two odd cannonball concepts

Well, if we're considering non-myths, what about;

3. (c.) A rubber band ball as a cannonball? And what damage would it cause on impact, presuming it actually survived the firing?
Would the snapping rubber bands have enough energy to cause lacerations?

If we're talking of the traditional Christmas Pudding, it might help that it is traditionally prepared and stored in a cloth wrapping, as is a cheese -which may have been overlooked in the cheese-cannonball episode.

Fruit cake, on the other hand, varies with the age of the cake and the 'chef's' preferred recipe.

[Edited to hide my own senile confusion. ]

It was called wadding.

There seems to be a little confusion (at least to me) both to how wadding was used and what it was made from. It is very unlikely that it was made from old rope on ships, since it appears that wadding was part of the gunners stores and provided along with the powder and shot.

According to wilki wadding was used between shot and powder, however with the exception of heated shot I've always had the impression that wadding was put in after the shot to prevent the shot from slipping or rolling away from the powder.

Guns that were being fired without shot, for signalling or salutes, were often loaded with wadding - gunners often thought that 'blank' firing would otherwise damage the gun. The wadding could however still kill at close range, and there are several reported instances of this happening - although in at least one case the wadding had a wooden disk in it.

This was still far better and safer than the older tradition of firing salutes with fully loaded guns - made worse because at this period depending on the importance of the person they were saluting they could be firing two or three broadsides worth of shots. One British warship welcomed a visiting dignitary using fully loaded guns...and accidentlly killed two men on the visiting ship and caused serious damage to a merchant ship anchored nearby.

One of the problems is that practises changed over time and varied between different services (and as implied in previous posts would vary dependent on circumstances).

Before the introduction of cartridges, loose powder would have been loaded with wadding loaded immediately after to help compact and confine the powder before the shot was loaded, and a second wad added. However, once cloth and paper cartridges became widely employed the requirement for the wad between powder and shot was limited to its use when firing heated shot.

One of the interesting things about wadding, is just how little it gets mentioned in contemporary works on smoothbore artillery. While the powder composition, fuse & cartridge construction, barrel and carriage manufacture are covered in great detail, wadding is rarely ever mentioned.

According to Falconer's Universal Dictionary of the Marine (1784 edition), a wad was "a quantity of old rope yarns, hay, &c rolled firmly into the form of a ball, and used to confine the shot or shell. together with its charge of powder, in the breech of a piece of artillery." That certainly implies that the wadding was (at least in part) made of old rope. Additionally, in the standard gun drill for British ships during the Napoleonic period, the loading step was "shot and wad your gun", which seems to confirm that the shot was loaded first and then the wad placed in after.

Brian Lavery's modern work "The Arming and Fitting of English Ships of War 1600-1815" mentions that "wads were usually made up on ship, the gunner was issued with pieces of old rope and cable, known as junk, for this purpose". He also notes that a typical late 18th century 74 would have been issued 5 tons of 'junk'. <insert your own joke about the size of the gunner's junk here>

I've always found that junk just seems to accumulate all by itself but you could be right.

{Uses Mod-like powers to resurrect thread}



Just wondering if any of our American members can provide more information on this particular 'myth'. From what I can tell this seems to be a double invention. The original story seems to have Washington asking Ben Franklin for a way to protect a town, and for Ben to have come back the next day with the idea of making a protective wall from fruitcake. (That Franklin wasn't beaten to death by the starving soldiers tends to imply this never happened)

It then seems to have been corrupted by Discovery posters into the firing fruitcake idea.

Wondering if anyone has any information from other sources for the idea of using fruitcake as shot?

I have never heard anything serious about it, either - other fruitcake comments include doorstops, injuries from dropping or trying to eat them, and gifts that just keep getting regifted year after year.

addendum: I would guess the fruitcake wall was also originally a joke.

Fruitcake was meant to last.
There is urban myth and history that the top tier of a wedding cake should never be cut on the day, it brigs bad luck...
The reason behind that is the top tier was traditionally cleaned of Wedding decoration and re-used as Christening cake for the first Baby.
So the cake had to be made in a way that it would last that long....

So on to Fruitcake and history.
Traditionally, fresh fruit was gathered in Autumn, and some dried to preserve for winter...
A Cake made of the dried fruit would be one way of preserving that fruit.

Yes it was dry.
Tradition says you eat the cake with either Tea or some other beverage, and tales of re-hydration of the cake with the tea are common.

Some suggestions are that the cake should have a measure of something, be that sherry port brandy or whatever, but a measure of that pored over the base, before its served....

In Yorkshire and parts of Lancashire (and elsewhere) its tradition to eat a hunk of Cheese with fruitcake...
And if you have never tried that, try it before you decry it?...
In some places, fruitcake is buttered slices. (With cheese...)
Or With Jam on it (Preserves or jelly to you yanks?...)
Bara brith, a welsh fruit loaf, is a version of this idea, a tight textured but soft and fruity loaf that is eaten like bread, buttered. (By some... many variations...)
The origins are many, but the one origin I have makes much of soaking the dried fruit in cold Tea overnight before they get put in with the rest of the ingredients.
It also uses language of "A good amount, enough to fill the tin", and such, not so much a definitive recipe, but guidelines?....
It also lasts a long time...
Well...
It should, its just you cant eat just one bit.

So I can see that Fruitcake may be designed the same as Ships Biscuit, hard tack, dry and long lasting for preservation sake.
Maybe we have lost the idea of re-hydration in history....
But I still get given hunks of very dry fruitcake from certain parts of the family....


Could they be used as "Shot"...
I suppose if a smaller charge than normal of powder behind it, some of the rock cakes I have been given would make lethal weapons at close range.....

fruitcake made for export to America is made differently than fruitcake made for consumption in the UK. an article I read about fruitcake mentioned that the manufacturers wondered at how yanks could like those nasty bits of rind and such that the importers wanted in their fruitcakes. a properly made fruitcake is delectable. one mass produced for christmas fruitcake in america is such that you really should find an alternate use for it, because it requires a significant amount of hunger in order to become edible.