Carron Company Ironworks

[Cannoneer]

A (brief) description of Carron Co., and its most famous product.

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[Soot]

I had to listen to that a few times, I thought he said "cork powers the factory". 

[Double D]

I had to listen to that a few times, I thought he said "cork powers the factory". 

coke!

[Cannoneer]

I had to listen to that a few times, I thought he said "cork powers the factory". 

Don't feel bad, Soot, I had to replay it a couple times when the narrator was describing the boring of the solid barrel; at first, because of the drawing being shown of the carronade on a ships gun deck, I thought the narrator was relating how the barrel was loaded and fired.

Now back to that drawing (which is the real reason I posted this vid) of the carronade on a gun deck. I've never seen any other rendition of a sliding carriage on a raised platform that resembles this drawing, and it appears to be a valid drawing (by valid I mean, it doesn't seem like a modelers made up elevation). The legend says: Joint Carronade fitted to the Ships side PLATE 1.
The carronade might be raised to be level with a gun port that was designed for a cannon mounted on a truck carriage, and the iron wheels on the chassis would make sense so that when the piece was lowered onto the deck it could be transported to another gun station if need be, but what doesn't make sense is that this drawing sure seems to indicate that the carronade was stationary, meaning it doesn't look like the carriage could be traversed either left or right.     

[Double D]

John,

I know you are a good internet researcher so keep looking, you'll find additional similar renditions of that 4 trucked platform.  The drawing in the video is a straight side elevation and  you can not see the traverse track.  I found several variations when I looked around several months ago

I have copy of a drawing I got from Cannonmn dated 1808 shows a conceptual drawing of the modification adding the trucks. The notes in the drawing say the wheels were for moving the guns position on the poop.  In the drawing you can see the small traverse wheel under the hind axle and inside and behind the trucks

Top view


Close up


Side view


Close up

[carronader]

Versatility........like any good tool, people took the original design and modified it to suit their own purposes, proly lots out there not seen before. That's what makes ' Expert ' opinion, on many occasions, worthless. Too many different ships...deck arrangements...navy requirements...even ships carpenters to declare " this was it ".   

[Cannoneer]

Douglas,
I was looking all over for the diagram used in the video, or a similar drawing, and I finally found it where the curious person should always look first, wikipedia. This is also evidently the same place where the people that put this video together borrowed a couple of their pictures.
If you study this elevation drawing it becomes clear that this is a different arrangement than the carriage in the drawing you posted. I have seen that type of carronade carriage before, where the traversing wheels can be removed by pulling the pins that secure them, which then lowers the carriage to its truck wheels, and enables the carronade to be moved about the deck. That carriage (along with some other types) is shown, and discussed briefly in this book: The Arming and Fitting of English Ships of War, 1600-1815 by Brian Lavery.
The way that this "Joint Carronade" carriage chassis is situated on the platform that raises it off of the deck would seem to make it unlikely that the carronade could be traversed to either side.

[Cannoneer]

Kabar2,
Was the set of books that you got from Richard "The Munificent Librarian," from a Time-Life series called "The Seafarers"?

[Double D]

That line drawing is short on detail depth.  Things we would like to see we can't.  If it is an illustration I wouldn't give it much credence as representative of correct detail. If it is a drawing, then there may be additional detail. It is plate one, perhaps plate two shows additional detail. 

Wikipedia credits the drawing from Vaisseau de Ligne, Time Life, 1979.  Need to get a copy of that book.  WWW.ABEbooks.com list the book in French.  Vaisseau de Ligne translates to Ship of the lines, but I don't find an English language Time-Life book by that name. There is a Time-Life book called Fighting Sails. 

If some body has a copy of that book, can you look for that illustration  and tell us it's source?

It would be interesting to see another angle. Other than a couple of carronades I found on field carriages and garrison carriages, I haven't seen any other Carronade mount that didn't have pivot point and opposing traverse.  The all have thissimilar mountings.

It wouldn't make sense to have such a rigid mount, as there would be no way other than changing direction of the ship to aim. Not realistic at all.

[Cannoneer]

DD,
That's why I'm asking Allen the questions about the set of books he got from Richard, I think one of the books in that set might have a description of this drawing, or maybe another drawing that shows the carronade from the rear.

[Zulu]

Somebody correct me if I'm wrong, but were'nt the majority of ships cannons aimed by changing the direction of the ship?  The aim was certainly "fire on the rise" but side to side was by turning the ship.  You didn't "lever" a 32 pounder from side to side.
Zulu

[Double D]

Actually the guns could all be trained using the training tackle and hand spikes, moving them right  or left and up and down.  Broadsides would be fired to a point of convergence.  Fire as you bear would be for single guns in passing.  Fire on the up roll might be used to lob shells or shoot into rigging.  Firing on the down roll would be used to skip rounds into the hull. The guns would also be trained for shooting ashore based targets.  Some carriages have a rounded transom and that is supposed to be there to aid in pivoting the gun.

 

[Cannoneer]

If anyone has the Time-Life book series called "The Seafarers," or to more precise has a book from that series titled "Fighting Sail" authored by Addison Beecher Colvin Whipple; (that's one fine moniker for a writer of sailing sea battles) I think that the drawing that I posted was scanned from this book, so there may well be some information about this carronade and carriage to be gleaned there.