Last October was the 200th anniversary of the battle of Trafalgar and the death of Lord Horatio Nelson. This was where the British fleet, under Lord Nelson, defeated the combined fleets of France and Spain. Over 60 warships participated, with the British being in the minority. This battle off Cape Trafalgar in Spain, literally changed the course of history, paving the way for Napoleon's defeat at Waterloo. It was also the last major naval battle where all the ships were wood and only had sails for propulsion. It also confirmed (made) Britain the only major naval power in the world at the time. Had the British lost, Napoleon was getting ready to invade Britain, and without a navy, Britain would probably have lost. Talk about "What if?".

And yes, thousands of muzzle loading, black powder cannons were involved, as well as hundreds of thousands of cannon balls!

War was up close and personal then, that's for sure. Boy.... the seas must have smelled like sulfur for days!

What's the B.C. of a 4 inch diameter iron cannonball? Sectional density????

War was up close and personal then, that's for sure. Boy.... the seas must have smelled like sulfur for days!


Up close and personal indeed - the ships were so close together that one british officer decided to leap aboard the enemy ship with sword drawn. This is while both ships were firing broadsides at each other.

Different too - there were a couple cases during the battle where british ships that were supposed to be in formation were instead looting enemy ships. Don't think you'd get away with that anymore.

Nelson's body was also put in a cask of brandy for the trip home (and according to folklore, when they arrived, the cask was empty, save for Nelson's corpse). That's where the phrase "tapping the Admiral" comes from.

Oh, and FYI, the british didn't defeat them as much as massacre them. Even though the British were outnumbered, not a single ship was lost (compared to 22 french / spanish ships sunk or captured)

And.. of course (to make this firearms related), I believe that Nelson was one of the (if not the) highest ranking officers to be killed by a marksman up to that point. I suppose if someone could hop aboard an enemy ship, the marksmen didn't have to be that good, but 2 moving targets, the waves, etc. would still prove a challenging target.

Plus you probably couldn't see 5 feet, with all the smoke!

What's the B.C. of a 4 inch diameter iron cannonball? Sectional density????

Well, it would weigh about 96,100 grains, so SD~ .858, BC~ .554. :rolleyes:

DC

There were reports of British sailors standing by with buckets of water to douse the enemy ship after firing their cannon. They wanted the cannon balls ricocheting inside the enemy ship creating havoc, but they didn't want it to catch fire from the muzzle blast! It was that close. A fire would engulf both ships, which was a no-no!

There were men in those days. As this is an interest of mine, allow me to wax a bit on the subject of 18th century naval battles.

Men of war fell into four main categories. Schooners and cutters were about what they are now, except way bigger and British put some hull qualifications on cutters. These ships were fast auxiliary vessels, very lightly armed, 4 pound cannons (refers to the ball, not the cannon). All other Royal Navy vessels were square rigged. Sloops were defined by their number of guns, or rather lack thereof; size was also wanting, 4 or maybe 6 pound cannon, 14-22. Frigates were faster than sloops, less Weatherly than schooners & cutters, but of a size required a Post Captain to command. Crews were twice that of sloops and the cannons were 8-12 pound, 30 or so. Might also have carronades. Ships of the line were very big. They were rated by the number of cannons they had; but also had carronades, which didn’t count for rating purposes. These might have over 100 cannons on two decks; 8-12 pound on the upper deck and 32 pound on the lower. Standard major navel engagement was that both sides would form their ships in a line, the lines would sail past each other and try to blow each other to smithereens; thus the designation of the ships qualified for such action as Ships of the Line.

Cannons were rather long barreled, smooth bore simple artillery pieces. Their balls were of cast iron. Cast iron was cheap and tended to fragment on impact, shattered wood shards also made significant secondary projectiles. Was the shards from both the balls and wood that caused most of the casualties. The procedure was to swab out the barrel from the last shot, drop a measured sock of black powder into the barrel, ram it down to the breech, place an iron ball (with some sort of wadding to keep it in place) into the muzzle, ram it down, pull the cannon up to the port, aim, fire; and hope to God it didn’t explode. The powder was ignited either by a fuse thrust through the firing hold being touched by “slow fuse” or by a flint lock arrangement. These were the days that flint lock cannon were the coming thing and the fuse was beginning to be seen as the back up firing system.
These cannon had sights and a sort of plumb bob to measure the roll of the ship. An expert gunner could hit another ship at a mile and a half. Most ship to ship engagements took place at about 600 yards. Close, fire at point blank; and board in the smoke was also a popular strategy.
Cannons could be loaded with one, two or three balls. At close range, accuracy was not an issue; but poundage was. Fouling was immense. The balls were much smaller than the bores.
For firing a single ball, the powder charge was roughly 1/8 the weight of the ball, velocity in the neighborhood of 1100 fps. Accuracy and rate of fire were mostly a function of the crew’s drilling. Both on land and on sea, England won because of more training, drill and practice. It was the men and their training made the difference. This practice was usually with the captain’s personal powder, government didn’t see the point. Took from one to three minutes for an experienced and professional gun crew to reload. A 12 pound cannon weighted about 4,000 pounds (going from memory, wouldn’t swear to it). Rule of thumb for gun crew, to haul, was one man per 500 pounds gun weight.

Carronades are sort of ‘Saturday Night Special’ versions of cannons, much shorter and lighter, and the muzzles slightly belled for faster reloading; especially when fouled. Shorter barrels also lended themselves to more creative loading. Single ball loading tended to be 1/12 the weight of the ball in black powder for a muzzle velocity of around 800 fps. A very well drilled gun crew could reload in 30 seconds. 800 fps seems to have been more effective in damage to the other ship and secondary projectile creation than 1100 fps. Accuracy was considered to be 400 yards. These guns were not counted in a ship’s rating. The number of them that a ship carried was a function of the captain’s preference. Would mention that a not so well drilled gun crew, didn’t make much difference in accuracy, between cannons and carronades. These were carried on the deck. 24 pound carronade weighs about 1200 pounds. Could load the carronades with the same options as cannon, but also, hollow (filled with powder) iron balls that would explode like giant hand grenades, or a mixture of rifle balls behind a cannon ball.

Trafalgar October 1805

Admiral Nelson was way past aggressive. Out numbered, out gunned and out weighed, instead of forming line politely, he ordered the British fleet to close. Took an eternity, several unanswered broadsides. Then the British fleet was within the French, and could fire point blank, to their heart’s content. Talking some pent up emotion here. Emotion got expressed.
While closing, only the front guns could return fire. One was a 66 pound carronade. Fired 500 .75” 600 grain lead balls behind a 66 pound iron ball; and wiped out the entire crew on deck of one of the French ships.

Some mention been made of fire hazard. Was standard practice to cover lower decks in sand (to discourage fire) and have the ship’s pumps ready to extinguish fire. Was also the custom that captured ships became prizes, shared by all. Was complicated formula whereby the Admiral got so much, the captain got so much, the other officers got so much; and the crew got so much. An able bodied seaman could retire on one good capture.

Admiral Nelson did not survive the battle; neither did the French nor the Spanish commanders. Have never heard of taping the admiral; have heard brandy, spirits in general, referred to as “Nelson’s blood”.

Based on the formulas in P.O. Ackley’s manual, volume one, I’ll share some numbers on these cannon balls. (if I haven’t messed up)

8 pound 3.9” diameter SD & BC = 0.530
12 pound 4.5” diameter SD & BC = 0.607
32 pound 6.2” diameter SD & BC = 0.841
66 pound 7.9” diameter SD & BC = 1.071