A cannon chainshot

[CutlassCollector]

I too have also read that the British tended to aim at the hull, or more accurately at the deck - not to sink the ship but to damage the guns and kill as many crew as possible prior to boarding, while the French aimed at the rigging to disable the ship to enable boarding.

The variety of anti rigging shot in this thread is amazing. If the aiming strategy is correct then I wonder if the majority of this type of shot was of French/European manufacture rather than British.

It is also surprising that there is not more evidence of the use of fire projectiles to burn sails and rigging. There are some drawings of 'frisbees' and fire arrows launched from small arms but not much else. Does anyone know anything more about fire projectiles?

Remember that it was very hard to sink a wooden ship with the weapons of the day. There was nothing that could penetrate below the water and any shot coming through at the waterline could be plugged with wood and canvas and warships carried ready made plugs of the diameter of common sizes of shot. This probably only applied to smaller ships anyway. The Victory had sides two foot thick of solid oak and the USS Constitution was nicknamed 'old ironsides' for good reason.

At the Battle of Trafalgar the British captured 20 ships but of the 73 ships involved in the battle only two were sunk and these by fire and explosion. Interestingly nature is not so limited as many ships that had been damaged in the battle were sunk in a storm a few days later.

As early as 1807 Robert Fulton was testing, not very successfully, the first experimental torpedoes at the Washington Navy Yard.

[fernando]

Originally Posted by CutlassCollector

... It is also surprising that there is not more evidence of the use of fire projectiles to burn sails and rigging. There are some drawings of 'frisbees' and fire arrows launched from small arms but not much else. Does anyone know anything more about fire projectiles ...

You can imagine there was quite a paraphernalia of burning devices. Listen to this episode that took place in Malaca in 1513:

The Malay junks, copied from the Chinese, were excellent ships that in terms of strength and maneuverability were in no way inferior to European ships, on the contrary. Their weak point was that they had practically no artillery, being limited to launching arrows before boarding. On the contrary, the Portuguese ships, in addition to the medium-caliber cannons that fired through the portholes on the side, had "berços", small-caliber pieces, with a high rate of fire, mounted on the rail, numerous rifles, fire spears and gunpowder pots (a kind of incendiary bombs) that sailors threw from the yards into enemy ships in order to set them on fire.

Originally Posted by CutlassCollector

... Remember that it was very hard to sink a wooden ship with the weapons of the day. There was nothing that could penetrate below the water and any shot coming through at the waterline could be plugged with wood and canvas and warships carried ready made plugs of the diameter of common sizes of shot...

Maybe in another time and context; one of the tricks used in the 1500's by the Portuguese was the water tight portholes below deck (read John F. Guilmartin, Jr.), enabling mid gross artillery to fire skipping over the waterline; it did work, according to chronicles. Whether the preference was not to sink the enemy's ship for own use, that would happen in different episodes ... and whether circumstances so favoured.


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[fernando]

Originally Posted by CutlassCollector

... Does anyone know anything more about fire projectiles?...

Remember Matchlock ... and the Mary Rose ?. Look at this link.

[Jim McDougall]

It makes sense that aiming for the deck and gun ports would be a most effective way of stabilizing the threat and opposition from an enemy ship without actually sinking it. The destruction of rigging and masts etc. would render the vessel immobile not only to remove its ability to maneuver or to run.

The gun decks must have been a virtual hell, with all the smoke, threat of explosions from cannon being fired in accidents as well as being targeted by fire from the other vessel. Any hits of course would unleash the horrifying barrage of splintered wood projectiles which were like lances or arrows, which terribly wounded.
As I have understood, often gun deck interiors were painted red, to lessen the garish effect of the bloody results. While this seems sort of a superficial remedy it does illustrate the character of these areas of a vessel in battle.

Fernando,
Thank you for the link to one of Michaels valuable entries, how I wish he were still here. His knowledge and insights remain thankfully in his legacy.

[CutlassCollector]

Thanks for the link Fernando - that led me to more of his fire arrow entries as well.

Also very interesting about the early Portuguese low level watertight gun ports, designed to facilitate aiming at the opponents waterline!

Jim, yes red gun decks - makes sense.

[Jim McDougall]

Originally Posted by CutlassCollector

Thanks for the link Fernando - that led me to more of his fire arrow entries as well.

Also very interesting about the early Portuguese low level watertight gun ports, designed to facilitate aiming at the opponents waterline!

Jim, yes red gun decks - makes sense.

Here is the article on the gun decks I have long recalled, from a 'Campaigns' magazine from 1977 (horrifying to realize this was 45 years ago and I'd been at it already over a decade). This was a great magazine for military miniature enthusiasts, but had great research.

[fernando]

Originally Posted by Jim McDougall

... As I have understood, often gun deck interiors were painted red, to lessen the garish effect of the bloody results. While this seems sort of a superficial remedy it does illustrate the character of these areas of a vessel in battle...

Still in the XIX century this kind of procedure was adopted. In the Portuguese frigate Dom Fernando e Gloria, launched in 1843, one of the last sailing war ships, having sailed the India route during 33 years and set fire after its retirement in the Lisbon harbour, having later been faithfully restored upon its survived hull, not the deck but all gun carriages, were painted red for the mentioned purposes, as noted by its present officer in charge.


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[Jim McDougall]

Originally Posted by fernando

Still in the XIX century this kind of procedure was adopted. In the Portuguese frigate Dom Fernando e Gloria, launched in 1843, one of the last sailing war ships, having sailed the India route during 33 years and set fire after its retirement in the Lisbon harbour, having later been faithfully restored upon its survived hull, not the deck but all gun carriages, were painted red for the mentioned purposes, as noted by its present officer in charge.


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Fernando, I am remiss in not thanking you for this great entry on the painting of gun carraiges red in honor of this practice/tradition. I am wondering if any form of this remained vestigially after the age of sail in modern naval vessels.

I know that often these kinds of things in military parlance remain in practice as certain traditional recognition and remembrance.
With the British cavalry for example, in the Battle of Aliwal (1846) the 16th lancers charged against a huge force of Sikh's, and while victorious, they lost 144 of 300 men. In action, the lance pennon is furled, and in the grim aftermath, it was discovered that the pennons were crimped by dried blood.
It became a 16th Lancers tradition to always crimp their pennons in honor of that costly victory.

While the analogy is off topic, it goes to the question of these sometimes ambiguous traditions in many instances which harken to circumstances or events in the past which are held in high importance.

[fernando]

Jim, i do beleive that navy (as other services) do keep certain traditions becoming later fetishes, resulted from earlier practical procedures, though i realize that the red paint vs blood resource would not fit in modern context, as vessels and their artillery equipment are so much different (material wise) nowadays.
On the other hand, the habit of the red paint in early days is often mentioned, only that is easier to locate them in the web than in written chronicles, where you don't have the search button to locate the required paragraph among so many book pages. Reason why sources for specific episodes are hardly transcribed from my books with writings from period chronicles.
So ... what i can show you is a part in an exhaustively detailed fictious novel, Sharpe's Trafalgar, which i expect you find interesting ...

The midshipman showed Sharpe the store where the anchor tether was housed, the two leather-draped ammunition stores protected by red-coated marines, the liquor store, the infirmary where the walls were painted red for the blood not to stand out, the pharmacy, and the cabins of the guardsmen, little more spacious than doghouses.

Hereunder three of my books covering all Portuguese navy battles from 1139 to 1579.


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[Jim McDougall]

Thanks Fernando, and you're right, finding things these days is a lot easier with the 'magic box'. Its a good thing as my mountains of notes, files, index cards, books of decades are hopelessly disheveled.

The Sharpe's stories by Bernard Cornwell from 1981+ though historical fiction, are (in my opinion) wonderful chronicles full of intriguing snippets like this, which seem to typically have basis in fact.