What The Heck ??

[Rick]

What is this thing?
Obviously a gun; but how and why??

[fernando]

Just send it over and i will bear the burden of finding "how", Rick. The "why" seems more obvious, although the tubes (barrels) sticking out in their ducts don't look much consitent. The center one looks also peculiar, as it looks made in two parts ... or is it cracked ?
I wonder whether Philip Tom is familiar with these things. Let's page him .
And by the way, could you post a picture of the whole device ... or does it also belong to your friend with the local bar ?

[Rick]

I can't give you any more pictures.
I just stumbled on the picture while browsing the web.
It piqued my curiosity that's for sure.

[RobertGuy]

I think it fits in a vase for flower arranging.

[Philip]

Wow, this is wild. More pics will certainly help, from various angles. At this point I share Fernando's reservation about the central barrel.

From a functional perspective, I find the design puzzling. The arrangement of barrels would require the shooter to keep track of which ones he fired as he rotates the thing in his hand. Wouldn't a volley ignited in sequence, from one end of a row of aligned touchholes (in an organ-pipe or harmonica arrangement), make more sense? Especially since such a weapon can't be aimed with any precision, so a hail of multiple shots going off rapidly might make more sense.

We've all seen examples of organ-pipe handguns and artillery pieces. I can't recall seeing something quite like this, with little barrels arranged as on a stalk of grain. Does anybody remember anything remotely similar from a long-ago thread?

[Marcus den toom]

Lets not forget our greatest contributor... please :/
Post 27

It is also published in the book " der macjt des feuers"
It was a chain shot cannon, as sugested.

http://www.vikingsword.com/vb/showth...t=Multi+barrel

[Rick]

Any German speakers here?

This was the picture tag.
Sturmkolben fur Brandsatz

I see you have identified it in my absence.

[Marcus den toom]

Loosly translated it is a war mace/gun with pitch/sulpher mixture..

Explosive, deadly.. it reused medieval gothic barrels. I have a few in my collection, only 6cm long with a 9mm bore.

[fernando]

Marcus is obviously right; he still has a fresh memory, while mine has already reached the Alzheimer status.
So this is not for throwing solid shot but incendary stuff; the tubes vent holes are turned into the central wooden bore where their ignition may be obatined in a sequence. The tubes are in principle pieces of disused musket barrels.

(Die Macht des Feuers. Pages 143 & 307).


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[fernando]

Originally Posted by Rick

Any German speakers here?

This was the picture tag.
Sturmkolben fur Brandsatz

A rather idiomaticc expression, meaning sort of Incendiary compound storm piston
... As if i knew any german at all .

[corrado26]

"Sturmkolben fur Brandsatz"

"Sturm" in this expression has nothing to do with a storm or strong winds, but with "Attack"

"Kolben" here stands for a bundle of barrels, so the English translation should be "attackbundle"
corrado26

[fernando]

Thsnk you for the right translation, Corrado.
This is what happens when we resource translation egines. I was confident that the one i got was about right as, storm/ing (in english) also means invading, assaulting, atacking, as i obviously din't mean 'storm' as a weather condition .
Quote:"The general decided not to storm the fortress".
As for Kolben i found no other traslation than that of 'piston', as obviously not for a motorcar engine component . The authors of "Die Macht des Feuer", a bilingual work, decided to tag "Sturmkolben" as "Trunk", perhaps due to an admitable problematic translation.
Maybe this is why Michl admited in his post #27 that he would be glad to know the English equivalent for this so called (in german) "Sturmkolben" or "Igel" (hedgehog).
But of course you are German speaking and surely know what you talk about.
Here is a functional replica of theses things 'storming a castle', a test developed by VesteCoburg.


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