firing off both sides

Swordhawk · Powder Monkey Posts: 36 **382 Gold** -

last night while taking on two Spanish privateers i managed to fire guns from both sides of my sloop simultaneously. they were both heading NE and strung our just enough that when i cut between them they were both about an equal distance from me. i fired and it took a shot at both ships.

problem with it was it shot 5 balls at each ship. had 20 guns on board. had not patched my game at this time.

curious to know if anyone else has seen this, and if so did it cheat you of half your shot?

i tried for an hour to recreate it to grab a screenie but wasn't able to get the two ships lined like that again

khariv · Powder Monkey Posts: 24 **514 Gold** -

I R Pirate · Powder Monkey Posts: 45 **1116 Gold** -

the number of cannon balls you fire is always the half of the gun count, if you have 2 guns, you only see one cannon fired Razz

and you can make you ship fire both sides even if you are only against one, lets say you have a SOTL with 48 guns, and lets say some ship is chasing you and you are running away from it, if both ship line up perfectly then its possible to fire cannons on both side

kinda like this

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Tarious · Swabbie Posts: 54 **17 Gold** -

Well there are 1/2 cannons on one side of the ship and the other 1/2 on the other side of the ship.

danzio · Powder Monkey Posts: 21 **137 Gold** -

Well it seems to me that it would not have been that difficult to have your guns fire on either side of the ship. You have gun ports on port and starboard and the cannons themselves are on tracks that would allow them to be shifted from one side to the other and they would pivot on their carriage so they could be fired from either side. Since it could take up to several minutes to maneuver your ship into a strategic position for firing from one side or the other would it not have made sense to have had this capability? The only guns that would be permanently mounted would be fore and aft if any.

But then again, I'm in the business of building aircraft so I wouldn't know squat about shipbuilding.

Dan

Wolfwood · Boatswain Posts: 2527 **33917 Gold** -

Actually, the cannons were _not_ usually moved in the ships, especially during battle. They weighed several tons and if they had got loose during a battle, lives would have been lost. (Of course, fire from enemy cannons still broke them loose sometimes and they could roll across the deck and crash through the ship's side.

I've read of no ship that would have had cannons on pivots...
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danzio · Powder Monkey Posts: 21 **137 Gold** -

Vulture · Gunner Posts: 509 **606 Gold** -

Ships of that era had cannons on the top decks that could pivot. They were much smaller guns with about a 2 inch bore that were mounted on a swivel. they could be turned around, loaded and aimed and fired by one man. They were intended as close contact weapons to repel boarders. One would load them with grape shot, musket balls, nails, etc., and blast away at the scurvy dogs trying to board your ship.
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Airsaw · Rigger Posts: 1840 **3281 Gold** -

...the cannon were roped in a continuous string to the gunwales...hence the name "gunwales", or gunn'ls. This prevented the gun recoil from sending the cannon clear across to the other side of the deck, breaking down the gunn'ls there, thus sending (possibly) the guns over the side into the briney blue after only one discharge. What is an unfastened cannon when fired? A rocket.

Ropes were also used to haul the cannon back into firing position. So, properly-rigged cannon were tied to their side of the ship in three locations, each side, and a lace tying the battery together, as it were. To move the cannon, you'd have to cut these ropes, then you wouldn't be able to make them sufficiently fast on the other side of the ship to deal with the recoil. Six men could easily enough drag a cannon back and forth, but that wasn't really the problem, so much as how the transit time (time it takes to move the gun) would severely hamper rate of fire.

"Fire as your guns bear!" was a command always used in those times. It meant to fire your cannon as it acquired the target. Captains wouldn't wait until a full battery was loaded, and trained on a target, THEN fire. Each guncrew had a modicum of independent fire control. Sometimes, a captain might see a chance for a coup de gras and command the guns cease fire until the full battery was loaded, then let loose with a full broadside, but this was rare. More often, regarding the fact the ships forward guns would obtain the target before the aft guns, the guns were fired in succession, not all at once in a full broadside. Then, reloading and firing was dependent upon a guncrew's particular speed. They would turn the gun as the ship passed its target to obtain second, and possibly third shots before a major maneuver was required which would take the guns off their targets. Standing side by side (abreast) firing full broadsides into one another did happen (in some historically significant encounters), but this was devastatingly destructive to both ships and was avoided whenever sailing conditions allowed. They preferred to "stick and move".

Most naval battles were fought until each ship sustained a certain amount of damage, then the ships retired for repairs. This was common practice, and resulted in few ships being sunk. John Paul Jones is significant, (I have not yet begun to fight!) because he introduced the "all-or-nothing" philosophy of battle - winning the battle was more important than saving the ship for a future encounter, thus allowing the other ship the same luxury. Instead, he felt the gun platform should be expended if need be to garner certain victory. Here entered the idea of attrition. Destroy all your enemy's equipment, even if yours is destroyed in the process, and force the enemy into a reequipping race, hoping to have an industrial base which will put weapons on the field and hoping your enemy will run out of raw material to replace their losses...victory.

This problem of gun recoil is why so much attention went into creating a recoiless gun, or guns with collapsable barrels which absorbed the recoil. Mastering recoil allowed them to mount guns on turrets, which then made ship maneuver in battle a negligible requirement by comparison. Turrets allowed them to mount the massively-heavy guns on the centerline of the deck, which then allowed them to design ships with more streamlined hulls, allowing greater speed. Then, of course, it was possible to mount bigger guns with ranges exceeding a mile or two... or three. Instead of positioning the ship, you just swung the turret and could fire while on a running course, making it easier to evade incoming fire. You ended up with the rather deadly class of battleships. These ships owned by the U.S. were the ones sunk at Pearl Harbor. After that, the U.S. didn't build battleships in earnest, having learned airpower negates them too easily on a cost-benefit scale, and the U.S. Navy then focused on aircraft carrier forces, which are their mainstay today.

No one complains if all twenty guns fire from one side, when in fact only ten would fire from each side, assuming there were no bow, or stern guns. Normally two would be in each position, usually culverin, or sakers, leaving a twenty-gun ship with an eight-gun broadside capability.

Often times cannon would be blown loose, when the rope broke, and the proverbial "loose cannon" would roll back and forth injuring or killing crewmen as the deck rolled, until it was made fast. Not much complaint about this not happening in the game, either...losing crew through self-inflicted casualty. During those battles, a captain began losing crew immediately, and continued to lose men throughout up to the point at the end of battle when all who were maimed eventually died of their injuries.

I look at it like I'm "lucky" the game isn't THAT accurate. ALL my guns fire at each broadside, not just half. If it were accurate, only half would fire. But, you would be able to fire on two ships independently in battery fashion, if only half fired from each side. You'd continue to lose crewmen as you sailed away from the battle scene, however victorious. Under this condition, your maneuvering during battle would become a more critical factor. The best commanders could bring their guns to bear on targets in succession by use of expert sailing skill. Also, avoiding incoming fire would become more...tricky. This is why ship's captains were so highly-prized in them good ol' days, and why it was such a difficult rank to obtain.

danzio · Powder Monkey Posts: 21 **137 Gold** -

Airsaw......"Phew"

Thanks for the lesson. Very interesting stuff and to think we learn this on a game forum.

Dan

Striker · Gunner Posts: 727 **680 Gold** -

There is nothing better than placing a well-aimed broadside into two ships at once.
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ruf · Seaman Posts: 198 **899 Gold** -

One of the reasons the English beat back the Spanish Armada is because the Brit cannons could pivot. Remember, cannons are muzzle-loaders, that is, you have to load the cannonball down the barrel from the opening, and ram it home.

Spanish cannons were land cannons on land carriages, and they needed to be rolled back so the loaders could get the balls down the cannon's muzzle.

Brit guns were smaller, and were designed for sea combat. They could be pivoted for loading, so then they didn't need to be rolled back as far.

Obviously, putting land cannons on land carriages and putting them onboard a galleon (which is a cargo ship not a warship) was a bad idea. the Brits had ships designed for sea combat, with cannons that were designed for ships.

Granted this was in 1588, not 1660, but the technology got better by the time of the Buccaneer Heroes Very Happy

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Airsaw · Rigger Posts: 1840 **3281 Gold** -

I was surprised to learn the English had large pans filled with chalk powder - White Cliffs of Dover stuff. The pans were covered with canvas. They'd pull up next to an Armada ship, then lift the cover allowing the chalk dust to blow in a cloud onto the opposing ship, blinding its crew, before they boarded. Really high-tech stuff, eh?