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Post by silverdragon on Apr 4, 2016 8:35:42 GMT
Normal cannon ball but heated to red or orange hot before its fired.
"Instant" fire risk?...
This comes from some ancient Chinese knowledge where they had ship borne forges.
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Post by the light works on Apr 4, 2016 11:09:36 GMT
Normal cannon ball but heated to red or orange hot before its fired. "Instant" fire risk?... This comes from some ancient Chinese knowledge where they had ship borne forges. quite a logistically complex operation. the cannonball would expand when it was heated, and any wadding you used would have to be fireproof, as well as the risk of the hot cannonball triggering the powder charge. |
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Post by silverdragon on Apr 5, 2016 8:29:53 GMT
Again think "Mortar", if the heat of the ball triggered the powder, whats to stop it being used to trigger the powder?... this is early days of cannon, they could have pointed upwards in an arc, stand to one side, drop from tongs, turn and RUN.......
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Post by Cybermortis on Apr 5, 2016 8:31:35 GMT
Heated shot was used during the age of sail, usually by fortifications rather than ships. Although ships did have the ability to heat shot it wasn't usually considered a good idea due to the fire risk.
It also doesn't seem to have been all that effective.
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Post by silverdragon on Apr 5, 2016 8:46:16 GMT
I see that point, but raise you, that there is evidence of brick-built structures onboard ships as use as ovens (and quite useful as ballast as well...)
As the idea of a forge is to concentrate heat inwards rather than out, a blacksmith forge onboard a ship to make repairs is also a reasonable suggestion?...
And yes, Sail is almost instantly flammable when hit by orange-hot metal.
So is wood.
I believe the idea may not have been to create that much damage, but to dis-orientate the ships crew running about putting out small fires... as fire is Mans greatest enemy, I can see how this may discourage an enemy ship from getting "too close"?...
I am doing further research that may have some grounds in Human powered slingshot trebuchet with a metal cradle to sling hot metal as well as cannon based balls.
The trebuchet was said to have slung "Chains" that may wrap around superstructure?...
I am picking the pieces out of an old translated manual known as "The Fire Drake Manual" of old Chinese origins on this one.
I may have to swap sources on this, as I am unsure of how much "Artistic licence" the translator has put in?...
There are references to the cannon ball being filled with Molten metal and fired.....
Questions.
How would THAT work?
If the ball has a hole, then wont the filling fly out during flight?.
If the hole is plugged, how would it be triggered to UN-Plug at the other end?.
If the ball is thin and the molten hot, wouldn't that just melt the ball.
If the ball is thick, then it will just "set", and dissipate the heat, therefore all you get is a rather heavy hand-warmer by the time it lands.
Molten metal, that DOES bring us into a realm of forge much bigger than would be sensible on ship, as it would also require some early form of "blast" bigger than just one man on a bellows.....
Especially of he is intending to fill and fire more than just one or two.
A stack of cannon balls kept at constant red hot and lifted off one by one is much easier to tend?.
I know I am critiquing my own ideas/sources here, but why shouldnt I?.. If I dont think it will work, it doesnt stop it being a "myth"?...
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Post by Cybermortis on Apr 5, 2016 9:12:47 GMT
You don't have to look to China to see brick structures in ships, the ovens and forges on sailing ships in Europe were built like that.
The thing is that such structures were above the waterline, and therefore could be hit by shot scattering burning material over the deck. This is why ships usually avoided using heated shot.
Chain was used to damage the rigging of ships, reducing their mobility. This would probably work well against oars as well, which could well result in confusion since aiming at oars would also involve aiming at the hull.
Heated shot was for the most part a terror weapon. While it could set a ship on fire it was unlikely to do so, certainly not with a crew capable of fighting fires. (A percentage of the crew would be assigned to fight fires). It wouldn't set fire to sails or rigging, as shot wouldn't be in contact with either long enough to have any effect in that regard.
Where you see sails and rigging catching fire this was either fire spreading from lower down. Or embers from weapons catching in the rigging or sails, Nelson had no marine's in Victorys rigging as he thought this was such a big risk. It was even possible for badly placed guns to set fire to their own rigging when fired, this is why the carronades on the USS Constitution have extensions to the barrel.
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Post by mrfatso on Apr 5, 2016 11:30:49 GMT
I see that point, but raise you, that there is evidence of brick-built structures onboard ships as use as ovens (and quite useful as ballast as well...) As the idea of a forge is to concentrate heat inwards rather than out, a blacksmith forge onboard a ship to make repairs is also a reasonable suggestion?... And yes, Sail is almost instantly flammable when hit by orange-hot metal. So is wood. I believe the idea may not have been to create that much damage, but to dis-orientate the ships crew running about putting out small fires... as fire is Mans greatest enemy, I can see how this may discourage an enemy ship from getting "too close"?... I am doing further research that may have some grounds in Human powered slingshot trebuchet with a metal cradle to sling hot metal as well as cannon based balls. The trebuchet was said to have slung "Chains" that may wrap around superstructure?... If the ball has a hole, then wont the filling fly out during flight?. If the hole is plugged, how would it be triggered to UN-Plug at the other end?. If the ball is thin and the molten hot, wouldn't that just melt the ball. If the ball is thick, then it will just "set", and dissipate the heat, therefore all you get is a rather heavy hand-warmer by the time it lands. Molten metal, that DOES bring us into a realm of forge much bigger than would be sensible on ship, as it would also require some early form of "blast" bigger than just one man on a bellows..... Especially of he is intending to fill and fire more than just one or two. You could fill an iron cannon ball with a molten metal of a lower melting point than iron, say copper it would not be able to melt the cannonball in that case. Just thought lead with it's relatively low melting point would be ideal. |
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Post by mrfatso on Apr 5, 2016 12:49:06 GMT
In fact mulling it over for a while you could get a lead ball, encase that in an iron shell allowing a gap for expansion, a little experimentation would tell you the ratio that you need to avoid it cracking under pressure.
These could be pre made at an Arsenal in the field they could then heated up until the core would be molten, but the casing would not and you would never have to deal with pouring molten metal in battlefield conditions.
Just a purely theoretical design for a molten metal core Cannonball, I do not think,anything like it was ever used.
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Post by the light works on Apr 5, 2016 15:27:09 GMT
a low grade cast iron shell filled with molten lead would be pretty unnerving fired against a hard target, if you could keep the lead molten in flight.
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Post by Cybermortis on Apr 5, 2016 15:57:48 GMT
I would imagine any hollow shot that would shatter on hitting a wooden hull would break apart on firing
Hollow shot was known and used, it was called a shell and filled with gunpowder. These were anti infantry weapons not anti ship weapons. This seems to have been due to a mixture of general ineffectiveness against hulls, and the nature of the fuses which had to be cut to length based on estimates of range and hence flight time. On land such estimates could be reasonably accurate, but range at sea was difficult to gage at the best of times let alone guessing where an opposing ship would be by the time you were ready to fire due to the lack of visual aids and the movement of one or both ships. By the time impact fuses were developed ships used metal hulls.
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Post by the light works on Apr 5, 2016 16:00:38 GMT
I would imagine any hollow shot that would shatter on hitting a wooden hull would break apart on firing Hollow shot was known and used, it was called a shell and filled with gunpowder. These were anti infantry weapons not anti ship weapons. This seems to have been due to a mixture of general ineffectiveness against hulls, and the nature of the fuses which had to be cut to length based on estimates of range and hence flight time. On land such estimates could be reasonably accurate, but range at sea was difficult to gage at the best of times let alone guessing where an opposing ship would be by the time you were ready to fire due to the lack of visual aids and the movement of one or both ships. By the time impact fuses were developed ships used metal hulls. yes, it would probably be of limited effectiveness in naval combat. I was thinking more of hitting inside a stone structure. - and I doubt it was something they actually wasted much time on. |
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Post by mrfatso on Apr 5, 2016 19:06:19 GMT
I would imagine any hollow shot that would shatter on hitting a wooden hull would break apart on firing Hollow shot was known and used, it was called a shell and filled with gunpowder. These were anti infantry weapons not anti ship weapons. This seems to have been due to a mixture of general ineffectiveness against hulls, and the nature of the fuses which had to be cut to length based on estimates of range and hence flight time. On land such estimates could be reasonably accurate, but range at sea was difficult to gage at the best of times let alone guessing where an opposing ship would be by the time you were ready to fire due to the lack of visual aids and the movement of one or both ships. By the time impact fuses were developed ships used metal hulls. yes, it would probably be of limited effectiveness in naval combat. I was thinking more of hitting inside a stone structure. - and I doubt it was something they actually wasted much time on. Exactly what I was thinking as well, just a little lunchtime spitballing. |
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Post by tacitus on Jun 30, 2016 22:09:14 GMT
I see that point, but raise you, that there is evidence of brick-built structures onboard ships as use as ovens (and quite useful as ballast as well...) As the idea of a forge is to concentrate heat inwards rather than out, a blacksmith forge onboard a ship to make repairs is also a reasonable suggestion?... And yes, Sail is almost instantly flammable when hit by orange-hot metal. So is wood. I believe the idea may not have been to create that much damage, but to dis-orientate the ships crew running about putting out small fires... as fire is Mans greatest enemy, I can see how this may discourage an enemy ship from getting "too close"?... I am doing further research that may have some grounds in Human powered slingshot trebuchet with a metal cradle to sling hot metal as well as cannon based balls. The trebuchet was said to have slung "Chains" that may wrap around superstructure?... I am picking the pieces out of an old translated manual known as "The Fire Drake Manual" of old Chinese origins on this one. I may have to swap sources on this, as I am unsure of how much "Artistic licence" the translator has put in?... There are references to the cannon ball being filled with Molten metal and fired..... Questions. How would THAT work? If the ball has a hole, then wont the filling fly out during flight?. If the hole is plugged, how would it be triggered to UN-Plug at the other end?. If the ball is thin and the molten hot, wouldn't that just melt the ball. If the ball is thick, then it will just "set", and dissipate the heat, therefore all you get is a rather heavy hand-warmer by the time it lands. Molten metal, that DOES bring us into a realm of forge much bigger than would be sensible on ship, as it would also require some early form of "blast" bigger than just one man on a bellows..... Especially of he is intending to fill and fire more than just one or two. A stack of cannon balls kept at constant red hot and lifted off one by one is much easier to tend?. I know I am critiquing my own ideas/sources here, but why shouldnt I?.. If I dont think it will work, it doesnt stop it being a "myth"?... Realizing this is not at all the historical era you were reading about . . . you might be interested in these links regarding the Martin molten shell. The RN tried it out. Some sources indicate the RN adopted it, but if so it does not seem to have been fielded to more than a very, very few ships. Again, the era and technology level is not what you were studying, but this may help with an understanding of what was involved.
warships1discussionboards.yuku.com/reply/234084#.V3WU64Dn_0i
collections.rmg.co.uk/collections/objects/36911.html Edit: The book HMS Warrior, Ironclad Frigate by Davies has a good picture of the furnace used to heat the shells. Also, I neglected to note that this system used molten iron as the filler.
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Post by Cybermortis on Jun 30, 2016 22:54:25 GMT
It is actually noted in the discussion linked to that HMS Warrior entered service right at the start of a revolution in naval warfare. Within 40 years warships went from being wooden hulled vessels firing smoothbore cannons contained inside the hull, with propulsion primarily being sail with steam as a backup. To all metal ships armed with rifled guns in turrets and powered entirely by coal or oil powered engines.
Warrior herself was an ironclad, with her main armament being smoothbore muzzle loading guns with smaller rifled guns as secondary armament. When she was launched she was the most powerful warship in the world...Yet obsolete within a decade. That should give you a good idea as to how quickly advances were being made at the time.
A lot of different technologies were tried out, but quickly dropped as advances quickly made new weapons obsolete before they could really enter service. In this specific case by the time such shot had entered service wooden hulled ships were no longer considered practical warships, and it may even be that ironclads were no longer considered viable by then. This would make such shot redundant, as it would have no effect on a metal hull. Explosive shot and shell however (those with contact/impact fuses) were effective against metal hulls and utterly devastating against wooden ships. So 'molten' shells would be obsolete and frankly useless by the time they were issued. They probably only remained in service because it wasn't worth the hassle and expensive of removing them out of the magazines of the ships that received them until they were due for a major refit or scrapped.
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Post by silverdragon on Jul 1, 2016 6:42:13 GMT
Cyber, this now raises a new quandary....
Is heated shot "Lost to time" in military use, of has it got its place, because more and more, light assault class vehicles, RIB's and such, are not metal hulled ....
Thanks for the links, I was more interested in the historic origin end of the story rather than the last entries of this one, however, as you can see, the story isnt quite dead yet?... it hasnt gone quite Norwegian blue, because of "Plastic hulled" vehicles, so, if you are the owner of a "stealth" warship, heed that warning?..
The ships could have had their designation changed.
From ship-to-ship action to say for instance, shore support...
Sending a few pounds of extremely HOT metal into buildings to soften up the defences of the enemy?..
Many buildings if not wooden had wooden frame, some still do, having an explosive hot shot at the side of a building would create a fire risk?...if not an instant demolition and fire?..
"Other uses" sometimes comes quickly after initial invention.
Plus the ships could also be used to target support ships that were not armoured all that thickly.
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Post by the light works on Jul 1, 2016 10:33:58 GMT
It comes down to a cost-benefit analysis. it costs a lot more to make a shell filled with molten metal than it costs to make a shell that produces its own molten metal on site.
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Post by Cybermortis on Jul 1, 2016 12:22:46 GMT
Look up incendiary rounds, which are the modern version of heated shot. These are typically used in the anti-material role to ignite fuel lines and tanks but seem to be limited to 15mm rounds and below. These were most commonly used on aircraft armed with machine guns, as they proved more effective than explosive rounds in those calibers. (The RAF used .303 HE rounds circa 1933 but only for a few years. It seems that these rounds were not very effective)
The idea of shot filled with molten metal also exists in the form of HEAT shells. These are basically a shaped charge that uses an explosive charge to liquefy metal (usually copper) and direct it into a narrow jet out of a thin nozzle into the target. HEAT rounds were developed and used during the second world war, and became the primary anti-armor round carried by tanks as well as the main warhead type for anti-armor missiles. Since the 80's reactive and composite armors have significantly reduced the effectiveness of HEAT rounds*, so Armour Piercing rounds are preferred for anti-tank work. HEAT rounds however remain in use, in essence replacing the old High Explosive rounds as multipurpose munitions.
It all comes down to practicality. Molten metal rounds such as you are describing would only be effective against a limited number of targets, while more conventional rounds are effective against the same targets and many more.
Ships that were removed from front line use in the RN were either scrapped, used as store ships or signal ships in harbor (This btw was the role HMS Victory played at this time), Sold to other navies or used as training ships (This seems to have been the fate of many older wooden hulled warships). Most commonly ships were just scrapped. Especially at this time when ships could be obsolete before they were launched.
(*Quite how much such armors have reduced the effectiveness of HEAT rounds is unknown, as military's don't like to tell potential opponents what it would take to destroy their main battle tanks. What is known is that a British Challenger Tank in Iraq was subjected to a sustained attack by insurgents armed with Russian Anti-Tank Rockets (which use HEAT warheads). Although the tank was disabled and the external communications and periscopes knocked out the crew survived unhurt as no shots penetrated the inside of the tank...In fact the tank was recovered and repaired as the damage was comparatively minor.)
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Post by the light works on Jul 1, 2016 13:41:40 GMT
Look up incendiary rounds, which are the modern version of heated shot. These are typically used in the anti-material role to ignite fuel lines and tanks but seem to be limited to 15mm rounds and below. These were most commonly used on aircraft armed with machine guns, as they proved more effective than explosive rounds in those calibers. (The RAF used .303 HE rounds circa 1933 but only for a few years. It seems that these rounds were not very effective) The idea of shot filled with molten metal also exists in the form of HEAT shells. These are basically a shaped charge that uses an explosive charge to liquefy metal (usually copper) and direct it into a narrow jet out of a thin nozzle into the target. HEAT rounds were developed and used during the second world war, and became the primary anti-armor round carried by tanks as well as the main warhead type for anti-armor missiles. Since the 80's reactive and composite armors have significantly reduced the effectiveness of HEAT rounds*, so Armour Piercing rounds are preferred for anti-tank work. HEAT rounds however remain in use, in essence replacing the old High Explosive rounds as multipurpose munitions. It all comes down to practicality. Molten metal rounds such as you are describing would only be effective against a limited number of targets, while more conventional rounds are effective against the same targets and many more. Ships that were removed from front line use in the RN were either scrapped, used as store ships or signal ships in harbor (This btw was the role HMS Victory played at this time), Sold to other navies or used as training ships (This seems to have been the fate of many older wooden hulled warships). Most commonly ships were just scrapped. Especially at this time when ships could be obsolete before they were launched. (*Quite how much such armors have reduced the effectiveness of HEAT rounds is unknown, as military's don't like to tell potential opponents what it would take to destroy their main battle tanks. What is known is that a British Challenger Tank in Iraq was subjected to a sustained attack by insurgents armed with Russian Anti-Tank Rockets (which use HEAT warheads). Although the tank was disabled and the external communications and periscopes knocked out the crew survived unhurt as no shots penetrated the inside of the tank...In fact the tank was recovered and repaired as the damage was comparatively minor.) HEAT rounds can be significantly reduced in effectiveness by the simple expedient of putting a layer of heavy mesh with an air gap between the mesh and the armor. but yes, that was the sort of thing I was getting at in reference to the shells manufacturing their molten metal on site.  |
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Post by tacitus on Jul 1, 2016 20:17:36 GMT
"A stack of cannon balls kept at constant red hot and lifted off one by one is much easier to tend?"
You hit on one of the great weaknesses of heated shot (whether filled with molten metal or solid). Depending on the shot furnace and the caliber of the shot, it could take up to an hour to heat the projectile to a cherry red state - which temperature was required. Shipboard furnaces were generally too small to handle many shot at a time, though coastal artillery forts usually had much, much larger capacities - some well over 60 shot at a time.
And there's the limiting factor. Take a 44 or 74 gun ship - even if it had purpose-built furnace rather than just cooking fires - and you could provide heated shot to just a small number of guns in action, with a very slow 're-heat/re-load' cycle time. Also, shot came out of the furnace just one or two at a time, and had to be fired very quickly after loading, so they were not useful if synchronized broadside firing was required. When you are in close ship-to-ship combat, when rate and volume of fire are important, heated shot is not very helpful.
Heated shot could be - and was - very effective. When it worked. One factor that made it useful was if the action was played out at the leisure of one side, as in the case of a siege. When the HMS Charon (44, fifth rate) was penned in at Yorktown, and the French ships came in to bombard it at anchor, they used heated shot. The Charon caught fire quickly despite all efforts to put out the fire, and burned to the waterline. Fighting flames while being subjected to continual heavy gunfire is a notably difficult task, as the crew of the Charon discovered.
Some other examples of the effectiveness of heated shot in 'leisurely combat'. - During the battle of Charlestown Heights (aka Bunker Hill), the British ships used heated shot to burn the town (which some Patriot forces had occupied as a defensive position). The British ships were not under effective fire from shore based guns. - During the siege of Gibraltar, British land defenses used heated shot to destroy three of the 10 heavily protected Spanish floating batteries. - After Union sailors abandoned the damaged USS Congress, the CSS Virginia fired hot shot and quickly set the ship afire. - While dueling with shore batteries, the Danish Christian VIII was set afire and exploded. It had become stranded under the guns of the Prussians due to tide and wind conditions, and the action had been suspended for 3 hours to try to induce the ship to surrender. In that interval, the Prussians had time to heat sufficient shot to do the job once the fighting resumed.
There are many other examples of the effectiveness of heated shot, but these all tend to fall under rather specialized conditions of combat. In close-in, frantic firing ship-to-ship action, heated shot was not very practical and the dangers it posed outweighed its potential.
Napoleon denounced the use of heated shot as "a dangerous, troublesome and difficult weapon, so repugnant to the feelings of Frenchmen as to have been renounced." This attitude no doubt was influenced by the damage the French did to their own fleet through the use of incendiaries (all incendiaries, not just heated shot); according to Sir Douglas's accounting, they had "four or five ships of the line and six frigates and smaller vessels" either destroyed or badly damaged by their own incendiary weapons.
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Post by Cybermortis on Jul 1, 2016 21:09:20 GMT
Not least of which was that close combat meant 50 yards or less. So setting fire to your opponent was not considered a great idea as sparks and embers could settle in the sails and rigging of ships nearby, which could start a fire on your ship in the one place it was very difficult if not impossible to deal with.
At very close range fire could spread directly, since ships were thoughtfully painted using paint that was mostly oil and therefore flammable.
Even if you were lucky enough to avoid your ship catching fire, there was the not to small a matter as to what happened if a fire reached the powder store of a ship...When L'Orient caught fire at the Battle of the Nile the resulting explosion seems to have caused more damage to the British ships, which at that point were some 600 yards away, than the French shot caused throughout the entire battle.
This is an extreme example, since L'Orient was a 120 gun first rate and one of the biggest ships in the world at that point. But clearly being next to any ship of comparable size that blew up was not going to be healthy. A Spanish frigate suffered from an explosion when engaged by British Frigates, not in this case caused by any evident fire as this was at the very start of the battle. The explosion seems to have originated on the gundeck not the magazine, but even so the side of the ship was blown out and she sank within minutes. Had any of the British ships been next to her they would have suffered significant damage.
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