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Post by mrfatso on Apr 2, 2014 16:06:36 GMT
I know that they had ship mounted Mortars in the 18th century, but were they around in the Tudor period? Does anyone know if rockers where a feature of Tudor warfare, I know that China, Korea etc had them by then and where using them in battle, but where they in Europe as battlefield weapons? I believe that ship-mounted mortars were first used by the French around the end of the 17th century. I also think that the use of rockets in European warfare only happened when the British started using Congreve's designs (in the late 18th Century), following their encounters with rockets on the battlefields in India. Thanks memengine. On a tangent, I wonder if that's an example of how sometimes cultures diverge , with important effects. The East had rockets, which were a formidable enough weapon for them, but the Europeans at the time went down the path of guns and cannon, which proved to be better in the end. Well except with nuclear weapons, I guess rockers have the edge, but certainly in the 16th, 17th century. I have heard it said that some Daimyo of Feudal Japan "converted " to Christianity to get access to that technology.
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Post by memeengine on Apr 2, 2014 16:20:00 GMT
What about playing with explosives...as in playing music? Like Stalin's Organ?
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Post by the light works on Apr 3, 2014 3:04:51 GMT
as a tangent from the musical explosives - is the sound of explosives distinctive enough that an experienced expert could identify them by sound. it also occurred to me to do this with guns - but that's enough of a tangent, I gave it its own thread. citadelofmyths.freeforums.net/thread/990/weapon-enemy
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Post by silverdragon on Apr 3, 2014 9:22:02 GMT
Ok, so, can we just have an underground bunker 10ft cube packed with period explosives go "BOOM", just because we can, 'cause I think it may beat the concrete mixer for things that go bang.
Play Tunes?... well, if your going that way, 1812 overture, not enough, how about the theme tune for Mythbusters?...
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Post by Cybermortis on Apr 3, 2014 10:00:39 GMT
Period explosives are expensive and hard to get hold of - or at least blackpowder is. (As Richard Hammond discovered the hard way there is only one place in Europe capable of making significant amounts of blackpowder, and that is in Spain).
I was also thinking of the 1812 overture, since tradition usually involves using a lot of fireworks at the climax. While the MB theme is, of course, the more logical choice I suspect that classical music with a lower/slower pace might work better. If you tried to duplicate something with too fast a tempo the sounds of the various blasts would probably merge together making it impossible to pick out the tune.
I think that in order to be considered plausible you'd want someone who has no idea what tune is being played to be able to identify it (or at least hum the song if they can't remember the name). Come to think of it this might be a perfect ending, as not only would it give them something impressive to end the episode on* but they could get both teams together - the team who set everything up and did the testing and the other team who have to try and guess what was being 'played'.
(*As I said they could extend 'explosives' to include cannons, firearms and fireworks. The latter would allow an impressive light show, especially if they could perform this at dusk or at night. Naturally this probably wouldn't be suitable for the bomb range, since people live nearby, but they do have other options available.
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Post by silverdragon on Apr 3, 2014 10:14:57 GMT
Period replica gunpowder?... they must have something that does the same job?... As in, what do they use to fire Old Moses, can that be considered "Period" enough, as its not C4, or other Plastic, and you probably could get a barrel or two for this test?....
If not, a barrel with "Just enough" modern equivalent to be the equivalent of a barrel full of the old stuff?... We need to see a room filled with wooden barrels to get the scenario right here. Perhaps they need say half-a-pound of C4 and the rest is just sand?..
1812 overture, the bangs in that are usually punctuation, and not exactly a "Tune".... I suspect to play musical bangs, its expected we could get a musical scale, of at least one octave, to play a tune?...
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Post by silverdragon on Apr 3, 2014 10:20:28 GMT
By the way....
I dunno. You know my sense of humour....
With all the news about the American and English secret service spying on the internet.... What is the likelihood that this thread is being "Watched" by more than one person who cant tell you exactly what their job is?...
If it is, if you have any Jobs going, gis a call... you know where I am already dont you?... Dont you?... Seriously?... I though you knew everything.
[and you do know that of my house phone rings within ten minutes of me posting this, I am going to need a change of underwear?...]
But seriously, if its a "Work from home" job, I can do that.... Get paid to sit reading message boards all day?... I can do that. Just give me an hour off in the afternoon each day to go collect my Kids from schools etc....
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Post by Cybermortis on Apr 3, 2014 10:41:09 GMT
Period replica gunpowder?... they must have something that does the same job?... As in, what do they use to fire Old Moses, can that be considered "Period" enough, as its not C4, or other Plastic, and you probably could get a barrel or two for this test?.... If not, a barrel with "Just enough" modern equivalent to be the equivalent of a barrel full of the old stuff?... We need to see a room filled with wooden barrels to get the scenario right here. Perhaps they need say half-a-pound of C4 and the rest is just sand?.. As I think they've demonstrated on the show, different types of explosive can have different effects on materials, which is a result of their detonation rate (or whatever it is called). So it isn't always possible to just swap one type of explosive for another and get the same effect. We also have to keep costs in mind here, as well as permits and the dangers of working with particular materials. If they did an explosive episode the costs of the explosives are going to be high, so they most likely couldn't afford to dig an underground 'magazine' filled with a couple of barrels of anything and detonating it.
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Post by the light works on Apr 3, 2014 14:43:25 GMT
I would think for the musical explosives, it would need to be a relatively simple tune - just because of the logistics of how much space it would take for anything complex. I don't think anyone is going to offer to be carpet bombed in order to enjoy the explosive rendition of Tchaikovsky's Nutcracker Suite. Beethoven's fifth might be a good one to do a snippet of, as it has the pacing and can be shortened to an easily recognizable theme. although the prelude to the main theme of Star Wars would let them play with a broader scala and more dynamics.
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Post by Lokifan on Apr 3, 2014 15:15:48 GMT
Yes, something like "Twinkle, twinkle little star", or "Mary had a little lamb" would probably be easier.
Of course, the William Tell Overture might be possible. I remember someone did that with road noise a while ago.
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Post by the light works on Apr 3, 2014 16:32:43 GMT
Yes, something like "Twinkle, twinkle little star", or "Mary had a little lamb" would probably be easier. Of course, the William Tell Overture might be possible. I remember someone did that with road noise a while ago. That would be Honda... but apparently Japan has one as well.
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Post by OziRiS on Apr 3, 2014 21:49:19 GMT
Yes, something like "Twinkle, twinkle little star", or "Mary had a little lamb" would probably be easier. Of course, the William Tell Overture might be possible. I remember someone did that with road noise a while ago. "Pop! Goes the Weasel"? Low pace, pretty easily recognized, not a lot of highs and lows.
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Post by Lokifan on Apr 4, 2014 1:42:12 GMT
Trouble is, most explosions I've heard go "BOOM", "CRACK", or "WHUMP".
Good for percussion, but hardly able to carry a tune.
"Top Gear" tried to play their theme with engine noise, and it sounded terrible.
I'd hate to be the sound engineer that day. I'll be quite a few mics would be destroyed.
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Post by the light works on Apr 4, 2014 1:53:32 GMT
Trouble is, most explosions I've heard go "BOOM", "CRACK", or "WHUMP". Good for percussion, but hardly able to carry a tune. "Top Gear" tried to play their theme with engine noise, and it sounded terrible. I'd hate to be the sound engineer that day. I'll be quite a few mics would be destroyed. that WOULD be a bad day for the sound crew. of course, they can get some standoff distance and it will reduce the percussive qualities a bit. plus, they would probably want to stick with smallish explosions. but yes, better for staccato than glissandoes.
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Post by silverdragon on Apr 4, 2014 6:36:24 GMT
It was supposed to sound terrible....
However, I have seen a F1 engine play the national anthem whilst on a test stand. Incredible how accurate and how quick to respond the engine can be with throttle changes.
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Post by Cybermortis on Apr 4, 2014 10:14:09 GMT
Trouble is, most explosions I've heard go "BOOM", "CRACK", or "WHUMP". Good for percussion, but hardly able to carry a tune. "Top Gear" tried to play their theme with engine noise, and it sounded terrible. I'd hate to be the sound engineer that day. I'll be quite a few mics would be destroyed. The sound would vary depending on the amount and type of explosive*, as well as how it was contained - gunpowder igniting in a metal tube sounds different to the same amount of powder to the same amount of powder ignited in a paper tube and different again if ignited under (say) sand. Heck, even detonating against a steel plate can result in a slightly different sound. If you add in firearms, cannon and fireworks** (all of which are of course explosives) you get an even larger range of noises. MB would most likely need to go back though the explosions they have done over the years and carry out some smaller scale tests to see if they can produce different 'notes' using different techniques - but that just gives them an excuse to spend all day at the range. They don't have to use large changes, and in fact it would probably be a bad idea to do so. Part of this would be cost, but there is also an element of practicality. One thing they will need to consider is the risk of one charge setting off another (or damaging the ignition wire). So they would either need a very large area for their C4 Concerto, or a smaller area with smaller charges - which would have the added advantage of not producing so much noise they would have to find a remote location lest people living in the area complain. (*This is an educated guess, based on the fact that different explosives burn/explode at different rates. Even if I am correct this would probably be difficult to determine unless you could directly compare the two.) (**And added advantage of using fireworks would be that it might add some nice visuals, especially if they could do this when it is dark)
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Post by mrfatso on Apr 4, 2014 11:13:31 GMT
Ok, so, can we just have an underground bunker 10ft cube packed with period explosives go "BOOM", just because we can, 'cause I think it may beat the concrete mixer for things that go bang. Play Tunes?... well, if your going that way, 1812 overture, not enough, how about the theme tune for Mythbusters?... Didn't Richard Hammond do something similar for the ITV or was it Ch4, show on Guy Fawkes? I am sure it's on YouTube somewhere.
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Post by Cybermortis on Apr 4, 2014 11:51:55 GMT
Yes, he did.
The show in question was a mock up of the (original) houses of parliament in an attempt to see what would have happened if the gunpowder plotters had set off the powder during the Kings address.
The total amount of powder used was about a ton of black powder, which had to be imported from Spain as this was the only place in Europe that could provide that quantity.
The blast, which was conducted at an army bomb range, took out cameras in reinforced pillboxes some 100 yards away. It also broke the ten foot thick rear wall of their building in half and moved both sections some ten feet backwards. (Little wonder that the army refused to allow the test to take place if the conditions were not right, and almost cancelled the test because they were concerned about the shockwave hitting an inversion layer and shattering windows of houses in the area.)
One interesting thing they discovered during smaller scale testing was that blackpowder that detonated in a wooden barrel produced significantly higher pressures than anyone predicted.
This isn't really the sort of test MB could do. It would be FAR to powerful a blast for the bomb range and far too expensive even before you add in building costs.
We also need to remember that MB have had problems with large explosions, the most well known was when they tested knocking your socks off and shattered windows in houses several miles away. I'd guess that in this light they would be VERY wary of even thinking about such a large explosion, or even something half that size.
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Post by Lokifan on Apr 4, 2014 14:03:39 GMT
Speaking of explosion sounds, maybe they could do a mini-myth on recreating the Hollywood ricochet sound--the classic "ZING" in every western/crime show. That might be good for a segment, and it's an excuse to shoot stuff.
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Post by the light works on Apr 4, 2014 14:17:25 GMT
Speaking of explosion sounds, maybe they could do a mini-myth on recreating the Hollywood ricochet sound--the classic "ZING" in every western/crime show. That might be good for a segment, and it's an excuse to shoot stuff. I had thought of that - it should probably have its own thread, because it has some potential. I know it is possible but it is not as common as in the movies.
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