What would be your idea for a modern increase to the Royal Navy? With one caveat it would have to be at least practical, with public support and not OTT like rebuilding Warspite or giving everyone a personal aircraft carrier (although I do admit those would probably be popular with the public). Mine would be 2 cruisers (some sort of modern Kirov equivilant), 4 destroyers, 3 frigates, 1 helicopter carrier (bascially HMS Ocean), 6 submarines, 9 mine warfare vessels and 4 auxiliary vessels. And possibly the introduction of some AShM equipped corvette sized vessels would be a nice addition.
'Morning Drach, I just have a technical question: I've recently joined Discord but I'm still very unfamiliar with it, how can I find you there? Thanks!
If Battleships were to be implemented into the modern-day, what do you think their armament would be and what role would they play in modern naval warfare?
What battle was the picture of the exploding scottish cannon from? I've a feeling I saw it at school some years ago.... us Scots did have a few of them explode on us though! And anyone who's visited Edinburgh knows all about our 1 o'clock gun, a great device to tell the locals from the tourists 😁
Funny anecdote about the reliability of early cannons: Tsar Russia at one point got so fed up with cannons that would just blow up when fired dictated that canon builders who wanted to sell cannons to the state had to personally sit on every cannon as it was fired for the first time before they'd agree to receive that particular cannon. Story says that this caused both the death of a prominent cannon maker by his creation and a marked improvement in the quality of cannons used by the Russians.
@@CharliMorganMusic ha, when I was still in the USMC, I worked on Huey’s and Cobra’s, Avionics, and our best/most awesome CO, told my shop I was the only one he wanted working on his bird from Avionics, I was still a Lance Corporal then, ahah.
-What'd they call a Culverin? -Culverin's a Culverin, but they call it Le Culverin. -Le Culverin. What do they call a Hand cannon? -I dunno, I didn't go into a small arms shop.
"scare horses and, somewhat decisively, bypass armor" "discover new and interesting ways to disassemble their enemy" "surrounded....by smarter crews in swifter ships" "vaguely legitimate, but mostly piratical" 19:50 "Let's just say, shipboard guns, of the period, included, but were not limited to, the following: (he names 26....i'm not doing that...the exhausting thoroughness of the list is it's own humor) (i've said this before. this type of video, tracing the evolution of a particular technology, is my favorite. thanks and well done, Drach.)
Once again we are reminded that the sciences of metallurgy and chemistry are frequently advanced through the roof and at a significant fraction of Mach 1.
Sorry to be so late... I was stationed in Germany with the US Army during the 1970’s. I took some vacation trips to England; especially to visit a hobby shop there in Dover and to see the famous Waterloo diorama. On one of the castle caissons there were some artillery pieces from the time of Queen Elizabeth I (1500’s?). To this day I can recall the inscription on the barrels: Keepe mye bore bryte and kleene And I’ll fyre yore ball to the Calais greene Approximate spelling there! Regards
I found out recently about this channel. Thought it was absolutely marvelous and decided to binge it, after all "5 minutes guides" are not long right? Right? WHAT? About a hundred drydock videos each about an hour long? 30 minutes long "5 minutes guides" about incredibly specific (and damn interesting...) naval history subjects? Well, "recently" means "several weeks ago" and I am still binging!
A brief summary of weapons Ancient Man: Throw rock Man before discovering gunpowder: Throw sticks and shoot arrows at enemy Man after discovering gunpowder: Throw rock but FASTER
Saw that breastplate around 1970 it was in the Tower of London. With typical English understatement the label said “breastplate damaged by cannon fire”
Adding a few things: - Viewers will note Drach refers to the various cannonry as 'bronze' whereas you'll often hear cannonry referred to as 'brass'. They are in fact bronze, the term brass was just a common term for the alloy at the time. - A weapon mentioned early on in the video is the ribauld, and is mentioned alongside the ribauldquin. The ribauld was a light gun and the ribauldquin was a battery of ribaulds on a single carriage, often termed an 'organ gun'. - Finally, terminology. Our modern way of thinking is strongly at variance with pre-industrial thinking. Everything changes with time and place and these classifications are very slippery so be careful if you read sources, see these terms and immediately assume it refers to these particular weapons. Period writers were often not intimately familiar with classifications and just used any old name for a weapon, something they did for nearly everything from ships, to fortifications, armour, hand and missile weapons and so on. It can be intensely frustrating :)
@@DreadX10The big - only - difference between pirate and privateer was that the English monarch and state were investors in privateering ships and crew and expected to make a nice profit from their activities. Much of the capital that funded 16th century English mercantilism, which eventually led to the Industrial Revolution, probably came from privateered Spanish gold transports. European armies were often raised in a similar way to privateers, mercenaries raised as entire companies and regiments by a kind of military entrepreneur who then sold their service. Often to the highest bidder, with some mercenary companies changing sides quite regularly. They were different times...
@@tlw4237The amount of gold stolen by the brits is largely overstated by anglo historians to cope for the spanish golden century, at most it amounted to 5% of the total gold coming from the new world. Just like the "Uboat threat" in WW2 barely made an scratch in cargo coming to and from the british isles.
I believe the painting at 2:40 is of James II of Scotland, whose cannon exploded at the siege of Roxburgh shattering his thigh and killing him pretty much instantly
haven't watched yet, but i hope the title "things that make you go boom" is a deliberate dig at how often they exploded during action. Thus making you, and not your enemy, go boom. spoiler warning!!!!! totally not dissapointed
Early iron cannon: when zip-guns were big enough to stick your hand down the barrel...I mean, that one stone-firing tube was secured to the carriage with ROPES! Yeesh. Thanks for doing this, Drach!
Also, when you consider the size of these guns and the two-wheel mounts, you can imagine the chaos caused by a slipped friction block in high seas. In other words, a 'loose cannon'...
Fun fact: Emperor Maximilian ordered that the first three shots had to be done by the gunmaker. He also created guns himself. And insisted on testing them. And I think that the reason for the amount of different guns was that there is a mix of original siege-weapons (everything with cannon in its name) and field guns, as well as the habit of using outdated guns.
Yes, The testning of a new gun was to be performed by the producer. Furthermore, to avoid producere taking their chance with mere statistics, the common practice, as I've heard it, meant that the 3 test shots were performed with DOUBLE POWDER CHARGE! Just to be sure. No need for later malpractice suits😏
WOW thank you for the great research and the museum class illustrations. To have all this available online!! What a wonderful time to be alive in this universe 45 years ago I was winnowing the Edmonton Centennial and University Libraries catalogs to sift out information.
But they're also more accurate than guns of the Kamchatka... (IIRC, Ottomans actually scored a hit on a British cruiser with a stone ball from a medieval cannon during the whole Dardanelles/Galliopoli campaign in WWI. It didn't do much damage, but... It hit.)
@@nebufabu the thought of Ottomans were still mantaining a set of ancient artillery batteries up until WWI, in service condition nonetheless, in kinda surprising ,but also interesting. And they manage to hit modern warship using that damn thing.... Do u have any source link for this?
Not _that_ high, just higher than any other conceivable profession... farming, for example. Mining is the only thing that comes to mind as having the _possibility._
Fascinating account of early naval guns. It's always interesting as early technology and its use evolves over time, and in this case also led changes in ship design, which continues to this day.
Guns,Guns,Guns! Looking forward to this future mini series Drach, loved the Armour and Boiler Videos too, you know how to make an old Engineer happy with how stuff works and why it was made to work like that. Glory to Croydon!
I agree that 17th century artillery pieces naming is very funny topic. I spent quite a long time making a comparison of different types of land artillery pieces according to english, spanish and german nomenclature - and I didn't find even two sources, which would list same ranges of bore diameter for any class of artillery. In addition, knowing that some piece is for example 12pdr, does not mean much if you do not know in which country it was made, as one pound in this period can mean anything between 0.35 and 0.6 kg. At the end I came to conclusion, that "about 5 inches" is the most accurate value I will ever have for mentioned 12pdr, and I stopped trying to make the table more accurate. Many thanks for showing how the situation was at naval realm, as a person from Czech Republic my access to naval stuff is quite limited.
I am completely excited for part 2 as it covers the age of sail I most love. I grew up reading about Nelson, read all of the Hornblower books again & again, & now am on my 2.5 read-through of the Patrick O'Brien series. I know this takes a massive lot of work to put together, but stuck at Home with no work for the foreseeable future, things to look forward to keep me going
Ok, so we need to first acknowledge that this video is a world class presentation. Nothing comes close to this, (that I’ve found), on the subject. Excellent material. Well done.
I am happy this video has been made. I was vaguely aware of this information, but always have a hard time finding the info when I want to reference it.
In more (relatively speaking) modern times there was the explosion of the Peacemaker gun on the USS Princeton in 1844, killing among others the Secretary of the Navy.
@@jefferyindorf699 if he was present to witness the test firing it would certainly have ended his career. Those sorts of mistakes you don't get to make twice.
Just found this channel mate thankyou and keep it coming It's good to know there are ppl out there who are still interested in this history And thankyou for all the viewers and the comments too
So **that's** why we call them cannon! Having encountered these terms before and been bewildered, I'm actually amazed that you explained them in a way that makes having so many names make sense.
How brutal it must've been, waves and all trying to get a accurate shot and timing, can you imagine the stressful nature of the job back then? Amazing.
Now I've been watching this video for like 6 times... I doesn't grow boring (it gets more and more interesting) and I still can smirk about the style. Simply charming.
2:55 imagine you travel on land and maybe sea... hundreds of miles maybe taking days or weeks to arrive to your destination... finally there both armies take days to assemble and finally they line up on the battlefield and then your king dies when the cannon he stood next to explodes catastrophically. That's gotta do a number on troop morale
I recall reading in the very good book "Confident Hope of a Miracle" was that Iron guns were cheaper and were less rust prone compared to Bronze guns, but as you said Drak, they exploded when they went wrong. A Bronze gun when they failed would bulge and would obviiously be broken, rather than spreading itself across a gun deck and very high speed which Iron cannons did when they went wrong. But Iron cannons were generally better, and newer forging techniques made them way more reliable.
the big break through with iron guns was casting them solid and then boring them rather than casting them with the bore in them as this caused a differential in the rate in cooling down causing potential fractures, this gave more strength to the gun during casting and boring reduced windage thus greatly improving accuracy.
I thought Bronze was pretty resistant to corrosion such as oxidation. Certainly more resistant than iron. Though I guess these guns could be so thick that a little rust wouldn’t do much damage right away, but would absolutely contribute to wear on the thickness over time.
@@aebirkbeck2693 Aye and they took to forging/casting Iron guns upright, making sure that the purest metals would be in the base where the boom took place. Allowing it to take the shock of said boom.
@@samiamrg7 Ya probably right :) I do recommend reading the book Confident Hope of a Miracle, its about the Armada and all the stuff going on beforehand and after. Its not a Britwank book either that heaps praise on the British either, its a very balanced book and isn't a huge wall of TLDR text as its damn well paced and written :)
According to 16th century literature by professionnals, for most of the century bronze was favoured - lighter (very important, likely deciding factor), more resistant as @samiamrg7 says. Besides improvement in the iron guns, the bronze-gun price increase - and the overall increase in the number of guns per ship - was certainly a factor that contributed to their end.
Thank you so much for the effort you put into this channel. It is quite something, your treading the line between huge levels of detail and wry humour is a marvel. Thank you. Jonathan
Great video as usual, Drach!!! What better thing to do in these dire times than review the even more dire times of the past. Tripping through the names and explanations of the Naval pieces was particularly entertaining. I can't wait for the follow up vids (since we all seem to have plenty of spare time right now). Cheers and stay safe and healthy!!!
I love your channel I learn something new all the time. I also love the way you deliver this knowledge," actively distribute themselves and their crews across the battlefield ". Ie they explode🙃🤪
Worth watching twice. I'm pretty good with steel and breach loading but there is a whole lot here I didn't pick up on before. I had even off-hand thought that iron would just be better than bronze in all ways (lighter stronger cheaper more available) when iron at this time was only cheaper. It was harder to work, harder to make an adequate bore for, and harder to make safe.
Complete landlubber here, the nearest salt water to me is over 1000 km.'s away. Have you, or would you, consider doing a video about fire control system(s)? As a shooter of conventional firearms I find it amazing that a weapon of any kind could fire even close to accurately on an unpredictably moving platform.
Excellent video, and thanks for the nuance on the Armada! Some more additional points: 1) Spanish galleons were actually limited to about 10 in the armada and were quite flush-decked (~2m forecastle (and one deck only, not the 2 or 3 of carracks), ~2m aft castle, plus ~2m for poop deck - a set-up that would endure until approx the late 17ths century. The "invention" of flush decked ships (in comparison to carracks) seems to have been a European invention, featuring first Spanish attempts in the 1550s (Bazan's galleons and galleasses), Baker's galleons and Spanish ordenanza-built galleons as well as those built in 1582 and 1589. And, of course, the Dutch ships. The Portuguese galleons gained in 1580 after the unification were "galleonised" by the Spanish admiral at the time, e.g. their superstructures reduced. Cross-country learning was probably crucial for those developments 2) In the video, @drachinifel, you mention the Reggazzona, the San Martin and Trinidad in a breath, but all were actually very different ships. San Martin was a Portuguese warship, very resistent, and galleonised the Spanish way in 1580. The Regazona was a giant merchant ship built in Venice. The Trinidad Valencera was a huge grain merchant, whose properties were unsuited for heavy artillery (the hull was designed to withstand the outward pressure of grain, but not inward-pressure of a gun-recoil). The actual warships in the Armada were between 20 (Portuguese galleons, galleasses, Castillian galleons built in 1582, Florencia and one French galleon) and 46 (includes some armed merchantmen as warships), depending on the author. The ships closest to galleons were the Portuguese, Florencia, French and Castilian galleons (which all fared excellently). 3) The question of gun loading and carriage performance remains highly debated, but some points seem likely: loading after pulling a fixed gun inward (e.g. no recoil use for inward hauling) was the preferred method of professionals, both Spanish and English. Indeed, some Spanish ship designers attempted to design recoil-using , for two-wheel carriages (Bazan in 1550s, "the other invention being that two guns be used at the bow and paired such that when one gun fires, it hauls the other out, while itself going in" - implying that there were those two positions for gun use in battle, one for loading, one for firing. Palacio in 1587, who proposes ropes that are shorter on one side of the gun carriage, "so that when it goes back [with recoil], it is held back such as to rotate pointing parallel to the ship (e.g. forward)" and then can be loaded). The two-vs four wheel performance remains to be proven, and over the years several arguments have been made. The heaviest guns were placed as bow- (attack ability) and stern (defend-ability) chasers, and if possible one gun in the centre, and other guns in/around the fore-castle so as to point forward; line-abreast was the standard formation, and according to Rodger 1996, the goal of naval designers in the 16ths cent was to emulate the galley, i.e. the ability to place heavy guns pointing forward. The measure for sailing ships performance was their ability to defeat galleys (which could point 5 guns in the same direction, with relatively high precision - taking into account that broadsides on sailing ships would feature 8 to 16 guns on two-gun deck ships... which not all faced in exactly the same direction), and the 1596 English victory in Lisbon against galleys was as much, if not more celebrated, than the 1588 outcome. 4) The "massive" use of hull-smashing ordinance, with the goal of sinking a ship was certainly not an English invention, nor a standard tactic (as often credited to Drake). It would have been quite illogical for a privateer to invent a tactic based on sinking a ship, as your goal as a privateer is generally to board and capture the cargo. If I remember correctly, no ship was actually sunk by the English in 1588 due to gunfire. That boarding tactics remained prevalent is also shown by the Revenge's own demise: its crew resisted heroically to Spanish assaults, which was possible due to its fore and aftcastles, where the crew had taken refuge to repel assaults.
Loved this, even though I already knew most of this. Kind of knew it - not to the point of being able to answer whether a demi-saker was more often cast in iron or bronze...
32:10 I was not prepared for the medieval cannon on coaster wheels. Just imagining that firing and rolling back against the stops with the sound of an office chair.
Thanks Drach I appreciate the 'history of 'x'' type videos even if they get fewer views. I am a real fan of learning how all things naval evolved over time.
This video reminds me of my favourite hand tool (just going by the name). It is a hand file that is flat on one side, round on the other, coarse near the handle, and fine near the tip, with the proper name for such a tool being the coarse/fine round/flat double bastard file!
Another superb documentary. You should be showing this to the BBC, and getting them to commission you to finish it with a huge budget (and payday)! First rate!
Pinned post for Q&A :)
What would be your idea for a modern increase to the Royal Navy? With one caveat it would have to be at least practical, with public support and not OTT like rebuilding Warspite or giving everyone a personal aircraft carrier (although I do admit those would probably be popular with the public). Mine would be 2 cruisers (some sort of modern Kirov equivilant), 4 destroyers, 3 frigates, 1 helicopter carrier (bascially HMS Ocean), 6 submarines, 9 mine warfare vessels and 4 auxiliary vessels. And possibly the introduction of some AShM equipped corvette sized vessels would be a nice addition.
A US carrier battlegroup sails into a wormhole, is teleported to mid 1942 and is scattered to the four winds. What happens?
'Morning Drach, I just have a technical question: I've recently joined Discord but I'm still very unfamiliar with it, how can I find you there? Thanks!
If Battleships were to be implemented into the modern-day, what do you think their armament would be and what role would they play in modern naval warfare?
What battle was the picture of the exploding scottish cannon from? I've a feeling I saw it at school some years ago.... us Scots did have a few of them explode on us though! And anyone who's visited Edinburgh knows all about our 1 o'clock gun, a great device to tell the locals from the tourists 😁
Funny anecdote about the reliability of early cannons: Tsar Russia at one point got so fed up with cannons that would just blow up when fired dictated that canon builders who wanted to sell cannons to the state had to personally sit on every cannon as it was fired for the first time before they'd agree to receive that particular cannon. Story says that this caused both the death of a prominent cannon maker by his creation and a marked improvement in the quality of cannons used by the Russians.
I knew a helicopter mech whose pilot refused to fly the helicopter without him in it, too, following repairs or maintainace
I swear that is awesome
Not only the Russians.
A Danish king made the same "request". ;)
@@CharliMorganMusic ha, when I was still in the USMC, I worked on Huey’s and Cobra’s, Avionics, and our best/most awesome CO, told my shop I was the only one he wanted working on his bird from Avionics, I was still a Lance Corporal then, ahah.
Vincent: "You know what they call a Quarter Pounder Cannon in Paris?
Jules: "What'd they call it?"
Vincent: "They call it Cannon Royale."
*with cheese*
Horseshoecrabwarrior I mean if it’s French that’s just assumed
@@Horseshoecrabwarrior A cannon royale is useless without cheese.
Hand me my falconet. It's the one that has bad mother*cker engraved on it.
-What'd they call a Culverin?
-Culverin's a Culverin, but they call it Le Culverin.
-Le Culverin. What do they call a Hand cannon?
-I dunno, I didn't go into a small arms shop.
"scare horses and, somewhat decisively, bypass armor"
"discover new and interesting ways to disassemble their enemy"
"surrounded....by smarter crews in swifter ships"
"vaguely legitimate, but mostly piratical"
19:50 "Let's just say, shipboard guns, of the period, included, but were not limited to, the following: (he names 26....i'm not doing that...the exhausting thoroughness of the list is it's own humor)
(i've said this before. this type of video, tracing the evolution of a particular technology, is my favorite. thanks and well done, Drach.)
When the Stovepipe hat was introduced one man was convicted of scaring the horses with his hat. Bet you didn't know horses were fashion conscious.
I liked the smarter crews in swifter ships xx
I love brittish understatements.
@Jonathan Stiles this man (Drach) DESERVES a larger audience xx
British humor is the best!
(Except in Britain, where it magically becomes "humour.")
Once again we are reminded that the sciences of metallurgy and chemistry are frequently advanced through the roof and at a significant fraction of Mach 1.
Onward and upward! Also sideways. All around, really.
@@Ealsante FOR SCIENCEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE *ting*
I know ballistics, very interesting subject - things go up, things go down
Is that a Terry Pratchett quote?
@@demonmonsterdave While it certainly reads like one, it's not.
"Actively distributing themselves and their crews across the surrounding landscape on a worryingly frequent basis ..." LOL
Or what David Fletcher of The Tank Museum, Bovington would refer to as, "Not Ideal"
...or as the Chieftain would say " a significant emotional event".
Dry British humor.
@@BigPuddin The best kind
Its not a humor,Its eloquence.🙂
Sorry to be so late...
I was stationed in Germany with the US Army during the 1970’s. I took some vacation trips to England; especially to visit a hobby shop there in Dover and to see the famous Waterloo diorama. On one of the castle caissons there were some artillery pieces from the time of Queen Elizabeth I (1500’s?). To this day I can recall the inscription on the barrels:
Keepe mye bore bryte and kleene
And I’ll fyre yore ball to the Calais greene
Approximate spelling there!
Regards
I found out recently about this channel. Thought it was absolutely marvelous and decided to binge it, after all "5 minutes guides" are not long right? Right?
WHAT? About a hundred drydock videos each about an hour long? 30 minutes long "5 minutes guides" about incredibly specific (and damn interesting...) naval history subjects?
Well, "recently" means "several weeks ago" and I am still binging!
He ended up with a couple of 3 hour videos the other month... poor Drach.
It's like finding a bottomless toy chest..
Plenty of quarantine entertainment!
@@darrellsmith4204 Until you reach the bottom...kind of wish I could do a brain wipe about now so I could do a fresh watch.
Drach is perfect for the current house arrest situation here.
A brief summary of weapons
Ancient Man: Throw rock
Man before discovering gunpowder: Throw sticks and shoot arrows at enemy
Man after discovering gunpowder: Throw rock but FASTER
Man after discovering rocketry: Make rock throw itself.
Germany 1945. Sir we are running out of rocks
man after 1952: throw sun at enemy
Getting the gunpowder to do all the hard work.
Now we throw Arrows, but faster. Its called APDSFS Ammunition. Standard for modern Tanks
Saw that breastplate around 1970 it was in the Tower of London. With typical English understatement the label said “breastplate damaged by cannon fire”
"The wearer likely did not take any further part in this battle" :D
Tis but a scratch.
Tis but a flesh wound.
‘Tis but a scar
Tis but a smear
Adding a few things:
- Viewers will note Drach refers to the various cannonry as 'bronze' whereas you'll often hear cannonry referred to as 'brass'. They are in fact bronze, the term brass was just a common term for the alloy at the time.
- A weapon mentioned early on in the video is the ribauld, and is mentioned alongside the ribauldquin. The ribauld was a light gun and the ribauldquin was a battery of ribaulds on a single carriage, often termed an 'organ gun'.
- Finally, terminology. Our modern way of thinking is strongly at variance with pre-industrial thinking. Everything changes with time and place and these classifications are very slippery so be careful if you read sources, see these terms and immediately assume it refers to these particular weapons. Period writers were often not intimately familiar with classifications and just used any old name for a weapon, something they did for nearly everything from ships, to fortifications, armour, hand and missile weapons and so on. It can be intensely frustrating :)
What a lovely man you are
Gun: *is inaccurate*
Some engineer: If that don't work, use more gun.
I wonder if his name was Jebediah Kerman...
Yep, that's why they built three-decker gun ships with over a hundred guns on them.
the history of dakka dakka is truly fascinating
"haha WAAAAAAAAAAGH goes the engineer"
@@frostedcat I have 'If Emperor of Man had text-to-speech device' flashbacks.
"Vaguely legitimate but mostly piratical" : A history of the British and Dutch Navies.
Yep, a piece of parchment with an autograph makes it buccaneering and that, somehow, makes it totally different from pirateering.
I take offense at that, sir, I am a privateer! I have my documents here somewhere, wait a minute. Oh, here they are. See, not a pirate at all.
@@steyn1775 Laughs in Pilfered Doubloons!
@@DreadX10The big - only - difference between pirate and privateer was that the English monarch and state were investors in privateering ships and crew and expected to make a nice profit from their activities. Much of the capital that funded 16th century English mercantilism, which eventually led to the Industrial Revolution, probably came from privateered Spanish gold transports.
European armies were often raised in a similar way to privateers, mercenaries raised as entire companies and regiments by a kind of military entrepreneur who then sold their service. Often to the highest bidder, with some mercenary companies changing sides quite regularly.
They were different times...
@@tlw4237The amount of gold stolen by the brits is largely overstated by anglo historians to cope for the spanish golden century, at most it amounted to 5% of the total gold coming from the new world.
Just like the "Uboat threat" in WW2 barely made an scratch in cargo coming to and from the british isles.
Me: I've finally got my working from home self-discipline down!
Drach: Here's some naval guns.
Me: :O
"Navel Guns"
Me: sounds kinda kinky...
@@angelolorilla2050 Whatever floats your boat!
(Sneaky edits float mine)
Drach: Roll Willpower for self control.
Eveyone: *Rolls a 1*
Drach: Looks like you Critically Failed.
most days it's just easier to start with Plan B
I believe the painting at 2:40 is of James II of Scotland, whose cannon exploded at the siege of Roxburgh shattering his thigh and killing him pretty much instantly
haven't watched yet, but i hope the title "things that make you go boom" is a deliberate dig at how often they exploded during action. Thus making you, and not your enemy, go boom.
spoiler warning!!!!!
totally not dissapointed
boom boom
My first thought was a song reference. Things That Make You Go Hmmm....by C+C Music Factory.
MARK AS SPOILER PLEASE
READING THIS WHILE AD IS RUNNING
@@Zaluskowsky okay. will do, although i didn't think suspense was an important part of drachinifels videos. to each their own i suppose.
NAILED it.
Early iron cannon: when zip-guns were big enough to stick your hand down the barrel...I mean, that one stone-firing tube was secured to the carriage with ROPES! Yeesh. Thanks for doing this, Drach!
Also, when you consider the size of these guns and the two-wheel mounts, you can imagine the chaos caused by a slipped friction block in high seas. In other words, a 'loose cannon'...
Fun fact: Emperor Maximilian ordered that the first three shots had to be done by the gunmaker. He also created guns himself. And insisted on testing them.
And I think that the reason for the amount of different guns was that there is a mix of original siege-weapons (everything with cannon in its name) and field guns, as well as the habit of using outdated guns.
Yes, The testning of a new gun was to be performed by the producer. Furthermore, to avoid producere taking their chance with mere statistics, the common practice, as I've heard it, meant that the 3 test shots were performed with DOUBLE POWDER CHARGE! Just to be sure. No need for later malpractice suits😏
@@ulrikschackmeyer848 Using a super hot load to test a gun barrel is called proofing, and it's still done today with modern firearms.
“Guns of the Age of Steel”
That is a hardcore phrase.
"New ways to disassamble their enemies" That's awsome way how to put it :))
That's what I love about your videos. You somehow make a subject that would put the average person to sleep and make it entertaining.
WOW thank you for the great research and the museum class illustrations. To have all this available online!! What a wonderful time to be alive in this universe 45 years ago I was winnowing the Edmonton Centennial and University Libraries catalogs to sift out information.
Putting a humorous spin on an oft-forgotten part of history
Can't wait to see the rest of this series
19:53 Meh, still not as many gun types as French pre dreadnoughts
Gun maker: which type of guns do you want.
French: All of them.
@@bigblue6917 *all of zhem
Do some research then..... .
But they're also more accurate than guns of the Kamchatka... (IIRC, Ottomans actually scored a hit on a British cruiser with a stone ball from a medieval cannon during the whole Dardanelles/Galliopoli campaign in WWI. It didn't do much damage, but... It hit.)
@@nebufabu the thought of Ottomans were still mantaining a set of ancient artillery batteries up until WWI, in service condition nonetheless, in kinda surprising ,but also interesting.
And they manage to hit modern warship using that damn thing....
Do u have any source link for this?
My dear friend, your irony is wonderful! Facts and irony in perfect harmony!!! Live long and prosper!🖖
luckily this was only a 5minute guide, or I would have been overwhelmed by all the information.
No comment 😂!
Yeah, so first read of the title and my thought is “Yes, that time period, I suppose my chances of going boom when I use those are indeed quite high.”
Not _that_ high, just higher than any other conceivable profession... farming, for example. Mining is the only thing that comes to mind as having the _possibility._
@@absalomdraconis Chemistry is another classic.
Suggestion for ship classes to review:
Soviet Great Patriotic War era riverine vessels.
Yes please!
Fascinating account of early naval guns. It's always interesting as early technology and its use evolves over time, and in this case also led changes in ship design, which continues to this day.
Hello Drach…...Just sat down with coffee and found this : ) Besafe 2020 everyone !
Guns,Guns,Guns!
Looking forward to this future mini series Drach, loved the Armour and Boiler Videos too, you know how to make an old Engineer happy with how stuff works and why it was made to work like that.
Glory to Croydon!
Thank you Drach, hope you're doing well with everything going on!
Another light in the darkness of these strange times we are currently in.... thanks Drach.
a great way to spend time in lockdown. GOOD SHOW!
I agree that 17th century artillery pieces naming is very funny topic. I spent quite a long time making a comparison of different types of land artillery pieces according to english, spanish and german nomenclature - and I didn't find even two sources, which would list same ranges of bore diameter for any class of artillery. In addition, knowing that some piece is for example 12pdr, does not mean much if you do not know in which country it was made, as one pound in this period can mean anything between 0.35 and 0.6 kg. At the end I came to conclusion, that "about 5 inches" is the most accurate value I will ever have for mentioned 12pdr, and I stopped trying to make the table more accurate. Many thanks for showing how the situation was at naval realm, as a person from Czech Republic my access to naval stuff is quite limited.
Ah yes a magnificent video on those long things that go bang. Yesssssssss
I am completely excited for part 2 as it covers the age of sail I most love. I grew up reading about Nelson, read all of the Hornblower books again & again, & now am on my 2.5 read-through of the Patrick O'Brien series. I know this takes a massive lot of work to put together, but stuck at Home with no work for the foreseeable future, things to look forward to keep me going
I'm going to really enjoy this series. Thank you again Drach!
That was a very well thought out, well researched and well presented film.
Ok, so we need to first acknowledge that this video is a world class presentation. Nothing comes close to this, (that I’ve found), on the subject. Excellent material. Well done.
I can't wait to watch this after work! So glad that I found your channel, A+ content in my opinion
Yes! More videos from the age of sail would be really appreciated. I think the age of sail is a naval timeframe many don’t know so much about
This is going to fill a void in my understanding of the evolution of boomsticks that I've yearned for so long, Thanks Drach!
Well done my friend, You made this old hippie's day and he is looking forwards to the next 3
I Love how you take the time to learn the proper pronunciation of the various languages of the names of ships. Excellent and very classy.
I am happy this video has been made. I was vaguely aware of this information, but always have a hard time finding the info when I want to reference it.
This channel really changed my life. I’ve never been so interested in a single subject
In more (relatively speaking) modern times there was the explosion of the Peacemaker gun on the USS Princeton in 1844, killing among others the Secretary of the Navy.
John it was obviously a simple case of poor spelling. It should have been Piecemaker.
Not a good career move for the designer of that gun. 😒
@@jefferyindorf699 if he was present to witness the test firing it would certainly have ended his career. Those sorts of mistakes you don't get to make twice.
The variety of cannon at 20 minutes is mind blowing!
2:33 god bless you and your dry British humor
Just found this channel mate thankyou and keep it coming
It's good to know there are ppl out there who are still interested in this history
And thankyou for all the viewers and the comments too
So **that's** why we call them cannon!
Having encountered these terms before and been bewildered, I'm actually amazed that you explained them in a way that makes having so many names make sense.
How brutal it must've been, waves and all trying to get a accurate shot and timing, can you imagine the stressful nature of the job back then? Amazing.
omg i am so excited for the rest of the series
15:18 Vaguely legitimate activities... I like your comment style so much. 😎
Now I've been watching this video for like 6 times... I doesn't grow boring (it gets more and more interesting) and I still can smirk about the style. Simply charming.
17:02 The stern of that ship looks like a man wearing a silly hat is angry at the boat following him.
Says the ship, "I shall murder thee, and slowly."
2:55 imagine you travel on land and maybe sea... hundreds of miles maybe taking days or weeks to arrive to your destination... finally there both armies take days to assemble and finally they line up on the battlefield and then your king dies when the cannon he stood next to explodes catastrophically.
That's gotta do a number on troop morale
I recall reading in the very good book "Confident Hope of a Miracle" was that Iron guns were cheaper and were less rust prone compared to Bronze guns, but as you said Drak, they exploded when they went wrong. A Bronze gun when they failed would bulge and would obviiously be broken, rather than spreading itself across a gun deck and very high speed which Iron cannons did when they went wrong. But Iron cannons were generally better, and newer forging techniques made them way more reliable.
the big break through with iron guns was casting them solid and then boring them rather than casting them with the bore in them as this caused a differential in the rate in cooling down causing potential fractures, this gave more strength to the gun during casting and boring reduced windage thus greatly improving accuracy.
I thought Bronze was pretty resistant to corrosion such as oxidation. Certainly more resistant than iron.
Though I guess these guns could be so thick that a little rust wouldn’t do much damage right away, but would absolutely contribute to wear on the thickness over time.
@@aebirkbeck2693 Aye and they took to forging/casting Iron guns upright, making sure that the purest metals would be in the base where the boom took place. Allowing it to take the shock of said boom.
@@samiamrg7 Ya probably right :) I do recommend reading the book Confident Hope of a Miracle, its about the Armada and all the stuff going on beforehand and after. Its not a Britwank book either that heaps praise on the British either, its a very balanced book and isn't a huge wall of TLDR text as its damn well paced and written :)
According to 16th century literature by professionnals, for most of the century bronze was favoured - lighter (very important, likely deciding factor), more resistant as @samiamrg7 says. Besides improvement in the iron guns, the bronze-gun price increase - and the overall increase in the number of guns per ship - was certainly a factor that contributed to their end.
Great entertainment to look at your videos in theese troubled times
Thank you so much for the effort you put into this channel. It is quite something, your treading the line between huge levels of detail and wry humour is a marvel. Thank you. Jonathan
Thanks, Drac! Now I can't get that C&C song out of my head!
...When early cannon fired stone shot
"You haven't got the stones."
Followed by later cannons.
"You haven't got the balls."
Barrel rips open like a banana at groin height.
"Not now."
Followed by 'you haven't got the parts'
@@aitchisondaniel Don't worry, I hear that happens to lots of guys.
No stones? Let them Eat Cheese! (That stuff is too hard for us to eat, anyway.) Frommage attack!
This is why I watch Drachinifel. Details, details, details. My inner history herd is thoroughly satisfied right now lol
Great video as usual, Drach!!! What better thing to do in these dire times than review the even more dire times of the past. Tripping through the names and explanations of the Naval pieces was particularly entertaining. I can't wait for the follow up vids (since we all seem to have plenty of spare time right now). Cheers and stay safe and healthy!!!
i was just thinking "i need a new Drachinifel Video" and low & behold it appears.
Two wishes left. Choose wisely!
Saw the intro, listened to your voice for ~15 seconds, and subscribed.
I can spot quality content a mile away, provided I can hear its voice.
I love your channel I learn something new all the time. I also love the way you deliver this knowledge," actively distribute themselves and their crews across the battlefield ". Ie they explode🙃🤪
I love the fact that the list at 19:55 basically sounds like the tech tree or gun arsenal in a video game!
Worth watching twice. I'm pretty good with steel and breach loading but there is a whole lot here I didn't pick up on before. I had even off-hand thought that iron would just be better than bronze in all ways (lighter stronger cheaper more available) when iron at this time was only cheaper. It was harder to work, harder to make an adequate bore for, and harder to make safe.
Making the Santa Caterina 140 gun Carrack from 1540, this is most helpful, a subject I've had hard time trying to find information on.
The Mark Felton of the sea
Does that make Mark Felton the Drach of the land?
Entertaining and scholarly, nice touch, thanks.
Complete landlubber here, the nearest salt water to me is over 1000 km.'s away. Have you, or would you, consider doing a video about fire control system(s)? As a shooter of conventional firearms I find it amazing that a weapon of any kind could fire even close to accurately on an unpredictably moving platform.
Your target, however, is very large, and there are a large number of guns firing. Accuracy my volume.
Excellent video, and thanks for the nuance on the Armada! Some more additional points: 1) Spanish galleons were actually limited to about 10 in the armada and were quite flush-decked (~2m forecastle (and one deck only, not the 2 or 3 of carracks), ~2m aft castle, plus ~2m for poop deck - a set-up that would endure until approx the late 17ths century. The "invention" of flush decked ships (in comparison to carracks) seems to have been a European invention, featuring first Spanish attempts in the 1550s (Bazan's galleons and galleasses), Baker's galleons and Spanish ordenanza-built galleons as well as those built in 1582 and 1589. And, of course, the Dutch ships. The Portuguese galleons gained in 1580 after the unification were "galleonised" by the Spanish admiral at the time, e.g. their superstructures reduced. Cross-country learning was probably crucial for those developments 2) In the video, @drachinifel, you mention the Reggazzona, the San Martin and Trinidad in a breath, but all were actually very different ships. San Martin was a Portuguese warship, very resistent, and galleonised the Spanish way in 1580. The Regazona was a giant merchant ship built in Venice. The Trinidad Valencera was a huge grain merchant, whose properties were unsuited for heavy artillery (the hull was designed to withstand the outward pressure of grain, but not inward-pressure of a gun-recoil). The actual warships in the Armada were between 20 (Portuguese galleons, galleasses, Castillian galleons built in 1582, Florencia and one French galleon) and 46 (includes some armed merchantmen as warships), depending on the author. The ships closest to galleons were the Portuguese, Florencia, French and Castilian galleons (which all fared excellently). 3) The question of gun loading and carriage performance remains highly debated, but some points seem likely: loading after pulling a fixed gun inward (e.g. no recoil use for inward hauling) was the preferred method of professionals, both Spanish and English. Indeed, some Spanish ship designers attempted to design recoil-using , for two-wheel carriages (Bazan in 1550s, "the other invention being that two guns be used at the bow and paired such that when one gun fires, it hauls the other out, while itself going in" - implying that there were those two positions for gun use in battle, one for loading, one for firing. Palacio in 1587, who proposes ropes that are shorter on one side of the gun carriage, "so that when it goes back [with recoil], it is held back such as to rotate pointing parallel to the ship (e.g. forward)" and then can be loaded). The two-vs four wheel performance remains to be proven, and over the years several arguments have been made. The heaviest guns were placed as bow- (attack ability) and stern (defend-ability) chasers, and if possible one gun in the centre, and other guns in/around the fore-castle so as to point forward; line-abreast was the standard formation, and according to Rodger 1996, the goal of naval designers in the 16ths cent was to emulate the galley, i.e. the ability to place heavy guns pointing forward. The measure for sailing ships performance was their ability to defeat galleys (which could point 5 guns in the same direction, with relatively high precision - taking into account that broadsides on sailing ships would feature 8 to 16 guns on two-gun deck ships... which not all faced in exactly the same direction), and the 1596 English victory in Lisbon against galleys was as much, if not more celebrated, than the 1588 outcome. 4) The "massive" use of hull-smashing ordinance, with the goal of sinking a ship was certainly not an English invention, nor a standard tactic (as often credited to Drake). It would have been quite illogical for a privateer to invent a tactic based on sinking a ship, as your goal as a privateer is generally to board and capture the cargo. If I remember correctly, no ship was actually sunk by the English in 1588 due to gunfire. That boarding tactics remained prevalent is also shown by the Revenge's own demise: its crew resisted heroically to Spanish assaults, which was possible due to its fore and aftcastles, where the crew had taken refuge to repel assaults.
Great vid Drac
Thank you so much for this video! :) I was looking for such a video for a long time.
Artillery - The last argument of kings.
Guillotines - The counterargument of the commons.
@Jurg Schupbach
Let the best barber win!
@@The_Crimson_Fucker : No need for the best, they settled for the last!
@@absalomdraconis
By definition, last is best.
Loved this, even though I already knew most of this.
Kind of knew it - not to the point of being able to answer whether a demi-saker was more often cast in iron or bronze...
32:10 I was not prepared for the medieval cannon on coaster wheels. Just imagining that firing and rolling back against the stops with the sound of an office chair.
Do more videos like this! I've already watched it several times. It's great fun and very informative.
Thanks Drach
I appreciate the 'history of 'x'' type videos even if they get fewer views.
I am a real fan of learning how all things naval evolved over time.
Yay, plus a promise of more quality episodes to follow. Cheered up.
Great work as always! With your videos quarantine is much more bearable.
Drachinifel and naval gun history? Yes, please! Haven't clicked so fast!
20:00 interesting to hear "pedrero", a Spanish word, in the English clasification system.
13:00 Portuguese in Shogun 2: "Oh no! Bune sir! Thousands of 'em!
These are the best kinds of Drachinifel videos.
Great video ..thanks for all your work in the making.
This video reminds me of my favourite hand tool (just going by the name). It is a hand file that is flat on one side, round on the other, coarse near the handle, and fine near the tip, with the proper name for such a tool being the coarse/fine round/flat double bastard file!
Quarantining with Drach! Thanks for the vid!
This is an absolutely wonderful series, thank you!
Whoa! "Uploaded 7 seconds ago" when browsing the channel for more info about Beatty and his lil flag officer
Another superb documentary. You should be showing this to the BBC, and getting them to commission you to finish it with a huge budget (and payday)! First rate!
Sir Drachinifel - Could You make video about sickness and pandemia issues, caunter measures of them and rules for sick on ships?
Thanks it's very interisting ! Impatient to see more...😉
Excellent video! Just discovered your channel and I’m on a binge!
Me: Wondering how to stay sane working from home
TH-cam: New Drach video...
Me: Huzzah!!!
So now I can wait on the next episode of this along with destroyer and carrier history series