Cannon Shock Waves in Ultra Slow Motion

[NeilMacleod]

Very interesting showing how inefficient they are, can see unlit powder thrown out of the muzzle.

 

[Zonie]

Very interesting video.
The only thing that looked very inefficient to me was all of the flaming powder gas that blew past the ball before the ball left the muzzle.

No doubt about it though, these things are serious weapons.

 

[Nyckname]

"The difference between men and boys is the price of their toys."

 

[steam1993]

Love the slow motion.

 

[Rifleman1776]

Great vid, I enjoyed and was grinning all the way through. Could have done without the paid commercial though.

 

[Nyckname]

Could have done without the paid commercial though.

It doesn't work for the first ad (which you can usually skip after five seconds), but I've been told that when there are ads in the middle of a video (they can be spotted by looking for yellow marks in the progress bar), you can skip them by dragging the scroll arrow all of the way to the end, then hitting replay.

 

[Zonie]

You Tube doesn't provide the videos out of the goodness of their heart and someone has to pay for it.
That's why I don't mind the few ad's they show (although I always click them off as soon as I can.)

 

[BillinOregon]

That was well worth watching. Those cameras he used are really something.

 

[Nyckname]

You Tube doesn't provide the videos out of the goodness of their heart and someone has to pay for it.
That's why I don't mind the few ad's they show (although I always click them off as soon as I can.)

That's why I can't attest first hand to the above method for skipping ads.

Of course, t'other way to do it would be to pay for their premium service.

 

[TFoley]

Following up on that YT movie, here is the story of Joseph Whitworth and his measuring machine that gave us a way to measure with a totally new level of precision - AND some epic movie of a 3 pounder Whitworth rifle in action in slow-motion. Great stuff, eh? There is also a quick look at a WoNA Whitworth rifle complete with its Colonel Davidson scope in the Tennessee Museum of the Civil War.....dribble........

 

[TFoley]

Erratum - Tennessee State museum - Civil War Collection.

 

[TFoley]

And here's the first firing of a 12-pounder Whitworth rifled cannon -

 

[kingsax26]

Very interesting video.
The only thing that looked very inefficient to me was all of the flaming powder gas that blew past the ball before the ball left the muzzle.

No doubt about it though, these things are serious weapons.

knowing nothing about cannons, is that something that would normally occur? I would thinkn that you would not really wANT THAT TO HAPPEN

 

[Zonie]

It is pretty normal when a cannon fires a round ball.
The ball is a rather loose fit in the barrel and it isn't patched so any clearance in the bore is going to let a lot of the powder gas blow by.

I imagine the "rifled cannons" had a lot less leakage but even with them I don't think the projectile fit very tightly in the bore.

 

[Daryl Crawford]

@Zonie is correct on that. I'm more familiar with modern cannon (retired CSM, was a forward observer, later CSM of a FA Battalion) but these older guns were more limited in range by the blow by rather than by the actual limitation of the charge. It also tended to damage accuracy, though depending on the actual weapon in question, accuracy was pretty amazing. The Whitworth mentioned above was a pretty remarkable weapon. Not that I'm downing the Napoleons and such, they also had their effective ranges. Imagine that video on top with canister round (or rounds as shooting double canister was not all that uncommon) and you see why Artillery was a feared killer on American Civil War battlefields.

 

[wiksmo]

At about 9:25 in the video, the fellow's explanation of how deadly one round of cannister shot can be was shocking: "...can take out 40 guys." Cannot imagine the Civil War troops marching into such lethal fire. It makes my recall of the opening battle scenes in "Glory" all that more intense. Yeah, a weapon of war it was.

wiksmo

 

[hailcaesar]

With my small cannon firing using a smart phone does show how gasses expand and fireball. But man the high speed camera catches all the small details. I really liked when they showed the shock wave by the over lapping of the frames.

 

[shortstart]

Very interesting showing how inefficient they are, can see unlit powder thrown out of the muzzle.

Great video!

 

[SamTex1949]

Was has impressed me watching these videos and others is seeing the recoil produced. As I have always wondered as I watched movies where ML cannons were being was the lack of seeing "real" recoil and then returning to "battery" the piece for another shot. Think of the "The Alamo" when they are firing the cannons from the elevated positions or any of the Revolutionary/Civil war movies where many cannon are firing along lines then now imagining the actual recoil and return . With the discussion of "blow-by" of the ML cannons seen, I found it interesting that even with the Whitworth gun there was what appeared to be blow-by. It appears when he is loading the projectile ( comment #10) it looks like it has sort of a "paper" patch to it to fit snug ?
Over-all I have a much respectful appreciation for the gun crews of those beasts.
PS: the other part about measurements lead to other UT's on that subject which were very interesting too !

 

[jimirwin]

Very interesting showing how inefficient they are, can see unlit powder thrown out of the muzzle.

I'm a life-long cannoneer. What isn't said is that the full service load is about 3x the powder charge allowed by modern rules and that these old timers were running pressures too dang close to bursting the tubes (barrels) back in the day.