Experiments Against Ironclad and Fortress Armor of 2008

[seacoastartillery]

      This split even surprised us, Tim, but after all, it is logical and we will be contributing to both, each one with their very different topic emphasis.  A good move, we believe.

Lance,    You are always thinking!  Another great idea which will involve some hauling, but no huge expense.  We would love to try that!!  What's your guess as to penetration of the 1.167" dia., 1/6 scale, 9 oz., Brooke bolt going 1,300 fps m.v. or 1175 at 100 yds.?  How many bales end to end?  Love your photo; it illustrates the alternative armor principle better than any Mike or I have found.  I bet the boat's crew found a way to wet that hay down a bit before they got underway.   

Regards,

Tracy and Mike

[lance]

Mike and Tracy, to be honest the only experience i've had shooting hay bales,is with high power rifles. It don't take much hay to stop them,don't remember how many feet, but they can be stopped. I can't say how many hay bales it would take to stop your gun,but given enough hay it can be stopped. I didn't mean to start a big food fight by saying cotton was used, but it, and hay was used,so i figured it fit in with historical examples. This is a real picture: it's too big to get the whole picture with the info included..........so i will write what the picture states:Sometimes bales of cotton were used to provide defenses. When the Confederates evacuated and destroyed their shore batteries the bales of cotton created a fluffy debris.

[seacoastartillery]

      Lance,    Nobody has consumed raw cotton to get the nutrient value from it that we know of, so we would not consider it food.  Anyway thanks again for that picture; looks like an 8" Columbiad battery perhaps with an iron, seacoast, center-pintle, barbette, carriage upside down from the looks of it.  Looks like the cotton armor was two or three bales thick; maybe that's enough.  We will eventually find out!

      Oh, the latest on our wrought iron trials is that we will buy enough to do a close range, side by side, comparison with structural steel which we picked up today at the scrap yard, about 200 pounds of 4" X 3/8" angle iron.  Each target will be 16 sq. in., (4" X 4") and will be shot at close range, about 30 yards, just to compare the relative resistance of each material at 90 deg. and at a 35 deg. slope.  We will use the carefully measured results to develop structural steel targets of a resistance to penetration like the wrought iron target displayed, for longer ranges at an acceptable cost level.  No matter how we looked at the wrought iron cost, we just could not afford the almost $800.00 that two 12" X12" X 1.333" thk. targets would have cost including the whopping shipping charge. 

So it goes,

Mike and Tracy