A Swung weight, like one huge tree trunk, we already know will produce known power to height its swung from. Take a large trunk with four ropes "One at each corner" attached to a cradle, bring to the wall, raise, and swing.... Relatively safe..... and known power... easy to re-load. Can be altered by adding weights on top of the trunk as well. It has been mentioned in passing as being something the crew has already done in the past. not sure if it would be a good choice for this particular test or not. it does certainly minimize the risk of shooting someone's house, though. |
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Post by Cybermortis on Sept 2, 2014 15:28:27 GMT
A battering ram might actually be a viable and safer way to test a small-scale stone wall in the shop. They could make one using a tube filled with lead shot easy enough. This would allow them to compare the amount of damage or swings needed to breach different wall construction types in a very controlled and consistent way, but without risking overshooting and damaging something in the shop.
It could in turn allow them to test to see if they would need to build the full scale walls from stone, or if they could get usable results from normal bricks - I'd suspect not, as modern bricks and breeze blocks would probably shatter more easily than stone. But it gives them a lot of options for small scale testing with minimal build time.
Full scale would probably be much more impressive if they are throwing stones rather than using a battering ram, so I would imagine that is the way they would go in the end.
Small scale testing of things like Trebuckets would really be more useful in figuring out what is the most practical type of 'siege engine' to use, and what devices could duplicate the power and trajectory of a Trebucket. As I noted I strongly suspect that making a large Trebucket might not be practical, as it would be a fairly major build for a myth that would already have a major build in the full sized walls*. If they can figure out something simpler and faster to make that will do the same job that would be better I think - and the small scale tests would be able to show WHY they went with another option.
(*Well, not close to full sized by any stretch of the imagination. But certainly they would need at least two or three fairly large walls to throw something against.)
The more this is discussed the more I like this idea. Plenty of scope for some interesting small scale experiments in the shop, with a large scale test that should be impressive to see.
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Post by the light works on Sept 2, 2014 15:39:59 GMT
A battering ram might actually be a viable and safer way to test a small-scale stone wall in the shop. They could make one using a tube filled with lead shot easy enough. This would allow them to compare the amount of damage or swings needed to breach different wall construction types in a very controlled and consistent way, but without risking overshooting and damaging something in the shop. It could in turn allow them to test to see if they would need to build the full scale walls from stone, or if they could get usable results from normal bricks - I'd suspect not, as modern bricks and breeze blocks would probably shatter more easily than stone. But it gives them a lot of options for small scale testing with minimal build time. Full scale would probably be much more impressive if they are throwing stones rather than using a battering ram, so I would imagine that is the way they would go in the end. Small scale testing of things like Trebuckets would really be more useful in figuring out what is the most practical type of 'siege engine' to use, and what devices could duplicate the power and trajectory of a Trebucket. As I noted I strongly suspect that making a large Trebucket might not be practical, as it would be a fairly major build for a myth that would already have a major build in the full sized walls*. If they can figure out something simpler and faster to make that will do the same job that would be better I think - and the small scale tests would be able to show WHY they went with another option. (*Well, not close to full sized by any stretch of the imagination. But certainly they would need at least two or three fairly large walls to throw something against.) The more this is discussed the more I like this idea. Plenty of scope for some interesting small scale experiments in the shop, with a large scale test that should be impressive to see. but I still think this has the potential to really need more than a one hour episode to do well. addendum: in fact - this could easily expand to a full season show of its own. |
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Post by silverdragon on Sept 5, 2014 6:48:21 GMT
Hmmm... Thinking of Titles... "Storm the castle"?......
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Post by Cybermortis on Sept 5, 2014 9:57:56 GMT
You could say the same for several of their historical myths, the first of which to spring to mind is the cannon splinter myth. But for practical purposes its not going to get a full on hour special. Much more likely that it would be paired with a related idea.
Maybe something like how or if being on a wall (higher ground) really provides as much of an advantage as claimed, or if some types of castle defenses were as effective as we think they were (after all, we don't build castles these days and a lot of 'what we know' seems to come from the Victorians, who gave us some false ideas about plate armor).
*Blinks*
Of course they could always look at comparing early cannon with the siege weapons they ended up replacing. Did cannon replace Trebuckets because they were more effective against castle walls, or just because they were smaller, lighter and a lot easier to move around and build on site?
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Post by the light works on Sept 5, 2014 14:01:47 GMT
You could say the same for several of their historical myths, the first of which to spring to mind is the cannon splinter myth. But for practical purposes its not going to get a full on hour special. Much more likely that it would be paired with a related idea. Maybe something like how or if being on a wall (higher ground) really provides as much of an advantage as claimed, or if some types of castle defenses were as effective as we think they were (after all, we don't build castles these days and a lot of 'what we know' seems to come from the Victorians, who gave us some false ideas about plate armor). *Blinks* Of course they could always look at comparing early cannon with the siege weapons they ended up replacing. Did cannon replace Trebuckets because they were more effective against castle walls, or just because they were smaller, lighter and a lot easier to move around and build on site? they sure weren't easier to build on site. I think like other classes of firearms, their main advantage was that they were a point and shoot device - so they took less training than the more complex siege engines. |
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Post by silverdragon on Sept 7, 2014 7:17:30 GMT
Let the Lions roar, the Dogs Bark.....
How much of it was also the mere spectacle that Fireworks brings to the battle?... a flash of flame, a loud bang, and bits of masonry flying?...
the spectacle of such a weapon was surely intimidating?... Trebuchet were almost silent.
Cannon were definitely not... by design.....
And they were instant.
Trebuchet, as far as I can find, were often made on site by felling local forestry where available.
Very large, easily spotted, and not that much range.
Cannon, roll up, load, aim, fire.... move as required.
Hide them in the trees even.
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Post by Cybermortis on Sept 7, 2014 10:28:31 GMT
The rate of fire for early cannon was probably equal to or worse than the siege engines they ended up replacing, as was their effective range.
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Post by the light works on Sept 7, 2014 14:04:24 GMT
The rate of fire for early cannon was probably equal to or worse than the siege engines they ended up replacing, as was their effective range. trebuchets were the extreme range artillery of the age. therefore their effective accuracy was not as significant as a cannon, which you could simply wheel up (simply, he says - of a weapon which could weigh tons) to just outside of effective bowshot and blast directly into a weak spot in the wall - and then shoot again into exactly the same place. |
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Post by Cybermortis on Sept 7, 2014 14:45:27 GMT
From what I can tell early cannon had an effective range that would put them inside bow range - especially when the bow was being fired from an elevated position.
Note that I'm talking about the earliest cannon circa the mid 1400's to mid 1500's. The limited range (relatively speaking) was down to low-powered powder and the rather crude construction. Early cannon tended to be breach-loaders, and as the seal was anything but tight a lot of the gases were lost out of the breach.
I'm starting to suspect that cannon became popular more because they were 'heavy' weapons an army could transport with them rather than having to build in a fixed location. This would have meant that unlike a trebucket they could be used against both fixed fortifications and other armies in the field, making them more flexible than the weapons they ended up replacing. If so this then raises the interesting question as to if cannon were initially carried for use against fortifications or really meant for use against troops, only for them to be used against castles and someone realizing that they were effective against stone walls - probably not as effective as Trebuckets initially as the shot fired was very small. But as technology progressed larger cannon became practical and the effectiveness against walls increased.
Cannon, which were smaller, might also have proved easier to protect against return fire. They presented a smaller target to hit, and defensive works around them in turn didn't need to be as large. Less work meaning that cannon could be put into action a lot faster even if you had to build one locally.
Another possibility is that cannon were easier to build. Given the number of battles and wars fought in Europe it is likely that about the time cannon started to appear, any fortification you might want to attack probably didn't have a great deal of useable wood within the practical transportation range of the army*. Metal on the other hand might have been a lot easier to find, and every local town would have had a smith and forge (if you didn't have one with you, which was unlikely). You needed a lot less metal to make a cannon than you'd need wood for a large trebucket.
(*In the late 1700's the Royal Navy was having to look 50-100 miles (or more) from the shipyards to find timber. They usually moved that timber several miles overland to the nearest river and from there transported it by water, which proved to be faster and a lot cheaper than trying to move it overland - about half the cost of timber came from moving the wood those few miles overland. If the wood was more than ten miles or so from a river the costs were usually far too high, to the point that importing wood was more practical. So it would be reasonable to assume that even under ideal conditions ten miles was probably the limit to how far away you could realistically move any significant amount of timber. In the case of an army it might, and probably was, less than this since sending half the army away to pick up timber that far away was tempting the defenders to sally forth and defeat your forces in detail.
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Post by the light works on Sept 7, 2014 14:59:52 GMT
From what I can tell early cannon had an effective range that would put them inside bow range - especially when the bow was being fired from an elevated position. Note that I'm talking about the earliest cannon circa the mid 1400's to mid 1500's. The limited range (relatively speaking) was down to low-powered powder and the rather crude construction. Early cannon tended to be breach-loaders, and as the seal was anything but tight a lot of the gases were lost out of the breach. I'm starting to suspect that cannon became popular more because they were 'heavy' weapons an army could transport with them rather than having to build in a fixed location. This would have meant that unlike a trebucket they could be used against both fixed fortifications and other armies in the field, making them more flexible than the weapons they ended up replacing. If so this then raises the interesting question as to if cannon were initially carried for use against fortifications or really meant for use against troops, only for them to be used against castles and someone realizing that they were effective against stone walls - probably not as effective as Trebuckets initially as the shot fired was very small. But as technology progressed larger cannon became practical and the effectiveness against walls increased. Cannon, which were smaller, might also have proved easier to protect against return fire. They presented a smaller target to hit, and defensive works around them in turn didn't need to be as large. Less work meaning that cannon could be put into action a lot faster even if you had to build one locally. Another possibility is that cannon were easier to build. Given the number of battles and wars fought in Europe it is likely that about the time cannon started to appear, any fortification you might want to attack probably didn't have a great deal of useable wood within the practical transportation range of the army*. Metal on the other hand might have been a lot easier to find, and every local town would have had a smith and forge (if you didn't have one with you, which was unlikely). You needed a lot less metal to make a cannon than you'd need wood for a large trebucket. (*In the late 1700's the Royal Navy was having to look 50-100 miles (or more) from the shipyards to find timber. They usually moved that timber several miles overland to the nearest river and from there transported it by water, which proved to be faster and a lot cheaper than trying to move it overland - about half the cost of timber came from moving the wood those few miles overland. If the wood was more than ten miles or so from a river the costs were usually far too high, to the point that importing wood was more practical. So it would be reasonable to assume that even under ideal conditions ten miles was probably the limit to how far away you could realistically move any significant amount of timber. In the case of an army it might, and probably was, less than this since sending half the army away to pick up timber that far away was tempting the defenders to sally forth and defeat your forces in detail. I still suspect that cannon followed the same basic development curve most machinery did - able to do almost as well as the best previous machine with less skill required. to hit a target with a trebuchet, you had to calculate range and trajectory. to hit the same target with a cannon, you had to be able to visualize an imaginary line. the gun won over the bow, not because the first guns were more accurate or more powerful, but because any idiot could shoot a gun. |
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Post by silverdragon on Sept 8, 2014 8:04:04 GMT
Cannon in their time is like bringing Lasers in our time.....
"New" technology, "Have to have", on everyones want list.
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Post by the light works on Sept 8, 2014 14:15:12 GMT
Cannon in their time is like bringing Lasers in our time..... "New" technology, "Have to have", on everyones want list. I am thinking that is not quite the best comparison. I am thinking more along the lines of comparing an automatic transmission to a manual transmission. the first generation did not work as well as the manual - but any idiot could shift it. |
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Post by silverdragon on Sept 9, 2014 11:55:19 GMT
I think you may find that when cannon were first bought to the mix, it was the first time they had seen explosives in use....
So then shock and awe.... WTF was that?....
You are in a castle, it may have seen some basic siege engine attacks before, and now you have what looks like a hollow tree trunk spitting flame and smoke at you, and large chunks of stone or iron flying at you.
If this is the first time you have seen Cannon, perhaps you are still at bow and arrow technology, sure is a wake up call?....
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Post by Cybermortis on Sept 9, 2014 12:29:38 GMT
Going off memory there was a cannon in the English army at the Battle of Agincourt, which is usually better known for the use of the English Longbow. At that point it seems cannon had been around in Europe for around 250 years.
What is interesting about this is that as far as I can tell there wasn't that much change in the design of castle walls in the same period. Which would seem to imply that the early cannon were not all that effective against stone walls - or at least no more effective than more traditional siege weapons.
This might actually fit with naval cannons (a topic I'm more familiar with), which around the same time (14-1500's) tended to be small caliber guns that were used against the men on deck rather than directly against the hull. Since naval warfare of this period was in effect a continuation of land battles - and usually commanded by army officers rather than sailors or the navy - the implication is that guns on ships were being used much as they were on land at this period. If so then early cannon may not have actually been used against the walls themselves but against the men standing on the walls.
That would make sense, as although the range of such cannon probably wasn't much further on flat ground than some bows. When shooting up at men on a wall bowmen might have to get a lot closer than a cannon had to.
Another factor would be effectiveness and cost. In the early days making a field gun was rather simple, and could be done by any half decent smith or barrel maker (hence - gun barrel). But such guns were very small caliber, field guns during the English Civil war fired shot smaller than a tennis ball and I doubt that such shot was going to all that effective against thick stone walls*...Certainly not as effective as a device that could throw half a ton of rock a quarter of a mile or more. Larger guns intended for sieges could not realistically be made in the local smithy and probably needed expert gunsmiths. Moving guns that size overland was a none-starter, so they would either have to be left at home or built on site (which the larger guns usually were). In those days it was probably more practical to build and use conventional siege engines as more of your troops would have the skills needed to make them.
(*The 'castles' English civil war cannons were used against were really fortified houses not castles. Although they had stone walls these were nowhere near as thick as those on a real castle and certainly not intended to resist heavy weapons such as cannon.)
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Post by mrfatso on Sept 9, 2014 13:03:54 GMT
I believe they were also at Crecy earlier during the Hundred Year War,
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