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Cannoneer Zen

By The Armorer on May 18, 2005 | | Comments (33)

JTG - here's a picture of a Rodman without capsquares... in service! You can see that they just sat in the carriage. For you normals, a 'capsquare' is a a piece of metal that clamps over the trunnion of a cannon to keep it in place in the cradle. A trunnion is the projection on the side of the cannon that rests in cut-outs in the cradle, and the cradle, or carriage as appropriate, is the what the cannon mounts to... oh never mind!

Here's a picture of a cannon with a capsquare!

In this case, a Dahlgren in a naval mount.

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33 Comments

By Fuzzybear Lioness on May 18, 2005 9:22 AM
Cool! Thanks for the education. :)
 
By SangerM on May 18, 2005 10:18 AM
Ya' gotta love that everyone is wearing a different hat. Except for the guy who looks like he's pushing it, or leaning into the wind (Avast! Thaaaar she blows...), this looks like a "gold-spike" ceremony, eveeryone who helped design, build, install the things gets a chance to load and fire the first round.... The guy on the ground is the designer or manufacturer, perhaps, who's about to learn that standing near the front of the gun is not a good thing for the ears. Either that, or he's already deaf.
 
By John of Argghhh! on May 18, 2005 10:35 AM
Two of 'em look like civlians, one looks like a sailor, and two look Army (they behind the gun with the top hat looking thingy and the guy right behind the gun).
 
By Justthisguy on May 18, 2005 2:09 PM
Yes, I imagine that fighting a naval battle can cause you to do depressing things with guns. - - - - - - - - - - Yah, I know it's the motion of the ship.
 
By Justthisguy on May 18, 2005 2:16 PM
Which reminds me; when did evverbody start making the trunnion axis intersect with the axis of the bore? Did the powder get better about then, and guns start jumping out of carriages?
 
By Justthisguy on May 18, 2005 2:22 PM
Somebody should tell Marvin that the Coast Arty used depression for rangefinding. Hook up the diode pain resolver to the sight current generator, and Bob's yer uncle!
 
By kat-missouri on May 18, 2005 2:48 PM
Wow....that is a big gun. That one guy looks like he has gun envy.
 
By Justthisguy on May 18, 2005 3:01 PM
Ya know, Kat, you may have a point there. I'm beminded of a video I saw once which had a male and female paleontologist demonstrate their idea of dinosaur sex with each other. Someone shoulda shown that guy humping the breech (Ewww!) in the photo, where the touchhole was.
 
By kat-missouri on May 18, 2005 3:34 PM
LOL...mounting the cannon from the rear, where breechloading is most effective...
 
By kat-missouri on May 18, 2005 3:35 PM
PS..is it me or doesn't it look like the navy guys are ramming something into the breech?
 
By John of Argghhh! on May 18, 2005 3:40 PM
Well, I'll leave aside that this is a muzzle-loader... going too far down that path *will* wake up the PG-17.
 
By Justthisguy on May 18, 2005 3:47 PM
It's also called the "vent", both in cannons and critters. They don't seem to know where it is, either. Hope they were more clueful when it came to girls. Owhell, "Once more unto the breech, dear friends!" - Gaetan Dugas. N.B. I'm still mad at him for doing his damnedest to *spread* the infection! Some people's twisted attitudes have caused lots of unnecessary pain and death, in all fields of endeavor or amusement! (thinks) Hmm, there may be some good things about getting laid only once per 10 years, or so.
 
By SangerM on May 18, 2005 3:58 PM
Some cannon-inspired original poetry ------------------ Ram it, cram it, stick it in the rear Stuff some more, have no fear Poke it, prod it, make it really tight Add the balls and get the light Push and shove and yank and pull Ensure that baby's really full Aim to please and hold on tight 'Cause boy that load is hot tonight! ------------------ :-D
 
By Justthisguy on May 18, 2005 4:03 PM
Whoops! All that veering put us right near the shoals, so "All hands tack ship! Hard alee! Let go and haul! Mainsail, haul! Keep her full and by on this course!" Now that we've escaped grounding, I am looking at the little levers, or handles, on what look like the friction-slider-compressor-tightener-wheel, or whatever it is, and on the axis of that other wheel under the middle of the carriage. They seem too short to be turned easily by hand. Do any of you reckon they were meant to be tightened by being struck with a hammer?
 
By SangerM on May 18, 2005 4:08 PM
I'll bet you stuck a pipe in them, like a breaker bar... (like the one those guys are working) You know, it gets stuffed in there. Hard. And here we are, nearly aground again. Yeehaa... Skipper, I got dibs on Maryanne!
 
By Sigivald on May 18, 2005 4:09 PM
Justthis: To me, those look like *sockets* into which one would insert a longer handle as needed.
 
By Justthisguy on May 18, 2005 4:27 PM
[smacks self on forehead] Obviously, yes, the handspike, the gunner's all-purpose tool, or "Carolina Socket Set" It's better than a hammer, it has a point, too.
 
By John of Argghhh! on May 18, 2005 4:27 PM
*PG-17C twitches fitfully in the charger*
 
By John of Argghhh! on May 18, 2005 4:30 PM
Sigi - I think the sailor (if that's what he is) is holding one of the bars for just that purpose - though it could also be the prybar for the detent in the back that controlled elevation.
 
By SangerM on May 18, 2005 4:37 PM
By the way, that particular cannon is a Rodman Gun, located at Battery Rodgers near Washington D.C. These guns were also at Ft. McHenry, and other places. Full views of this cannon are at these links: BEST IS THIS ONE: www.civilwarphotos.net/files/images/064.jpg Note the 5th different hat!! Others: www.cr.nps.gov/history/online_books/civilwar/hrs1-i2d.htm http://fredericksburg.com/CivilWar/NAphotos/battery/353.htm Different cannon www.resnet.wm.edu/~semccl/classcannon.JPG
 
By John of Argghhh! on May 18, 2005 4:40 PM
I *did* mention it was a Rodman... and that the other was a Dahlgren. Geez, the fact-checking that goes on around here, you'd think I worked for CBS or Newsweak! I edited the pic (same pic different source) to highlight the non-existent capsquares. I was unaware the thread was going to be about hats...
 
By sangerM on May 18, 2005 4:44 PM
Well, danged if you dint. I Uh, didn't really realize that, though I did read the post, here, I thought I'd got clever... phoeey. Actually, I just wanted to see if could find other pictures of the thing in action to see how the clamping wheels were used, Not fact checking, just caught up in the heat of identifying anything you toss up there, you know? :-)
 
By SangerM on May 18, 2005 4:57 PM
And besides, IMNSHO the only thing really interesting in that picture is the people... And their hats :-p
 
By Justthisguy on May 18, 2005 5:04 PM
Umm, two things: 1. Where the helk is Marvin? I think I used the word "depression" badly enough, and frequently enough, that I suspect some of you folks are thinking about hurting me, but he still hasn't appeared. 2. If I could suggest that the Captain have the helmsman ease off a bit, now that we have some sea room? I think we could bear up, or head off, a bit, ease the sheets, yaknow. I'm speaking of Mr. Isikoff, and Newsweek, and what *they* did that "caused lots of unnecessary pain and death", to quote a person I know very well. What were they *thinking*!? I was listening to Glen Beck on the Marconi today, and heard him talk with a very serious Roman Catholic guy. Mr. Beck asked the brisket-beater if he would get all upset, if some nasty prison guard flushed the consecrated Host down a toilet. Yup, sure, the guy said. Glen then asked him, if that would have been an effective interrogation technique against him, that is, "Tell me where the plutonium is, or I'll flush the Body and Blood!" Like, "Would that kind of threat make you talk?" The answer was, "Of course not!" The story did not make sense, to start with.
 
By John of Argghhh! on May 18, 2005 5:38 PM
That sez more about you (and my tolerance for cranks) than anything else! 8^p
 
By Boquisucio on May 18, 2005 5:59 PM
Oh yea JTG - I caught that conversation whilst on my chariot, yesterday post meridian. Like tuning in to that Sick Freak.
 
By Justthisguy on May 18, 2005 6:35 PM
Mea Culpa, Mea Culpa, Mea Maxima Culpa! [beats brisket] Hey, I used to attend at a weird Anglo-Catholic parish. Anybody wanna hire an asperger? And hey, I do think all the greatest Americans were right effing cranky. I give you Jefferson, and Jackson, and Shreve, and Edison, and Frank Lloyd Wright, and Wilbur and Orville (they were only pretending to be normal; they never got laid, either) and Ford, and Pauling, and Feynmann. Of course there were some evil cranks, too, like Woodrow Wilson and FDR, but we'll not think about people like that at this time, right? Hey, I think Lincoln and Davis were both cranks, which is why and how they managed to get so many people killed!
 
By Justthisguy on May 18, 2005 6:45 PM
You guys should feel happy about my current powerless state of being. Manufacturors and dealers in leaf blowers, to name one nasty product, should shudder, and update their wills, if enough people were to be so foolish as to elect me Evil Overlord Dictator for Eternity! Whew! better go eat some solid food! later.
 
By kat-missouri on May 18, 2005 9:03 PM
This is a muzzle loader? that seems kind of insane. I mean, you'd have to turn this thing around, ram a charge down the muzzle and then get it turned back to position and try to aim it. by the time you did all that, the enemy would be on you.
 
By John of Argghhh! on May 18, 2005 9:12 PM
Nope, not really. You let recoil bring the gun back from the parapet, load it, then run it forward. Fire it, the recoil runs it up the inclined slope - the gun bunnys leap into action, and reload it, and fire away!
 
By SanCrankger on May 18, 2005 11:02 PM
JTG, I think you should lay off the caffinated carrot juice... Man, are you revve'd much!? And Lincoln was NOT a crank. He was Da' Man for his times! Finest of the fine, at least when it came to expressing the core root values of this nation, better even than Jefferson in some ways, but not quite up to John Adams, who was by the by, the first U.S. Ambassador to England after the war. Can you imagine what kind of crankonjes it took to look the former king in the eye and speak as a near equal?! But I digress. I'll bet they had cool hats too!! And maybe a cannon or three.
 
By tz on May 19, 2005 1:20 AM
How can recoil bring it back from the parapet when it has a pivot set down in the concrete that the gun rotates around ?
 
By John of Argghhh! on May 19, 2005 5:34 AM
It recoils *up* the inclined ramp, coming to rest at the top, being held there be friction plates until they are loosened and the gun run back into battery. The upper mount of the gun slides along the fixed portion.