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heated shot?

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Artificer said:
Did you eat at the restaurant where you open a small trap door near the tables by the walls and feed the fish?

Huh. Never saw such a place. But we tend to eat out only for lunch, then have a light snack for "dinner" back in our hotel room. Saves money, indigestion and sleep. Heck to be a geezer, isn't it. :rotf:
 
Fort Knox on the Penobscot in Maine has the furnace to heat shot one floor down on the east side to send the heated shot to the guns.

This was for the expected war with Canada. I don't know what size the guns were but I have a picture of my 4 year old son inside the bore of the gun smiling out.
 
Ft. Fisher "reportedly had" a 16" mortar that also had exploding shells during TWBTS. - We asked about it & were told that it was "melted down" after the war.

yours, satx
 
Even with tongs, that sounds so incredibly dangerous to introduce a red hot cannon ball on top of black powder, even with a good wad separating the two, it would be difficult to be certain that just a grain or two of BP in the bore might set off the whole shebang. BP has a flash point of about 450 degrees, and wood around 850. In order to get it to ignite the wood it would have to be at least 850 degrees, which sounds like you're really asking for it in the loading sequence. Good reason not to get in front of, or even close to the muzzle that's for sure!
 
Splain that to the guys who did it for a living. Of course, they're all dead now! :rotf:

I'm betting that since the balls were red hot when loaded they were waaaaay past 850 degrees.

Never done it, never seen it done, and never seen a write-up of the wads and procedures used. But I'm betting they had it all worked out.
 
I don't see how hot shot could set sails and rigging aloft on fire.

The duration of the contact would not be long enough as the shot passed through them, unless it stuck in a big pile of either that was stored in bulk somewhere on or below deck.

What was hoped for by the people firing the hot shot was for the ball to lodge in a timber or other combustibles where, after a few minutes of smoking and charring, it would cause whatever it was lodged in to burst into flame.

With gunpowder, of course, this would not be a long wait.
 
Mortars were rarely fired at ships. Hitting a moving target by dropping a bomb on a forty foot wide target was a near impossible job. Heated shot was fired to lodge in the hull.
They ran down two wooden blocks a wet wad, a dry wad then another wet one.then the hot ball. Tried to shoot flat at about three to four hundred yards. Ships were only fifteen to twenty feet high from waterline, so they needed close enough to get a solid hit.
Mortar were mostly used to bomb works of an saluting force.they could be used to bomb 'bombs, short shallow ships fitted with mortars that would anchor by four points to bomb a fort from near a mile away. They were short but broad but still hard to hit from the fort. If possible they would hide behind a spit of land. So the fort would have a hard time making any calculations to do anti battery fire.
 
smoothshooter said:
I don't see how hot shot could set sails and rigging aloft on fire.

The duration of the contact would not be long enough as the shot passed through them, unless it stuck in a big pile of either that was stored in bulk somewhere on or below deck.

Great point. Chain Shot or Bar Shot (AKA Angels) were the projectiles of choice against sails and rigging.

Gus
 

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