1661 - Master of Ordnance

The Cannon Shot

England has been the most advanced country on questions of ordnance for more than a century. Ordnance is even a domain reserved to specialists, organized as a distinctive body ruled by a Master from 1415 onwards. This year, William Compton, 36, general at the age of 23, praised by Oliver Cromwell for his gallantry and his skills, a royalist though, has been appointed Master-General of Ordnance. He is not a man who takes a job as a sinecure. Indeed, there is much to do.

Still in infancy after three centuries of usage on ships, artillery is just a bit less heteroclite than it was under the Tudors.

¤ The gun appeared aboard the English cog Christopher in 1338 at the battle of Arnemuiden which opened the Hundred Years’ war at sea. She had three fixed guns. There was also a hand gun aboard. This primitive firepower did not change the battle fate which turned to the French – a victory with no tomorrow.  

Admiral Monson's Table from his Tracts

Breech-loading guns have disappeared for decades but a few small-calibre pieces, as they proved more dangerous for their servants than for the enemy. Yet many sorts of muzzle-loading guns have been invented and have coexisted till nowadays to meet different purposes at long range, close quarters or point-blank. The table established by Admiral William Monson (†1643) bears witness of the ordnance menagerie – most of guns were and are still named after reptiles and birds of prey – as it was some twenty years ago. It contains sixteen sorts of guns, which likely encompassed a hundred variants.

¤ We could think that it reflected standards. It is untrue. Monson delivered typical values. Moreover his list is not really limited to naval ordnance so contains guns which have never embarked. Our cannon of 7 and its 42-pound shot seems to concur with Monson’s bastard-cannon. We retrieve our demi-cannon, our culverin, our demi-culverin and our small pieces, our saker being named a sacar there. Some guns display strange shot weights, being probably meant to fire bars, heavy chained balls or light grapeshots instead of round shots. Today we send grapeshots or double shots through the same gun that fires round shots.

¤ The quantity of gunpowder is amazingly high for an eye of today. The figures are completely obsolete for a table written twenty years ago. Today the gunners load the gun with a quarter or a half at maximum of the cannonball weight. We have no clue to understand such discrepancies over twenty years. Likely there is a number of master gunner’s trials and much reflection behind this dramatic evolution.

The cannon sort has finally arisen as the most appropriate sort of gun for general purpose. The culverin  and saker sorts have been very common since the days of Elizabethan galleons, but they have continuously morphed under the same name for the same calibre, the culverin tending to shorten and the saker to lengthen a bit.

¤ The cannon was originally a large-calibre gun meant to battering enemy bulwark on land, opposing ship side at sea, at short range. The Royal cannon was much too heavy to service aboard any ship thus remained ashore. The heaviest gun on a ship is the whole-cannon, better known as the cannon of 7, rather scarce, which displays a 7-inch bore and fires a 42-pound cannonball. On average, it is 10½-foot long and weighs around 6,500 pounds by now. The common big gun is the demi-cannon of 6½-inch bore which fires a 32-pound ball. On average, it is 9¾-foot long and weighs 5,400 pounds, but one can find models from nine to eleven feet in length.

¤ The culverin was originally a long medium-calibre gun meant to long range shooting. Yet it proved to lack accuracy thus to be quite inefficient at sea. Nevertheless it took long to make it disappear. The name has survived to refer to the gun of 5¼-inch bore firing a 18-pound projectile. On average it is 9-foot long and weighs 4,000 pounds, but there are a large range of variants from seven and a half up to eleven feet in length – which proves the survival of the original culverin concept until today. The demi-culverin fires a 9-pound cannonball of 4-inch diameter. On average it is 7½-foot long and weighs 2,100 pounds but, once again, its range of variants extends widely from five to ten feet in length. The cutts may be 3½-foot long and weigh around 900 pounds.

Guns have a quite long lifespan hence there are stocks of ancient models. The Board of Ordnance, as an independent body concerned with its assets, reallocate venerable and even obsolete pieces to new vessels. Fortunately, the need of guns has increased since Monson, which has rejuvenated the stock, and the Board treats well the capital ships which receive the flower of the stores.

For instance, the 70-gun 1,100-ton Royal James (ex-Richard, 1658), a second rate ship, is wholly fitted with the best armament composed of brass guns of only three sorts :

- twenty-three demi-cannons, provisioned with 1,300 round shots;

- twenty-five culverins, provisioned with 1,560 round shots plus 200 double-headed shots meant to damaging enemy rigging ;

- twenty-two demi-culverins, including six cutts (i.e. shortened guns), provisioned with 1,000 round shots, 130 double-headed shots and 50 grapeshots (i.e. cases filled with musket balls).

The 100-gun 1600-ton Royal Sovereign, just rebuilt, very well treated as one can imagine, is fitted with twenty-two cannons of 7, thirty culverins and forty-eight demi-culverins.

We have no exact detail but it would be surprising that the cannons of 7, demi-cannons, culverins and demi-culverins aboard the Royal James and Royal Sovereign would be uniform in their lengths, patterns, weights and alloy constituents. There are currently ten variants on average for each existing calibre. It is already a great feat that there are only three sizes of cannonballs and no more than four sorts of guns to be dealt with aboard those highly fortunate ships. The standard on the older ships is rather six calibres for six or seven sorts of guns. One can understand the aura of the Master Gunner, the man who succeeds in drawing the best from so many gears he must act upon, and the number of instructions he has to voice.

Thanks to the ingenuity of John Browne (†1641), Royal Gunfounder from 1615, the Board of Ordnance got a reliable cast iron artillery as early as the 1630s. Iron ordnance has still a poor reputation due to its original defects, that are : (1) its lack of power due to a larger windage, (2) its lack of accuracy against brass one for the same reason, (3) chiefly, to its propensity to bursting at gunners’ faces.

¤ In England, one names brass the copper-based gun alloy, and bronze in France. The French are right : the main constituent after copper is tin thus bronze is the right word. Yet the advised gunfounders add some zinc which sets the alloy between bronze and brass and improves its resistance to corrosion. The proportions, which are secret, may vary around 88 parts of copper for 10 of tin and 2 of zinc. A few makers add a little lead too for unknown reasons.

¤ In France, there are currently three forges for the navy, in Le Havre, Brest and at Brouage. They are relatively small so the needs are covered by purchasing in Sweden and in Holland. Bronze is said to contain 90 parts of copper for 9 of tin and 1 of zinc in a given forge. Adding lead is prohibited.

Browne changed gun pattern, increasing thickness at the breech and decreasing it overall. This way he got a drake, a cannon variant which was both tougher and lighter by 15% - an achievement due to a better understanding of stresses. To prove the quality of his pattern, he successfully trialed his models by doubling the quantity of powder.

¤ What quantity ? Monson’s one, that is from a half to the double of projectile weight, is very unlikely. Browne certainly worked on gunpowder and likely initiated the tracks for modern master gunners, that is a quarter to a half of projectile weight. Whatever the amount of powder tested, it worked for the drake.

Afterwards Browne applied the recipe to brass guns which have remained highly praised and considered as mandatory for the biggest guns, so delicate to cast. Thanks to superior material ductility, the brass guns are flawless in general. Moreover, even if defective, a brass gun opens out instead of shattering – a feature that gunners may appreciate. Also, its better structure permits to get a lighter gun thanks to reduced thickness overall despite the higher density of brass or bronze, which is around 8½ against 7½ for cast iron. Furthermore, brass is easier to mill which results in a tight bore so a narrow windage for the cannonball, hence a better accuracy in the end as already said. The only point which balances higher quality is much higher cost, in the proportion of six to one in France. There is therefore a general trend towards cast iron but for the biggest guns.

As for powder, the load varies with missile sort, range and calibre. On the French vessels, an 8-pound shot is propelled by a quantity of powder which amounts to a quarter or a half of its nominal weight, depending on the aimed range. A 24-pound one requires between a fifth and a third. Even if his task is easier by now, a Master Gunner has still lots of things to decide and to instruct his hands about.  

As for the crew, a demi-cannon requires a chief gunner, twelve hands and a powder boy. It seems that a culverin still requires ten or twelve persons instead of fourteen. There is no standard owing to the variety of models.

All those things are under transformation. Much has to be done to reach a gear regular as a clockwork. Ordnance embarked on a ship 323 years ago but has become the main weapon of naval warfare ten years ago only. It will grow up.

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IN RETROSPECT FROM TODAY

NOTE A - On standardisation.

It will still take between thirty and sixty years to be completed. This is also the time required by the progressive change of brass to cast iron.

NOTE B - On French Naval Ordnance.

The calibres are fixed as follows : 36-, 24-, 18-, 12-, 8-, 6-, 4- and 2-pounders. The French pound is heavier than the English one by a 13th.

The first three forges were complemented by two others, in Toulon in 1667, and at Rochefort in 1669. Yet the number of 36-pounders is not sufficient to provide the large three-deckers with full main batteries. Main batteries therefore mix 24-pounders with 36-pounders. The first large gun-making factory was established as late as 1679 at Saint-Gervais.

A French 110-gun vessel as Royal Louis (1668) carries some 50,000 pounds of powder for 6,500 shots weighing 114,200 pounds as a whole.

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SUGGESTED BIBLIOGRAPHY

Franck Howard – Sailing Ships of War 1500-1860 – London, 1979

Brian Lavery – The Ship of the Line – London, 1983

Jacques Gay - L'adolescence de l'Artillerie de Marine 1450-1700 in L'Invention du Vaisseau de Ligne 1450-1700 - Paris, 1997

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CREDITS

Willem van de Welde - The Cannon Shot - oil on canvas, circa 1680 -  © Rijksmuseum