64-pounder

[Cannoneer]

"A 64 pounder, 64 cwt, Rifled Muzzle Loading Mk3 (1867 pattern) gun firing. The gun was manufactured by the Royal Gun Factory, Woolwich, England. Historical display by volunteers at Fort Glanville, South Australia."

Wikimedia Commons - User: Peripitus

[Cat Whisperer]

People in the picture REALLY puts it into perspective!

[Artilleryman]

Nice photos, Thanks for posting. 

[KABAR2]

Interesting adaptation of the field carraige for fortress use,
so the cannon could fire over the wall, Looks like it could be converted
back for field use if the need arose.

[keithinvestigations]

Wow, that guy looks really close to the muzzle!

[Double D]

Wow, that guy looks really close to the muzzle!

It's camera angle, he is standing outside about even with axle, and it is a blank round.

[Cannoneer]

Interesting adaptation of the field carraige for fortress use,
so the cannon could fire over the wall, Looks like it could be converted
back for field use if the need arose.

Allen,
It does seem to be a clever adaptation meant to transform a siege carriage into what the British called an "overbank carriage", while retaining the option of removing the upper brackets to return it to siege carriage use if the need arose; two carriages in one! If you look by the uppermost spoke in the first photo posted you'll see the firing trunnion saddle, and if you look at the second photo between the crewman and the upper rear of the wheel you'll see a hex nut, and below that the travelling trunnion saddle (where the barrel would be placed backwards with the muzzle facing the trail while the gun was in transit).
The following photo and drawings are from the "Palmerston Forts Society" website. The photo shows an 8-inch R.M.L. Howitzer on a siege carriage, a drawing of the same, and a drawing of a dedicated overbank carriage.

[Cannoneer]

In the second photo that I posted on this thread you can see (what I assumed to be) the friction primer right behind the top of the plume of smoke that was ejected out of the gun's vent. Okay, that's simple enough, the crewman pulled the lanyard, the gun fired, and the primer was blown into the sky; right?
I'm not going to say anymore about it just now; instead I'm going to ask if any of you have a differing opinion about the method of ignition used to fire the cannon.

[Double D]

 
Yep, there it is.



That is why vents are angled slightly rearward and no one stands to the rear of a cannon when it is fired.

The location of these ejected primers has help historians located the position batteries on historic battle fields.

[Max Caliber]

Boom J,

The position of the number four man, if that is what they call that position in Australia, looks all wrong if he has just pulled the lanyard on a friction primer. My guess is, they were using a Chumney-Smyth Mark 4 Capacitor Fired Charge Initiator.

[Zulu]

Now that you mention it, the lanyard looks more like a wire than a string.
Zulu

[Rotunda]

We sure new how to build Artillery in "the Arsenal"

[Cannoneer]

In an earlier time people used to describe someone that was very perceptive as having fine intuitions, well Max, you’ve got fine intuitions.

Like Zulu, the first thing that caught my attention was the way that the lanyard cord was kinked up, something about the way it looks just doesn’t seem right (that is, unless it’s actually a wire).

The body posture of the artilleryman that fired the gun appears wrong; is that the position his body would be in right after pulling the lanyard to ignite a friction primer?

When I noticed the line that appears under what I at first thought was a friction primer in the air I assumed it was a smoke trail, but upon looking a little harder it started to seem a lot more likely that it was the lanyard cord itself, because if you follow the undulating line downwards (save and enlarge the photo) it doesn’t lead back to the vent (it ends a distance behind the vent).

If the cord actually extends from the primer seen in the air all the way back to the handle in the crewman’s grip, then it’s impossible that it is a lanyard, because it would be far too long for it to have functioned properly in pulling the wire on a friction primer.

I agree with Max, it seems to me like this gun was fired by electronic ignition.

[Double D]

John,

Well thought out reasonable and logical conclusion.

To me there seems to  one contradiction and that is lanyard/wire.  To me enlarging the pictures it does look like ballistic smoke trail.  But it also could be a wire or lanyard.  The line is slightly elliptical going to the primer tube and back down to the rear of the gun.  Very well could be a wire.  The wire or lanyard going to the gunner is zigzag, how can that be if it is a wire and connected the primer tube...and that is one long wire

I sent Fort Glanville an email and asked them for details on how they firee the gun...I'll post what they reply.

[A.Roads]

A great set of photos, thanks for posting. The carriage adaptation so it could fire over a high parapet must have placed some additional strain on the carriage as the recoil would apply a significant "rotatory" force quite different to when it is mounted directly on the brackets, much closer to the axle. Low mounted trunnions (well below the bore axis) were known for being punishing on their carriages & I could well imagine a similar effect here.

The Royal Navy did not use copper friction primer tubes as did the land services, they were liable to ricochet from the bulwarks & deck beams & cause injury. So quill tubes were used instead. The quill tubes could not stand up to being jerked by a lanyard, as could copper tubes, and so a small support strap was incorporated around the head of the quill tube. This strap was placed over the raised head of a screw near the vent hole, with a spare hole for another such screw alongside, the spare hole was fitted with a flush head screw. The presence of these screw holes denotes that the barrel was issued for Sea Service.
Adrian

See the vent area of this 6.3 Inch Palliser gun....

[Cannoneer]

Thanks for the information Adrian, as usual it's useful. Some people mistakenly think that the U.S. Navy was firing its' shipboard guns by a lock hitting a percussion cap, but during (and for some time before and after) our Civil War, the guns were actually fired by the hammer of a lock (which in my opinion, it would be more accurate to call a slap hammer) hitting a disc filled with an explosive compound; the disc was woven to the top of a quill that contained the priming powder. Their reasons for using the quills were the same as the RN's, the friction primers posed too much of a hazard on the deck of a ship.



I noticed that the photos that I copied from Wikimedia when saved from this thread to my PC are losing some image clarity. Here's the link to the photo on Wikipedia: Click on the photo twice to fully enlarge it, and look at the image that spans the distance between the object seen in the sky to the rear of the top of the smoke plume down to the breeching jaws of the barrel (right above the artilleryman's helmet).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:64_pounder_gun_firing_-_fort_glanville.jpg

[Double D]

Good eye BoomJ!!!!  
Here is the response from  Fort  Glanville

Dear Douglas,

                                Congratulations on some great photographs – it’s not that easy to capture the flash, not to mention the lanyards etc.

                                I checked out your web site, and was intrigued by the discussion on the 64 pdr gun- some clever interpretations, some of which were correct! I’ll give you the facts, at the risk of spoiling a good argument!

                                The gun is NOT electrically fired. We use the SPIT system, which is a tongue-in-cheek name for “Sheldrick’s Patent Ignition Tube”, which is a modern adaption of the old friction tubes. It is a powder-filled brass tube, as were the originals. The fuse is fired by pulling a lanyard, as seen in the photo (we’ve never before seen the lanyard at the moment of firing, and can’t account for the “kinks”). The white streak below the skyward-moving ignition tube is a second lanyard we call the “retaining lanyard”, which is in no way connected to the firing lanyard. It is a non-historical method of keeping the ignition tube, so that it can be re-loaded and used again. Without the lanyard it would fly up to 30 yards!

                                In answer to other comments made, the gun is fired by No.5, he with the lanyard; No. 3 is the loader, obscured by the gun; No. 2 is the bloke apparently risking death near the muzzle; he does the ramming and is actually stationed in line with the forward rim of the wheel, not as close to the hot end as he appears; No.4 is behind him and passes the rammer etc, while behind him is the gun commander, No. 1.  The positioning of the men does have a safety aspect, but has nothing to do with the flying fuse and everything to do with the recoil of the gun. When firing a projectile, the gun would recoil  about 6 - 8 feet, and anyone standing behind it would have 7 tons of gun in his lap!

                                In its heyday the gun could fire a 64lb shell to a range of 5000 yards, and do it every 1 ¼ minutes. We don’t fire projectiles any more; apart from anything else, it would upset the local yachtsmen terribly! As far as we know, ours are the only remaining examples of this gun in firing condition; if we’re wrong, we’d like to know about the others!

                                I hope that this information is useful. Sometime you should observe the firing of our 10” gun, which was (and still is!) the biggest gun in Australia. We don’t fire it all that often because it costs about $500 even with a very reduced charge – we usually wait for someone else to pay for it! When it does fire, it is highly impressive.

 

                                                                Yours sincerely,

 

Russ Sheldrick

   (President, Fort Glanville Historical Assoc))

 

[Double D]

My guess about the “zig zag” in the lanyard, is that it is the set of the line from being coiled and wrapped when stored.

[Cat Whisperer]

Russ Sheldrick

WELCOME to the board!  AND many thanks for the letter of explanation to DD.

We'd love to see some of YOUR pictures!

[Cannoneer]

Good work Douglas, and thanks for the answer Mr.Sheldrick, your information suggests that Lord Byron was right; truth is stranger than fiction. I don't think any of us could have guessed about a second line to hold on to the brass tube, but it's an ingenious solution for saving the cost of having to constantly replace the priming tubes.

[subdjoe]

My guess about the “zig zag” in the lanyard, is that it is the set of the line from being coiled and wrapped when stored.

My guess would be the "sine wave" distorting from the friction within the cord itself and air resistance.  If you watch a frame by frame of a lanyard as it is pulled, it stretches slightly, then when the primer goes off, snaps back, forms a regular wave, then distorts.  The camera in this case just caught it after the neat and regular wave had started distorting.

Check the lanyard here: 



and you see that the lanyard is just starting to get the wave in it.  Check also some of the photos that have been posted here, and you will see lanyards with similar shapes.  Someone posted a shot a few months ago, the primer had just started to ignite, but there was nothing out the muzzle yet, and you can see the lanyard almost straight if I recall.  (hmm....maybe someone with way too much time could gather up all the photos into one thread, all the videos into another, and all the youtube idjit videos into another - I've been trying to find that one 4th of July video of the guy by a river or lake pounding sheet after sheet of damp newspaper down the barrel, beating the snot out of each sheet with a hammer and dowel).

[seacoastartillery]

     I found myself fascinated by the zig-zag lanyard effect.  Our photo and movie clip archives were searched and only one clip displayed a little of this phenomenon.  After the water jug of concrete has sailed away from the muzzle at the last Montana GBO Model Cannon Shoot, you can just begin to see the start of the lanyard zig-zag.  This 1,200 FPS clip was centered on the muzzle, of course, not the lanyard, so it's a little hard to see.  This was a one pound Fg, 137 pound jug projo, 400 yard shot.  

Tracy and Mike


Click on image to play movie clip.

[Double D]

Monster  Mortar video edit and it is now 25 seconds long.

[GGaskill]

... and it is now 25 seconds long.

That's a great improvement and a great clip.  But it looks like the lanyard is waving in the wind before the ignition.

[dan610324]

whats that black little thing comming out of the bore at the end ??

[Double D]

That is the foil from wrapping the charge.

[Parrott-Cannon]

    I found myself fascinated by the zig-zag lanyard effect.  Our photo and movie clip archives were searched and only one clip displayed a little of this phenomenon.  After the water jug of concrete has sailed away from the muzzle at the last Montana GBO Model Cannon Shoot, you can just begin to see the start of the lanyard zig-zag.  This 1,200 FPS clip was centered on the muzzle, of course, not the lanyard, so it's a little hard to see.  This was a one pound Fg, 137 pound jug projo, 400 yard shot.  

Tracy and Mike


Click on image to play movie clip.


If you will provide the mortar diameter, I can calculate the projectile velocity using a viseo analysis program I have written.  I will post the velocity results.

[Max Caliber]

It would be great if you could slow that down to super slow motion.

[Double D]

That is as slow as my soft ware will make it.  I can to frame picks. 

When I first saw this Video I thought we were seeing the sine wave effect from the primer ignition.  But after editing and watching it a bunch of times it appears instead of pulling and hold the lanyard taut, and then pulling the primer, the lanyard was whipped to pull the ingniter of the primer.  Watch closely you will see the lanyard whip down then the primer fires and the lanyard whips back up and disappears.

Also notice the fire ball, before the projectile leaves the bore...

[seacoastartillery]

It would be great if you could slow that down to super slow motion.

      1,200 FPS (frames per second) is as fast as our company's camera will do, Max.  I have compared this mod. clip with an unaltered one and the speed is the same.  The lanyard whip is just as DD says and has nothing to do with wind.  

     Parrott-Cannon,    It's dangerous to assume anything, but I will assume you want the bore diameter of 11" and NOT the O.D. of 25".  That would be much appreciated if you could calculate the velocity, then we could get a muzzle energy figure which, with a 137 pound shell, is going to be substantial.

     Dan,    Double D is pretty sharp today, and I unintentionally mislead him originally, as I called that smaller lagging projectile a piece of water jug plastic when he asked that same question after the shoot.  Several did shred their plastic skins, but that shot was not one of those and the piece of material coming out after the jug left us behind, was a wadded up ball of aluminum foil.  We used 6 layers of heavy duty foil and with a hemispherical chamber, 4" X 8" long, quite a bit of foil is used for each shot.

     Mike and I looked at that clip quite a few times and we guess that mass of concrete is traveling at 150 feet per second.  Parrott-Cannon will tell us if we are close or not.

Thanks DD, for the mod.  We got tired of waiting too.

Tracy and Mike